War Master's Gate by Adrian Tchaikovsky Page B

for it now but to read.
    That done, she read it all again, and even checked the signature for authenticity.
    ‘Madness,’ she murmured, and then hurried towards the bookbinder’s shop, opening the side-door and taking the stairs to Eujen’s lodgings three at a time.
    Eujen already had company, but she expected that. It was Averic the Wasp scholar – the Wasp
renegade,
she supposed he was now, for he wouldn’t be going home any time soon
– and the two of them were plainly midway through planning something, judging by the quantity of paper strewn about the small room.
    ‘What’s this? Plotting to overthrow the Assembly?’ she observed, rather too heartily.
    Eujen regarded her warily. ‘Those plans were laid a long time ago,’ he said, trying to match her jovial tone. ‘Just training schedules for the Student Company.’ Meaning
his own project: that odd little band of amateur soldiers he had raised after she had persuaded him not to follow her into the regular military. Eujen Leadswell was a conflicted man: he had spent
his life protesting against war – war with the Empire especially. He had debated constantly on the subject, accusing those who vilified the Wasps of bringing closer the very conflict claimed
to be guarding against. Now that war was upon them, Eujen did not know whether he had been a prophet or a fool.
    ‘That’s going well?’ She had always adopted an acerbic manner even amongst her friends, and normally it was accepted no more seriously than she meant it, but she and Eujen had
not been seeing eye to eye recently.
    ‘We’re fine. We may not be your regulars, but we’re making real progress.’ His answer was too quick and too defensive. He was frightened for her, and resentful of the
Companies that took her away from him, and so they argued, and were reconciled, and argued yet again. Averic was already looking ill at ease, and she guessed he might start making his excuses
soon.
    She wanted a fight with Eujen because at least she knew the rules to that game. She wanted to joke with him. The orders in her hand felt like they were burning her fingers.
    ‘They were saying that, now you’ve got your Student Company, you’ll be forming a Student Assembly next,’ she put in. Anything to lighten the mood.
    Eujen fixed her with a solemn stare. ‘Were they?’
    ‘You’re not, are you?’ Because that would be ridiculous. Because it would also be
just
like Eujen.
    ‘Do you know it’s more than a month since the Assembly last met properly?’ Eujen asked her. ‘The elected government of Collegium?’
    ‘Yes, but—’
    ‘Do you know who’s now running the city? Making all the important decisions?’ he pressed her. ‘Because I can give you a handful of names – Maker, Drillen, Padstock
– but of the rest? Nobody knows. It’s whoever they call on, their friends and allies, and whoever the new chief officers are. The whole basis of our city-state just gone.’
    ‘Since the Amphiophos was bombed—’
    ‘Let them meet at the College. Let them meet in a marketplace,’ Eujen contested hotly. ‘The
place
wasn’t important. The institution was. And now they’ve
done away with it!’
    ‘Only until the Wasps—’ She was getting angry now at being talked over, but he had built his momentum and was running with it.
    ‘And if we beat the Empire back, what then?. Some other threat? Some other excuse?’
    ‘Eujen, we are at
war
! War needs swift decisions, firm leadership.’ Even as she shouted the words at him, she realized that she did not necessarily believe them, but he was
casting her as the establishment by virtue of her rank within the Companies. She had become an apologist for Stenwold Maker without ever being asked – and that, of course, just made her
angrier.
    ‘Right,’ Averic stood up, as she had known he would, ‘I’ll just—’
    ‘You stay right there.’ Her mere glower halted him. ‘I’ve got work to do.’
    Eujen, who had a lot of argument in him yet