Salute the Dark

‘A minor and preliminary part,’ Teornis said. ‘Then there comes the meeting with her closer court, perhaps a duel, a challenge made by some unimportant member of her cadre – the skill of that challenger varying, of course, in inverse proportion to her favour of the admirer’s suit. Then they will meet by her arrangement, on an occasion unknown in advance to him. She will evaluate him. If he has displayed sufficient wit, beauty, charm, whatever virtues she seeks in him, then he may gain further access to her household, to her chambers, finally to her body. If not, well, if he is lucky he will escape with his life and reputation, but that is not always the case. Wooing a Spider-kinden Arista is a perilous business for the unprepared.’

‘And if she’s made it known to him that she wants him, but he doesn’t want her?’ Nero asked, fascinated.

Teornis chuckled quietly. ‘Little man, his interests are of no importance in this ritual, save to explain why so many of the men of my people are also to be found living in the cities of others.’ In that revealing moment of frank humour, Nero almost liked him.

There was a respectful knock at the cabin door and, on Teornis’ invitation, one of the crew let a Fly-kinden messenger in. The woman was obviously used to serving Spiders, finding nothing unusual in seeing her target sitting for a portrait, and simply presented him with another wallet of documents. If she had flown herself ragged in meeting up with the airship her manner certainly did not show it.

‘Find her some victuals,’ Teornis ordered the crewman who had escorted her in. ‘I shall have returns for her to take away shortly.’

He unsealed the wallet carefully and stripped out the topmost scroll, reading down what Nero guessed was a summary of the most important points of the enclosed documents. Nothing in his face betrayed any reaction but, when he finally spoke, he announced, ‘It would seem that the diplomatic channels are closing.’

Nero said nothing, waiting for further exposition.

‘We sent ambassadors to the Wasp forces massing at Tark, and to Solarno as well. Now we have the response.’

Again, Nero waited. Teornis’ smile had become a hard line.

‘We have been told that all land north of Seldis is officially the Empire,’ Teornis said, ‘and that, if we interfere, then Seldis itself shall be invested in siege. My own efforts, it seems, have stalled them as far as they are willing to be stalled, and now they set about the business as Wasp-kinden are wont to do: with simple force. The Wasp Second Army has marched from Tark against Merro and Egel, and the Eighth sits in the Ant city still, waiting to strike if we venture outside our walls. Well, we are at war now, so we must expect such treatment.’ He paused a moment, perhaps evaluating how much Nero actually needed to know. ‘Our ambassadors to Solarno were killed, I see. They were seized as spies and executed. I am afraid that you are flying into a tempest, Master Nero. Therefore I hope you and your friend are strong enough to battle your way through.’

After Nero had gone, Teornis returned to the reports his agents had brought him. They were penned in elegant hands, a collection of polite nothings, niceties, social calendars and fashions. It took a true Spider-kinden Manipulus to pierce through the nothings and decode to the steel core of information within. It is all coming together, which meant that it was all falling apart. Teornis read and read.

I have to assume, he thought, that there will come a time when the coming-together and the falling-apart converge.

Distant news informed him that two Wasp armies were marching on Sarn and its allies, but he was barely interested in that. The Ants now had their chance: they would grasp it or fail. If the worst came, then the northern half of the Lowlands was expendable. That it would complicate the defence of Collegium was the only way in which it mattered to him. Collegium he wished to keep free. Its value as a grateful tool of the Spiderlands was too high to neglect. He had not gone so far to lift the siege the previous year, just to have the Wasps taking the place now.

Even if it lost eventually, Sarn would occupy its Wasp tormentors for many tendays before they occupied it, and after Sarn the mopping-up of the so-called Ancient League would take even longer. Teornis was meanwhile more concerned about local conditions.