‘Dealing with the Vekken?’ rumbled Scadran. ‘They are not at all trusted, here.’ He glanced sidelong to see Hofi nodding agreement.

‘Nor should they be. They’re an ambitious and grasping lot, always looking for a chance to extend their borders,’ Thalric declared. He smiled at that, but kept the next thought unspoken. Just like the Empire in miniature, I suppose. Still, with empires size was everything and, in the fullness of time, Vek was small enough to fit easily within the Empire’s jaws.

‘We’re going to offer to split the Lowlands with them,’ he explained, and let that drop into the room and silence them.

‘Sir…?’ Graf began slowly, after a long moment.

‘We can’t trust them,’ Arianna interupted. ‘And they won’t trust us either, I’m sure.’

‘You’re right. It’s all nonsense of course, and they’ll know it for that, but they won’t believe that they can’t beat us if they need to. Someone here please tell me Collegium and Vek’s recent history.’

‘Vek was at Collegium’s gates in living memory, sir. Thirty years back, or so,’ said Graf.

‘Nobody here’s forgotten,’ Hofi added.

‘So what happened?’ Thalric prompted.

‘They wanted inside the walls quick,’ Hofi said. ‘But they got held off so long at the gates that a Sarnesh army came to attack them, and they had to retreat.’

‘Right,’ Thalric agreed, ‘because Sarn and Collegium are close allies, these days. So our offer to Vek will be simply this: an army will be on the move towards Sarn, through Helleron, soon enough. With that keeping the Sarnesh on their toes, Vek can take Collegium at last, which they have been wanting to do for a very long time.’

‘They’ll sack the entire city,’ said Arianna. ‘Everyone here knows they haven’t forgotten their defeat. When they were forced to withdraw from the walls they burned the crops in the fields and razed a dozen of the tributary villages. They’re a vindictive lot in that city.’

Thalric nodded. ‘Nobody much likes them, that’s plain.’ Privately he was not overjoyed with the plan, but his own wishes were entirely secondary. ‘The Empire’s path into the Lowlands is fraught with difficulty as it is,’ he reminded them. ‘The Ants and the Mantis-kinden will fight, and there will be a great many miles that will have to be bought with blood. However, the real danger is here. If these scholars and pedagogues all end up pointing in the same direction, they could conceivably forge the enemies of the Empire into a single blade. If that happens, not only will the conquest of the Lowlands become much more difficult, but if it fails the Empire will have that blade at its own throat, because they will not stop at simply defending their own lands. So, Collegium must fall and, if Vek is our agent in that, then what outrage the Lowlands can muster will fall on them, and away from us. That is why I sail for Vek tomorrow.’

‘What about us, Major?’ Scadran asked.

‘Right now, go and prepare your fall-back positions. Find places to lie low when the fighting starts. I will have specific tasks to assign all of you, and we will meet again tomorrow before I leave for Vek. After the Vekken arrive here, you will all be on hand to disrupt the city’s defence in any way that seems profitable. For tonight, though, you are dismissed.’

The Amphiophos had not seen such a rabble thronging its antechambers in living memory, Tynisa thought. The Assembly’s guards were having fits about the situation. With things as they were, though, it could be no other way. There could be a hidden knife here stalking the halls of power as easily as on the streets of the city.

So it was that Stenwold, Master Gownsman of the College, artificer, Assembler, was waiting for his audience in the company of a Mantis-kinden Weaponsmaster, his halfbreed duellist daughter, and a hulking Ant renegade with a loaded nailbow. Tynisa could only guess how the sight of them evoked horror and dismay amongst Sten-wold’s opponents within the Assembly. They must think he had come here in a bid to take over the city.

‘Now we are here, I am leaving Stenwold in your care,’ Tisamon said to her, appearing abruptly at his daughter’s shoulder. ‘You and the Ant must watch over him as best you can.’

‘Where are you going?’ Tynisa asked.

‘Hunting,’ the Mantis said. ‘I have played Stenwold’s game long enough, all this polite spying of his. Now the Wasps have made their move, and I will play my own game. They are still in this city and I will hunt them down.’ Here in the antechamber of the Amphiophos he looked wholly out of place, a savage shadow of the past.

They both turned as Stenwold approached, wearing his best Master’s robes. He had obviously caught Tisamon’s last words, for his broad face carried an unhappy expression.

‘Tisamon…?’

‘Yes?’ The Mantis gave him a challenging look. ‘You disagree, Sten?’

‘No, but…’ Stenwold’s face twisted. ‘If possible, could you take a prisoner, at least. It would help, it really would help, to discover what they were up to.’

‘A prisoner?’ Tisamon considered. ‘If it is possible, I shall do.’ And as Stenwold seemed to relax he added, ‘But as for her, she dies.’

‘Tisamon-’

‘No, Sten. She betrayed you.’

‘Yes, but-’

‘And in betraying you she betrayed us all, including me. And she knew it, Sten. As soon as she saw me, she knew the risk she ran – and she ran it willingly. They had their chance, and they failed, and now there is a price that must be paid. All kinden understand this, Sten. Except for yours.’

Stenwold grimaced, and Tisamon continued, ‘If you have one real reason to prove me wrong, let me hear it.’

He waited, giving the Beetle plenty of time to reply, and then shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, Sten, but some things just have to be.’

He then looked to Tynisa, who nodded, taking on the duty he had offered her. Then Tisamon turned on his heel and left the antechamber of the Amphiophos.

‘I’m sorry too, Uncle Sten,’ Tynisa said.

Stenwold tried to smile, felt it slipping on his face. ‘I’m a foolish old man, Tynisa. I’m too old for this game, really I am.’

‘It’s not exactly the time for that thought, Master Maker,’ said Balkus. He had his nailbow plainly displayed over one shoulder, so that the three Beetle-kinden guards in there with them were giving him nervous looks.

‘You need to think now about what you have to do,’ Tynisa agreed. ‘And, for what it’s worth, I think Tisamon is right. Maybe it’s just my blood talking, but if he wasn’t setting off now I think I would go do it myself.’

‘Who am I to judge?’ said Stenwold sadly. ‘The world, I think, has more need of those like Tisamon and yourself than it does of me.’

‘Master Maker?’

They turned to see a middle-aged Beetle-kinden, robed as Stenwold was, step out into the antechamber.

‘The Magnates and Masters of Collegium are assembled and waiting,’ the man announced. ‘You have your day, Master Maker. You had best make the most of it.’

Stenwold nodded. ‘You and Balkus must wait here,’ he explained. ‘They will not let you in there, armed as you are, and I would rather have you armed out here and watching, than unarmed in there and blind to what goes on outside.’

Tynisa nodded, and Stenwold clasped hands with both of them, and then followed the usher in.

He stopped just within the doorway, so that the usher had to return to lead him over to the podium. Lineo Thadspar was already there, one of the oldest Assemblers and the Assembly’s current Speaker. He was a white-haired and dignified old man who had always treated Stenwold with at least a distant courtesy. Now he nodded as the other man approached him.

‘Master Maker, in the past, I think, you have believed that we did not take you seriously,’ he said, with dry humour. ‘Let this accusation, at least, not be levelled at us any longer.’

There was a murmur of amusement across the tiered seats that ringed the chamber of the Amphiophos. Stenwold simply stared, because the stone of those seats was now barely visible. They were all there, so far as he could tell. For the first time since the Vekken siege thirty years before, every single Assembler had answered the call.