Empire in Black and Gold by Adrian Tchaikovsky Read Free Book Online Page A

only Totho had lost his bout, then the best the Majestic Felbling could have managed was a draw. After drawing, the chosen champions of each team would then fight to decide it, and Piraeus would no doubt emerge victorious, and so, if she lost, it wouldn’t matter. But now, after Totho’s maddening stalemate, victory was apparently hers for the taking.
    She took up her place opposite Falger Paldron. He was a little taller than she was, a dark-faced young Beetle lad, still slightly awkward in his movements. He was no fighter, she decided.
    But nor am I. She was a girl with her hair cut short and her physique cut broad. No Mantis-grace for her, no Ant-precision or Spider-tricks. She was just poor, lamentably named Cheerwell Maker, and she was no good at sports or swords or anything else.
    ‘Salute the book!’ Kymon barked out, and she realized that she already had a sword in her hand. Behind her, the others were clearly watching her every move.

They muttered and moaned as he took the rostrum. These middle-aged merchants, the old College masters, men and women robed in white, reclining comfortably on the stepped stone seats of the Amphiophos. Some of them whispered to each other, scribbled agreements and concluded deals. One Master, stone deaf, read through the writing of his students and tsked loudly at each error he noted. Stenwold gazed upon them and despaired.
    The heart of culture , he told himself. The wonder of the civilized world. The democratic Assembly of Collegium. Give me a thousand Ant mercenaries, let me command where now I can only beg. Then we might get something done!
    Then I would be just like a Wasp indeed, in all but fact. That is why this is worth fighting for. He looked across their bored, distracted faces, writ large with their wealth and rivalries and vested interests.
    ‘You know why I am standing here speaking before you, on today of all days.’
    There was a jeering undercurrent of murmurs, but no outright mockery. Just get on with it , they seemed to say.
    ‘I’ve stood here before,’ Stenwold told them. ‘You all know that. I have stood here often enough that all of you must have heard me at least once. I am no great musician. My tune remains the same.’
    ‘Can we not simply refer to your previous speech and save ourselves an afternoon?’ someone called, to a ripple of laughter.
    ‘If I thought,’ snapped Stenwold, loud enough to quash them, ‘that one of you, even one of you, would do so, or had ever done so, then perhaps we would not be here, inflicting this ordeal upon each other!’ They stared at him in surprise. He was being rude , and members of the Assembly did not shout at each other. He bared his teeth in frustration, wished for those Ant mercenaries again, and then pressed on.
    ‘I do not think,’ he said, ‘that you’re likely to endure many more of my speeches, Masters. I do not foresee a future where any of us will have liberty for such polite debate. I swear on my life that, when what I have foreseen comes to pass, I shall not stand here before you then and tell you I was right. I shall not need to, for there will be none of you who won’t remember how I warned you.’
    The resentful muttering was building again, but he spoke over it, muscling through it like the ram had broken the gates at Myna. ‘Fourteen years ago,’ he called out, ‘I made my first speech here before you, not even a Master then, but just a precocious artificer who would not be silent. How long ago it seems now! I told you of a people in the east, a martial people, who were prosecuting war upon their neighbours. I told you of cities whose names were known to some of you, those of you who do business in Helleron perhaps. Cities such as Maynes, Szar, Myna. Not Lowlander cities, true, but not so very many miles beyond. Cities under the yoke of an empire, I said, and you listened politely, and said, ‘But what is this to do with us?’ Foreigners will fight, you said, and so the men and women of