‘What will you do,’ he asked the Ant-kinden woman, ‘if you cannot go home?’

‘I will not be the first Ant renegade to go mercenary. If you now take us to Helleron I will sell my sword there,’ she said. ‘The market for us is good, and like to get better.’

‘The same for me,’ Tisamon confirmed.

‘Tisamon-’

‘No.’ There was more finality in the Mantis’s voice than Stenwold had ever heard from him. ‘No return to Collegium for me, Stenwold. No debate and diplomacy. No society. No kind words, ever again. I followed you down that path once, and see where I am now.’

‘But-’

‘I will stay at Helleron and I will oppose the Wasps the only way I can.’ With careful movements Tisamon replaced his greatbow in its case. ‘You yourself have other means, Sten. You must go back to your college and your clever, machine-fingered people, and have them make ready. Of all of us, you were always the real hope of the future.’

Stenwold said nothing as, below them, the last of the straggling fields gave out, and a scrubby, dry landscape passed beneath them without so much as a whisper.

I cannot even claim that I did not have time to prepare.

For they had not come, not then. He had fled to Collegium, returning home, and there had been no black-and-gold tide on his heels. The Empire of the Wasps had given him a stay of execution, it seemed. Instead of westwards, their armies had struck elsewhere: undertaking a brutal war of conquest against their northern neighbours. Oh, there had been merchants and travellers, and even the occasional diplomat sent by the Black and Gold, but no armies. Nobody could say that Stenwold had not been allowed all the time he could use.

Have I squandered it, or was there no more I could do than this?

‘You’re sure of this news?’ he asked the messenger. She was a little Fly-kinden woman, barely more than three feet tall, standing in his comfortable study like a child.

‘I’m just the voice, Master Maker, but the information’s sure. They can’t be long behind me,’ she told him.

I knew this would come.

It would come masked. There would not be armies at first. The Wasps would come with smiles and open hands, promising peace and prosperity, but Stenwold’s spies had told him of the march of thousands, the sharpening of swords. All the prescience in the world did not take the edge off the fear he felt. The fall of the city of Myna was flooding through his mind again, and no matter how long ago that had been. He knew the Empire had not been sitting idle. It had been keeping its blade good and sharp these past seventeen years.

Seventeen years? And what had Stenwold made of them, save to grow older and fatter, and to lose his hair? From artificer and idealist he had become politician and spymaster. He had his cells of agents established across the Lowlands, and he used them to wrestle with the Wasps’ own spies. He had tried to spread the word of invasion to a people who did not want to hear. He had settled back comfortably in his home city, made himself influential, taken on the mantle of a master at the Great College. Teaching an unorthodox history, to the annoyance of his peers, he had fought with words against the conservative nature of his people, who just wanted to be left to their commerce and their provincial squabbles. He had stood before the Assembly of Collegium and made speeches and arguments and pleas of warning until they had begun to stay away whenever his name was listed as speaker.

‘Go back to Scuto,’ he now told the Fly woman. ‘I will be coming to him with my latest crop. Have him get everyone under arms and ready.’

She nodded and ran to the open window, vaulting onto the sill. A moment later her Art had sprung shimmering wings from her back, little more than a blur in the air, and she was gone across the rooftops.

Stenwold stood slowly, looking about him. If they had come straight on my heels, all those years back, I would have been more ready for them. He had since become the College Master indeed. The more time they had given him, the more he had assumed he would have, and now the Wasp Empire was coming to Collegium at last and he was not ready for it.

At least the latest crop is ready. Or half-ready. Stenwold grimaced at the thought. He had been recruiting agents from among the College students for years. Now the time had come for him to foot the bill. This time it would not just be strangers that he would be sending into the flames.

Which reminded him. The wheels of Collegium did not stop turning just because an aging spymaster received a piece of bad news. He was needed at the duelling court, for his new blades were to be tested in the fire.

They called her Che, or at least she made sure they called her that as far as possible, because being named Cheerwell was an appalling burden to carry through life. Cheerwell Maker was the catch-up girl: she was always running to get where everyone else could walk to. It was all such a contrast to Tynisa, who was her… what? The word ‘sister’ should have served well, save that neither of them was the daughter of Stenwold Maker, though he treated them both as such. Che was his niece, which was simple enough, while Tynisa was his ward, which was more complicated.

Che was always early for appointments. She had been waiting now for a half-hour at the door of the Prowess Forum, dressed up as a duellist without a fight. Here, at last, came Tynisa and Salma, and so at least she would not have to go in alone and feel even more foolish waiting friendless before an audience.

Looking at Tynisa she thought, as she always thought, Such a difference between us! Genuine sisters surely never had to suffer so. Che, like most Beetle-kinden, was short, somewhat plump and rounded, solid and enduring. She had tried her best with fashion, but it wanted little to do with her. Her hair was currently cut short and dyed pale – which was how people liked it last year – but this year the fashion, inexplicably, was for longer hair. How was she supposed to keep up?

Tynisa, of course, had long hair. She was fashionable whatever she wore, and would look more fashionable still, Che was sure, if she wore nothing at all. She was tall and slender and her enviable hair was golden, and most of all she was not squat, ungainly Beetle-kinden at all. How in the world Stenwold had come by a Spider-kinden ward, or what strange dalliance had produced her, had always been a matter of speculation. Nobody held it against her, however. Everyone loved Tynisa.

‘All ready?’ She grinned at Che as she came to the Prowess Forum.

Che nodded morosely.

‘Are we quite sure about that name?’ asked Salma. As Che was dragged down by the name ‘Cheerwell’, in truth ‘Salma’ was the exotic Salme Dien. He was beautiful, as nobody was more aware of than himself. Golden-skinned and midnight-haired, he was a foreign dignitary from a distant land who, it always seemed, had just deigned to favour them with his presence.

‘I like the name,’ Che said. It had been her major contribution to their duelling team. ‘Everyone’s always “the sword of this” or “the flashing that”, for duelling teams. “The Majestic Felbling” is different.’

‘If I had known what a felbling was,’ Salma said, ‘I’d have had words.’ Felblings were the flying furry animals that people across Collegium kept as pets. They were unknown to the Dragonfly-kinden of Salma’s homeland, however, and he did not consider them dignified.

They passed on into the Prowess Forum, where a healthy crowd had already gathered, since Salma and Tynisa, at least, were always eminently watchable. Che started on seeing that the fourth of their number was already within. His name was Totho and he was as much of a catch-up as she was, she supposed. He was only here because she had been studying mechanics when they formed the group, and he had been the one helping her through the equations. He was a strong-framed, dark youth with a solid jaw and a closed, careful face that bore the stamp of mixed parentage.