Adrian Tchaikovsky - Empire in Black and Gold

If only these matches went on longer. I could parry him to death. Totho grinned suddenly at the thought, and his opponent’s calm collapsed.

‘Fight me, slave!’ Adax snapped angrily, his sword stilled for a moment, and Totho, without really planning to, hit him across the face for all he was worth, spilling the arrogant Ant-kinden to the ground.

He almost dropped his sword in surprise, because there was a great deal of blood and he thought for a moment he had maimed the other man for life. When Adax did look up from a wounded crouch, his nose was evidently broken, and Totho wondered about the state of his cheekbone, too. I hit him bloody hard, I did.

‘Time!’ Kymon called. The ever-slowing ticks of the clock had finally finished with the legendary solid ‘clunk’ that every duellist knew. The match was over.

‘No!’ Adax spat, voice sounding somewhat muffled.

‘Time!’ Kymon repeated. ‘One strike apiece, so a draw, I’m sorry to say. And, for most of it, the dullest pass of fencing I have seen for many years.’

Totho couldn’t help but grin, though. He didn’t care much that Kymon didn’t approve of him. He only cared that he had not actually lost. He looked over at his comrades for their reaction.

‘Watch out!’ Tynisa shouted in warning, and then something barged into him, knocking him out of the circle to stumble across the mosaic floor. He ended up amongst the spectators, almost in the lap of a middle-aged Beetle woman, craning frantically to see what had happened. Adax now lay sprawled right across the circle, one hand to his shin and the other to the back of his head. Kymon stood over him impassively, a mock sword in his hand.

Adax had tried to rush him once off his guard, Totho realized. Strictly against the rules, such behaviour, and had the victim been anyone but a lowly halfbreed, perhaps it would have even led to the whole team being disqualified. Inigo Paldron was already bustling up to make his unctuous apologies, however, and Totho knew it would not go any further. Kymon shot him a look, though, as he went to rejoin his colleagues, and it had a certain recognition in it. Adax was from the city of Tark, Totho reflected, and Kymon himself from the island city of Kes, and so perhaps the old man had not minded seeing a traditional enemy brought low.

‘Not bad for a trainee pot-mender,’ Salma conceded as he joined them. ‘You had a plan, I take it?’

‘Something like that.’ Totho nodded to Tynisa. ‘Thanks for the warning.’

She raised an eyebrow, shrugged slightly. He was not sure whether it was saying, I won’t be there next time , or You’re one of us now. Tynisa always made him feel especially awkward and ugly, and he had long-ago decided to avoid her attention as much as possible.

He sat down beside Che. ‘Any good?’

She glanced at him distractedly. ‘What?’

‘Was I. . all right?’ He realized that she had not really been concentrating on his round. She was, of course, thinking all the time about her own fencing pass. Even now, Paldron’s nephew was taking his place across the circle.

‘He’s, what, a year younger than you?’ Totho said encouragingly.

‘And no great shakes,’ Salma added. ‘He’s yours, so just go and take him.’

‘He’s only in the team because of his uncle,’ declared Totho before he could stop himself, and then he grimaced at the look of hurt that Che tried desperately to hide.

Because of his uncle , she was thinking. Well, that’s a broad net these days. She glanced at her own uncle, in whose household she had been living for ten years. More than an uncle but less than a father, and she had certainly never been in a position to monopolize his affections. He could be hard work, Stenwold Maker: he expected so many things of his niece, and never quite acknowledged when she tried. Whether at scholarship, artificing or, of course, the fight. . and here she was, now. .

Just a game. A sport. True, the city was mad on sports just now, with the Games commencing in a mere tenday’s time, but this duelling was still only an idle pastime for College students. It didn’t matter whether she won or lost here. The taking part was the thing.

Except, of course, it was all on her shoulders now. If only Totho had lost his bout, then the best the Majestic Felbling could have managed was a draw. After drawing, the chosen champions of each team would then fight to decide it, and Piraeus would no doubt emerge victorious, and so, if she lost, it wouldn’t matter. But now, after Totho’s maddening stalemate, victory was apparently hers for the taking.

She took up her place opposite Falger Paldron. He was a little taller than she was, a dark-faced young Beetle lad, still slightly awkward in his movements. He was no fighter, she decided.

But nor am I. She was a girl with her hair cut short and her physique cut broad. No Mantis-grace for her, no Ant-precision or Spider-tricks. She was just poor, lamentably named Cheerwell Maker, and she was no good at sports or swords or anything else.

‘Salute the book!’ Kymon barked out, and she realized that she already had a sword in her hand. Behind her, the others were clearly watching her every move.

They muttered and moaned as he took the rostrum. These middle-aged merchants, the old College masters, men and women robed in white, reclining comfortably on the stepped stone seats of the Amphiophos. Some of them whispered to each other, scribbled agreements and concluded deals. One Master, stone deaf, read through the writing of his students and tsked loudly at each error he noted. Stenwold gazed upon them and despaired.

The heart of culture , he told himself. The wonder of the civilized world. The democratic Assembly of Collegium. Give me a thousand Ant mercenaries, let me command where now I can only beg. Then we might get something done!

Then I would be just like a Wasp indeed, in all but fact. That is why this is worth fighting for. He looked across their bored, distracted faces, writ large with their wealth and rivalries and vested interests.

‘You know why I am standing here speaking before you, on today of all days.’

There was a jeering undercurrent of murmurs, but no outright mockery. Just get on with it , they seemed to say.

‘I’ve stood here before,’ Stenwold told them. ‘You all know that. I have stood here often enough that all of you must have heard me at least once. I am no great musician. My tune remains the same.’

‘Can we not simply refer to your previous speech and save ourselves an afternoon?’ someone called, to a ripple of laughter.

‘If I thought,’ snapped Stenwold, loud enough to quash them, ‘that one of you, even one of you, would do so, or had ever done so, then perhaps we would not be here, inflicting this ordeal upon each other!’ They stared at him in surprise. He was being rude , and members of the Assembly did not shout at each other. He bared his teeth in frustration, wished for those Ant mercenaries again, and then pressed on.

‘I do not think,’ he said, ‘that you’re likely to endure many more of my speeches, Masters. I do not foresee a future where any of us will have liberty for such polite debate. I swear on my life that, when what I have foreseen comes to pass, I shall not stand here before you then and tell you I was right. I shall not need to, for there will be none of you who won’t remember how I warned you.’

The resentful muttering was building again, but he spoke over it, muscling through it like the ram had broken the gates at Myna. ‘Fourteen years ago,’ he called out, ‘I made my first speech here before you, not even a Master then, but just a precocious artificer who would not be silent. How long ago it seems now! I told you of a people in the east, a martial people, who were prosecuting war upon their neighbours. I told you of cities whose names were known to some of you, those of you who do business in Helleron perhaps. Cities such as Maynes, Szar, Myna. Not Lowlander cities, true, but not so very many miles beyond. Cities under the yoke of an empire, I said, and you listened politely, and said, ‘But what is this to do with us?’ Foreigners will fight, you said, and so the men and women of Maynes and Myna and Szar went with backs bowed, into slavery and conscription, and you shed not a tear.’