The Scarab Path (92 page)

Now
there was a second vessel, a Spider trader called
Flighty
Drachmis
, and it would be heading to Porta Rabi, and from there one
could find a way to Solarno, and from Solarno, home.

They were
fewer than they had been, the Collegiate scholars. Trallo of the dubious
loyalties had been loyal enough to die for them, and poor Mannerly Gorget too.
They were also reinforced though, for as well as Praeda and old Berjek
Gripshod, and the brace of Vekken, there was now the looming figure of Amnon,
former First Soldier of Khanaphes. Even in his simple white tunic he still
looked like a warrior.

‘Are you
sure you’re not coming with us, Miss Maker?’ Berjek asked. ‘What precisely am I
to tell your uncle?’

‘I’ve
thought of that,’ Che said, producing a folded and sealed letter. ‘This will
satisfy him. I’ll send messengers when I can – if I can. Tell him not to worry
about me.’

He
huffed, and asked balefully, ‘Any other impossible tasks?’ After a moment he added,
sadly, ‘It’s not worked out well here, has it?’

‘Not so
well, no,’ she admitted. ‘I have had my hand in that, I think. I’m sure I could
have done more.’ She thought of Petri Coggen, and knew that, of all of their
losses, she could have prevented that death, had she not been so wrapped up in
her own problems.
I am sorry
. There were so many
people that she owed apologies to, and most would never hear them.

‘Che,
come back to us,’ Praeda told her. ‘If not now, then soon.’

Che
shrugged, unwilling to commit herself. ‘I will try. I can make no promises. I
have a long road.’

Praeda
glared at Thalric, over Che’s shoulder. ‘And you’d travel with this Wasp,
rather than us?’

‘Yes, I
would.’

The
other woman made a wry expression. ‘Well, be safe.’

‘And
you.’ After which, Che turned to the last two waiting to embark. They looked
back at her from near-identical faces, dark and expressionless.

‘What
will you say?’ she asked them.

Accius
and Malius shared a moment of silent conference before Malius finally answered.
‘That we cannot understand why you came here, but it involved no plot against
Vek. That our cities are both enemies of the Empire. That …’ She had the
impression that Accius was prompting him before he went on. ‘That there may be
some cause for common ground between us. Perhaps.’

She took
a deep breath.
So little conceded, and yet see how far
we’ve come!
‘My uncle is a genuine man, and he does not wish another
Vekken war. I know he will treat fairly with you. I know that you cannot take
my word on that, but all I ask is that you keep an open mind.’

‘That
was humour?’ Accius interposed unexpectedly. Caught unawares, Che stared at him
in surprise.

‘Open
mind?’ she realized at last. ‘The Ant mindlink.’ A smile forced its way
unbidden to her lips. ‘Humour, fair enough. Travel safely, both of you.’

‘Do not
fear for us,’ Malius said, halfway between affront and reassurance. It was hard
for Che to keep in mind how both of them had been present there beneath the
earth, one in body, the other just in mind.

She
watched them take ship, as the Spider-kinden crew cast off moorings and let the
current take them out towards the Marsh channels without raising sail. Her own
route would take them upriver as far as the Forest Alim, and further still.

‘Have
you actually any idea where we’re going?’ Thalric said.

‘Oh,
yes,’ Che replied, ‘every idea, but you’re not going to like it. You won’t be
made very welcome.’

‘That
hardly narrows down the list of places I know,’ he said drily.

‘The
Commonweal,’ she said, remembering Tisamon’s shade saying,
She
is amongst the Dragonflies
. ‘Tynisa is in the Commonweal. Feeling any
reservations now?’

‘No,
that’s good,’ he said, surprising her. ‘It’s out of the way, and I feel the
need to be invisible for a while. News travels more slowly in the Commonweal –
although there is a single message that I must send first. Just a little
unfinished business.’

General Brugan retired to the desk in his study after a long day. The
Khanaphir expedition had returned at last, or what was left of it. Detailed
interrogations could wait, but the ranking officer had some plea for mitigation
he wanted to make, sounding tiresomely technical. Other than that,
Captain-Auxillian Hrathen was dead, which was no loss. The Scorpions of the Nem
had been decimated, likewise, and half of Khanaphes had been sacked. How one
sacked half a city was a mystery to General Brugan, but it suggested poor
planning.

There
had been no definite word, however, regarding his chief concern, and that irked
him. Sulvec and the entire Rekef team seemed to have died as well, which was a
shame. Brugan was left only with the uneasy hope that they had at least
accomplished their mission before vanishing so utterly.

It was
late now, but the Rekef paperwork would only accumulate if he postponed it.
Unlike his predecessor, he kept as many layers of clerks between himself and
the sources of information as possible: good, trained men who knew how to judge
what was important.

He
sorted through the summaries and reports, gleaning the essential information
from a quick glance, reading in more detail when it was merited. His mental
picture of Rekef operations within the Empire, and without, was advanced by one
day.

He came
to one sealed scroll and broke it open, and paused. The seal on the outside was
top priority from the governor of Shalk, his eyes only. The handwriting within
was no clerk’s, though, too solid and blocky and uneconomical. It was a
soldier’s hand, and Brugan knew it already. He felt his stomach twist just to
see it, even before he read the words:

General Brugan
,

I hope this
missive finds you in good health and secure in the heart of your power
.

You will be
pleased to hear that I have solved the matter of the assassinations. It took a
few more attempts and a confession for the pattern to become clear, but now I
understand. I have been painfully slow in this task, not befitting a Rekef
agent, and I apologize for this
.

I understand
that, when I was chosen to stand beside our Queen, it was because I was a man
entirely at her mercy, who would have nothing without her support. I was her
husband to satisfy the conservatives, while she was my preservation against the
crossed pikes
.

I had not
thought at that time what other plans I might be intruding on, but I was given
no choice, after all. It is not quite true to say that I would rather the pikes
than share Her bed, but there is yet some truth in that
.

And I know now
that it is not enemies of the Empress that seek my death, nor any of that
multitude whose lives I have personally ruined at the call of my professional
career. It is simply because a man loves a woman, and would remove the only
barrier between them
.

Let me tell
you, General: I give her to you with all my heart. She is yours. Keep her if
you can. You deserve each other
.

Tell her I died
in Khanaphes. I do not intend to expose the lie. I do not intend that any word
of me will reach the Empire for a very long time. If you send more killers
after me, though, I will get word to her of your actions, and I do not believe
she will see them in a favourable light
.

Tell her I
died. I don’t imagine she will mourn for long.

But if this
does not move you to forget about me, General, then know that, just as this
letter has found you in good health at the heart of your own Empire, then so
can I. I have one Rekef general’s blood on my hands, and I would not scruple at
there being two. Keep sending killers, and what would I have to lose?

I hope you and
the Empress are as happy together as she’ll let you be
.

Yours
Thalric, formerly Major
.

General Brugan stood for a long time with the scroll still in his hands,
and then he cursed and consigned it to the fire.