Tynisa had not seen a gondola quite so grand since the Sky Without. Founder Bellowern’s temporary home was now virtually the most sumptuous building in Jerez, larger in all dimensions than the genuine houses around it. It was also apparently impregnable. There was a hatch, but it was ten feet off the ground and looked firmly closed. The windows were too small for even a Fly to get through. Conceivably there must be hatches on the deck above, but she would have to wait until dark before climbing up there.

She realized she did not even know whether Tisamon possessed the Art to climb a sheer surface like this. It was always a social awkwardness, asking questions about another’s Art, but she already knew that he could not take to the air as some Mantids did. His Art seemed concentrated in the spines on his arms and in the honed skill gifted to the Mantis-kinden in the simple business of killing people.

After they had been scouting out Bellowern’s place for about ten minutes, a Skater-kinden child approached them. Tynisa stared at the creature without affection, for the locals’ children were even less appealing than they were. The starved-looking thing, who could equally have been a boy or a girl, began a brief conversation with Skrit and then handed over a scroll. It was only after a moment that Tynisa spotted the relevance: the locals never used paper.

‘It’s from the man in the house,’ Skrit announced, for all the world as though she had just performed some public service. She held the rolled document out to them and Tynisa took it, breaking the neat seal and reading.

‘To Master Mantis and Madam Spider: I shall be taking my ease shortly at the taverna delightfully known as the Bag of Leeches and you are cordially invited to join me in the open where we can both be assured of a minimum of surprises.’ Her mouth twisted wryly. ‘This is getting to be a habit,’ she noted.

‘Bellowern,’ Tisamon said, and she nodded.

‘We’re on Skater-kinden ground, Tisamon. He’s wise enough to have some local eyes minding his business. If we do meet him, is this going to get messy?’

Tisamon’s expression worried her. He did not understand what was going on, and that made him jumpy, therefore dangerous. ‘We’ll meet him,’ he decided. ‘If the Beetle does want a fight then I’ve no objections. But eat nothing, drink nothing while in his company.’

‘He’s not going to be impressed with that.’

‘Good.’

Skrit guided them to the place mentioned: there was a large leather bag hanging over the low doorway, but Tynisa was not going to prod it to test the claim. Like most of the Skater buildings, the front was composed just of poles, shutter panels taken away each morning to let the dank air in, with all the rot and fish smells of Lake Limnia riding on it. They chose a large, uneven-legged table with a good view of the street and sat waiting, but not for long.

The affluent-looking Beetle-kinden that arrived after them, only a minute away from being on their heels, was identified by Skrit as Bellowern. He had a retinue with him, and Tynisa felt Tisamon tense at the sight: a dozen Wasp soldiers out of uniform, but surely army men seconded to the Consortium, plus at least half a dozen servants. Tisamon’s hand gestured briefly upwards, and she saw a Fly-kinden keeping watch up there, between the roofs and the cloud-hung sky.

‘Trusting sort, isn’t he?’ the Mantis murmured, as Founder Bellowern passed beneath the suspect leather bag and spotted them at their table. He was lean for a Beetle, but his dark skin and the receding grey hair cropped close to his skull were oddly reminiscent of Stenwold. He wore clothes in drab colours – black breeches, grey tunic and a dun shirt – but the cloth was all of the finest. Tynisa guessed from the way the tunic hung that he had armour beneath it, at least a leather vest and possibly more. At his belt there was a dagger that was almost a shortsword, mostly hidden by a plate-sized buckler shield. As a result he looked less the merchant lord and more the successful mercenary captain.

He looked them over, clearly weighing them up, and then sat down opposite them as easily as if he had known them for years. At a gesture, his guards positioned themselves around the taproom while his servants stood respectfully a few paces back.

‘I give up,’ Founder Bellowern said. ‘Who in the wastes are you?’

‘A curious question,’ Tynisa said.

‘I’m a curious man. You breeze in on a little airship, along with a Moth-kinden nobody seems to know, but whose name, my people inform me, is Achaeos – a new name to me. You could just be some pack of mercenary adventurers, a type that Jerez seems to attract like a corpse pulls flies. But then you start asking all the right questions to make it sound as if you’re genuine players. So what gives?’

‘You seem to be working on the assumption that we somehow answer to you,’ Tisamon said, low-voiced. His eyes were passing from one guard to the next, and Tynisa sensed a slight uncertainty in him. It was, she knew, because the guards were not watching Tisamon. Instead they were looking elsewhere, looking outwards. Then Tisamon’s gaze passed on to the servants, where it halted once again.

Bellowern smiled. ‘If I was that interested, I could easily find out,’ he told them. ‘But let me tell you what I think: you’re here with some two-bit quack conjuror who’s got just enough talent to be aware that something’s happening. Maybe he wants in. If so he’s going to be disappointed. I don’t say that to be unpleasant but the stakes are very high for this game. He simply can’t afford it, any of it.’

‘So you’re warning us off,’ Tynisa said. ‘You’ll forgive us if we don’t thank you for your wisdom and scurry away, right now.’

Bellowern grinned at her, unexpectedly boyish just for that brief moment. ‘Just what I expected to hear. Am I supposed to have my soldiers muscle over now and bend some iron bars to frighten you? Or perhaps I should just make veiled threats. Hmm, let me think…’

Tynisa had to fight an answering smile. It was very like her first meeting with Teornis, and she had not expected that here. The Beetle before her had been a man of influence in the Empire for decades, and a man whose influence was based on trade, not on the all-important military. She should have foreseen a certain deftness of manner.

‘Who is she?’ Tisamon said abruptly, and Founder’s entire bearing changed. All of a sudden his guards were watching, hands poised to unleash their stings. Caught off guard, Tynisa followed Tisamon’s gaze to one of Founder’s servants, a Spider-kinden girl, quite young… Or perhaps not wholly Spider? There was something odd about her, for certain.

‘Why do you ask?’ Founder said tightly, and Tynisa sensed that, for reasons beyond her, Tisamon’s next words could easily give them the fight he had been spoiling for.

‘I don’t know,’ the Mantis said slowly. ‘What’s wrong with her?’

‘Nothing,’ said Founder, and the tension ebbed away invisibly, but sensed by everyone there. ‘Just a new acquisition of mine.’

‘A slave?’

Founder’s smile was harder this time. ‘I had forgotten how much your kinden dislikes that trade. Well, you are in the Empire now, so fight a man for owning slaves and you’ll have more work than you have years to do it in.’

Tisamon’s returning look was cold, but he said nothing.

‘I believe you were warning us off,’ Tynisa prompted.

‘Actually, I wasn’t.’ Founder looked between her and the Mantis, as though weighing them on his merchant’s scales. ‘You see, it may surprise you to know that I recognize that badge there, that both of you are wearing. I’m a man of strange interests, which is of course why I’m here at all.’ The smile, the harder one, broadened. ‘I don’t know how much your little scholar is paying the two of you, but how would you like to work for me and earn yourselves a wage more worthy of your skills?’