and perhaps you’ll hear something to your advantage.’
Over the next hour Stenwold learned more than he could use of the petty doings of the docks. Had he been looking to invest in some unlicensed trade, he would have been doing very well indeed, but nothing shed light on Failwright’s notes, still less his disappearance. Once or twice he had the impression that, if he cast aside his feigned disinterest and asked a direct question, he might startle something useful from an informant, but he was keenly aware that he was feeling out an unfamiliar place blind. It was imperative that he did not send advance warning to those he was trying to uncover.
After that he tried a narrow room that lay practically on the waterfront, open to the sea, the interior a forest of columns. Here the Mantis-kinden refugees and expatriates came to talk and drink. They would sit with their backs to the wooden pillars, and plot the downfall of their enemies or tell each other stories of their great days, whilst a young man sang something low and mournful in the shadows towards the back. Stenwold spent an awkward time here, constantly feeling that blades were being unsheathed around the bulk of the column he had set his back to, and he learned very little.
He next tried a Fly-kinden taverna, where the front room was the only space he could physically fit into. The Flies were suspicious of him. Many of them came forward with information, but much of it was patently made up on the spot. They were a clannish lot and, as he left there, he had the sense of being followed. By this time it was getting dark, and he knew he should return home, but he was feeling out of sorts and frustrated by now, awash in a sea of useless information.
He proceeded on to a gambling den set up in what had once been part of the port offices. The Vekken fleet had burned the place out, the Port Authority had relocated, and nothing official had since been found to fill the gap. Now the rotten tooth of the building’s shell had been fitted out with tables and chairs, where men and women of many kinden were talking and dicing with one another. Stenwold made himself known to the proprietor, a slab-faced Beetle woman, then elbowed his way to a small table to see what his nets might bring in.
There were two petty smugglers whose boat had been sunk by a rival band, and who were obviously hoping Stenwold would invest in their meagre skills. There was a drunken old man whose rambling lies swooped between versions of events like the moths that skittered between the den’s three hanging lamps. Stenwold eventually disposed of the ancient opportunist by giving him some coins for another drink, then sank back into his chair, feeling disgusted with himself.
If this was Helleron , he thought, I’d know what I wanted by now. Of course, Helleron had no port, no piracy, no tradition of the romantic freebooter that had been fashionable in Stenwold’s youth. He remembered stories, songs, even plays. The pirate as anti-hero had enjoyed a brief vogue then amongst Collegium’s wealthy middle classes even as some five or six notorious corsairs, and perhaps a dozen anonymous ones, had savaged the previous generation’s coastal trade, turning from criminals to posthumous heroes in fifteen years. There had been a Mantis captain known as Arthemae with her scarred face; the ruthless Bloodfly who would slay every crewman left on his prize if one but lifted a knife against him; the Beetle Gavriel Knowless with his ship the Ironcoat . . .
A shadow fell over Stenwold, eclipsing the guttering light and cutting loose his reverie. He looked up to see a stout Beetle man leaning over his table.
‘Yes?’
‘Laem said you’re asking questions,’ the big Beetle said.
Stenwold shrugged. ‘And?’ He had already caught the tone: whatever his questions, this man was not here to answer them.
‘And you got money,’ the man said, reminding Stenwold briefly and inappropriately of a student trying to
Over the next hour Stenwold learned more than he could use of the petty doings of the docks. Had he been looking to invest in some unlicensed trade, he would have been doing very well indeed, but nothing shed light on Failwright’s notes, still less his disappearance. Once or twice he had the impression that, if he cast aside his feigned disinterest and asked a direct question, he might startle something useful from an informant, but he was keenly aware that he was feeling out an unfamiliar place blind. It was imperative that he did not send advance warning to those he was trying to uncover.
After that he tried a narrow room that lay practically on the waterfront, open to the sea, the interior a forest of columns. Here the Mantis-kinden refugees and expatriates came to talk and drink. They would sit with their backs to the wooden pillars, and plot the downfall of their enemies or tell each other stories of their great days, whilst a young man sang something low and mournful in the shadows towards the back. Stenwold spent an awkward time here, constantly feeling that blades were being unsheathed around the bulk of the column he had set his back to, and he learned very little.
He next tried a Fly-kinden taverna, where the front room was the only space he could physically fit into. The Flies were suspicious of him. Many of them came forward with information, but much of it was patently made up on the spot. They were a clannish lot and, as he left there, he had the sense of being followed. By this time it was getting dark, and he knew he should return home, but he was feeling out of sorts and frustrated by now, awash in a sea of useless information.
He proceeded on to a gambling den set up in what had once been part of the port offices. The Vekken fleet had burned the place out, the Port Authority had relocated, and nothing official had since been found to fill the gap. Now the rotten tooth of the building’s shell had been fitted out with tables and chairs, where men and women of many kinden were talking and dicing with one another. Stenwold made himself known to the proprietor, a slab-faced Beetle woman, then elbowed his way to a small table to see what his nets might bring in.
There were two petty smugglers whose boat had been sunk by a rival band, and who were obviously hoping Stenwold would invest in their meagre skills. There was a drunken old man whose rambling lies swooped between versions of events like the moths that skittered between the den’s three hanging lamps. Stenwold eventually disposed of the ancient opportunist by giving him some coins for another drink, then sank back into his chair, feeling disgusted with himself.
If this was Helleron , he thought, I’d know what I wanted by now. Of course, Helleron had no port, no piracy, no tradition of the romantic freebooter that had been fashionable in Stenwold’s youth. He remembered stories, songs, even plays. The pirate as anti-hero had enjoyed a brief vogue then amongst Collegium’s wealthy middle classes even as some five or six notorious corsairs, and perhaps a dozen anonymous ones, had savaged the previous generation’s coastal trade, turning from criminals to posthumous heroes in fifteen years. There had been a Mantis captain known as Arthemae with her scarred face; the ruthless Bloodfly who would slay every crewman left on his prize if one but lifted a knife against him; the Beetle Gavriel Knowless with his ship the Ironcoat . . .
A shadow fell over Stenwold, eclipsing the guttering light and cutting loose his reverie. He looked up to see a stout Beetle man leaning over his table.
‘Yes?’
‘Laem said you’re asking questions,’ the big Beetle said.
Stenwold shrugged. ‘And?’ He had already caught the tone: whatever his questions, this man was not here to answer them.
‘And you got money,’ the man said, reminding Stenwold briefly and inappropriately of a student trying to
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