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He glanced from one to the other of the two influential-looking Wasps. The younger man looked like a merchant factor or quartermaster, the kind of Consortium type that Thalric had never much either liked or trusted. The older one still wore his Slave Corps tabard over his finery, as the badge of the Empire, no matter how debased, seemed to be a harder currency here than within the Wasps’ own lands.

In the end he chose the merchant, as the lesser of two evils. The thin-faced man looked to be about thirty, with a great deal of locally crafted gold about him. His retinue included a few Wasp guards, but they were outnumbered by the Commonwealer servants or slaves attending on him, including a pair of well-favoured Dragonfly women taking turns at feeding him sweetmeats.

‘May we join you, sir?’ Thalric asked. As he had guessed, the Imperial term of respect carried disproportionate weight here. The merchant, who would have been far from a ‘sir’ to Thalric back in the Empire, smiled as broadly as his narrow face would permit.

‘Well met, travellers on the road,’ he announced, indicating that Thalric should find a space of floor close by. ‘We have business together?’

‘We might, sir.’ Thalric was already fleshing out the details of his lie even as he spoke. ‘I’m but recently arrived here from Capitas, scouting for markets.’

The merchant raised his eyebrows. ‘A factor, then? Who for?’

‘Consortium,’ Thalric confirmed, but allowed the man’s sly smile to prompt an addition, ‘Horatio Malvern.’ The Malverns were well known as a powerful family in the Consortium, and Horatio as one of their aspiring sons. Thalric’s grasp of the intricate politics of the Imperial merchant clans did not run deep, but it was broad enough to fake a first meeting like this.

The Wasp merchant’s smile in response was knowing, and told Thalric a lot. ‘Well, the Malverns must know that we have all marked out our territories already, those of us Left Behind.’ He put a formal stress on the words. ‘If the Consortium wishes to run things here, then we may have difficulties . . .’

‘On the other hand, if my masters were simply looking for someone to deal with, for Commonweal goods . . .’ Thalric ventured. He was aware of Che, at his elbow, watching him with mixed amusement and fascination.

‘Then we will no doubt get on extraordinarily well,’ the merchant announced. ‘I am Merchant-Colonel Aarth, and we are clearly well met.’

Thalric was at pains to nod solemnly at the absurd rank. Clearly those ‘Left Behind’ by the Empire’s formal withdrawal from the Principalities had wasted no time in handing out the promotions. He guessed that, when the world around here had still been sane, Aarth had been no more than Thalric was currently pretending to be: a merchant family’s roaming factor, lacking in either power or respect.

‘Aulric, Consortium sergeant,’ Thalric replied humbly. For impromptu identities, best practice recommended a name close enough to the truth for him to respond to it without hesitation. ‘Tell me, Colonel . . . My masters told me that there were Wasps still in the conquered principalities, but I had expected to find . . .’

‘War?’ Aarth completed for him. ‘All of us holed up in castles and forts, surrounded by a besieging horde? Not at all. Oh, there were some that were worried. The top people, the magnates and generals and governors, they all got out as soon as the news came and left us to our fate. They’d been keeping well apart from the locals, see? They were expecting this to become another Myna.’ He smiled, not without a touch of self-mockery that made Thalric like him more. ‘I won’t deny that we were worried, but then we realized we weren’t the only ones. Everyone left alive here was looking at each other and seeing that the nobles are dead, the generals are gone . . . You might not credit it, but a lot of locals here were just as concerned about the Commonweal coming back and lumbering them with another pack of princes.’ A broad grin, from a man who plainly thought he had made the right choice back then. ‘So most of the enterprising