Spoils of War (Tales of the Apt Book 1), Adrian Tchaikovsky [13 ebook reader .txt] 📗

new and inexperienced hands trying to undercut us. You’re not the first young artificer to think we’ll share ownership of the sky.”

“So that’s it,” Lial said aloud. It was true, the airship trade did very well. It was the safest way to travel, the swiftest, and the bigger airships could even haul a fair weight in cargo. Over the last few decades the men who built and operated the airships had become a commercial aristocracy in Collegium, counting College Masters and Assemblers amongst their ranks.

“If you want work in the airship line, lad, there are easier ways than trying to piece together your own float and set up as a sole trader. Just ask. I’ll find a place for you. For Limner’s sake. He always reckoned you were a good hand.” Parrymill served up his most beneficient smile.

Lial smiled back a little, and Parrymill obviously took that as an encouraging sign, but the younger Beetle shook his head.

“You needn’t fear, Master Parrymill, I want none of the airship trade.”

The magnate frowned. “Then why such an interest in the price of silk?”

“Because it’s so very, very light,” Lial told him. “Now, if you would be so kind, Master, I have an early morning in the markets.”

Parrymill was actually almost through the door before he abruptly turned and stared at Lial. “You wouldn’t be about the same lunacy as your master, would you?”

Lial just looked at him, pointedly waiting for him to leave.

“I don’t see why I should let a gifted apprentice get himself killed by such stupidity,” Parrymill snarled. “Boy, I will make it my business to ensure that you’re in no position...”

“Goodbye, Master Parrymill,” said Lial firmly, and closed the door on him. Still, he considered, how very insistent. Why would Goiter Parrymill be so concerned by this?

Does he see now what the river barge men saw, when the first airship put out and stole their trade?

And yet the doors remained closed against him. The airship cartels were the city’s greatest consumers of silk, and no merchant wanted to get on the wrong side of them. Lial descended the trading hierarchy rung by rung. From the big trading houses he went to known independent dealers, then to generalist merchants who sometimes saw a little silk in their business, and then to those whose stock in trade came to them after unexpectedly parting company with its rightful owner, and still nobody would sell him the quantity of silk he required. He was making ends meet doing piecework and tinker-work around the city, saving every silver standard and ceramic bit, but no matter how much he offered, the material was not to be had.

And then, after one more dismal evening of being given the brush-off even by smugglers and fences, a Fly-kinden messenger turned up with a note, written out in blockily neat letters

Hear it’s Silk now you’re after. I met a Fellow has some, he says. Find the Roach’s Roost on Partwell Street near the river. Party name of Terant. Looks Horrible. Probably is. Good Luck.

There was no signature, but Lial felt he had nothing to lose by then.

The Roach’s Roost was a sagging and dilapidated hostelry that had once served the barge trade up towards Sarn. The river trade had been getting steadily poorer since Parrymill’s peers had brought their airships to bear on the shipping of goods, and so he had hoped for some sympathy. Lial took a table on entering the Roost, and had fended off three whores and a drunken Beetle with a knife before a big man dropped easily into a seat across from him. Lial suddenly reconsidered just how capable he might be of looking after himself.

The big man was a Spider-kinden, but like no Spider Lial had ever seen. He was heavy-jawed, broad-shouldered, shockingly hairy: his arms, chest and shoulders were virtually pelted with the stuff, and a coarse, dark mane was tied back from his unshaven face. He wore nothing but a coarse cloak and a kind of leather harness, from which a knotted cudgel dangled.

“You’re the naïf who’s trying to become a silk merchant,” the big man observed.

“And you’re Terant? I just need a quantity of silk, not even very much. It’s not too much to ask.” Lial had his hands on the table-edge, ready to throw it up in the man’s face if he needed to. He wasn’t sure it would do any good. The man looked strong enough to break Lial and the table in half in one go.

“We have silk. Some,” the big man said. “Your people won’t trade with you, yes? Ours won’t trade with us. We’ll work well together. We’ll make everyone hate us.”

“Who’s ‘we’?” Lial asked, but his heart was pounding. At that point he couldn’t care less who this man represented.

“Follow,” said the big man, standing. He towered a full head over Lial, who was not short for a Beetle-kinden.

Lial was led to a private house in a poor district, and by that time his initial enthusiasm had begun to wear off. He kept a hand to his knife-hilt and tried to reassure himself by considering that, had the big man wanted to do him harm, then precious little could have prevented it already, they were so mismatched. This proved less reassurance with every step he took.

Then the man was pushing open a door in a tall, narrow house of very poor repair, looking back to give Lial a grin that showed one missing tooth. “Followed me this far, did you? Stout Beetle. Come in.”

It was clear that only a couple of rooms had been made liveable: cheap rugs for the floor, a table, a couch. The bare walls had been covered over with hangings that glimmered darkly in the gloom. Lial reached to examine one, and felt a sudden rush when his fingers encountered the unmistakeable filmy smoothness of silk.

When he looked back to Terant, they had been joined by a woman, or perhaps she had always been there, shrouded by shadow and