As he stepped down, his most senior captain came to salute before him. ‘No resistance, sir. None at all. Aside from knives and a few hunting bows, not even any arms to speak of. Of course, there may be others concealed further in.’

‘And what statement have they made? Do they wish to negotiate? Is this a surrender or merely a truce, Captain?’ Tegrec loved the sound of his own voice, a cherished vanity: it was smooth and supple, and made up for the lack of height and hair.

‘A woman speaks for them, sir,’ the captain said derisively. ‘She says they know they cannot resist our superior strength, therefore they will accede to the Emperor’s authority.’

‘And you don’t believe that,’ Tegrec noted. It was clear that this veteran soldier wanted his quota of violence. ‘It has been known, captain, that, whether through pragmatism or genuine enthusiasm, some communities succumb to the Emperor’s legions with never a blow struck. Fly-kinden and Beetle-kinden, for example, all sensible and peaceable types. The Empire has, as yet, no Moth-kinden within it, but they are reckoned wise, so why should they not take the sensible course?’

‘Sir, they are also said to be clever,’ said the captain, as though this was the ultimate insult.

‘You expect an ambush in the dark? Well, it is possible.’ Tegrec had to keep reminding himself that it was entirely possible. The ground he stood on, the plans he had made, were all quite open to change. ‘However, we can torch their fields and besiege them, starve them out, destroy their carvings, even haul Mole Crickets up here to tear away their stone. They know this, captain, because they are not fools. I will parley with their leaders, and explain to them what the Empire shall require in terms of garrison, taxes and the like. I am otherwise willing to spare the Empire’s resources, and the lives of her soldiers.’

The captain nodded, clearly still not convinced. ‘Their woman, she said that their leaders – she called them something but I can’t recall quite what – would be waiting to offer their formal surrender to you.’

Skryres, Tegrec recalled, and the word made his heart race a little. ‘Very good, Captain,’ he said calmly, as Raeka stepped up beside him, bearing his sword for him. ‘I see no reason to delay, so lead me to them.’

They brought him to the Tharen spokeswoman first, a slight, grey-skinned woman of close on his own age. She was dressed in the elegant robes that all Moths of a certain station seemed to wear. So colourless, all of them: grey stone and grey skins, grey robes and white eyes and dark hair. This one was attractive, though, in an exotic kind of way, and he had a reputation for lechery to maintain, both amongst his own people and the slaves he kept. Not Raeka, though, never her. She was too precious to him to use up and cast aside.

Knowing the eyes of the army were on him, he gripped the Moth spokeswoman’s chin in one hand and tilted her head back so that he could admire her face, then her profile. In a voice that would not carry past his guards he said, ‘And you are Xaraea, I believe.’

‘I am, Governor,’ she said.

‘And the… the Skryres are waiting, are they not?’

‘For the pleasure of your company, Governor.’

He could see she was on edge. They had never met before, but he had received so many messages from her, or from her Arcanum, that he felt he knew her. He could see the uncertainty behind the proud defiance.

‘Take me to them,’ he directed.

The Moths had lit lamps for him. It was a considerate touch. The lit path led to an amphitheatre, its rings of stone seats quite empty of spectators, but the bluish-white lanterns cast shadows there instead. Three Moth-kinden, none of them young, were awaiting him at the far end. Looking from face to face, he found he could not read them. If they were trembling at the change he brought with him or if they were contemptuous, even if they were plotting to betray him already, he could not tell.

‘You may leave us, Captain,’ Tegrec said.

‘Sir?’

‘A simple enough order, was it not?’ Tegrec arched an eyebrow at the man. ‘I have my guards, Captain.’

The captain eyed the Mantis-kinden guards as if to say they were all very well, but they were not imperial soldiers. ‘Sir, are you…?’

‘Do you genuinely fear they will use their Art on me, to rob me of my wits? I assure you, I am proof against it.’

‘It’s not that, sir, but…’

Seeing the man’s expression, containing fear and hatred and doubt all mixed, Tegrec laughed quietly. ‘Surely you do not think they will… what? Bewitch me? I had not put you down as some superstitious savage, Captain.’

‘Of course not, sir.’ The man looked rebellious but saluted, and led his soldiers out.

And let us see if this gamble pays a dividend, thought Tegrec. For if it does not, then neither Tharn nor I will do well out of it. He nodded to his guards, and they stepped back a pace, leaving only Raeka immediately beside him.

Seeing the soldiers leave, Xaraea took a place halfway between him and her masters.

‘Elders of Tharn,’ he said, his voice, even when pitched low, resonating about the chamber. ‘Skryres of the Moth-kinden, I am Tegrec, Major of the Imperial Army. Do I need any further introduction?’

‘You are the one the Wasp Emperor has sent to rule over our city,’ answered the middle of the three.

‘I hope I’m more than that,’ he told them. Despite their stern countenances he sat himself down on the lowest tier of seats. ‘A great deal of work has gone into bringing me here: me, rather than some other candidate for the governorship. My work and hers have brought this about, to name but two.’ He nodded at Xaraea, but she had her head down, in respect for her leaders, and did not notice.

‘What do you bring down upon us here, Wasp-kinden?’ said another of the Skryres. ‘We know your kind only too well.’

‘I bring the Emperor’s rule.’

‘And what does that imply?’ said the woman Skryre. Her tone suggested she was one step ahead of the conversation, knowing his answer already.

‘An interesting question,’ he allowed. ‘The Empire is only here for two reasons: one concerns the skirmish that happened months before Helleron was even taken, in which your people killed a few of our soldiers. The other is merely a happenstance of geography, since the Empire doesn’t miss out towns along the way. There is no more to it than that, nor any great burden on me – so I can be whatever kind of governor I like.’

She smiled thinly. ‘And what would you like, O Governor Tegrec? What is it you want from us?’

The words almost stuck in his throat, and glancing at Xaraea was no help to him. In the end he could not simply blurt it out. He had hidden his handicap for too long. ‘Do you see this woman here?’ he asked, indicating Raeka.

‘Your slave, we take her for,’ one of the other Skryres remarked. Tegrec had the sense of much conversation going on between them that he could not hear, as though they were Ant-kinden who could pass words silently and freely among themselves.

‘My slave, indeed. She goes everywhere with me and even sleeps at the foot of my bed. She is very useful, since she can read technical plans and evaluate siege artillery. She can fly orthopters and other such machines. There is one other reason, though, why she is so very essential to me. Can you imagine why?’

Although they made no sign of it, he was sure they already knew.

‘She opens doors for me. They all think that a great affectation of mine, but in fact it is to hide a certain handicap I must live with. She opens doors because, faced with locks and latches, I can make no sense of them. You understand me.’

The woman Skryre came forward, staring at him intently. ‘Yes, we see,’ she said. ‘You are Inapt.’

‘I am a freak amongst my own people,’ he confessed, without any rancour. ‘What they all take for granted, I can never be a part of. But there are compensations nonetheless. I was always a reader, as a child, and from that, once grown, I passed on to stranger matters. In my library I had several tomes acquired at the start of the Twelve-Year War against the Commonweal: books my kin could never comprehend, but I could.’