The Scarab Path (48 page)

He’s making ready for a siege
. She could understand the
logic. The Khanaphir could not stand by and allow these foreign merchants the
run of their city.
But they are not merchants
. The
staff of the factora had transformed their headquarters into a fort, and themselves
into soldiers. She had no doubt that they practised regularly with all the
different weapons that they sold.

At last
she caught a brief glimpse of Totho again, helmet pushed back, his face
appearing almost transformed. It was a look she remembered from when she had
found him engaged in some artificing project or other, where everything was
coming together just at the last moment.

She
called out his name, even as two Iron Glove men began manhandling her up some
stairs. She saw his head turn, then he strode over, leaving half a dozen
metal-clad men waiting on him. He still wore his own elegantly fashioned mail,
that made the serviceable equipment of the others look like something that
should be hanging in a museum.

‘Later,’
was all he said, from the foot of the stairs, and then turned to go.

‘Totho,
tell me what’s going on!’ she cried, struggling furiously with the men that
held her. ‘This is
me
, Totho!’

‘Yes, it
is.’ He turned sharply back to her, and he was actually grinning. It was an
expression of desperation and elation all muddled together. ‘Oh, I’ll tell you
all right what’s going on, but not now. Soon enough I’ll tell
everybody
what’s going on.’ Then he was off once more,
marching back to his troops, and Che continued being hauled backwards up the
stairs.

‘Curse
you!’ she shouted after him. ‘You can’t
do
this!’
She was about to add that he had no right, but Thalric’s words came back to
her, about what her ‘rights’ were worth.

‘Bring
her in here now.’ She recognized the voice as Corcoran’s, though his helm left
him as anonymous as all the rest.

‘You are
all going to regret this so much,’ she warned him, because she had nothing else
to say.

‘I
imagine you’re bang on the money there,’ Corcoran concurred. ‘Mind you, it’s
too late to be having second thoughts now, but I’m sure Himself will find a way
out of this.’

‘He’s
gone mad,’ she hissed. Poised in the doorway to her latest prison, Che wrestled
around to confront him, seeing his leather-clad shoulders rise and fall.

‘And
what manner of man hasn’t said the same about his employer, once or twice?’ was
all Corcoran could offer before they propelled her inside. She heard a click –
and saw that even the lock was new, bolted on to the solid Khanaphir door. She
had to concede that she had clearly not done herself proud as a diplomat.

Are ambassadors kidnapped on a regular basis? And what is the
diplomatic response? Are you supposed to remain calmly polite and thank
everyone for the personal service?

The room
they had put her in was located two storeys up, and they had not yet barred up
the window. The opening was barely big enough for a Fly-kinden, though, which
meant there would be no escape there. Scuff marks on the floor suggested that
the Iron Glove had been using this as a storeroom, but now it was practically
empty.

Someone
else moved inside the room, and she froze, reaching automatically for the sword
they had taken away from her. He had been standing by a desk in the corner of
the room, small and still enough for her not to have noticed him.

‘Trallo …’
She heard the uncertainty in her own voice, on realizing he was no prisoner. A
Fly-kinden could go in and out of that window as often as he pleased.

‘Hello,
Che,’ he said, with an awkward look on his face, suggesting they had at last
punctured his cheer. She gave herself a moment to rein in a temper that had
been increasingly on its own recognizance of late.

‘Just
how many people,’ she asked sharply, ‘are paying you to “look after” me?’

He
grimaced. ‘Well, the thing is, you see … after that scuffle in the Marsh
Alcaia, your Iron Glove fellow sent me a message, wanted to do business. Now,
you know, in my line of work, you don’t want a bad name with any of the big
traders.’ Seeing her darkening expression, he hurried on. ‘And it was just … I
was watching out for you anyway, and at the time it didn’t seem that there’d be
a problem about it.’

‘I’m
sure the shiny money blinded you to the obvious. And now?’

‘And now
I have what’s known as a conflict of interests,’ Trallo admitted. ‘How was I to
know that this Totho fellow would lose his mind so completely?’

Che
stared out of the window. There was no crowd gathered yet, but it would only be
a matter of time. It was not that she herself was so very important, but the
sovereignty of their hosts had now been challenged. She knew how seriously they
would take that. ‘He’s not mad,’ she decided. ‘I don’t really know what he is,
any more, but he’s not mad.’

‘Old
friend of yours, he claimed.’

‘He was,
yes.’ She thought about the man she had met after the Battle of the Rails,
where it had still been possible to see her friend somewhere behind the scars
that his recent history had scored across him. But the man she had met in
Khanaphes had been all scars, and barely a hint left of the shy, awkward boy
who had once helped her in her studies.
Have I done this to
him, somehow? Or is it Stenwold’s doing? We cannot leave the Empire with all
the blame
.

She
heard a rattle at the lock, and then they were around her again, bolting a grid
across the window. This time she went with them without a struggle, accepting
defeat. Trallo pattered along beside her, the Fly finally caught in the trap of
his own diverse loyalties. She found she could muster scant sympathy,
especially as he had taken her down with him.

They led
her down one floor and into a long hall, where Totho was waiting with a dozen
of his men.

‘Now,’
he addressed her, ‘no more secrets.’

‘Then
tell me,’ she said.

‘I will,
right now and, more than that, I’ll make it a public proclamation.’ He seemed
on a knife-edge, as if waiting to see whether his carefully crafted project
would succeed or fail. Out of everything about him, only that was painfully
familiar. ‘Come out onto the balcony with me,’ he said.

‘Totho
…’

‘No, no,
let’s …’ He put on a smile. ‘Let’s – what do they say? – take the air? They’re
all out there now. The Empire, your people, lots of the locals.’

‘I’m not
surprised.’

‘Neither
am I, because it’s what I wanted,’ he told her. ‘I’ve armoured this place up so
that it’s even given Amnon pause for thought, and now they’re going to hear me
out. And so are you. Come on, Che. You say you want to know what’s going on?
Now’s your chance.’

Who would have imagined any of this?
Looking
over the gathering crowd, Thalric confessed to himself that he was surprised
that some paltry Exalsee traders could achieve so much. Diplomatic history was
being made. It was a tactic he might recommend to the Rekef: manufacture a
common enemy and the world falls into your lap.

They
were all here, that was his initial conclusion. Probably there were some people
somewhere in Khanaphes who knew of Cheerwell Maker but had not turned out, but
he could not think of any names. Her fellow Collegiates were here, of course.
The three academics – old man, fat man and distant woman – were standing in a
close-knit clump and looking worried. Separated from them by a pointed distance
were the two Vekken ambassadors, who had arrived with their crossbows and their
closed expressions. Near them was gathered the formal delegation from the
Scriptora.

Ethmet
himself had put in a personal appearance, together with at least a dozen of his
fellow Ministers. They stood in their simple, one-shouldered robes like a
gaggle of clerks, save for the respectful space that everyone else gave them.
Behind them was the army, or that was how it looked to Thalric. Amnon had
turned out the Royal Guard in their gilded scale mail, with their pointed
shields, spears and bows. The big man was looking angry. What had happened here
was a personal affront to his authority and, with perhaps a hundred men at his
back, his authority was looking more and more sensitive to insult.

Did the halfbreed know what he was asking for when he opened the
door on this?
Thalric wondered. Looking at the way the Iron Glove had
turned their factora into a fortress, he had to conclude that, yes, he had.
But why? Is the man so mad for Cheerwell Maker that he will see
his entire delegation slaughtered?
Beyond the guardsmen were a mass of
the ordinary Khanaphir, many holding staves or sickles or slings. Word of the
outrage had gone quickly through the streets, no doubt tacitly encouraged by
the Ministers.

Any welcome for the Iron Glove has finally expired
,
Thalric thought with satisfaction.

There
was a silence falling on them now, a quiet focused on Ethmet, although he had made
no sign. More soldiers were just arriving, who carried, slung between them, a
bronze-shod tree-trunk. Appreciating the hush, they lowered it gratefully to
the ground. Thalric eyed the reinforced door and decided the ram would burst it
open after a dozen or twenty blows. He could see movement behind the
metal-latticed windows, and knew the Iron Glove would be ready to defend
themselves. There would be two prodigious bloodlettings, in Thalric’s
professional opinion: one to get the door open, and another inside once the
horde of the Khanaphir began tearing every single Iron Glove man apart.

Up on
the balcony that extended above the door, a handful of the Iron Glove emerged,
bearing snapbows but keeping them low. The archers amongst the Khanaphir
already had arrows to the string, just waiting for the command to draw.

Totho
came forth next. Although most of those come to cause his ruin would not have
recognized him, the sight of his armour, and the way his men deferred to him,
singled him out. One of his men passed him a speaking horn, and Thalric felt a
wrinkle of contempt for a man without a parade-ground voice.

Cheerwell
was pushed out to stand next to him, looking angry and stubborn, and Thalric
felt a twitch of relief to see her still alive. He had not expected otherwise,
but still …

Totho
coughed into the cone, the noise emerging garbled and tinny. ‘Is everyone
here?’ he asked. His voice boomed back across the crowd, echoing from the walls
across the street.

‘Explain
this!’ Ethmet demanded, needing nothing but his own lungs. Thalric would not
have thought the old man had it in him, but he would have made a fine drill
sergeant. ‘What is this insurrection? Have you declared war on the Masters of
Khanaphes, O merchant? What is this barbarism?’

And not just on Khanaphes
, Thalric thought,
but the Lowlands and the Empire, all in one. I would not have
thought it possible to make so many enemies so swiftly
.

‘You’re
owed an explanation,’ Totho replied, and his voice, even amplified, was that of
an awkward artificer trying to sound forceful. ‘I will give it, but I wanted
everyone to hear it. What I have to say is important.’

‘Release
the Collegiate ambassador,’ Ethmet snapped back at him. ‘We will listen to
nothing until she is free.’

‘She
will be released,’ Totho said. ‘I won’t hold her. I wanted her out of the hands
of the Empire, that’s all.’

‘Do you
make your merchant venture a sovereign state now?’ Ethmet called. ‘How do you
dare meddle in the affairs of your betters? Release her!’

‘Oh yes,
we are ambitious, we in the Iron Glove,’ said Totho, and his confidence was
already building. ‘You may not know, but Che here can fly. She can leave us
right now.’ He turned from the speaking horn to say something to Che, and
Thalric saw her glance at the Iron Glove snapbowmen. Her wings flickered,
putting her up on the very rail of the balcony.

‘Say
what you have to say,’ she told Totho, loud enough for many of the crowd below
to hear. Thalric saw another figure nip out to join her on the railing, and it
took him a moment to recognize the Fly, Trallo. The sight gave him a slight
edge of unease.
And what has that villain been doing with
the Iron Glove? Had they captured him, for information about me?

‘Thank
you.’ Totho had returned to the horn. ‘As I say, I owe you an explanation. I
beg you to hear me.’

‘Explain,
and then gather yourselves to leave,’ Ethmet told him.

‘You
have been deceived,’ Totho’s voice boomed out. ‘You are victims of your own
generosity, O Ministers. You are betrayed by your very guests.’ There was a
moment’s murmuring before Totho caught up with the crowd’s response. ‘I don’t
mean
myself
. I don’t mean
this
,’
he said. ‘This is nothing, a moment’s misunderstanding, to be soon forgotten.’
He waited, letting the murmur die down. His eyes sought out Thalric.

‘There is
an army marching on Khanaphes even as we speak,’ Totho declared. ‘An army of
the Scorpion-kinden called the Many of Nem. Your enemies.’

There
was a ripple of alarm through the crowd, but Amnon was having none of it. ‘So
they come again?’ he roared out. ‘So let them come, and we shall beat them
back, as we have before. Totho, we made you welcome here, and what are the
Scorpion-kinden compared to the thing you have done?’

‘This is
no army such as you have ever faced before,’ Totho said, forcing sincerity into
his words, overstressing them. Thalric realized he must have rehearsed all
this, must have written his own script for this confrontation. ‘These
Scorpion-kinden possess new weapons, terrible weapons the like of which
Khanaphes has never seen before. And why? Because they work for new masters.
The Many of Nem now march under Imperial officers, and they wield Imperial
arms. The Empire has set them upon your city, while their own ambassadors lurk
within your walls and speak of peace!’