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Che had woken up with a start then, and not dared go back to sleep.

I really need to talk to someone knowledgeable about this. But she had already made cautious enquiries of Varmen. Hunting magicians was an old practice here in the Principalities, though the game had grown scarce indeed. During the occupation, the Wasps had singled out any who had claimed such powers, not because they believed the claims, but because supposed seers and mystics were often a focus of rebellion amongst Commonweal loyalists. Since the Empire itself had receded, the new lords of the Principalities had apparently kept up the practice with gusto, and if there were any magicians left, they were certainly not announcing it to the world.

But we near the Commonweal proper, assuming Varmen can get us across the border. I will find all the magicians I want amongst the Dragonfly-kinden.

‘What’s your plan for getting over the Commonweal border, then?’ she asked Varmen.

‘We need to hop a barge soon,’ he said. ‘Easiest way, always.’ When Che looked puzzled he explained, ‘They have these canals all over. A couple cross right between the Principalities and the Commonweal proper, see?’

Thalric was frowning. ‘Why not just cross by land. Surely that’s easier?’

‘Oh, you’d think so.’ Varmen gave a grin, then repressed it. Since his discovery of Thalric’s former role in the Empire, his manner had become odd: now friendly, now standoffish, as though he had to keep reminding himself that he didn’t like Thalric any more. Che found his attitude almost endearing. Clearly he was not a man who held grudges well.

And a Wasp, too, like Thalric – and who knows how many other Wasps there are, that I would like if I ever got to know them? She felt a stab of anger at the Empire, and at the Empress who was invading her dreams piecemeal. These people could be so much more, if they were only allowed, but their kin and their rulers sharpen them into weapons, over and over.

‘What?’ said Varmen suspiciously, and she realized that she had been staring at him.

‘Nothing,’ she told him. ‘You were saying about a barge?’

Two days later found them camping beside a slipway, on the banks of a canal that looked as though it had been old when Collegium was built. The great grey stones of its walls had crumbled and fallen away in places, and the water was green and ribboned with weed, dancing with the golden flecks of insects.

‘You see, there’s a whole load of raiding that goes on across the border, heading both ways,’ Varmen was explaining. ‘This side, the local captains and what-have-you are all men who have just a little slice of things, pushed to the edge of power, and so they’re basically bandits in all but name, stealing from their neighbours ’cos they want something to bargain with, with their betters, right? Only, on the other side there’s not much better. No princes or nobles, much, because this is where the army stopped, and the nobles who used to hold all these lands are dead or driven off. So the Commonwealers raid right back, fighting all over the place. Couldn’t tell you where the actual border was, it moves about so much.’ He pointed along the straight line of the canal, where it was cut into the hillside, a water-road running east–west as far as the horizon. ‘There’s trade, though, and ’cos the trade comes from the big noises in the Principalities, and goes to the bigger brigands and the dodgier princes on the other side of the border, it’s not a good idea for your little fellows around here to get in its way. Nobody wants a hundred soldiers turning up and asking awkward questions, right? So the way things work is that only the big boys use the canals – and anyone on land is fair game.’

‘That sounds utterly unworkable,’ Che told him. ‘How could they be sure nobody would try and rob them?’

‘Well, they have guards and the like, and I reckon some of them do get hit, but it must work out all right, most of the time, or they’d not still be doing it.’ He shrugged.