Adrian Tchaikovsky - The Sea Watch

‘You’re happy with the arrangements?’ he asked, stepping out into the Tidenfree’s little boat. He knew that it was too late now, if Tomasso decided to change the deal, but he felt driven to ask, even so.

‘Oh, you’re right there, Stenwold,’ the black-bearded Fly agreed with a grin. ‘You came through for us, all right – and then some.’ There had been all the respectability that a Fly-kinden family could dream of, as part of that deal. Tomasso would have Jodry’s seal of approval, a mercantile contact of the first water, and never a whiff of piracy. There would be a College scholarship waiting for whoever Tomasso chose to send, and citizenship for the entire crew. Stenwold reckoned that, amongst those flying through the rigging or hauling on the ropes, there was probably at least one new Assembler here, give it a few years. But there was more to it than that, for Tomasso would have more than just empty promises backing his new position in the city.

He had laid it out piece by piece, at that secret and hasty meeting. It was an arrangement he had been given plenty of time to construct, as he was passed from one set of sea-kinden hands to another. This had to work for everyone.

‘First,’ he had told Jodry, ‘forget about everything you just heard. Nobody must know.’ He looked from surprised face to surprised face and smiled sadly. ‘We are not yet ready for the sea-kinden, and they are not ready for us. There’s a thousand years and more of prejudice on their side: they think we’re monsters; some of them think we’re their ancient enemies – and perhaps we are. But it’s more than that. It’s economics, merchant business. All of us here know how the business of merchants is the real crank handle of the world, without which nothing turns.’

The little boat rocked as they lowered it, the ropes straining under the load. Stenwold tried to compose himself, aware that, even if matters went well for Collegium here, he could still find himself in a bad way soon enough.

‘What do we have that the sea-kinden might want?’ Stenwold had asked them, rhetorically. ‘We have artifice. They’ve made great strides in the last few years, but that’s mostly after they found Tseitus’s original submersible.’ He had managed to speak to the Tseni ambassadors, very quickly, to ask how they dealt with their own seagoing neighbours. They did not trade, they explained. In fact trade was strictly prohibited by both sides, punishable by death. Their history, the near-disaster that their city had staved off, had taught them that, and it bolstered Sten-wold’s determination to get this business right.

‘Artifice, some centuries of learning, which could revolutionize the sea-kinden way of life,’ he explained. ‘And what do they have, in order to buy this from us?’ He smiled sadly, thinking of the injustices of history. ‘They have limitless supplies of gold, a metal that they account merely decorative, without intrinsic worth.’

He had been studying Jodry’s face, when he had said that, and what he had seen there was only reassuring. Not goggling greed but a sober thoughtful look: Jodry had understood immediately.

‘An influx of our newest and most complex inventions would turn Hermatyre inside out. Nobody could then say what might happen. The Edmiracy might be overthrown entirely. Anarchy could ensue… And then there are the Inapt of the sea-kinden, who would soon be driven to the wall. So far, the sea has managed a very polite version of the Apt Revolution. I would not want to undo all that by an over-generous hand. If we tried to turn them into us, we would destroy them.’ He had given the matter plenty of thought. ‘And in recompense, as they connived at their own destruction, they would destroy us in turn. Our currency would become worthless. We would destroy the Helleron mint, which smelts coin for the Lowlands and half the Empire and the Spiderlands, now. Nobody would profit from such a liberalization of trade.’

He unhitched the boat from the hoist and felt the sea take it, rolling and pitching it as he fumbled for the oars. The muted growl of the Tidenfree’s engine sounded up, and the wooden wall of her hull began to pull away from him, turning his little rowboat in lazy circles along with the swell. He thought he heard a high voice shout his name, and guessed that it was Laszlo wishing him luck, having finally fought his way abovedecks.

He had not explained the other reason why there must be no open trade, nor even open knowledge regarding the sea-kinden. Jodry, however, had seen at once what would happen if certain of the merchant class heard that there was gold to be had in the sea. Who would be the first of them, Stenwold wondered, to start construction of a fleet of submersibles? Who would mount a mad invasion of the depths, just as Rosander had planned his war on the land? Gold would spur them on, and their machines would grow more and more sophisticated, and the land-kinden would become the enemy that the superstitious sea-kinden believed them to be.

Stenwold had never rowed before, but Tomasso had carefully explained to him the principles. He paddled about, trying to wheel the boat, turning and turning until it was pointed in the wrong direction and he, by contrast, was facing in the right one. It was, he had to admit, a remarkable view.

He had told them, then, that he was not willing to sever all contact, that land and sea might yet have a use for one another. He had then put the deal to them: Tomasso and Wys, and their crews, would be the new Sea Watch, a link between their worlds. There would be a carefully measured flow of artifice to Hermatyre, and a return of gold and accreated goods into Collegium. Tomasso would take his cut, and Jodry would arrange the disposal of the rest. Aradocles would have a source of wealth that would allow him to keep his colony strong and free. Even Mandir and the Hot Stations would not be left behind, because they would retain their monopoly on the heat-forged metals only they could create.

There was an old, abandoned Wayhouse, up on the cliffs, that would become a lighthouse as soon as it had been refurbished. Tomasso would lease it from the Assembly and make it the heart of his new merchant empire, and everyone would no doubt wonder where the money came from, and would assume some source of trade overseas that the Fly-kinden were guarding closely. It was near enough the truth, save that over should read under.

Stenwold had stayed for the marriage, but only because the Tidenfree would not have sailed until it was done. It had been a strange ceremony, held below decks aboard the ship. Tomasso looked magnificent in silks of many colours, with beads threaded into his beard, and Wys, bald and slightly hunchbacked, had decked herself out in enough gold and pearls to buy a townhouse in sight of the College. Tomasso’s second had been Laszlo, his arm still in a sling, while Wys’s had been the hulking figure of Lej, who they’d been forced to lower in through the cargo hatch.

With that done, they had set sail – and not a moment too soon. The defenders of Collegium had been mobilizing even as the Tidenfree set out, and everyone had thought her just a merchantman escaping the brawl, until Jodry put out word that War Master Stenwold Maker himself was on board.

It had been hard, tuning their deal to the minutest detail so that, like a well-made machine, it would work without needing him to hand, for, after today, he might well be in no position to intervene and make adjustments. It had been hard to get all those people into that room, and to convince Jodry. Harder still to entrust so much to a pair of thieves and a statesman.

But hardest of all, for him, had been the parting, in Hermatyre.

Not Aradocles, not Nemoctes, not the coral halls lit in strange colours. Most certainly not Arkeuthys or all of the monster-haunted, crushing, drowning sea. Stenwold would miss none of it.