Adrian Tchaikovsky - Blood of the Mantis

Alvdan had spent the day unsatisfied. The mosquito slave constantly prevaricated and whined for his precious box. General Maxin counted over his agents and imagined that Alvdan did not notice the power games he played with the other two Rekef generals. He was getting ahead of himself, that one, taking imperial favour for granted. Perhaps it would soon be time for Maxin to discover, as so many others had, why the throne’s benevolence should not be presumed on.

But if Maxin died, of course, his name could no longer be used to frighten Seda. Alvdan’s sister had now lived in Maxin’s shadow for eight years, after the general had disposed of all their other siblings. No, better to keep Maxin alive for now. Where else could such a convenient stick be found, to beat little Seda with?

And the military, his ingenious strategists! I have an entire Empire to choose from, and this is what they give me! True, the Slave Corps man had seemed fairly competent, but what true soldier had ambitions as low as commanding the slavers? Profiteers and brigands, the lot of them, though necessary, of course. The Empire would always need slaves, and it ground them up at such a rate that it seemed impossible there could always be more. There were always more, though: prisoners of battle, criminals and cullings from the provinces or raids against savage peoples living beyond the borders. The Slave Corps did a fine job, really, for all that it was inferior work for a soldier.

My generals just talk and talk. If there was no progress this spring then Alvdan would take his pleasure in devising torments for those men. For now he must take his pleasures elsewhere. He had eaten some small amount, drunk a little wine, his servants hovering around anxiously for his orders. Now he could at least slake his physical needs, though his mind would continue to worry and tug at all of his problems even then. With his entourage of guards and menials, he swept through the halls of his personal chambers and entered the rooms allotted to his concubines.

Only the Emperor kept concubines. Other Wasps might have their women, their slave girls, whoever took their fancy, and he knew that some foreign kinden such as the cursed Spiders delighted in great slave seraglios where one of their noble ladies might rut every night for a year and not see the same body beneath her twice, but the imperial concubines here were something different to that. The Emperor could call upon any woman within the Empire, of any kinden, of any station, slave or free, married or not, and yet here he kept a collection of women for his personal use only. That use was partly for the physical satisfaction, but more for political ends. They were all highly important to him, because they were hostages of a sort.

Most were Wasp-kinden, daughters of powerful families, governors, colonels; men whose loyalty to the Empire was paramount and yet not entirely guaranteed; men who commanded large armies out on the marches, beyond the close scrutiny of the throne, or Consortium merchant barons whose hands were often dipped in the imperial coffers – all had been required to contribute some close female blood-kin to the Emperor’s harem. It was a hard-edged honour but, still, the truly loyal gave without question, and for the rest there was always the fearsome spectre of the Rekef.

And, of course, General Maxin’s own middle daughter was here. Alvdan had slept with her only once. In fact he slept with them all at least once. He knew Maxin was notoriously unsentimental but still he felt that, if it came to that, the death or disfigurement of his daughter might at least bruise the man’s iron self-possession.

What am I in the mood for tonight? Alvdan asked himself. Something unusual, he decided.

‘Bring me Tserinet,’ he instructed the Warden of the Concubines, an elderly woman who had served in the post since his father’s time. There were no male servants allowed within the harem, and here, in their armour and with spears to the ready, were the only fighting women in the Empire, a dozen hand-picked female Wasp-kinden who were rumoured to be the equal of any elite duellist serving in the Imperial Army.

When the woman was brought out, Alvdan nearly reconsidered. She was no great beauty, Tserinet. Short and dark, with a flat face and a lean body, he had lain with her four times and each experience had been the same: passionless, without any sign of emotion from her. She had let him stamp himself upon her, and clearly willed it to be brief. Even when he had struck her in frustration she had not reacted.

Still, she now looked as forlorn as he could wish. When she met his gaze briefly there was something wretched and terrible in her eyes. Yes, she would do.

He owed it to his Empire, after all, to visit every part of it, at least vicariously. That accounted for all his concubines of other races: women of importance from the Empire’s subject cities, serving as hostages to their families’ good behaviour. At the moment, none was more important than Tserinet.

He wondered what news she had gleaned of her own city. The local governor worked them hard there, and work they did, each long day become a grind to produce food for the Empire, or armour and weapons and machines. Since its conquest, after the end of a long siege, Szar had become quite a pillar of the Wasp Empire, a city that practically ran itself for the Empire’s good – and more loyal than the Emperor’s own people because here was its queen: Tserinet, the ruler of Szar, adored of her subjects, queen of the Bee-kinden.

Yes, tonight he would stamp his rule upon Szar once again. Those Bees should be honoured by the attention.

He had been expecting the usual passionless and unresponsive coupling, but this was different. Tonight she met his attentions with a desperate fire, grappling with him like a real lover, locking her legs about him, moving with him as though she had a thirst only he could quench. He wondered at it, even as he thrust and gasped atop her, how this woman could have thus metamorphosed from the affectless creature he had known previously. When she grasped him now it was as though she was taking some great leap into an unknown and unplumbed void.

She left him quite spent and, when he rolled off her, she stared at the ceiling with tears in her eyes. He did not understand her at all but he had no urge to scry into the minds of all the subject peoples of his Empire. Well satisfied, he left her, still trembling, for his own bed.

It had been a farewell of sorts, that final act of hers, and not to the man she hated most in the world but to the world itself. For the next morning they found Tserinet dead. During the night, she had taken a broken shard of pottery and gashed at her own wrists, bleeding slowly to death. Tserinet, Queen of Szar and hostage for the obedience of her people, was no more.

When Solarno came into sight it was as though a second sun had risen in the north. Che caught her breath and held onto the rail, seeing that field of white bloom and glow on the horizon, amongst the surrounding green hills.

So much else she had seen: the familiar streets of Collegium, where she had grown up; the avaricious energy with which Helleron’s grime and vice trampled over its own poor; the stark simplicity of Myna, bitterly waiting for its revolution; the steadfast order of the Ants of Sarn. She had even seen the Spiderlands: the walled elegance of Seldis and the sprawling, unbounded luxury that was Siennis: its wood-framed spires and minarets defying the laws of architecture to soar into the sky, its bazaars roofed with a fortune in silks. Seeing this city for the first time, though, she decided that Solarno was the most beautiful place she had ever laid eyes on.

‘I never grow tired of it.’ The Fly aviatrix, Taki, was at her elbow. ‘I’ve seen places, you know. I’ve travelled all about the Exalsee, and there’s nowhere to match her.’