But there would come a moment, as there had in Helleron, where the metal met, as the saying went, and caution went out of the window. A night of knives, it would be. He was glad to have Tisamon and Tynisa with him, glad also to have sent his niece Cheerwell to the relative security of Sarn.

In the quiet of his own room he shrugged out of his robes, letting them pool on the floor. The night air was cool on his skin through the knee-length tunic, and the water he splashed on his face made him shiver. They were forecasting a cold winter for Collegium – for the Lowlands as a whole. Cold, of course, meaning a few cloudless and icy nights. Salma, hailing from north of the Barrier Ridge, had claimed that nobody in the Lowlands knew what winter really meant.

It was still warm enough to sleep in his bare skin, so he stripped off the tunic and cast it on the floor, then turned the flame of the lamp out. Finding his way in the moonlight to his bed he threw himself down on it. His mind was alive with stratagems, shreds of information, clues and counter-intelligence. The threat of the Wasps was bad for his sleep patterns.

And then he became aware that he was not alone in the room. Somewhere in the darkness someone moved.

All at once he went colder than the night could make him. At first he was going to call out for Tynisa or Tisamon, but if he did so then it would only mean a swift blade – a blade that might come at any time, but would surely come now, right now, if he called.

Why couldn’t I have listened to Tisamon?

He reached out. There was always a sword within reach of his bed, a judicious precaution that had borne fruit more than once. His fingers brushed the pommel, so he stretched a little further to grasp the hilt.

‘There is no need for that, Master Maker,’ said a woman’s voice, one he knew, he realized, although he could not immediately place it.

‘Who’s there?’ he asked, excruciatingly aware that whoever it was could obviously see better than he could in the dark.

‘Wouldn’t you be more comfortable if you lit the lamp again?’

Yes. Yes I would. He crawled backwards off the bed, sword in one hand, still sheathed, and in the other a sheet clutched demurely to his chest. He thought he heard a snicker from the unseen woman which helped not at all. Then he realized that he would need both hands free to light the lamp.

Both hands. His sword-hand included. Or perhaps not. He let the sheet go, modesty playing second fiddle to mortality, and opened the lamp hatch single-handed. Thick fingers fumbled across the cabinet top until they located his steel lighter. He flicked at its catch until it caught, and then brought the fragile flame to the oil. It lit with a gentle, golden glow and, with his sword firmly presented, he turned to face the intruder.

She had a hand over her mouth, in hilarity or horror, and it was a moment before he recognized her. When he did, he swept the sheet back up so fast that he almost lost his sword in it.

‘Arianna?’ he gasped. ‘What are you… what are you doing – in my house?’

She was desperately trying to hide a smile. It was hilarity then, which was the worse of the two reactions. ‘You do not bar your windows, Master Maker.’

‘That’s not an answer.’ But she was right of course. He still thought like a Beetle, having just one entrance to his home, on the ground floor.

‘I… I wanted to speak with you, privately.’

‘Well this is about as private as I get.’ He clutched the sheet close to him, tried to drape it about him like a robe, and found it would not stretch. In front of the young Spider-kinden’s unabashed gaze, he felt acutely aware of all the physical parts of him that had never been slim to begin with, and that time had only expanded.

‘I would have said something when you came in, only…’ Her shoulders shook a little. ‘Only you started getting undressed so fast and… I didn’t know what to say.’

How old I feel, at this moment. ‘Would you mind… turning your back while I at least put a tunic on?’ he asked.

Then the door burst open and Tisamon was there.

The Mantis had his claw on ready and he saw the intruder at once, bounding across the room towards her. She shrieked, falling down beside the bed and tugging desperately at a dagger that was snagged in her belt.

‘Tisamon, wait!’ Stenwold yelled, and the Mantis froze, claw still poised to stab down. Arianna was now completely hidden behind the bed, but Stenwold could hear her ragged breathing.

‘What is this?’ the Mantis demanded.

‘She’s just a… student,’ Stenwold said, feeling the weight of providing some explanation descend on him. ‘You can… let her get up now.’

Tisamon backed off from her cautiously. ‘She’s Spider-kinden,’ he remarked.

‘I don’t think that’s an objection you can make any more,’ Stenwold pointed out, reasonably.

Arianna stood up slowly, one hand nursing the back of her head. The dagger was still caught in the folds of her robe.

‘She’s armed,’ Tisamon said, sounding less certain now.

‘She has a knife. I wouldn’t advise anyone over the age of ten to go about the city without a knife these days.’ Stenwold realized that Tisamon’s attention was focused on him now, rather than on Arianna.

‘I was…’ Stenwold looked down at the rounded bulk of his own body, so inadequately hidden by the sheet. ‘I was just retiring…’ he began lamely, acutely aware that the harsh lines of Tisamon’s customarily severe expression were trembling a little.

‘Retiring with…?’

‘No!’ More harshly than Stenwold had meant. ‘Or at least not knowingly.’

‘So,’ Tisamon’s mouth twisted. ‘What does she want?’

‘Good question.’ Stenwold looked at the girl.

‘I want to help,’ she stated.

‘Help how?’ He had his tunic on again, which felt like armour beyond steel plates under the gaze of this young woman. Here in his study, the desk between them, he could feel a little more like the College Master and less the clown. She sat demurely where he had placed her but there was merriment still dancing in her eyes.

‘Everyone knows how you’ve been to the east. Everyone knows there are enemies waiting there. I mean, the Empire, that you taught us about in history. Nobody else has ever dared point the finger. None of the other masters would even answer my questions. And yet it was always there, and those soldiers – the Wasp-kinden – had come from there for the games. And that’s when a few of us started to realize that you’d been telling the truth all this time. That those men weren’t here just for the sake of peace and trade.’

‘Some people believed me, anyway,’ Stenwold said heavily, ‘understood that they are the threat I made them out to be. But the Assembly? Perhaps not.’

‘I believe you,’ she said, without hesitation. She was staring at him so earnestly that he became acutely aware of how young she was, how old he was. She was an odd specimen for a Spider. Her coppery hair was cut short in a local style, and she had freckles that made her look even more desperately earnest. He found himself looking at her in a different light: how very slender she was, how pale the skin of her bare arms where the short sleeves of her robe ended.

He gave himself a mental shake. ‘Why?’ he asked, re-focusing.

‘Because for one, my people are good at reading truth and falsehood, and I believe that when you’re up before us students telling us all this, you are sincere, that you know what you’re talking about. Since you left for wherever you went, we’ve all had a chance to see the Wasp-kinden at large in Collegium. Oh, they’re on their best behaviour and they’ve always got gold ready to pay for breakages, but they’re… ugly, do you know what I mean? Not physically, but something inside them. And the way they brawl. A little drink and a harsh word, and they’ll fight to kill. I know one student of the College who was killed in a taverna, only the Wasp officers paid out gold to keep it quiet. And they’re all trained soldiers, which is just what you said, too. Every one of them, even the artificers, even the diplomats who speak to the Assembly.’