Adrian Tchaikovsky - Blood of the Mantis

Havel felt his grip on the situation rapidly loosening. He needed to talk to Odyssa, he realized, for she would instantly understand the situation. After all, these native Solarnese might be mad for fighting, but it was Spider-kinden who actually ruled Solarno. Surely Odyssa could soon think of some way to appease them.

He met her in a private room of an eatery called the Sawbouys, enjoying a view out over the water. He called up a bottle of the house’s best wine and the flank of freshwater shrimp that the place was famous for. The feeling of luxury, of living well, was soon calming to him, for it told him that he was keeping ahead of the rising wave of disaster that threatened to crash down on him,

He ate with a fierce passion, while Odyssa merely picked at her food and eyed him with amusement.

‘I’m at my wits’ end,’ Havel confessed. ‘The situation is, as they say, deteriorating.’

‘But surely this was inevitable,’ Odyssa said. ‘Was this not the imperial plan all along?’

‘Do you think they tell me anything?’ Havel said bitterly. ‘But, no it wasn’t, not to my knowledge. Not this soon, at least. It’s that cursed colonel out north of Toek, who just can’t wait to get his men moved in here. He’s going to end up unifying all of Solarno against us. All of the Exalsee, even. I wouldn’t have thought it could be done but, little by little, he’s managing it.’

She shrugged. ‘So things are happening a little faster than planned.’

‘It’s not as simple as that,’ Havel replied. ‘I had everything already in hand here, so it’s an insult to me and to the Rekef. I could have annexed Solarno virtually single-handedly, with no need for all this.’ And I could have made a fortune doing it. ‘Now the army will sack half the city because this colonel won’t keep them in check. Hundreds of our soldiers will die. It’s just… such a waste. You’re a Spider-kinden, so you’re used to doing things with a little intelligence. You must be able to see my point.’

‘I think I’m beginning to,’ she agreed. ‘I take it you want me to send a message to the colonel?’

‘Conveyed with the Rekef’s greatest displeasure. Just tell him whatever it takes to get him off my back,’ Havel almost pleaded with her. ‘He doesn’t understand how delicate the situation is here. He’s just a stone-headed soldier with no appreciation of politics. All he’s interested in is the governorship, and what good will that do him when his new subjects are bringing the place down around his ears?’

‘You might be best off resigning yourself to what is inevitable,’ Odyssa warned him. ‘I’d be surprised if you can stop it now.’

‘Oh, I’ll stop it all right, don’t you worry,’ Havel assured her. ‘I’ve been in this city a good while now. I know how things work. I know how to keep the pot simmering and yet never quite boiling over. You’ll see. Without any more provocation from that fool out in the desert, I’ll soon get Solarno settled again.’ He breathed a deep sigh. Now he had said it, it even sounded possible. ‘I can even use the men he’s already sent, make them a proper police force to back the useless militia the Solarnese have. They’ll come to see us as invaluable, you’ll see. We shall creep into their hearts. This town has its nobles and its councils, but really it’s ruled by the mob, as each fresh demonstration shakes up the Cortas and their magnates. We shall control the mob. We could even start our own party here.’

‘I see what you mean,’ said Odyssa at last, as Havel took a swallow of wine. ‘You’re right, and it is almost a Spider-kinden way of doing things. Almost. Naturally we’d add a few layers of complexity to it, whether it needed it or not.’

‘I try to be as simple as I can, so that I won’t forget anything,’ Havel said.

‘And if the colonel wants his war anyway?’

‘Then let him go invade somewhere else, because Solarno is mine,’ Havel told her. ‘Surely the Rekef should be able to whip one over-ambitious officer into line.’

‘It should.’

There was a reflective pause, both of them sipping at their wine. Eventually Odyssa continued, ‘I think you’re right.’

‘In what way?’

‘I think you could draw it back from the brink after all.’

Havel nodded emphatically. ‘You’re cursed right I can. Just give me a tenday without this colonel breathing down my neck, and I’ll be back in control.’

Odyssa considered him speculatively, noticing the sweat spring up on his forehead. ‘Yes, I think you could. You’re a clever man, for a Wasp-kinden.’

‘I’ll take that… for a compliment,’ he said, blinking at her.

‘There is one thing you’ve failed to consider, though, and I feel that I should warn you of it.’

‘What’s… what’s that?’

‘What if someone else wants the war?’

He goggled at her, mouth half open but no words forming.

‘Layers upon layers, you see, Captain, in interweaving strands. You really are quite good at this, for a Wasp, but I fear you’re no Spider-kinden.’

She saw his hand twitch reflexively, but no flash of energy came from it. A moment later he had toppled sideways onto the floor.

Odyssa stood up, brushing down her tunic, an old habit kept from after her first murder. She sometimes thought the Rekef had nothing to teach her that she had not been born with. She would now pay the Fly host of this eatery enough to forget who she was. She had two men close at hand of equally uncertain memory, ready to dump Havel’s body somewhere easily discoverable. Then she would put her Rekef hat back on, and run to the Wasp encampment at the oasis beyond Toek, and there tell the colonel, whom she had been steadily inflaming, that the Rekef officer in charge of Solarno had been murdered by the locals, and therefore the hour of his conquest and governorship was at hand.

It had been a tiring day. His new responsibilities were making demands on him he had not expected. Totho had never seen himself as a factory overseer.

But that was not quite true, if he was being honest with himself. Every artificer who rose to the top of his trade should be guiding lesser craftsmen, having them work to his designs, delegating the burdens of his trade. Of course he had wanted that, but seen no chance of ever achieving it.

He had not wanted this, though. Drephos, Colonel-Auxillian of the Wasp Empire, had taken him on eagerly as an apprentice, but the folk of Helleron were not so open-minded. It all seemed insane to him, but that was only because he had done his best to forget his childhood, even his studentship spent at the College. A halfbreed was never popular. A halfbreed was cursed by his mixed blood. Collegium was a cosmopolitan city and even there Totho had never been allowed to forget the stain of his birth that was so plain in his features.

Here in Helleron, blood mattered greatly, and the local Beetles were hard on halfbreeds. People like Totho got given the worst jobs, or worked in the criminal fiefs, or else starved and begged. Then Drephos had come along and been made governor of all Helleron, and set Totho up as master of whole factories, giving orders to foremen and artificers who spat at him behind his back, and stared at him mutinously when he faced them.

It had affected their work. They had dragged it out and dawdled, and even turned out shoddy pieces in the belief he was not artificer enough to know the difference. For a tenday he had agonized over it, trying to understand how he could make them see he was not a bad man: how could he win them over to his side?

Today he had awoken with his answer: he could not. He could be the most generous and even-handed overseer the city had ever seen, and to them he would still be just a halfbreed.