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  'They were very nice. They brought me Solian tea/ Bequin purred.

  'Let me escort you both/ the chamberlain said at once. 'Saemon Crotes is, of course, one of our most valued envoys. I will arrange an audience for you forthwith. In the meantime, please relax in this suite. I will have Solian tea sent up directly/

  'And nafar biscuits?' cooed Bequin.

  'But of course, madam/

  He swept out and closed the double doors of the luxurious waiting room behind him. Bequin looked at me and giggled. I confess, I laughed out loud.

  "What got into you?'

  You said we were monied merchants who expected the very best. I was just earning my salary/

  'Keep it up/ I said.

  We looked around the room. Gauze-draped windows ten metres high looked out over the Grand Canal, but they were insulated to keep the noise out. Rich tapestries dressed the walls between Sameter School oils that Maxilla would have loved to own.

  A burnished servitor brought in a tray of refreshments soon after that. It lowered it onto a marble-topped occasional table and trundled out.

  'Solian tea!' Bequin squeaked, lifting the lid of a porcelain pot. 'And nafar biscuits!' she added with a smile, through the crumbs of the first one.

  She poured me a cup and I stood by the fireplace, sipping it, striking an appropriately haughty pose.

  The guild representative flew in through the doors a moment later. He was a small, spiky-haired man with flowing gowns and far too much jewellery. The Guild Sinesias brand mark was proudly displayed on his forehead.

  He was, the brand indicated, property.

  His name was Macheles.

  'Sire Farchaval! Madam! Had I known you were visiting, I would have cancelled meets to be here. Forgive my tardiness!'

  'I forgive it/ I said. 'But I'm afraid Lady Farchaval may be fast losing her patience/

  Bequin yawned on cue.

  'Oh, that is not good! Not good at all!' Macheles clapped his hands and servitors trundled in.

  'Provide the lady with whatever she requests!' Macheles told them.

  'Ummm… vorder leaves?' she said.

  'At once!' Macheles instructed.

  'And a plate of birri truffles? Sauteed in wine?'

  I winced.

  'At once! At once!' Macheles yelped, shushing the servitors out of the room.

  I stepped forward and put down my cup. I'll be straight with you, sir. I represent grain merchants on Hesperus, a significant cartel of grain merchants.'

  I handed him my holo-dent. It was fake, of course. Betancore and Aemos had run it up, using Aemos's profound knowledge in general and his knowledge of Hesperus – gleaned from interviews with Maxilla – in particular.

  Macheles seemed impressed enough by my identification.

  'What sort of… size cartel are we talking about, sire?'

  'The entire western continent.'

  'And you offer?'

  I produced a sample tube from my pocket. A gene-fixed strain of cereal that could be easily managed by many of your landowners now that their workforce is depleted. It is indeed a wonder.'

  The servitors reappeared, delivering Bequin's delicacies.

  As she munched the soft-fleshed birri, she said, The other guilds are bidding for this product, mister. I do hope Guild Sinesias won't miss out.'

  Macheles shook the sample tube and looked at it.

  'Is this/ he said, his voice dropping, 'xenos cultured?'

  'Would that be a problem?' I asked.

  'No, sire! Not officially. The Inquisition is of course very tight about such things. But that is precisely why we offer these discreet interviews. The entire guild buildings are buffered against trackers, intercept beams and vox-thieves.'

  'I am pleased to hear it. So a xenos-cultured cereal strain would not be hard to market?'

  'Naturally not. There are collective enterprises eager for assured crop yields. Especially those hot-housed by alien technology/

  'Good/ I lied. 'But I want the best return. Saemon told me that House Glaw should be the first to approach/

  'Saemon?'

  'Saemon Crotes. The Guild Sinesias envoy I dealt with on Hesperus/

  'Quite so! You wish me to arrange a trade meeting with House Glaw?'

  'I think that's what I said, didn't I?'

  We left the Guild Sinesias dock twenty minutes later. Bequin was still licking her lips from the birri.

  As soon as our skiff was clear of the building, the vox-ceiver woven into my cuff began to twitch.

  'Eisenhorn/

  It was Lowink. 'I've just accepted a message from Tobius Maxilla. Do you want me to relive it?'

  'Just a summary, Lowink/

  'He says the ship that took Eyclone's Gudrun-Hubris run is at anchor here. Says he's done some probing. The Rogue Trader Scaveleur. The master, one Effries Tanokbrey, is already planetside/

  'Signal Maxilla and thank him for his work, Lowink/1 said.

  The identity of Eyclone's mysterious starship was now known to me.

  We were taking lunch at a commercial tavern overlooking the Bridge of Carnodons when Macheles sent Sire Farchaval a private text message by vox-drone.

  The drone, an oblate metal unit roughly the size of a small citrus fruit, came buzzing into the dining terrace like a pollen-insect, scudding from table to table at head-height on its tiny repeller motors until it found me. Then it hovered, chimed, and beamed its holographic cargo against the side of my crystal tumbler: the crest of Guild Sinesias, followed by a formal and obsequious text inviting Sire Farchaval and his entourage to a meeting at the Glaw estate the following afternoon. We were to meet Macheles at the guild building at four, where transport would be waiting.

  The drone continued to project the message until I broke the beam with a wave of my hand and made a quick verbal assent, which it recorded. Dismissed, it bumbled away with its answer.

  'How did it find us?' asked Bequin.

  A pheromonal trace/ Aemos replied. The guild building's master systems will have sampled you both during your visit and then it would have come searching until it matched the record in its sensors/

  Vox-drone messaging was common practice on higher tech Imperial worlds like this. It gave me an idea.

  'You say the guild seemed comfortable dealing with xenos material?' Betancore was saying, raising his wine glass to sip.

  I nodded. 'We'll concentrate on House Glaw for now. That's where our primary interest lies. But I'm not going to forget Sinesias. When we're done, the full weight of the Inquisition will come to bear on their dealings/

  Bequin was looking out at the fine ornamental bridge that arched over the Drunner below. 'What are those creatures?' she asked. The stone effigies of great quadruped predators decorated each span of the old crossing. The beasts were huge, with powerful, mastiff-like builds, brush tails and long snouts bristling with tusks.

  'Carnodons/ Aemos said, once again delighted to be able to share his considerable knowledge. 'The heraldic animal of Gudran. They feature in

  many crests and emblems hereabouts, symbolising the noble authority of the world. Rare now, of course. Hunted to near extinction. I believe only a few live wild now in the northern tundra.'

  'We have a day at our disposal,' I told them, cutting through the idle talk. 'Let's use it well. Let's find this ship master, Tanokbrey.'

  Betancore raised his eyebrows and was about to tell me how difficult that was going to be, until 1 explained my idea to him.

  We used a clerical bureau on a water-street off the Ooskin Canal, and paid for a vox-drone message. I kept it simple, a brief enquiry to the master of the Rogue Trader Scaveleur concerning the possibility of off-planet passage. The cleric serving me took my text and payment without comment, and loaded the message into one of the three-dozen vox-drones that lay inert in a rack behind his seat. Then he accessed his data-files, retrieved the pheromone trace for Tanokbrey that the ship master had logged with the city administration at immigration, and installed that too.
/>
  The selected drone rose, buzzed, and floated away out of the office.

  On the street outside, Betancore fired up the motor of the air-bike he had rented and made off after it.

  Chances were it would lead us to our quarry. If it gave Betancore the slip, there was every reason to hope Tanokbrey would come to us. He was a commercial merchant looking for business after all.

  Aemos, Bequin and I followed in a public grav-skiff, staying in vox-contact with Betancore. The canal traffic was thicker than ever, and local Arbites, as well as naval security details, were out in force. There was to be a major ceremonial cavalcade later that afternoon, and the route was being prepared. Already, crowds of spectators were gathering on the bridges and the walkways. Banners and well-wishing garlands were on display all around.

  Betancore was waiting for us on a walkway in the Tersegold Quarter, a part of Dorsay famous for its taverns and clubs. I left Aemos and Bequin in the skiff.

  'In there/ he said, indicating an old, bow-fronted establishment. 'I followed it inside. It delivered to the fifth table from the left. Tanokbrey is the tall man in the rose-red jacket. He has two men with him by my count.'

  'Stay back and be ready/1 said.

  The tavern was dark and crowded. Music and lights pulsed from the low roof, and the air was rank with the smells of sweat, smoke, hops and the unmistakable fumes of obscura.

  My vox-drone was coming out through the door as I entered. It paused, delivered its message and then drifted away. A curt text informed me that the Scaveleur was not for hire.

  Moving through the packed clientele, I located Tanokbrey. His rose-red jacket was of finest silk and his frizzy black hair was raked back into twists and tied with ribbons at the back of his head. He had a craggy, singularly unwelcoming face. His drinking companions were a pair of common crewmen in studded leather bodygloves.

  'Master Tanokbrey?'

  He looked round at me slowly and said nothing. His comrades fixed me with grim stares.

  'Perhaps we could talk privately?' I suggested.

  'Perhaps you could piss off/

  I sat down anyway. His men seemed astonished at my action, and stiffened. All Tanokbrey had to do was nod, I realised.

  'Let me start with an easy question/ I began.

  'Start by pissing off/ he replied. He was now fixing me with a caustic gaze. Without breaking eye contact, I noted that his left hand was inside his coat.

  'You seem anxious. Why is that?'

  No answer. His men stirred nervously.

  'Something to hide?'

  'I'm having a quiet drink. I don't want interruptions. Now sod off/

  'So unfriendly. Well, if these gentlemen aren't going to give us privacy, I'll press on regardless. I do hope I don't embarrass you/

  'Who the hell are you?'

  Now I didn't reply. My eyes never left his. 'Your high-anchor fees are delinquent/1 said at last.

  'That's a lie!'

  It was, and so was what I said next. It didn't matter. The purpose was to undermine him. 'And your manifest papers are incomplete. Gudran control may wish to impound your ship until the irregularities are cleared up/

  'Lying bastard-'

  'It's an easy matter. You made a run to Hubris that is not logged, nor is any cargo list filed. How will they calculate import duties?'

  His chair scraped back a centimetre or two.

  'Why were you on Hubris?'

  'I wasn't! Who says I was?'

  Take your pick. Saemon Crotes. Namber Wylk/

  'Don't know them. You've got the wrong man, you miserable bastard. Now frag off!'

  'Murdin Eyclone, then. What about him? Didn't he hire you?'

  That brought the nod at last. An imperceptible motion of his head.

  The crewman beside me lunged out of his seat, a compact shock-flail snapping out of his sleeve and into his gloved hand.

  'Drop it/ I willed, without even speaking.

  The flail sparked as it bounced off the table top.

  It was in my hand a second later. I whipped it back across its owner's face and smashed him sideways off his chair. Then I snapped it round, crushed the left ear of the other crewman and laid him full length on the floor at the foot of the table.

  I sat back down, facing Tanokbrey, the flail in my hand. His face as grey and his eyes darted now with panic.

  'Eyclone. Tell me about him/

  His left arm moved inside his jacket and I jabbed the flail into his shoulder. Unfortunately, I realised he was wearing armour under that silk.

  He reeled from the impact, but his arm came up all the same, a short-snouted laspistol clutched in his fist.

  I slammed the tablejnto him and his shot went wild, punching through the back of a nearby ruffian. The victim toppled over, bringing another table smashing down.

  Now the shot and the commotion had got the attention of the entire tavern. There was general shouting and confusion.

  I didn't pay it any heed. Tanokbrey fired again through the overturned table and I dove aside, colliding with milling bodies.

  The merchant was on his feet, kicking and punching his way through the mob to the exit. I could see Betancore, but the mass of bodies prevented him from blocking Tanokbrey.

  'Aside!' I yelled, and the crowd parted like hatch shutters.

  Tanokbrey was on the walkway outside, running for the quay at the end of the street. He turned and fired. Pedestrians screamed and ran. Someone was pushed into the canal.

  Tanokbrey leapt into a grav-skiff, shot the protesting hire-driver, pushed the corpse off the steering perch, and gunned the craft away down the canal.

  Betancore's air-bike was sat on its kickstand to my left. I cranked the power and swept off down the waterway in pursuit.

  'Wait! Wait!' I heard Betancore yelling.

  No time.

  Tanokbrey's flight caused mayhem down the length of the busy canal. He drove his skiff into the jostling traffic, forcing craft to heave out of his way. Already the decorative golden filigree on the skiffs black hull was grazed and dented with a dozen glancing impacts. People on the banks and abroad on the water howled and yelled at him as he wrenched his way through. Where the street met a canal thoroughfare, he tried to extend his lead with a surge of speed. A fast-moving courier boat coming down the stream veered at the last moment, and struck the quayside with great force, sending the craft up over end, its hull shredding, its driver cartwheeling through the air.

  I laced the air-bike through the disrupted traffic in Tanokbrey's wake. I wanted to gain height, and move to a level where I could coax more speed from the machine without fear of collision. But the vehicle's grav-plate had a governor unit that prevented anything more than three metres of climb. I had no time to figure out where the governor was or how to disable it. I aimed the bike between turning skiffs, water-buses heavy in the choppy canal, other darting air-bikes.

  Ahead, I could hear the distant sounds of military bands.

  Tanokbrey whipped out of a junction into the Grand Canal, and straight into the side of the afternoon's parade. A slow-moving river of

  skiffs, military barges and landspeeder escorts filled the entire width of the waterway. The craft were full of jubilant Imperial Guardsmen and officers, thundering regimental bands and battlefleet dignitaries. The air was glittering with streamers and banners, company standards, Imperial eagles and Gudrunite carnodons. One entire barge bore a massive golden carnodon sculpture to which whooping guardsmen clung. Garlands fluttered from the barrels of a thousand brandished las-rifles. The walkways and bridges of the Grand Canal were choked with cheering civilians.

  Tanokbrey's skiff smacked into the side of a troop-barge, and angry yells and jeers were loosed at him as he tried to turn. From the shore, the crowd pelted him with fruit, stones and other missiles.

  Cursing back at the angry soldiers, he slammed his skiff round the rear of the barge, trying to force his way across the canal.

  I was closing on him now, trying to avoid the displ
easure of the mob. Hooters and sirens bayed at him from the parade boats as he jostled across their paths. A trooper from one barge leapt onto his skiff to waylay him, and Tanokbrey kicked him off into the water before he could get a good footing. That turned things even uglier. The noise of the booing and outrage was immense. The parade bunched up badly, and dozens of furious guardsmen pressed at the rails of their barges, trying to reach him.

  He over-rewed the skiff to get clear of them, and struck against a raft carrying a company band. Several instrument players toppled with the impact, and the proud Imperial anthem they had been playing dissolved in a cacophony of wrong notes and broken rhythms.

  Enraged troopers in a smaller skiff drew alongside him, and rocked his craft dangerously as they tried to board. He pulled his handgun.

  His last mistake. I pulled up short, and landed on the canal bank. There was no point in pressing the pursuit now.

  Tanokbrey got off two shots into the mob. Then twenty or more freshly issued las-rifles on a neighbouring barge opened fire, smashing him and his stolen craft to pieces. The drive unit exploded, scattering hull fragments across the churning water. A curl of black smoke rose above the banners.

  The young conscripts of the 50th Gudrunite Rifles had made the first kill of their military careers.

  TEN

  A conflict of jurisdiction.

  The House of Glaw.

  Stalking secrets.

  Long after midnight, I was attempting to sleep in my bedchamber at the Dorsay Regency. Bequin and Aemos had both retired to their own rooms hours before. Reflected light from the canal outside played a series of silver ripples across the ceiling of my twilit chamber.

  'Aegis, rose thorn!' Betancore's voxed whisper suddenly tapped at my ear.

  'Rose thorn, reveal.'

  'Spectres, invasive, spiral vine.'

  I was already out of bed and into my breeches and boots, pulling my leather coat over my bare torso. I went out into the apartment lounge with my power sword in my hand.

  The lights were off, but canal reflections played in here too, creating a fluttering half-light.

  Betancore stood by the far wall, a needle pistol in each hand. He nodded at the main door.

  They were good and they were very quiet, but we could both see slight movement against the cracks around the doors, backlit by the hall light.