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‘They have a prince at Suon Ren, don’t they?’ he asked, casting his mind back to the war. Isn’t this where Stenwold Maker was heading in search of Commonwealer allies?

‘A big one, I think,’ Varmen agreed. ‘Going to seek an audience, are you?’

‘I need help.’ Thalric glanced down at Che. ‘I need a doctor, or at least what passes for one in this place. Problem is, I can’t see how two war veterans like us will carry much weight when it comes to exacting favours from princes . . .’ A flicker of movement caught his eye, and now he saw a handful of Dragonflies approaching. Two of them were armoured in a way that was depressingly familiar, provoking a momentary recollection of men and women like that seen on the battlefield, glittering and graceful, and doomed.

They landed in front of the two Wasps: two warriors in shimmering mail, and another man who was lean and grey, wearing what Thalric took to be fine clothes of the local cut. Whereas the warriors held swords and were watching the Wasps warily, their leader had eyes only for Che.

Something twitched in the Dragonfly’s face, as he studied her, and he said, ‘She must be taken before Prince Felipe.’

Thalric exchanged a glance with Varmen. ‘Then we must go with her.’

The Dragonfly regarded him narrowly, but nodded agreement at last, and Thalric wondered whether the man simply felt it was too dangerous to leave two Wasp-kinden running loose. ‘Send for a stretcher and bearers,’ he ordered one of his fellows. ‘She must be shown respect.’

At that moment Che awoke, wide-eyed, flinging an arm out as though to protect herself, crying out wordlessly. There were tears in her eyes.

Thalric looked at the Dragonflies to see if this display had diminished their ‘respect’, but to his surprise he saw that, if anything, they were eyeing Che with a measure of superstitious awe.

Entering Suon Ren, Thalric caught Varmen’s eye, and thought he saw a kindred look of recognition on the man’s face. For both of them equally, this pure Commonweal architecture must provoke memories of once putting it to the torch.

Their escort took them to the exact centre of the town, a broad area of open space that must serve as a meeting place or muster or market for the people of Suon Ren. All the locals were staring, perhaps wondering if this was some precursor to further Imperial aggression. The adults’ faces were hostile, yet fearful, as though even just two Wasps posed a danger to their entire town. The children, however, pointed and whispered, and soon the oldest of them were exercising their Art wings, seeing who could swoop closest to the dreaded enemy. Some even mimed being seared by stingshot, spiralling from the air to collapse with great theatrics. To Thalric it all seemed in horribly bad taste, from these children who had surely lost relatives in the war.

‘We will now take her to the prince,’ explained the leader of the escort. ‘You will stay here.’

‘Now wait – where she goes, I go,’ Thalric insisted, but the man merely raised an eyebrow. He jerked his head slightly in the direction of the wooden-frame castle on the hill, and Thalric saw that another half-dozen soldiers had appeared from it, with bows in hand.

‘You will wait here,’ the Dragonfly repeated, as though instructing a slow student. The stretcher-bearers took up their burden once again, and they set off for the castle.

There was just a moment when Thalric thought of going after them, bows or not, but then his common sense reasserted itself. He had no feeling to suggest that the Commonwealers actually meant Che any harm, and perhaps it was sensible for a prince to avoid private audiences with the Wasp-kinden.

Varmen himself sat down, and his pack-beetle drew close and nuzzled at him until he unwrapped a parcel of nuts for it to grind away at. After a while, Thalric joined him, as there seemed little else to do. The adult Commonwealers around them were studiously not paying the strangers too much attention, but at the same time were not dispersing either, each finding some reason to stay within sight of the two Wasps.

‘Executions all