Adrian Tchaikovsky - Blood of the Mantis

This time the man in the hat had a narrow wound across his right arm, and Che thought this would be the end of it, because she had accepted the violence as a formal duel, and in her experience those were not fatal.

In Solarno they fought by different rules, she now discovered. The men turned, and the first blood seemed to mark some milestone, because then they just went at each other, the shaven-headed man pressing his advantage, lashing at his enemy from all sides with swift, sweeping strokes that looked as though they would cut him into ribbons, driving him around the circle and shouting out wordless war-cries as he did so. The cheering crowd was rapt, devouring the spectacle for all it was worth.

Then the shaven-headed protagonist missed a parry, his enemy’s sword slicing across his forearm beyond the glove’s edge and, as he flinched, the man in the hat continued his motion, spun all the way about, and drew the curve of his blade across the other man’s throat.

There was a gasp from the crowd and then a great cacophony of whooping and yelling. Without warning there were armoured men pushing their way through the crowd, cuffing left and right with metal gauntlets to make room. They were more of the locals and they seized hold of the winning duellist, who seemed not a bit concerned, and also several members of the crowd, apparently at random. The newcomers wore hauberks of metal plates on a white leather backing, and flat-topped helms the same shape as the duellist’s hat.

Their officer called out something like, ‘Who agitates?’ which in retrospect Che realized might have been, ‘Who adjutates?’ because she had heard the title ‘adjutant’ used for the master of ceremonies in a duel. She had seen no one appointed, but a Spider-kinden came out of the crowd with a reassuring smile and, with a few words, put the soldiers at their ease. Satisfied, they let go of their prisoners and took a few respectful steps back. The winning duellist strutted over to the body and then looked around at the crowd, who were obviously waiting for something more. Che had a moment of horror when she thought he would mutilate the corpse, but then he pointed out two onlookers: a Solarnese woman, and Che herself.

Everyone was expecting her to do something and she had no idea what. Hands pushed at her from behind, thrusting her out into the ring. Her look of wild panic clearly passed them by and then the duellist had hold of her, taking her in a sweat-smelling embrace, before kissing her as close on the lips as he could manage.

Che shrieked and tried to struggle out of his arms, and then he had let her go anyway, so that she fell to the hard planks of the dock. He began kissing the other woman, who seemed more enthusiastic about it, then he grinned at the pair of them and, by his gesture, Che saw she was meant to take up the body.

Uncertainly she caught one arm and the Solarnese woman seized the other, and then they were lumping the bloody form out along a narrow pier that Che thought must be reserved for this purpose. It was a long strip of wood that extended further than the other jetties, and had no boats moored alongside. The duellist was coming behind them along with a couple of others who seemed to have some role in the ritualistic proceedings.

Someone passed her a ring of lead and a rope, which she accepted in a daze. She could not quite believe what was happening or understand what she had become involved in, but numbly she tied the rope about the dead man’s ankle. The other woman meanwhile was assiduously looting, first slitting the victim’s purse for a handful of silver coins, then taking a knife to pry a few opals from the man’s scabbard. She held out the booty to Che, saying, ‘Take your slice.’

Shaking her head, Che tried to back off, but the woman grabbed her hand and folded it over a few of the coins and a gem. ‘You want the sword?’ she asked, her words fast in the strong local accent. Che shook her head even harder and the woman seemed satisfied. Then they pitched the body into the water, and the lead sank it out of sight.

Once back on the dockside Che saw the duellist pay both the adjutant and the man who had provided the lead weight . Is that his entire livelihood? she wondered. Does he hang about in crowds with fistfuls of lead weights, waiting for people to die in formal brawl? Che looked at her own unwilling gains and saw, head swimming with the strangeness, that, alongside the fingernail-sized opal, the silver coins were all Standards, minted locally but recognizably copies of the Helleron-stamped currency she was used to seeing all over the Lowlands.

She saw Nero approach, a thoughtful look on his face. The whole experience had served her as a pointed object lesson, she decided: she was now a long way from anywhere she was used to or understood.

Taki found them shortly afterwards. When Che told her what had happened she merely shrugged, finding nothing remarkable in it.

‘Let me take you somewhere more civilized,’ she suggested. ‘Even you, Sieur Nero. My employers’ll put you up. They’ll be delighted with you.’

‘When the Spiders first came, you see, there was a war on,’ Taki explained. ‘The Solarnese were under attack from the ships of Princep Exilla, the Dragonflies. The Spiders were able to sort that all out – after they smoothed their way into the Prince’s court and then did for him, easy as you like. After that, everyone was glad enough to give them the run of the place. And to us, too – to my ancestors.’

The interior of the Destiavel Peace House was certainly Spider-kinden in style, a high-arched ceiling painted in blue and gold, decorated with delicate and intersecting arabesques, and the walls were scalloped with alcoves, each with its own casually displayed treasure. The ceiling was absurdly high, so that what Che had taken from outside for a four-storey building must have been only two, one rising behind the other in the ascending hillside.

‘You’re what, then? A servant, a slave?’ Nero asked.

‘What in the world do they teach you in your academies?’ Taki asked him incredulously. The lofty ceiling made strange play with the acoustics, amplifying whispers, muffling raised voices.

‘For a start, they don’t even teach us the name of your backwater city, Miss te Taki,’ Nero told her huffily.

She grinned delightedly at him. ‘When you get angry, Sieur Nero, your face is more of a picture than anyone could ever paint. Yes, I suppose we’re all too insignificant out here for you great foreign princes.’ Her gaze made a pointed contrast between their travel-stained clothing and the pristine surroundings. ‘When we first came here with our masters we were slaves, great Sieur, but we won out in the Day of the Three Concessions, as every child knows. Now I’m free to do whatever I feel like, but can you boast the same?’

‘The Day of the…?’ Che shook her head. She had spent a decade learning history and now none of it was remotely useful. ‘But you work for the Spiders. And the Spiders rule Solarno?’

‘Some of them do, some of the time. At the moment the Crystal Standard Party is in power, but that looks set to change even within the next few days.’

There had been banners, Che recalled, on their way to this palatial residence. They had passed groups of malcontents who stood waving flags and ribbons, some red, some blue, some green and gold, but none of it had made any sense to her. Taki had done her best to ignore all of them. The local situation was clearly extremely complex.

‘And where do the Wasps stand?’ Che asked.

‘Ah, well…’

But Taki cut the words off as a slave arrived. Slaves here, Che understood, had a metal band soldered about one arm, and this man was no exception. He was clearly a local, and Che wondered if he was a criminal or a debtor or simply unlucky. When he proffered a flute of wine to her she took it unhappily. Taki watched her reaction while sipping her own.