But, also Arianna of the Rekef, the imperial spy gone off the rails. Impossibly, the thought of the risk she could present only seemed to spur some part of him on.

She stood up abruptly. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I – I thought… I have no right…’

Without warning she was trying to dart past him, but he caught her by the shoulders and held her there, practically in the doorway. ‘Wait…’ he began.

The lanternlight brought out the glint of tears in her eyes, and he knew that she could feign it all, being what she was, but his heart almost broke with the strain of it.

She stared up at him, the small breasts beneath her tunic rising and falling. ‘Stenwold…’

I am carving my own coffin. Perhaps it was the fatigue of these last days, or the need to find some spark of life in such dark times, but he had now lost the reins that could hold his desires in check. He bent down almost fearfully, as though she were venomous, but he still kissed her, and she thrust her lips up towards him.

When he awoke the next morning and he turned over to find her there, warm and soft and alive, sharing his bed, it all flooded back in on him, the pleasure he had taken, for which a price was surely yet to be paid. Yet this morning, with the Vekken army already assembling for its next assault, he felt more rested, more vital, than he had in so very long.

Then there was someone rapping on his front door downstairs, and he foresaw the chain of circumstance exactly: Balkus answering the door and lumbering upstairs to deliver some message, then not comprehending why his employer was sleeping with an enemy agent. He pushed himself out of bed and slung a robe on.

He hurried downstairs in time to intercept Balkus, recognizing the thin, bent figure that had come to see him this morning.

‘Doctor Nicrephos?’ Stenwold asked blankly. Could matters be so desperate that they were drafting such an ancient Moth as this to be a messenger? ‘Is it the wall? What news?’

‘Master Maker… Stenwold,’ Doctor Nicrephos hovered awkwardly on the threshold. ‘We have known each other for…’

‘We’ve done business for years,’ Stenwold agreed. ‘But why…?’

‘I need your help,’ the old Moth said, ‘and I know no one else who might even listen. Tell me, what do you know of the Darakyon?’

The Vekken woke like clockwork. Thalric had witnessed it each morning of the siege. Each morning, at precisely an hour before dawn, every single soldier in their army arose and drew on his armour, buckled on his sword. No words, no sound but the clink of mail. Walking down their lines of tents, Thalric felt a shiver at the sheer brutality of their discipline, that strode roughshod over everything in its path.

Except perhaps this siege was starting to tell on them, he reflected. This morning they seemed a touch off-kilter, their timing fouled by something. A few of them were even running late, hurrying with their buckles, no doubt under the withering scorn of their peers.

For some reason the Ant-kinden had passed a troubled night, he decided, and that was curious. Still, the siege had been now many days in the making. The casualties amongst the Vekken had been, in Akalia’s words, ‘acceptable’, though, to Thalric’s eyes, seeming far too high if these Ants were as good as they were supposed to be. Even Ant-kinden would get their edges blunted eventually, under such punishing treatment. Still, it seemed strange that, on this morning, a malaise should be so marked amongst them.

Ant-kinden, he thought, mockingly. They even go off the rails in unison.

He saw Lorica threading her way through the Vekken towards him, unconsciously falling in with their mechanical rhythm, getting in no one’s way and finding her path without having to seek it. She too looked out of sorts, though, and was frowning.

‘Something wrong?’ he asked her.

‘Possibly.’ She rubbed the back of her neck, her eyes still heavy with lost sleep. ‘You should know, Major. There’s been a visitor to the camp.’

‘Speak.’

‘A Fly-kinden messenger came in, for Major Daklan’s ears only.’

Thalric let his breath out in a long sigh. ‘That could mean many things.’

‘He was from the Empire, I’m sure of it,’ Lorica told him. ‘Imperial Fly-kinden have a kind of a look, and they hold themselves a different way. They know they’re onto a good thing.’

Thalric nodded. Outside his tent he could now hear the louder pieces of Vekken artillery launching at the walls of Collegium. The actual fighting was just a distant murmur beyond.

‘You’ve cast your lot,’ he told the halfbreed. ‘I don’t know if you’ll regret it, but I hope not.’

‘I respect you, Major Thalric,’ she said candidly. ‘And I hope you value me, since Major Daklan certainly doesn’t. Do you know what’s going on, sir?’

‘For certain? No.’

‘But you suspect.’

‘I have seen this before, and too many times,’ said Thalric, wearily thinking, And most of the time I have been on the other side of it. Secret messages from the Empire, and for Daklan’s ears only. ‘Perhaps it’s nothing significant.’

‘You don’t believe that, sir.’

‘No, I don’t, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true.’ He stood, shaking his head. ‘How do you think the siege is going, Lorica?’

She had stood watching with him, now she frowned. ‘I’m no strategist.’

‘If you’d asked me yesterday I would have said well. Now something’s changed, and this message doesn’t make me any happier. I’m going to talk to Daklan.’

‘Is that wise, Major?’

He managed a smile. ‘Lorica, I am a simple man. Nobody ever believes me when I say that, but it’s true. I like my life simple. I am for the Empire, and I should therefore stand shoulder to shoulder with everyone else who is, and face with a drawn sword all those who are not. That is simple. you see, but someone is trying to complicate my life. I’m going to talk to Daklan, to discover precisely what he’s not telling me.’

He found Major Daklan out by the artillery positions, with Lieutenant Haroc nearby as his constant shadow.

‘Major, how goes the war?’

Daklan’s face was so devoid of guile that it was evidence of guilt in itself. ‘Well enough, Major Thalric.’

‘The Vekken seemed slow off the mark this morning, I thought,’ Thalric said. Daklan gave a glance over at Haroc and then nodded.

‘I cannot explain it. I heard some talk of disturbed sleep, no more.’

‘You don’t think they’re losing their stomach for the campaign?’

‘Not at all.’ Daklan shook his head. ‘Tactician Akalia seems satisfied with their progress. Every day they are closer to breaking the wall, or taking it by storm.’

‘She’s a cold woman,’ Thalric observed. ‘I’ve heard some of the casualty figures.’

‘That’s Ants for you,’ said Daklan dismissively. ‘The ships, the artillery, the men – she’s only looking for the victory. Whatever has unsettled her men clearly hasn’t reached her yet. Perhaps the Collegiates have developed some kind of mind-affecting gas that has drifted over here. Ant-kinden are strong of body, but they lack our strength of will. They would be more easily swayed than we.’

Thalric nodded carefully, and then said, as offhandedly as he could make it, ‘I hear there was a messenger from command.’

Perhaps there was a moment’s flicker in Daklan’s eyes. ‘Nothing to worry youself with, Major. Helleron has fallen to our troops, or rather, has capitulated. The Winged Furies now threaten Sarn and so the siege here will not be relieved.’

‘Good,’ Thalric decided. ‘Then all we have to do is wait.’ He turned and walked back towards the camp, knowing coldly that Daklan had been lying, and that his days of cherished simplicity were gone.

They had been shadowing the Vekken army since it first came in sight, and had been given an unexpectedly good view of the first day’s festivities. All that time, he had kept his head low, which was a skill he had acquired over many years of doubtful company, while Felise Mienn had gone about her business as freely as she pleased.