‘We have no quarrel with your Empire,’ Teornis went on, regardless. ‘We wish you well, in fact, should you decide to sack any other Ant-kinden cities. We are certain, from our intelligence gathered, that you will make us better trading partners than the Tarkesh ever did. I only wish to make sure you understand our position.’
Alder nodded. Matters were falling at last into a recognizable pattern. ‘You want to be sure we’re not coming for you and yours.’
‘Precisely, General.’
‘Well then that’s simple,’ Alder said, now anxious to conclude the interview as quickly as possible. ‘The Empire wishes the Spiderlands nothing but peace. Our business is with the Lowlands only.’
‘Splendid.’ Teornis smiled dazzlingly. ‘I thought as much, but our women back home insisted I put together this expedition and talk to you about it directly.’
Alder allowed himself the smallest answering smile. ‘I had expected to be dealing with a female of your kind, Lord-Martial.’
‘They have better things to do,’ said Teornis, ‘than play soldier.’ It was only later, much later, that Alder recognized this as an insult. At the time Teornis’s tone and expression suggested only one man joking with another. Then the Spider continued, ‘So I anticipate Kes will be your next conquest.’ Alder glanced at the Ant soldiers behind him, but Teornis waved his concerns away. ‘Mercenaries, General, worry not. I am afraid we are a terrible influence on the young men and women of Kes. They see, you understand, that even a servant of ours lives better than a lord of theirs.’
It was hard to deny. ‘Then Kes it is,’ Alder admitted. ‘After we have secured Egel and Merro of course. There will be no forays further southwards, never fear.’
But Teornis’s smile had evaporated and a whole sea-change had blown across the entire Spider embassy, as though sudden winter had rushed in off the coast. ‘Pardon my impudence, General,’ Teornis said, ‘but you contradict yourself.’
Alder resisted the urge to check that his men were still close behind. ‘How so?’ he asked.
‘Egel and Merro are not part of the Lowlands. They are ours.’
Alder stared at him. ‘Not on my maps,’ he said.
‘Your maps aside, General, both Egel and Merro have been holdings of the Spiderlands almost since they were settled. Our own histories are very clear on that point.’
Alder risked a glance at Major Maan, who interpreted that as a chance to speak. ‘I am afraid,’ he said firmly, ‘that you are quite mistaken. Our agents have been informed by the very occupants of those towns that they are Low-landers.’
And Teornis laughed at him, not scornfully but so politely as to cut to the bone. ‘I am afraid that your agents have fallen victim to one of the local Fly-kinden pastimes, which is to playfully misdirect strange travellers. Let us hope that they did not also purchase any priceless gems or talented slaves at bargain prices. I am afraid that the Fly-kinden of these two towns, if indeed they are not simply one town with two names, find it convenient to claim themselves as either Lowlanders or subjects of my own people, depending on the asker. They are a duplicitous and untrustworthy people, and no doubt we would best be rid of them, but nonetheless they are our subjects. Any attempt to impose your Empire’s rule over them would amount to a declaration of war. I am no great strategist, but such a development would I think weaken your Empire’s position.’
‘War, is it?’ Alder growled.
‘I hope it need not come to that. Perhaps you would provide us with your maps and we can then correct them,’ suggested Teornis innocently.
‘You have a mere two hundred men here, Lord-Martial. What do you think would happen if I decided I should send a definite message back to your people?’
Teornis shrugged, slinging a leg up over the arm of his chair. ‘Oh, you’d send them my head in a box, no doubt, which is another reason I’m doing this thankless job and not, say, my sister or my mother. And we would then have to muster our armies, which is a tiresome enough proposal to make me glad that I would be dead by that point. And then we would fight, I suppose.’
Alder narrowed his eyes. ‘Perhaps you should be more concerned, Lord-Martial. I have automotives here, flying machines, artillery. Your people are Inapt. Will you bring bows and arrows against us?’
Teornis’s smile broadened. ‘It’s true,’ he replied, ‘I wouldn’t know what to do with a crossbow, if someone should thrust such a distasteful object into my hands. We do not trouble ourselves with all that greasy machine-fondling that some kinden seem to find so irresistible. No, we have – how shall I put it? – people to do that for us. We have plenty of Ant-kinden and Beetle-kinden hired with us, and many more within our satrapies further south. The Empire is not the only one to have subject peoples. Do not think, General, that we cannot field all that clanking metal palaver if we need to.’
‘So your position is clear,’ Alder said grimly.
‘It is, and it is one of the open hand of friendship – or, as you are Wasps, the closed hand, I believe, is more appropriate. We wish nothing but peace and trade with your mighty and admirable Empire.’ Teornis sprang from his chair effortlessly to look Alder in the eye. ‘But if your hand comes against Egel or Merro or any of our holdings, then you and I, General, shall be at war, and nobody shall profit from that in any way.’
Back in his camp, Alder called his officers together and gave them the situation.
‘I think they’re bluffing,’ he explained, but he saw from their faces he had few takers.
‘A war on two fronts would be disastrous, sir,’ Carvoc said. ‘To take Kes we will need to concentrate all our efforts.’
‘Even if we bypass the Fly townships,’ one of his field majors remarked, ‘they could attack anyway, cut our supply lines.’
‘And we just do not know what they can field,’ Major Maan added. Teornis’ people seemed to have particularly impressed him. ‘The Spiderlands are, we know, very large, and they could bring in troops by sea-’
‘Yes, Major,’ Alder interrupted heavily. Just this morning his world had been so simple. Now his conversation with Teornis had struck it a severe blow and crazed it with far too many complications. He was a soldier, not a diplomat, and he did not want to be the man to go to war with an unmeasured enemy nation.
‘Send the fastest messenger we have back to Asta,’ he said. ‘I need to know imperial policy on this.’
And in the meantime the Fourth Army would sit idle.
The Cloudfarer had reached Helleron through clement weather, but it was not the same city that Totho remembered. Not that he remembered it fondly, but the city that came to his mind instead was Myna, with Wasp soldiers and Auxillians everywhere on the streets, and a hunted look in the eyes of the locals.
General Malkan had come to meet them at the airfield in person, clasping Drephos’s gauntleted hand. Filled with enthusiasm, he seemed barely older than Totho himself.
‘Colonel Drephos, a pleasure,’ he said. ‘Since I heard you were expected here I have had clerks taking stock of every foundry and factory in the city.’
‘Most kind, General,’ Drephos said. ‘Have my people arrived yet?’
‘And your machinery. They all came in with the garrison force.’
‘Excellent.’ Drephos turned to Totho. ‘You have had a chance to consider the plans?’
‘I have, sir.’ In the freezing air that the Cloudfarer flew in, he had been hunched close by the windbreak of the clockwork engine, scribbling his alterations and additions. All for Salma he had reflected. I made this bargain, and now I must keep it. But beyond those sentiments his busy mind had been concerned only with the calculations, the mechanical principles.
‘Then let us unleash them on Helleron,’ Drephos said eagerly. ‘It’s not often I have a whole city to work for me. General Malkan, pray show me what you have for us.’