Adrian Tchaikovsky - Heirs of the Blade

There was little conversation around the table, and even Amnon said nothing, just ate dutifully as though he was only a labourer himself. Nobody commented that an ex-First Soldier had just turned up out of nowhere, with a foreign woman. Praeda suspected that they were all buzzing with questions, but that it was not in their nature to ask them, and the presence of strangers had killed off any other kind of talk.

At last, as the meal was drawing to a close, Amnon grunted, ‘Need to get into the city. Going that way?’

‘What sort of question is that?’ The old man’s expression was openly disparaging. ‘Market, you well know. What of it?’

‘Room on the cart for two more?’ Amnon said, not even looking at the farmer.

This was greeted by an exasperated sigh. ‘Then you’ll work, load and unload, for I need all the hands I have, and you’ll leave two men sitting idle here, if you have your way.’ Both his tone and expression stated, clear as day, that Amnon had been personally sent by the Masters to inconvenience him.

Instead of rallying at this, Amnon’s head sank even lower and he shrugged, not in any way the man that Praeda knew. She looked about the table, but nobody met her eyes.

‘Excuse me,’ she said at last, almost relishing the shocked silence that greeted her words, ‘but you do know this is the First Soldier? That he saved Khanaphes from the Many of Nem?’

For a long while she thought that nobody would respond, that she had killed off all chance of anyone in this house ever saying anything again, but then the old man snorted with derision.

‘ Was First Soldier. And who ever heard of such a thing as a man who was First Soldier, hm? And not such a great one even when he was. Now Thamat, before him, he was a great First Soldier. He’d never have let the Many get close to the walls.’ He shook his head, lamenting the youth of today, as any elderly College Master might – or any old man anywhere.

The next morning the old man had some of his fieldhands load up a wagon and hitch it to a tired-looking draught beetle, all without Amnon actually making any further request that Praeda could see, or anybody suggesting a plan. On to the bed of the sturdy wagon went sacks of flour – that Praeda guessed must be hand milled – and some dried fruit, and a surprising number of jars of some kind of liquor.

By that time the old woman had plucked up the courage to approach Praeda, though still saying nothing, but offering her the curved copper strip of a razor.

For a moment she closed her eyes against the thought, reluctant because her long hair was such a part of the way she imagined herself, but reluctant even beyond that, for some obscure reason she could not name. If she was to creep into occupied Khanaphes, however, she would have to pass as a local, and if the Wasps looked closely then a mere headscarf would not serve.

‘Will you do it?’ she asked. The woman nodded, and in her eyes was a fair measure of sympathy – and perhaps a little awe at ever seeing an adult Beetle-kinden with a full head of hair.

Most of an hour later, and it was done. Amnon’s reaction was the worst, trying to adjust to her transition from the exotic to the familiar. I am still the same woman, she told herself, but she did not feel like it with her bare head cold and itching.

Then they were on the wagon, and the old man flicked at the beetle with his crop until it began its weary plodding towards the city.

There were indeed Wasp soldiers stationed at the gate, but Khanaphes was large, and not even occupation by a hostile military could keep its doors closed, not if the occupiers themselves wanted to eat. There was a steady stream of locals going in and out, the oil on the wheels of commerce. When their wagon reached the gates, there was a cursory search, the confiscation of a few jars of homebrew, a narrow-eyed squint at each of the passengers, especially the large figure of Amnon, but they were all Beetles in a city and a nation of Beetles, so the Wasps waved their wagon on without hindrance. That one of the sacks also contained all of Praeda and Amnon’s possessions, the Wasps never knew.

Those few foreigners trying to enter or leave, they saw stopped and searched far more diligently, and most of them were turned back, either trapped inside or kept out.

After that, they were within the walls. The old man just nodded once at Amnon, again with no need for a word between them, then the big man slipped off the wagon, pulling Praeda with him.

‘Where now?’ she whispered, resisting her hand’s natural inclination to drift up to her scalp.

‘I know places,’ he murmured. ‘Near the docks first, maybe. We’ll see how the Wasps are dealing with the river trade.’ He cast a single glance back at the old man and the wagon, before heading off.

It was only three streets later that Praeda enquired, ‘Amnon, have I just met your parents?’ The thought had been absurdly slow in coming, and even then she was not at all sure until she saw his face. ‘Did you… did you not think to introduce me?’

‘I did. After you slept,’ he mumbled, looking awkward for a moment. ‘They liked you, I think.’

‘What… did you tell them?’ she demanded, but just then he pretended to spot a Wasp patrol and picked up the pace, leaving her glaring at his broad back.

Then the city had encompassed them, and she was abruptly wrestling with memories of how she had seen the place last, before her return to Collegium. The western half had been occupied by the Scorpion-kinden then, as the Many of Nem ravaged the farmland up and down the riverbank seeking for a way across, while she and Amnon and the mercenary artificer Totho fortified the bridge against them. Beyond that, she remembered the still dignity enveloping the city before the Scorpions came: the austere calm of its ministers, the solid and elegant lines of its architecture, the noiseless bustle of its shaven-headed citizens.

She remembered her colleagues who had died when the Wasps, and their Scorpion tools, had made their move. Seeing the black and gold now at every street corner made her clench her fists, wanting to lash out at them with all her tiny might. She remembered waiting after the battle, to learn if Amnon had lived or died.

It was strange that she remembered Che most of all, for there was no reason that Stenwold Maker’s niece should serve as a linchpin in her memories of this city. The girl had been a dismal failure as an ambassador, going missing half the time and seeming almost deranged, fixated on strange parts of the city’s history even when the walls themselves were tumbling. She had even been absent during the fighting, had not contributed to it at all, instead had gone off with the Imperial ambassador, who seemed to have gone rogue in the interim. Oh, Praeda had quite liked Che as a person but, still, the woman had hardly been an influential figure in the disaster that had been Praeda’s original visit to Khanaphes.

And yet somehow she had been. Praeda could not account for it, or explain her feelings on the matter, but Cheerwell Maker had been the hub of the wheel, standing at the heart of all things. This fact was inexplicable and yet undeniable.

Praeda suddenly stopped dead, so that Amnon went on another five yards before sensing her absence, and turning with a quizzical look. Praeda met his eyes but was not equal to the task of explaining, hiding her sudden shock by rushing to catch up with him.

I did not just see Cheerwell Maker, she reproached herself. That face in the crowd, it could have been anyone’s. Except no Khanaphir woman had hair like that. I did not just see the crowd part, and Cheerwell Maker, in that inexplicably open space, staring at me and then gone the next instant. It’s the heat. It’s the stress. My mind plays tricks.