Heirs of the Blade_ Shadows of the Apt_ Book Seven - Adiran Tchaikovsky [270]
At his proclaimed rank, a tide of laughter welled up, and an eddy of angry calls for the crossed pikes, amid jeers and threats. Seda held the gaze of Torste Sain the Dragonfly general, noticing his jaw clench and his shoulders hunch, as though readying himself for the rod.
She stood up abruptly and the room went silent, waiting for the Imperial verdict and for the downfall of these strange visitors. Instead, she turned her gaze upon her own court, and few enough of them dared meet her eyes the way the Dragonfly had.
‘How dare you mock?’ she demanded, not loudly, but sharply enough to reach the back of the room. ‘What do you find here that is worthy of your humour? Is there a general of our Empire who would dare to stand thus in the heart of a foreign state, facing every expectation of a swift execution? Would any of you risk your lives in the halls of the Spider-kinden Aristoi, or the royal court of some hostile Ant city-state?’ Torste Sain was regarding her impassively, so she invited him, ‘General, speak to us of the Principalities.’
At her words the kneeling Dragonfly stood up in a single smooth motion. ‘Great Majesty,’ he announced, ‘I am sent from the Principalities as a humble messenger. Since the borders of Empire shifted, you must know how we have been beset on all sides by the Commonweal to the west, by Myna and its allies to the east. We have had to forge ourselves a new state from the pieces that were left to us, guided by those of your people who remained and being taught the ways of Empire by your former servants. It is with joy that my people have learned the power of the new, Highness. I am proud to bear the rank of general, for I am the first of my kinden ever to do so.’ And he was indeed proud, it was plain to see. Seda wondered if any Wasp-kinden within living memory had felt that honour quite so keenly.
‘And do you seek to rejoin the Empire, General?’ she asked softly.
Taking a deep breath, he braced himself. ‘Your Highness, no.’
There might have been a uproar then, but her outstretched hands rendered it stillborn.
The general’s two companions were standing markedly closer together now, but he himself had not moved. ‘We honour the Empire,’ he stated. ‘There is no need to take what can be freely given. We shall have tribute for your treasury, Highness. We shall have soldiers to fight alongside your armies. We ask only for recognition as your friends and protection against our mutual enemies.’
This time she let the protests run a little longer, because there were many traditionalists still in her court, and the Empire had always recognized only two classes of geography: those parts of the map already in black and gold, and those parts yet to be painted. That mentality had served well enough to let a single hill tribe swallow up its kindred neighbours, and then put a score of other cities in chains. But the times have changed.
‘The word you seek is “protectorate”,’ she declared, and her court quietened quickly, because speaking over the Empress was seldom forgiven. She looked around at them all, seeing plenty there of shock and outrage, with the old guard ready to decry the insurrection of the Principalities’ Wasp-kinden, and to call for the subjugation of pretenders such as this Torste Sain. There were other expressions to be read too, though. There were thoughtful Consortium merchants, calculating tacticians, scholars of recent history and politics, Beetle-kinden diplomats and agents of the Rekef Outlander. They were thinking as she was thinking, using a logic that had nothing to do with Apt or Inapt.
‘Consider Collegium in the Lowlands,’ she urged her court. ‘How is it that Collegium is not beneath our flag already? Because Collegium never stands alone. When we fought Collegium, we were also fighting Tharn, the Spiderlands, the Sarnesh, Solarno and the Commonweal, not to mention the rebellions in Myna and Szar which Collegiate agents incited. That is how