‘Well look at you, Sieur Nero,’ Taki said. ‘You’re now looking almost civilized – for an old man.’

‘And you, Madam Taki, are looking positively barbarous. Did I overlook some local custom about wearing the worst of one’s wardrobe today?’

Letting that comment wash off her, Taki took her place at the table and signalled for Che to elbow herself a space. ‘If you wish to fit in here,’ she instructed, ‘you will have to learn a civilized city’s methods of addresses. None of your masters or madams. A man is “Sieur”, Sieur Nero, and a lady is “Bella” if she’s your equal, but “Domina” if she’s your better.’

‘What if a man’s your better?’ Nero asked.

‘How would I know? I’ve not met one yet,’ Taki said smugly, to snorts of amusement from her fellow Destiavel employees.

‘These words are very strange to me,’ Che said. Having made no attempt to look like a native she did not mind showing her ignorance. ‘And the place-names, too. You talked yesterday about… Princep somewhere.’

The Dragonfly looked at her sharply, while Taki nodded. ‘Princep Exilla, yes. Bane of our lives, most of the time.’

‘Only, I know it’s just a name, but it sounds as though it should mean something too. I wondered… in Collegium there are some ancient tablets that are inscribed with letters nobody can read. These words you use sound almost like a different language, or…’

‘It’s all the Dragonflies’ fault,’ Taki interrupted. ‘Isn’t it, Dalre?’

The scarred and branded man gave her a terrifying scowl that, Che realized later, was meant in humour.

‘Dalre’s people have been here a lot longer than we have – they came here way back in the bad old days to found their colony. They brought their own talk too, like a different kind of gabble to their everyday speech, so the words are close enough that you can almost understand them, but not quite. They use it only as a secret language now, but I think that way back it was kind of formal lingo for their bigwigs and wise men. It’s like one of those private clubs for the gentry, where if you don’t speak right you don’t get in. After the Spiders came to Solarno and heard it spoken, they tell me the titles and talk are all over the Spiderlands too. Poetic, you know, just how the great ladies like it.’

‘So Princep Exilla means…?’ Che asked.

‘The Exiled Princedom, or something like that,’ Taki replied. ‘And there are place-names like that all over. Even ordinary streets here in Solarno. Speaking of which, I need to go down to the machine shop to make sure the greasy-handed ones aren’t going to ruin my poor Esca. How about I take you and Sieur Nero to the Venodor, so you can get to watch how Solarno really operates.’

There was a slight edge to her glance as she said it, and Che, while nodding in agreement, thought, She wants to get us out of here. To keep us out of the way of her Spider mistress perhaps, but why?

‘Who are they?’ Che asked, raising her voice to talk over the rain. Taki leant out into the street from the covered forecourt of the taverna to see the group she had indicated, and sighed theatrically.

‘You foreigners certainly know how to pick the best of our lovely city. Those, Bella Cheerwell, are chaotics.’ She glared at the little knot of blue-hatted men and women, mostly Solarnese but with a couple of her own kinden, who were standing at a street-corner within the Venodor and glaring right back at Taki and everyone else. ‘You have those too, where you come from?’

The Venodor was Solarno’s chief market, Che now understood. It was not decently located in a single open space but in dozens of cluttered streets in which, it also seemed, ordinary people were attempting to reside. Nero explained that this followed a pattern found throughout much of the Spiderlands.

‘Agitators, you mean?’ Che probed and, when Taki nodded, she admitted, ‘We have a few ourselves, I suppose. Students in Collegium who want this or that changed within the city, or protesting about someone somewhere else doing something they don’t like. And in Helleron the protests can become quite violent, they say, but there’s usually an element of crime involved as well.’ She shrugged. ‘That’s what I hear, anyway.’

‘Near enough the truth,’ Nero confirmed. He had not even bothered to peer out at the chaotics, or else had already seen them as they arrived at the taverna. He just lounged on the wood-slatted bench at one corner of the low-walled forecourt, while above them the rain drummed on a waxed awning before sluicing off it in sheets.

‘Well this lot can become as violent as you like. They’re supporters of the Crystal Standard Party,’ Taki explained. ‘You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you? I can’t understand how you get on in your Lowlands, without politics.’

‘We do have politics,’ Che said, feeling obscurely proud. ‘In Collegium our citizens cast lots to elect the greatest of us to the Assembly, so the city is governed by its people.’

‘That sounds quite mad,’ Taki told her. ‘I may have to go there, just to see this prodigy for myself. Stories of faraway places are always strange, it’s true, but usually when you meet a traveller from those parts you find out it’s all nonsense and they’re just like we are. Apparently you’re not.’

‘So what’s all this business with rival parties here?’ Nero asked.

‘Now concentrate, as this will get complicated, you poor innocent foreigners,’ Taki warned them with a grin. She sketched a broad circle on the ground with her foot. ‘Here is the Corta Lucidi, which includes representatives from all the major families of Solarno. Each family has, oh, four, six, up to a dozen representatives, depending on their wealth, their status, the trades they control. And also the number of their supporters,’ she added, flicking an idle glance in the direction of the chaotics, who were now shouting out something hostile at several hurried passersby. The group of agitators was only half out of the rain but did not seem to care.

‘Now this,’ Taki continued, now delineating a smaller circle with the toe of her sandal, ‘is the Corta Obscuri, which actually controls the city. This is made up of the lucky ones from the Lucidi that the chief party chooses which, needless to say, are its own supporters. At the moment it’s the Crystal Standard that runs the Corta Obscuri, and so all the current Obscuri members are from Standard families. With me so far?’

The two foreigners nodded dutifully.

‘Right, let’s see if I can lose you with this next bit,’ Taki went on. ‘Now the Lucidi can call for the Corta Obscuri to be reformed at any time. And, if they have enough voices in the Lucidi, another party can take over and appoint a new batch of Obscuri. I should mention now that, aside from their spokeswoman to the Lucidi, nobody knows who’s been picked for the Obscuri at any given time. Only those chosen know who’s really running the show, so all we lesser folks know is which party runs the city this tenday. It’s supposed,’ she added, with an ironic smile, ‘to prevent corruption.’

‘Why don’t your Lucidi call for a new hand on the tiller every day, then?’ Nero asked her.

‘Because, whoever does ask for that, if it doesn’t happen, that person is thrown out of the Lucidi and the ruling party can choose who fills their shoes,’ Taki told him. ‘So the important people’s supporters get out on the street to intimidate the lesser people, and perhaps a few houses change party, especially the smaller families, who basically have to whore themselves about the place to make ends meet. But a lot of it is down to the shouting, because a lot of people start to jump ship when it looks, out on the street, that someone is getting stronger than they used to be. So maybe our citizens do get to choose who runs them. Just like yours, in a way.’

‘In a way,’ Che agreed weakly. It still sounded a far cry from either Collegium’s polite power-jostling or the elegant, deadly games the Spiders played.