The Family Trade

Hostile Takeover

The interview room was painted pale green except for the floor, which was unvarnished wood. The single window, set high up in one wall, admitted a trickle of wan winter daylight that barely helped the glimmering of the electrical bulb dangling overhead. The single table had two chairs on either side of it. All three pieces of furniture were bolted to the floor, and the door was soundproofed and locked from the outside.

“Would you care for some more tea, Mr. Burgeson?” asked the plainclothes inspector, holding his cup delicately between finger and thumb. He loomed across the table, overshadowing Burgeson’s frail form: they were alone in the room, the inspector evidently not feeling the need for a stout sergeant to assist him as warm-up man.

“Don’t mind if I do,” said Burgeson. He coughed damply into a wadded handkerchief. “ ’Scuse me …”

“No need for excuses,” the inspector said, as warmly as an artist inspecting his handiwork. He smiled like a mantrap. “Terrible winters up there in Nova Scotia, aren’t they?”

“Character-building,” Burgeson managed, before breaking out in another wracking cough. Finally he managed to stop and sat up in his chair, leaning against the back with his face pointed at the window.

“That was how the minister of penal affairs described it in parliament, wasn’t it?” The inspector nodded sympathetically. “It would be a terrible shame to subject you to that kind of character-building experience again at your age, wouldn’t it, Mr. Burgeson?”

Burgeson cocked his head on one side. So far the inspector had been polite. He hadn’t used so much as a fist in the face, much less a knee in the bollocks, relying instead on tea and sympathy and veiled threats to win Burgeson to his side. It was remarkably liberal for an HSB man, and Burgeson had been waiting for the other shoe to drop—or to kick him between the legs—for the past ten minutes. “What can I do for you, Inspector?” he asked, clutching at any faint hope of fending off the inevitable.

“I shall get to the point presently.” The inspector picked up the teapot and turned it around slowly between his huge callused hands. He didn’t seem to feel the heat as he poured a stream of brown liquid into Burgeson’s cup, then put the pot down and dribbled in a carefully measured quantity of milk. “You’re an old man, Mr. Burgeson, you’ve seen lots of water flow under the bridge. You know what ‘appens in rooms like this, and you don’t want it to ‘appen to you again. You’re not a young hothead who’s going to get his self into trouble with the law any more, are you? And you’re not in the pay of the Frogs, either, else we’d have scragged you long ago. You’re a careful man. I like that. Careful men you can do business with.” He cradled the round teapot between his hands gently. “And I much prefer doing business to breaking skulls.” He put the teapot down. It wobbled on its base like a decapitated head.

Burgeson swallowed. “I haven’t done anything to warrant the attention of the Homeland Security Bureau,” he pointed out, a faint whine in his voice. “I’ve been keeping my nose clean. I’ll help you any way I can, but I’m not sure how I can be of use—”

“Drink your tea,” said the inspector.

Burgeson did as he was told.

“ ’Bout six months ago a Joe called Lester Brown sold you his dear old mother’s dressing table, didn’t he?” said the inspector.

Burgeson nodded cautiously. “It was a bit battered—”

“And four weeks after that, a woman called Helen Blue came and bought it off you, din’t she?”

“Uh.” Burgeson’s mouth went dry. “Yes? Why ask me all this? It’s in my books, you know. I keep records, as the law requires.”

The inspector smiled, as if Burgeson had just said something extremely funny. “A Mr. Brown sells a dressing table to a Mrs. Blue by way of a pawnbroker who Mr. Green says is known as Dr. Red. In’t that colourful, Mr. Burgeson? If we collected the other four, why, we could give the hangman a rainbow!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Burgeson said tensely. “What’s all this nonsense about? Who are these Greens and Reds you’re bringing up?”

“Seven years in one of His Majesty’s penal colonies for sedition back in seventy-eight and you still don’t have a fucking clue.” The inspector shook his head slowly. “Levellers, Mr. Burgeson.” He leaned forward until his face was inches away from Burgeson’s. “That dressing table happened to have a hollow compartment above the top drawer and there were some most interesting papers folded up inside it. You wouldn’t have been dealing in proscribed books again, would ye?”

“Huh?” The last question caught Burgeson off-guard, but he was saved by another coughing spasm that wrinkled his face up into a painful knot before it could betray him.

The inspector waited for it to subside. “I’ll put it to you like this,” he said. “You’ve got bad friends, Erasmus. They’re no good for yer old age. A bit o’ paper I can’t put me finger on is one thing. But if I was to catch ’em, this Mrs. Blue or Mr. Brown, they’d sing for their supper sooner than put their necks in a noose, wouldn’t they? And you’d be right back off to Camp Frederick before your feet touch the ground, on a one-way stretch. Which in your case would be approximately two weeks before the consumption carried you away for good an’ all and Old Nick gets to toast you by the fires of hell.

“All that Godwinite shit and old-time Egalitarianism will get you is a stretched neck or a cold grave. And you are too old for the revolution. They could hold it tomorrow and it wouldn’t do you any good. What’s that slogan—’Don’t trust anyone who’s over thirty or owns a slave’? Do you really think your young friends are going to help you?”

Burgeson met the inspector’s gaze head-on. “I have no Leveller friends,” he said evenly. “I am not a republican revolutionary. I admit that in the past I made certain mistakes, but as you yourself agree, I was punished for them. My tariff is spent. I cooperate fully with your office. I don’t see what else I can do to prevent people who I don’t know and have never heard of from using my shop as a laundry. Do we need to continue this conversation?”

“Probably not.” The inspector nodded thoughtfully. “But if I was you, I’d stay in touch.” A business card appeared between his fingers. “Take it.”

Burgeson reached out and reluctantly took the card.

“I’ve got my eye on you,” said the inspector. “You don’t need to know how. If you see anything that might interest me passing through your shop, I’ll trust you to let me know. Maybe it’ll be news to me—and then again, I’ll know about it before you do. If you turn a blind eye, well—” he looked sad—“you obviously won’t be able to see all the titles of the books in your shop. And it’d be a crying shame to send a blind man back to the camps for owning seditious tracts, wouldn’t it?”

Two women stood ten feet apart, one shaking with rage, the other frightened into immobility. Around them, orange trees cloistered in an unseasonable climate perfumed the warm air.

“I don’t understand.” Miriam’s face was blank as she stared down the barrel of Olga’s gun. Her heart pounded. Buy time! “What are you talking about?” she asked, faint with the certainty that her assignation with Roland had been overseen and someone had told Olga.

“You know very well what I’m talking about!” Olga snarled. “I’m talking about my honour!” The gun muzzle didn’t deviate from Miriam’s face. “It’s not enough for you to poison Baron Hjorth against me or to mock me behind my back. I can ignore those slights—but the infamy! To do what you did! It’s unforgivable.”

Miriam shook her head very slowly. “I’m sorry,” she said. “But I didn’t know at the time it started between us, I mean. About your planned marriage.”

A faint look of uncertainty flickered across Olga’s face. “My betrothal has no bearing on the matter!” She snapped.

“Huh? You mean this isn’t about Roland?” Miriam asked, feeling stupid and frightened.

“Roland—” Olga stared at her. Suddenly the look of uncertainty was back. “Roland can have nothing to do with this,” she claimed haughtily.

“Then I haven’t got a clue what the it you’re talking about is,” Miriam said heavily. Fear would only stretch so far, and as she stared at Olga’s eyes all she felt was a deep wellspring of resignation, at the sheer total stupidity of all the events that had brought her to this point.

“But you—” Olga began to look puzzled, but still angry. “What about Roland? What have you been up to?”

“Fucking,” Miriam said bluntly. “We only had the one night together but, well, I really care about him. I’m fairly sure he feels the same way about me, too. And before you pull that trigger, I’d like you ask yourself what will happen and who will be harmed if you shoot me.” She closed her eyes, terrified and amazed at what she’d just heard herself say. After a few seconds, she thought, Funny, I’m still alive.

“I don’t believe it,” said Olga. Miriam opened her eyes.

The other woman looked stunned. However, her gun was no longer pointing directly at Miriam’s face.

“I just told you, dammit!” Miriam insisted. “Look, are you going to point that thing somewhere safe or—”

“You and Roland?” Olga asked incredulously.

A moment’s pause. Miriam nodded. “Yes,” she said, her mouth dry.

“You went to bed with that dried-up prematurely middle-aged sack of mannered stupidity? You care about him? I don’t believe it!”

“Why are you pointing that gun at me, then?”

For a moment, they stood staring at each other; then Olga lowered the machine pistol and slid her finger out of the trigger guard.

“You don’t know?” she asked plaintively.

“Know what?” Miriam staggered slightly, dizzy from the adrenaline rush of facing Olga’s rage. “What on earth are you talking about, woman? Jesus fucking Christ, I’ve just admitted I’m having an affair with the man you’re supposed to be marrying and that isn’t why you’re threatening to kill me over some matter of honour?”

“Oh, this is insupportable!” Olga stared at her. She looked very uncertain all of a sudden. “But you sent your man last night.”

“What man?”

Their eyes met in mutual incomprehension.

“You mean you don’t know? Really?”

“Know what?”

“A man broke into my bedroom last night,” Olga said calmly. “He had a knife and he threatened me and ordered me to disrobe. So I shot him dead. He wasn’t expecting that.”

“You. Shot. A, a rapist. Is that it?”

“Well, that and he had a letter of instruction bearing the seal of your braid.”

“I don’t understand.” Miriam shook her head. “What seal? What kind of instructions?”

“My maidenhead,” Olga said calmly. ‘The instructions were very explicit. What is the law where you come from? About noble marriage?”

“About—what? Huh. You meet someone, one of you proposes, usually the man, and you arrange a wedding. End of story. Are things that different here?”

“But the ownership of title! The forfeiture. What of it?”

“What ‘forfeiture’?” Miriam must have looked puzzled because Olga frowned.

“If a man, unwed, lies with a maid, also unwed, then it is for him to marry her if he can afford to pay the maiden-price to her guardian. And all her property and titles escheat to him as her head. She has no say in the matter should he reach agreement with her guardian, who while I am in his care here would for me be Baron Hjorth. In my event, as a full-blood of the Clan, my Clan shares would be his. This commoner—” she pronounced the word with venomous diction—“invaded my chamber with rape in mind and a purse full of coin sufficient to pay his way out of the baron’s noose.”

“And a letter,” Miriam said in tones of deep foreboding. “A letter sealed with … what? Ink? Wax? Something like that, some kind of seal ring?”

“No, sealed with the stamps of Thorold and Hjorth. It is a disgusting trick.”

“I’ll say.” Miriam whistled tunelessly. “Would you believe me if I said that I don’t have—and have never seen—any such stamp? I don’t even know who my braid are, and I really ought to, because they’re not going to be happy if I—” she stopped. “Oh, of course.”

“ ‘Of course,’ what?”

“Listen, was there an open door to the roof in your apartment last night? After you killed him? I mean, a door he came in through?”

Olga’s eyes narrowed. “What if there was?”

“Yesterday I world-walked from my room to the other side,” said Miriam. “This house is supposed to be doppelgängered, but there is no security on the other side of my quarters. Anyone who can world-walk could come in. Later,

Brilliana and I found an open door leading to the roof.”

“Ah.” Olga glanced around, taking in whatever was behind Miriam. “Let’s walk,” she said. “Perhaps I should apologize to you. You have further thoughts on the matter?”

“Yes.” Miriam followed Olga, still apprehensive, knees weak with relief. “My question is: Who profits? I don’t have a braid seal, I didn’t even know such a thing existed until you told me, but it seems clear that others in my braid would benefit if you killed me. Or if that failed, if I was deprived of a friend in circumstances bound to create a scandal of monstrous proportions around me, it certainly wouldn’t harm them. If you can think of someone who would also benefit if you were split apart from your impending alliance—” She bit her tongue, but it was too late.

“About Roland,” Olga said quietly.

“Uh. Yes.”

“Do you really love him?” she asked.

“Um.” Tongue-tied, Miriam tried to muster her shredded integrity. “I think so.”

“Well, then!” Olga smiled brightly. “If the two of you would please conspire to convince your uncle to amend his plans for me, it would simplify my life considerably.” She shook her head. “I’d rather marry a rock. Is he good in bed?”

Miriam coughed violently into her fist. “What would you know about—”

“Do you think I’m completely stupid?” Olga shook her head. “I know you are a dowager, you have no guardian, and you are competent in law. You have nothing to lose by such intrigues. It would be naive to expect you to abstain. But the situation is different for me. I have not my majority until marriage, and upon marriage I lose my independence. Isn’t that an unpleasant paradox?”

“I don’t understand you people,” Miriam muttered, “but I figure your inheritance and marriage law is seriously screwed. Rape as a tool of financial intrigue—it’s disgusting!”

“So we agree on one thing.” Olga nodded. “What do you think could be behind this?”

“Well. Someone who doesn’t like me—obviously.” She began ticking off points on her fingers. “Someone who holds you in contempt, too, or who actively wants you out of the way. By the way, what would have happened to you if you had shot me?”

“What?” Olga shrugged carelessly. “Oh, they’d have hanged me, I suppose,” she said. “Why?”

“Let’s see. We have Item Two: someone who has it in for you as well as me. We all centre around—” something nagged at her for attention—“No, it’s not there yet. Well, Item Three is my unsecured apartment. That we can blame on Baron Oliver, huh? Someone took advantage of it to get their cat’s-paw into place by way of the roof, I think that’s clear enough. I got Brilliana to lock and bolt the inner apartment—which is doppelgängered—last night, when I realized the roof door was open onto areas that aren’t secured on the other side. Maybe their first objective was to shoot me in my sleep, and they turned to you as a second target when that failed. By attacking you they could either convince you that I was to blame—you shoot me, they win—or they could deprive me of an ally—you—and perhaps turn others against me. Do you think they believe Roland would think I’d do such a thing to you?”

Olga clutched her arm. “That’s it,” she said calmly. “If they didn’t know about you and Roland, they would believe him to be set on me as his prize. It would be a most normal reaction to be enraged at anyone who ordered his bride-to-be raped away by night. Out of such actions blood feuds are born.” Her fingers dug into Miriam’s arm. “You would swear to me you had no hand in it?”

“Olga. Do you really believe I’d pay some man to rape my worst enemy? As opposed to simply shooting her and having done with the matter?”

Olga slowly relaxed. “If you were not raised over there, I might think so. But your ways are so charmingly informal that I find it hard to believe you would be so cruel. Or devious.”

“I don’t know. The longer I spend here, the more paranoid I become.” Miriam shuddered. “Is there any risk of some asshole trying to rape me for my presumed riches?”

“Not if you’re a guest of someone who cares what happens on their estate, such as the duke. Even at other times, you are only at risk if your guards fail you, and your guardian is willing to accept maidenprice,” said Olga. “As you are of age and able to act as your own guardian, I don’t think that situation is likely to arise—an adventurer who took you against your will could expect to go to the gallows. But you do have guards, don’t you, just in case?” She looked anxious. “They’re very discreet, wherever they’re hiding!” A frown crossed her face. “Assuming the Baron hasn’t managed to make sure the orders assigning a detachment to your household haven’t been lost…”

“No shit,” Miriam said shakily as they climbed the steps toward the entrance, looking around at the same time for signs of Brilliana. “I must congratulate them on their scarcity. When I find out who they are and where they live.”

The snow was falling thick and fast outside, from a sky the colour of leaden tiles. The temperature was dropping, a blizzard in the making. “You must come up to my receiving room for tea,” Olga insisted, and Miriam found herself unable to decline. Brilliana hurried alongside them as they re-entered the barely heated corridors of the palace, ascending through a bewildering maze of passages and stairs to reach Olga’s private rooms.

Olga had left her guards behind. She wanted no witnesses to our little contretemps, Miriam thought with a cold chill. Now she berated them as she entered her outer reception room, four strapping tall men in household livery worn with cuirasses, swords, and automatic weapons. “Come in, be welcome, sit you down,” Olga insisted, gesturing toward a circle of sofas being moved hastily into place by a bevy of servants. Miriam accepted gratefully, placing Brilliana at her left, and presently Olga’s own ladies-in-waiting shepherded in a small company of servants bearing side tables, a silver samovar, and sweetmeats on trays. With the blazing fireplace, it was almost possible to forget the gathering storm outside.

Now that Olga’s fury at Miriam had been diverted toward a different target, she overcompensated, attempting to prove herself a charming hostess by heaping every consideration upon Miriam in a way that Miriam found more than a bit creepy after her earlier rage. Maybe it was just a guilt reaction, Miriam speculated, but it left her feeling very relieved that Olga didn’t share her interest in Roland. They were well into a second pot of tea, with Miriam eavesdropping on the Lady Aris’s snide comments about the members of this or that social set at court, when there was a polite announcement at the door. “Courier for Madame Thorold,” announced Olga’s steward, poking his head in. “Shall I admit him?”

“By all means.” Olga sat up straight as the messenger—dripping wet and looking chilled to the bone—entered. “My good man! What do you have for me?”

“Milady, I have been charged to deliver this into you hands,” he said, dropping to one knee and presenting a sealed envelope from a shoulder bag. Olga accepted it, slit the wrapping, and read. She frowned. “Very well. You may tell your master I received word and passed it on to all present here. Feel free to leave immediately.”

The messenger backed out, bowing. Olga returned to her chaise, looking distracted. “How unfortunate,” she said.

“ ‘Unfortunate’?” Miriam raised an eyebrow.

“Tonight’s reception is postponed,” Olga read, “by virtue of the unusually foul weather. It shall in any event be held tomorrow, once arrangements have been made for additional shelter from the elements.” She glanced at the shuttered window. “Well, I can’t say I am surprised. This may be the season for storms, but this one appears to be setting in hard.” Wind howled around the shutters outside.

“Is this normal?” Miriam asked. “To postpone events?”

“By your leave, it’s not normal, my lady, but it’s not unheralded.” Brilliana looked unhappy. “They may need time to move the lifeguard cavalry to other stables, to accommodate the coaches of the visitors. Or a roof may have caved in unexpectedly. This being the first real storm of winter, they may be hoping it will blow itself out overnight.”

“Hmm.” Miriam drained her teacup. “So it’ll be tomorrow night instead?”

“Almost certainly,” Olga said confidently. “It’s a shame to postpone once, twice is an embarrassment. Especially when the occasion is the return to court of his majesty’s winter sessions. And his opening of the sessions and levy of taxes follows the next day, to be followed by a hanging-holiday.”

“Well, then.” Miriam nodded to herself. “Is anything at all of consequence due to happen then?”

“Oh, a lot of drinking, and not a little eating and making merry,” Olga assured her. “It’s not a greatly important event for the likes of us. Our great sessions fall in six months, near upon Beltaigne, when alliances are discussed and braids rededicated, and the court of families-in-Clan hear grievances and settle treaties.”

“Hmm. Well, I suppose I’d better make sure I’m around for that, too,” said Miriam, waiting for a servant to refill her cup.

Olga winked at her. “I expect you will be—if we find you some reliable bodyguards.”

Late in the afternoon, Miriam returned to her apartment—briefly.

Dismissing the servants, she called Brilliana and Kara into her bedroom. “I’m in trouble,” she said tersely.

“ ‘Trouble,’ my lady?” asked Kara, eyes glinting.

“Someone tried to force themselves upon Lady Olga last night. Someone with gold in their pocket and a commission bearing the seal of my braid. Which I have never seen, so I have to take Olga’s word for it.” She sat down on a chest and waited for Kara’s declarations of shock to die down. Brilliana just nodded thoughtfully.

“This room—and other parts of this suite—are not doppelgängered properly,” she continued. “On the other side, security is virtually nonexistent—until you go fifty feet that way.” She gestured at the wall. “I don’t think that’s an accident. Nor was that open door last night,” she added to Brilliana’s questioning look.

“What are we going to do?” asked Kara, looking frightened and younger than ever.

“What you are going to do—both of you—is tell the servants we’re going to have a quiet supper: cold cuts or a pie or something plain and simple. Then we’re going to dismiss the servants and go to bed early so we are well rested for the morrow. After they bring our meal up and stoke the fireplace, they can leave.” She stood up and paced. “What’s really going to happen, once the servants have left is that two of Lady Olga’s guards—the guards Baron Hjorth hasn’t assigned to me—are going to enter the near audience chamber through the side door.”

She grinned at Brilliana’s surprise. “You will put on your cloaks and go where they lead you, which will be straight to Lady Olga’s rooms, where you will be able to sleep safe and warm until it’s time to come back here, in the morning.”

“And you, my lady?” asked Kara, searching her face. “You can’t spend the night alone here!”

“She doesn’t intend to,” Brill said tersely. “Do you?”

“Correct.” Miriam waited.

“You’re going to go over there,” Brilliana added. “How I’d like to follow you!”

“You can’t, yet,” Miriam said bluntly. “Someone is conspiring against me. I am going to have to move fast and be inconspicuous. On the other side, there is a teeming city with many people and strange customs. I can’t risk you attracting attention while I’m on the run.” She raised a finger to anticipate Brilliana’s objection. “I’ll take you along later, I promise. But not this time. Do you understand?”

“Yes.” Brill muttered something under her breath. Miriam pretended not to notice.

“That’s it, then. If someone comes calling in the night, all they’ll find are beds stuffed with pillows: You’ll be elsewhere. On the other side, the fewer people who know where I’m going, the safer I’ll be. I’ll meet you back here tomorrow afternoon, and we’ll decide what to do then, depending on whether the opening of the court of winter sessions is going ahead or not. Any last questions?”

It was snowing in New York, too, but nothing like the blizzard that had dumped two feet of snow on Neijwein in a day. Miriam met nobody in the warehouse. At the top of the stairs she paused. What was that trick? she wondered, racking her brains. A flashback to the training course, years ago: It had been a giggle at the time, spy tradecraft stuff for journalists who were afraid of having their hotel rooms burgled in Krygistan or wherever. But now it came back to her. Kneeling, she tied a piece of black cotton sewing thread from the wall to the handrail, secured with a needle. It was invisible in the twilight. If it was gone when she returned, that would tell her something.

On this trip, she wore her hiking gear and towed her suitcase. With street map in hand, she wanted to give the impression of being a tourist from out of state who’d wandered into the wrong part of town. Maybe that was why a taxi pulled up almost as soon as she emerged from the back street, while her phone was still chirping its voice mail alert.

“The Marriott Marquis, Times Square,” she told the driver. Head pounding, she hit the “mail” button and clamped the phone to her ear.

“Marriott Marquis, room 2412, continuously booked for the whole week in the name of Mr. and Mrs. Roland Dorchester. Just ask at the front desk and they’ll give you a key.”

Thank you, she thought, pocketing the phone and blinking back tears of relief.

The taxi took her straight to the main entrance and a bellboy was on hand to help her with her suitcase. She headed straight to the front desk.

“Mrs. Dorchester? Yes, ma’am, I have your card-key here, [f you’d like to sign …”

Miriam did a little double-take, then scrawled something that she hoped she’d be able to replicate on demand. Then she took the keys and headed for the elevator bank.

She was inside the glass-walled express elevator, and it was surging up from the third floor in a long glide toward the top, when a horrible thought occurred to her. What if they’ve got to Roland? she wondered. After he booked the hotel. They could be waiting for me.

It was a frightening thought, and Miriam instinctively reached toward her pocket. How the hell do you do this? Suddenly it occurred to her that the little revolver was as much of a threat as an asset in this kind of situation. If she went through the door and some bad guy was just inside, he could grab her before she had a chance to use it. Or grab the gun. And she was more than twenty stories up, high enough that—she looked out and down through the glass wall of the lift and took a deep breath of relief. “Oh, that’s okay,” she muttered, as the obvious explanation occurred to her just before the lift bell dinged for attention: Skyscrapers didn’t need doppelgängering against attack from another world where concrete and structural steel were barely known.

Miriam stepped out into the thickly carpeted hallway and stopped. Pulling out her mobile phone, she dialled Roland’s number. It rang three times.

“Hello?”

“Roland, what happens if you’re on the twenty-fourth floor of a tall building, say a hotel, and—” quick glance in either direction—“you try to world-walk?”

“You don’t do that.” He chucked dryly. “That’s why I chose it. I wasn’t expecting you so soon. Come right on up?”

“Sure,” she said and rang off, abruptly dizzy with relief and anticipation.

I hope this works out, she thought, dry-swallowing as she walked down the corridor, hunting for room 2412. Hell, we hardly know each other—

She reached the door. All her other options had run out. She put the card in the slot and turned the handle.

Three hours later they came up for air. The bedding was a tangled mess, half the fluffy white towels were on the bathroom floor and the carpet was a wasteland of discarded clothing—but it had worked out.

“I have missed you so much,” she murmured in his ear, then leaned close to nibble at his lobe.

“That makes two of us.” He heaved up a little, bracing against the bed head, turning to look at her. “You’re beautiful.”

“I bet you say that to every naked woman you wake up in bed with,” she replied, laughing.

“No,” he said, in all seriousness, before he realized what he’d done. Then he turned bright red. “I mean—”

He was too late. Miriam pounced. “Got you,” she giggled, holding him down. Then she subsided on top of him. “Like that?” she asked. “Or this?”

“Oh.” He rolled his eyes. “Please. A few minutes?”

“Frail male reed!”

“Guilty, I’m afraid.” He wrapped an arm around her. “What’s with the early appearance? I thought there was supposed to be a reception this evening?”

“There was, past tense.” Miriam explained about the cancellation.

“So you came over early, just in case I was here?”

“No.” She felt very sober, all of a sudden, even though they hadn’t been drinking—and felt the need to remedy the condition, too.

“Why, then? I thought you were sticking with the program?”

“Not when people try to kill me twice in one day.”

“What?” His arms tensed and he began to sit up.

“No, no—lie down. Relax. They can’t come through here and I took steps to throw off the trail.” She kissed him, again, tasted the sweat of their lovemaking. “Wow. What did I do to deserve someone like you?”

“You were really, really wicked in a previous life?”

“Nonsense!”

“The killers.” She’d broken the magic, she realized with a sense of desolation.

“They won’t follow us here, but there’s a lot to tell,” she said. “How about we dig a bottle out of the minibar and have a bath or something while I tell you?”

“I think we can do better than that,” he said with a glint in his eye. He reached for the bedside phone. “Room service, please. Yes? It’s room 2412. Can you send up the item I ordered earlier? Leave it outside.”

“Huh?” She raised her eyebrows.

“My surprise.” He looked smug.

“I thought I was your surprise.” He’d been surprised enough when she came through the door—but he’d kissed her, and one thing led to another, and they hadn’t even made it as far as the bed the first time. Now she sat up on the rumpled sheets, brushing one hand up and down his thigh and watching his face. “About your uncle’s plans. What do you think Olga makes of them?”

Roland looked pained. “She doesn’t get a say in it. She’s a naive little dutiful contessa who’ll do as Angbard tells her parents to tell her.”

“If that’s what you and Angbard think, you may be in for a nasty surprise.” Miriam watched him carefully. “You don’t know her very well, do you?”

“I’ve met her a time or two,” he said, slightly puzzled.

“Well, I have just spent several days in her company and that little minx may be young and naive, but she isn’t dumb. In fact, it’s lucky for me she’s smart and doesn’t want to marry you any more than you want her—otherwise I wouldn’t be here now.”

“What—”

“She nearly shot me.”

“Holy Crone Wife! What happened?”

“Let go! You’re hurting—”

“Sorry.” He sat up and gently put an arm around her shoulders. “I’m sorry. You caught me by surprise. Tell me all about it. Everything. Don’t leave anything out. My gods—I am so glad you’re here and safe now.” He hugged her. “Tell me everything. In your own time.”

‘Time is the one thing I don’t think we’ve got.” She leaned against him. “Someone sent Olga an unwelcome gift—a rape-o-gram. Luckily for me, but unluckily for the thug concerned, Olga’s childlike enthusiasms include embroidery, violins, haute couture, and semiautomatic weapons. She found a commission in his back pocket, with my seal on it and a purse of coin sufficient to pay the kind of maidenprice Oliver might ask for someone he really didn’t like much. Roland, I didn’t even know I had a seal.”

“ ‘A seal.’” He looked away just as someone knocked on the door. Miriam jumped. “I’ll get it—”

“No! Wait!” Miriam scrabbled for her jacket, fumbled in its pockets. “Okay, now you can open the door. When I’m out of sight.”

Roland glanced at her as he tied his bathrobe. “It’s only room service, isn’t it?”

“I’m not taking any chances.” She crouched against the wall around the corner from the door, pistol cradled in both hands.

“Will you give that up? If it’s the DEA, we have very expensive lawyers who’ll have us both out on bail in about thirty microseconds.”

“It’s not the DEA I’m worried about,” she said through gritted teeth. “It’s my long-lost family.”

“Well, if you put it that way …” Roland opened the door. Miriam tensed. “Thank you,” she heard him tell someone. “That’s great, if you could leave it just here.” A moment later, she heard the door close, then a squeaking of wheels. Roland appeared, pushing a trolley upon which sat an ice bucket with a bottle of something poking out of it.

“This is your surprise?” she asked, lowering the gun.

He nodded. “You are on edge,” he observed. “Listen, do you want me to chain the door and hang out a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign?”

“I think that would be a good start.” She was shivering. Worse, she had no idea where it had come from. “I’m not used to people trying to shoot me, love. It’s not the kind of thing that normally happens to a journalist, unless you’re a war correspondent.”

She put the gun down on the bedside table.

“Listen, Château Rothschild ’98. Sound all right to you?” He brandished the bottle.

“Sounds perfect. Open it now, dammit, I need a drink!”

He peered at her. “You do, at that,” he said. “One moment…” He popped the cork carefully, then slowly filled two fluted glasses, taking care not to spray the champagne everywhere. He passed her a glass, then raised his own. ‘To your very good health.”

‘To us—and the future.” She took a sip. “Whatever the hell that means.”

“You were telling me about Olga.”

“Olga and I had a little conversation at cross-purposes. She was raised to never unintentionally cause offence, so she gave me time to confess before she shot me. Luckily, I confessed to the wrong crime. Did you know that you’re an, uh, ‘dried-up prematurely middle-aged sack of mannered stupidity’? She doesn’t want to marry you—trust me on this.”

“Well, it’s mutual.” Roland sat in the chair opposite the end of the bed, looking disturbed. “Have you any idea how the man got into her apartments?”

“Yup. Through my own, by way of the roof. Turns out that the rooms Baron Oliver assigned me aren’t doppelgängered—or rather they are, but the location on this side is unprotected. And aren’t I supposed to have bodyguards or something? Anyway, that’s why I came here. I figured it was safer than spending the night in an apartment that has a neon sign on the door saying ASSASSINS THIS WAY, with cousins next door who seem to have opened a betting pool on my life expectancy.”

“Someone tried to rape Olga?” Roland shook his head. “That doesn’t make sense to me.”

“It does if I was their first target and they meant to kill me, but couldn’t get at me directly: it was a contingency plan, to set up a blood feud between us.” Briefly, she told him about the open staircase, and her instructions to lock and bolt all the doors on the inside. “I don’t feel safe there, I really don’t.”

“Hmm.” He took a mouthful of wine. “I don’t know.” He looked thoughtful rather than shocked. “I can eliminate some suspects, but not everybody.” He glanced up at her, worry writ large across his face. “First, it’s not official. It’s family, not Clan business. If it was the Clan, they’d have sent soldiers. You’ve seen what we’ve got over here.” She nodded. “Our enforcement teams—you don’t bother resisting.

They’re better armed, better trained, and better paid than the FBI’s own specialist counterterrorism units.”

“Well, I guessed that much,” she said.

“Yes. Anyway, for seconds it’s too damned blatant—and that’s worrying. Whoever did it is out of control. Oliver Hjorth might dislike you and feel threatened, but he wouldn’t try to kill you in his own house. Not offering you a guard of honour is another matter, but to be implicated—no.” He shook his head. “As for Olga, that’s very disturbing. It sounds as if someone set her up to kill you or cause a scandal that would isolate you—one or the other. And you are probably right about being the intruder’s first target. That means it’s an insider—and that’s the frightening part. Someone who knows that you don’t know the families well, that you can be cut apart from the pack and isolated, that you are unguarded. Someone like that, who is acting like they’re out of control. A rogue, in other words.”

“Well, no shit, Sherlock.” She drained her glass and refilled it. “Y’know something? One of these days we may eventually make an investigative journalist out of you.”

“In your dreams—I’m a development economist.” He frowned at the floor in front of her feet, as if it concealed an answer. “Let’s start from where we are. You’ve told Olga about us. That means if we’re lucky she doesn’t tell Angbard. If she does, if Olga tells him about us, he could—do you have any idea what he could do?”

“What?” She shook her head. “Listen, Roland, I didn’t grow up under the Clan’s thumb. Thinking this way is alien to me. I don’t really give a flying fuck what Angbard thinks. If I behave the way they seem to expect me to, I will be dead before the week is out. And if I survive, things won’t be much better for me. The Clan is way out of date and overdue for a dose of compulsory modernization, both at the business level and the personal. If the masked maniac doesn’t succeed in murdering me, the Clan will expect me to go live like a medieval noble lady—fuck that! I’m not going to do it. I’ll live with the consequences later.”

“You’re—” he swallowed. “Miriam.” He held out his arms to her. “You’re strong, but you don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve been trying to resist the pressure for years. It doesn’t work. The Clan will get you to do what they want you to do in the end. I spent years trying to get them to do something—land reform on their estates, educating the peasants, laying the groundwork for industrialization. All I got was shit. There are deeply entrenched political groupings within the Clan who don’t want to see any modernization, because it threatens their own source of power—access to imported goods. And outside the Clan, there are the traditional nobility, not to mention the Crown, who are just waiting for the Clan nobility to make a misstep. Jealousy is a strong motivating force, especially among the recently rich. If Angbard hadn’t stood up for me, I’d have had my estate forfeited. I might even have been declared outlaw—don’t you see?” There was anguish in his eyes.

“Frankly, no. What I see is a lot of frightened people, none of whom particularly like the way things work, but all of whom think they’ll lose out if anyone else disrupts it. And you know something? They’re wrong and I don’t want to be part of that. You’ve been telling me that I can’t escape the Clan, and I’m afraid you’re right—you’ve convinced me—but that only means I’ve got to change things. To carve out a niche I can live with.” She stood up and walked toward him. “I don’t like the way the families live like royalty in a squalid mess that doesn’t even have indoor plumbing. I don’t like the way their law values people by how they can breed and treats women like chattels. I don’t like the way the outer family feel the need to defend the status quo in order to keep from being kicked in the teeth by the inner families. The whole country is ripe for modernization on a massive scale, and the Clan actually has the muscle to do that, if they’d just realize it. I don’t like the dehumanizing poverty the ordinary people have to live with, and I don’t like the way the crazy fucked-up feudal inheritance laws turn an accident of birth into an excuse for rape and murder. But most of all, I don’t like what they’ve done to you.”

She leaned down and pulled him up by the shoulders, forcing him to stand in front of her. “Look at me,” she insisted. “What do you see?”

Roland looked up at her sceptically. “Do you really think you can take them all on?”

“On my own?” She snorted. “I know I can,” she said fiercely. “All it takes is a handful of people who believe that things can change to start the ball rolling. And that handful has to start somewhere! Now are you with me or against me?”

He hugged her right back, and she felt another response: He was stiffening against her, through his robe. “You’re the best thing that’s happened to me in years. If ever. I don’t want to lose you.”^

“Me too, love.”

“But how do you think you’re going to make it work?” he asked. “And stop whoever’s trying to kill you.”

“Oh, that.” She leaned into his arms, letting him pull her back in the direction of the bed. “That’s going to be easy. When you strip away the breeding program, the Clan is a business, right? Family-owned partnership, private shareholdings. Policy is set at annual meetings twice a year, next one at Beltaigne, that sort of thing.”

“So?” He looked distracted, so she stopped fumbling at his belt for a moment.

“Well.” She leaned her chin against the hollow of his neck, licked his pulse spot slowly. “It may have escaped your attention, but I am an expert in one particular field—I’ve spent years studying it, and I think I probably know more about it than anyone else in the family. The Clan is an old-fashioned unlimited-liability partnership, with a dose of family politics thrown in. The business structure itself is a classic variation on import/export trade, but it’s cash-rich enough to support a transition to some other model. All I need is a lever and an appropriate fulcrum and then a direction to make them move in. Business restructuring, baby, that’s where it’s at. A whole new business model. The lever we need is one that will convince them that they have more to lose by not changing than by sticking with the status quo.

Once we’re in the driver’s seat, nobody is going to tell us we can’t shack up on this side and live the way we want to.”

He lifted her off her feet and lay down beside her. “What leverage do you need?” he asked alertly. “I spent years looking and didn’t find anything that powerful…”

“It’s going to be something convincing.” She smiled hungrily up at him. “And they’ll never know what hit them. We need to establish a power base by Beltaigne. A pilot project that demonstrates massive potential for making money in some way that relies on the Clan talent without falling into the classic mercantilist traps. It’ll make me worth much more to them alive than dead, and it’ll give us the beginning of a platform to recruit like-minded people and start building.” She looked pensive. “A skunk works within an established corporation, designed to introduce new ways of thinking and pioneer new business opportunities. I’ve written up enough stories about them—I just never thought I’d be setting one up myself.”

She stopped talking. There’d be time to work out the details later.

Business Plan

Miriam dozed fitfully, unable to relax her grip on consciousness. She kept turning events over in her mind, wondering what she could have done differently. If there was anything in the past two weeks that she could have changed, what might have come of it? She might not have accepted the pink and green shoebox. She wouldn’t be in this mess at all.

But she wouldn’t have met Brill, or Roland, or Angbard, or Olga, or the rest of the menagerie of Clan connections who were so insistently cluttering up her hitherto-straightforward family life with politics and feuds and grudges and everything else that went with the Clan. Her life would be simpler, emptier, more predictable, and safer, she thought sleepily. With nobody trying to exploit me because of who I am.

Who I am? She opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling in the dark. Is it me they’re after or someone else? she wondered. If only I could ask my mother. Not the mother who’d loved her and raised her, not Iris—the other one, the faceless woman who’d died before she’d had a chance to remember her. The woman who’d borne her and been murdered, her only legacy a mess of—

She glanced sideways. Roland was asleep next to her, his face smooth and relaxed, free of worry. I’ve gone from being completely independent to this in just two weeks. Never mind Brill and Kara back in the palace, the weight of Angbard’s expectations, the Clan’s politics … Miriam wasn’t used to having to think about other people when planning her moves, not since the divorce from Ben.

She glanced at the alarm clock. It was coming up to seven o’clock—too late to go back to sleep. She leaned over toward Roland’s ear. “Wake up, sleepyhead,” she whispered.

Roland mumbled something into the pillow. His eyelids twitched.

“Time to be getting up,” she repeated.

He opened his eyes, then yawned. “I hate morning people,” he said, looking at her slyly.

“I’m not a morning person, I just do my best worrying when I should be asleep.” She took a deep breath. I’m going to have to go find that lever to move the Clan,” she told him. “The one we were talking about last night. While that’s going on, unless we can find out who’s really got it in for me, we may not be able to meet up very often.”

“We can’t talk about this publicly,” he said. “Even if Olga keeps her mouth shut—”

“No.” She kissed him. “Damn, I feel like they’re all watching us from behind the bed!”

“What are you going to do today?” he asked diplomatically.

“Well.” She rolled up against him. “First, we’re going to order breakfast from room service. Then you’re going to go and do whatever it is that Angbard expects of you this morning. If you come back here, I’ll probably be gone, because I’ve got some research to do and some stuff to buy. There’s someone I’ve hired—” he raised an eyebrow—“Yes, I’ve established a pattern of drawing out cash against that card, for as long as it’ll hold out. I’m paying a friend who I trust, implicitly, to keep an eye out for me. I’m not going to tell you any more about it because the fewer people who know, the better. But when you come back to this room, even if I’m not here, you’ll find a prepaid new mobile phone. From time to time, I want you to check for voice mail. Only three people will know the number—you, me, and my employee. It’s for emergencies only. There’ll be a single number programmed into it, and that’s for me—again, I’ll only check for voice mail occasionally. I figure if I can’t even hide a mobile phone, there won’t be anything you can do to help.”

“So you’re going away,” he said. “But are you going back to court or are you going underground?”

“I’m going back to face the music,” she replied. “At least for this evening, I need to be seen. But I’m going to hole up on this side at night, at least until I can find a safely doppelgängered room or figure out who’s after me. And then—” she shrugged. “Well, I’ll have to play it by ear. For now, I’m thinking about setting up a new startup venture, in the import/export field.”

“That’s not safe—they’ll kill you if they find out! Clan business ventures are really tightly controlled. If you splinter off, they’ll assume you’re setting up as a rival.”

“Not if I do it right,” she said confidently. “It’s a matter of finding a new business model that hasn’t occurred to any of them. Then get it going and deal the Clan shareholders in before they know what’s happening. If I can finesse it, they’ll have a vested interest in seeing me succeed.”

“But that’s—” Roland was at a loss for words. “A new business? There is no scope for anything new! Nobody’s come up with a new trade since the 1940s, when the drug thing began taking over from gold and hot goods. I was thinking you were going to try and do something like bootstrap reforms on your own estate, not—”

“That’s because you’re thinking about it all wrong.” She reached out and touched his nose. “So are they. You did the postgraduate research thing,” she said. “Economic history, right?”

“Right. What’s that got to do with it?”

“Well. The family business structure is kind of primitive, isn’t it? So you went looking for a way to modernize it, didn’t you? Using historical models.”

“Yes. But I still don’t see—”

“Historical models are the wrong kind. Look at me. They tried to train you up to improve things, but there’s not a lot you can do when the management tree is defined by birth, is there?”

“Correct.” He looked frustrated. “I did some work on this side, cutting overheads and reorganizing, but there’s stuff I couldn’t touch—I just wasn’t allowed anywhere near it, in fact. There’s no easy way to apply the European model in the Gruinmarkt. No investment banking infrastructure, no limited liability, all property rights ultimately devolve to the king—it’s straight out of the late-feudal period. Lots of really competent, smart people who are never going anywhere because they can’t world-walk and lots of time-wasting prima donnas who are basically content to serve as couriers on a million-dollar salary.” He caught her eye and flushed.

“Whether I approve or not doesn’t matter, does it?” she said tartly. “The families are dependent on drug money and weaning them off it will be a huge job. But I’d like you to think on this. You said that their company structure is basically fifteenth—or sixteenth-century. They’re still stuck in a mercantilist mode of thinking—’What can I take from these other guys and sell at a profit?’, rather than ways of generating added value directly. I am absolutely certain that there is a better way of running things—and one that doesn’t run the risk of bringing the FBI and DEA and CIA down on everybody’s heads—some way that lets us generate value directly by world-walking. It’s just a matter of spotting it.”

“The legality of the Clan’s current business isn’t a problem, at least not from the commercial point of view; I think we spend a couple of hundred million a year on security because of it.” He shrugged. “But what can we do? We’re limited to high-value commodities because there’s a limit to how much we can ship. Look, there are roughly three hundred active inner family members who can shuttle between the worlds, five days on and five days off. Each of us can carry an average of a hundred pounds each way. That means we can shift three-quarters of a ton each way, each day. But maybe half of that is taken up by luxury items or stuff we need just to keep sane. There’s the formal personal allowance. So we really only have a little over a third of a ton per day—to fund an entire ruling class! The fixtures and fittings in Fort Lofstrom alone amount to a year’s gross product for the family. That’d be, in U.S. dollar terms, several billion. Wouldn’t it?”

“So what? Isn’t it a bit of a challenge to try and figure out a better way of using this scarce resource—our ability to ship stuff back and forth?”

“But two and a half tons a week—”

“Suppose you were shipping that into orbit, instead of to a world where the roads are dirt tracks and the plumbing doesn’t flush. It doesn’t sound very impressive, but that’s about the payload to orbit capacity of Arianespace, or NPO-Energiya, or Boeing-Sealaunch.” Miriam crossed her arms. “All of whom make billions a year on top of it. There are high-value, low-weight commodities other than drugs. Take saffron, for example, a spice that’s worth three times its weight in gold. Or gold, for that matter. You said they used to smuggle gold, back when bullion was a government monopoly. If you can barter your aristocratic credentials for military power, you can use modern geophysics-based prospecting techniques to locate and conquer gold-mining areas. A single courier can carry maybe a million dollars’ worth of gold from the other side over here in a day, right?”

Roland shook his head. “First, we have transport problems. The nearest really big gold fields are in California, the Outer Kingdom. Which is a couple of months away, as the mule train plods, and assuming the Comanche or the Apache don’t murder you along the way. Remember, M-16s give our guards a quality edge, but quantity has a quality all of its own and ten guards—or even a hundred—aren’t much use against an army. Other than that, there’re the deposits in South Africa, the white man’s graveyard. Do I need to say any more about that? It’d take us years to get that kind of pipeline running, before we had any kind of return on investment to show the families. It’s very expensive. Plus, it’d be deflationary over here. As soon as we start pumping cheap gold onto the market, the price of bullion will fall. Or have you spotted something all of the rest of us have been missing for fifty years? When I was younger, I thought I might be able to change things. But it’s not that simple.”

She shrugged. “Sure it’s hard, and in the long term it’d be deflationary, but in the long run we’re all dead anyway. What I’m thinking is: We need to break the deadlock in the Clan’s thinking wide open. Come up with a new business model, not one the existing Clan grandees have seen before. Doesn’t matter if it isn’t very lucrative at first, as long as it can fund textbooks—going the other way—and wheelbarrows. While we wean the families off their drug dependency problem, we need to develop the Gruinmarkt. Right now, the Clan could implode like that—” she snapped her fingers—“if Congress cancelled the war on drugs, for example. The price would fall by a factor of a hundred—overnight—and you’d be competing against pharmaceutical companies instead of bandits. And it’s going to happen sooner or later. Look at the Europeans: Half of them have decriminalized marijuana already and some of them are even talking about legalizing heroin. Basing your business on a mercantilist approach to transhipping a single commodity is risky as hell.”

“That would be bad, I agree.” He looked grave. “In fact—” his eyes unfocused, he stared into the middle distance—“Sky Father, it could trigger a revolution! If the Clan suddenly lost its supply of luxury items—or antibiotics—we’d be screwed. It’s amazing how much leverage you can buy by ensuring the heir to a duchy somewhere doesn’t die of pneumonia or that some countess doesn’t succumb to childbed fever.”

“Yeah.” Miriam began collecting her scattered clothes. “But it doesn’t have to go that way. I figure with their social standing the Clan could push industrialization and development policies that would drag the whole Gruinmarkt into the nineteenth century within a couple of generations, and a little later it would be able to export stuff that people over here would actually want to buy. Land reform and tools to boost agricultural efficiency, set up schools, build steel mills, and start using the local oil reserves in Pennsylvania—it could work. The Gruinmarkt could bootstrap into the kind of maritime power the British Empire was, back in the Victorian period. As the only people able to travel back and forth freely, we’d be in an amazing position—-a natural monopoly! The question is: How do we get there from here?”

Roland watched her pull her pants on. “That’s a lot to think about,” he said doubtfully. “Not that I’m saying it can’t be done, but it’s … it’s big.”

“Are you kidding?” She flashed him a smile. “It’s not just big, it’s enormous! It’s the biggest goddamned management problem anyone has ever seen. Drag an entire planet out of the middle ages in a single generation, get the families out of the drugs trade by giving them something productive and profitable to do instead, give ourselves so much leverage we can dictate terms to them from on high and make the likes of Angbard jump when we say ‘hop’—isn’t that something you could really get your teeth into?”

“Yeah.” He stood up and pulled open the wardrobe where he’d hung his suit the evening before. “What you’re talking about will take far more leverage than I ever thought…” Then he grinned boyishly. “Let’s do it.”

Miriam went on a shopping spree, strictly cash. She bought three prepaid mobile phones and programmed some numbers in. One of them she kept with Roland’s and Paulette’s numbers in it. Another she loaded with her number and Roland’s and mailed to Paulie. The third—she thought long and hard on it, then loaded her own number in, but not Paulette’s. Blood might be thicker than water, but she was responsible for Paulette’s safety. A tiny worm of suspicion still ate at her; she was pretty certain that Roland was telling the truth, straight down the line, but if not, it wouldn’t be the first time a man had lied to her, and—

What the hell is this? This is the guy you ‘re thinking about spending the rest of your life with—and you’re holding out on him because you don’t trust him completely? She confronted herself and answered: Yeah. If Angbard told him my life depended on him giving Paulie away, how would I feel then?

Next she collected essential supplies. She started by pulling more cash from an ATM. She stuffed three thousand dollars into an envelope, wrapped a handwritten note around it, and FedExed it to Paulette’s home address. It was an eccentric way to pay an employee, but what the hell—it wasn’t as if she’d set up a safe bank account yet, was it? After posting the cash, Miriam hit on a couple of department stores, one for spare socks (There are no washing machines in history-land, she reminded herself) and another for some vital information. A CD-ROM containing the details of every patent filed before 1920 went in her pocket: She had difficulty suppressing a wild grin as she paid ten bucks for it. With the right lever, I will move worlds, she promised herself.

She left the suitcase at the Marriott, but her new spoils went in a small backpack. It was late afternoon before she squeezed into a cab and gave directions back to the warehouse. I hope I’m doing the right thing, she thought, wistfully considering the possibility of spending another night with Roland. But he’d gone back to Cambridge, and she couldn’t stay until he returned to New York.

Yet again there was nobody to challenge her in the warehouse office. It seemed even more deserted than usual, and a strange musty smell hung over the dusty crates. She went upstairs, then knelt and checked for the thread she’d left across the top step.

It was gone. “Hmm.” Miriam glanced around. Nobody here now, she decided. She walked over to the spot that was doppelgängered with her bedroom chamber, took a deep breath, pulled out the locket, and stared at it. The knotwork, intricate and strange, seemed to ripple before her eyes, distorting and shimmering, forming a pattern that she could only half-remember when she didn’t have it in front of her. Odd, it was a very simple knot—

The world twisted around Miriam and spat out a four-poster bed. Her head began to throb at the same time. She closed the locket and looked around.

“Mistress?” It was Kara, eyes wide open. She’d been bent over Miriam’s bed, doing something.

“Yes, it’s me.” Miriam put her backpack down. “How did the assassination attempt go last night?”

“ ‘Assassination’?” Kara looked as if she might explode. “It was horrible! Horrible, mistress! I was so scared—”

“Tell me about it,” Miriam invited. She unzipped her jacket. “Where’s Brill?”

“Next door,” Kara fussed. “The reception tonight! We don’t have long! You’ll have to listen—”

“Whoa!” Miriam raised her hands. “Stop. We have what, three hours? I thought you were going to brief me on who else will be there.”

“Yes, my lady! But if we have to dress you as well—”

“Surely you can talk at the same time?” asked Miriam. “I’m going to find Brilliana. I need to discuss things with her. While I’m doing that, you can get yourself ready.”

She found Brilliana in the reception room, directing a small platoon of maids and manservants around the place. She’d already changed into a court gown. “Over there!” she called. “No, I say, build it in front of the door, not beside it!” She glanced at Miriam as she came in. “Oh, hello there, my lady. It’s hopeless, absolutely hopeless.”

“What is?” asked Miriam.

“The instructions,” said Brilliana. She sidestepped a pool of sawdust as she approached. Miriam glanced around as she added, “They’re no good at following them. Even when I tell them exactly what I want.”

“What have you been up to?” Miriam leaned against a tapestry-hung wall and watched the artisans at work.

“You were right about the door,” said Brilliana. “So I summoned a locksmith to change the levers, and I am having this small vestibule added.” She smiled, baring teeth. “A little trap.”

“I—” Miriam snapped her fingers. “Damn. I should have thought of that.”

“Yes.” Brilliana looked happy with herself. “You approve?”

“Yes. Tell them to continue. I want a word with you in my room.” She retreated into the relative peace and quiet of her bedroom, followed by the lady-in-waiting. With the door shut, the noise of sawing outside was almost inaudible. “What’s the damage?”

“There were holes in your blankets—and scorch marks around them—when I checked this morning.” Despite her matter-of-fact tone, Brilliana looked slightly shaken. “I had to send Kara away, the poor thing was so shocked.”

“Well, I had a good night’s sleep.” Miriam glanced around the room bleakly. “But I was right about the lack of a doppelgängered space on the other side. It’s a huge security risk. This is serious. Did anyone tell Baron Hjorth?”

“No!” Brilliana looked uncertain. “You said—”

“Good.” Miriam relaxed infinitesimally. “All right. About tonight. In a while Kara’s going to come back and sort me out for the reception. In the meantime, I need to know what I’m up against. I think I’m going to need to sleep in Lady Olga’s apartment tonight. I want to vary my pattern a bit until we find whoever… whoever’s behind this.” She sat down on the end of the bed. ‘Talk to me.”

“About tonight?” Brilliana caught her eye and continued. ‘Tonight is the formal ball to mark the opening of the winter session of his majesty’s court tomorrow morning. There will be members of every noble family in the capital present. This is the session in which his majesty must assemble tribute to the emperor beyond the ocean, so it tends to be a little subdued—nobody wants to look too opulent—but at the same time, it’s essential to be seen. To be present in Niejwein at the beginning of winter used to mean one was snowed in, wintering here. Noble hostages at his majesty’s pleasure. We don’t do that these days, but still, it’s a mark of good faith to be seen to offer obedience and at least one older family member. Your uncle sent word by way of his secretary that you be asked to bend the knee and pledge his obedience, by the way.”

“He did, did he?” muttered Miriam.

“Well!” Brill paced across the room in front of her. “What this means is that it will be an assembly of some sixty families of note and their representatives and champions.” She spotted Miriam’s surprised expression. “Did you think we and ours were the sum and the end of the nobility? This is a small fraction of the whole, but thanes and earls from distant towns and estates cannot appear at court, and so many of them make supplication by proxy. We, the Clan families, are merely a small fraction—but the cream.”

“So there are going to be, what, several hundred people present?”

Brilliana nodded, looking very serious. “At least that,” she said. “But I’ll be right behind you to remind you of anyone important.”

“Whew! Lucky me.” Miriam raised an eyebrow. “How long does it go on for?”

“Hmm.” Brill tilted her head over to one side. “It would be rude to leave before midnight. Are you going to be … ?”

“This time, I don’t have a three-day coach journey behind me.” Miriam stood up. And this time I’m going to do business, she added mentally. “So. What do I need to say when greeting people, by order of rank, so as not to offend them? And what have you and Kara decided I’m going to wear?”

This time it only took Kara and Brill an hour to dress Miriam in a midnight-blue gown. But then they insisted on taking another hour to paint her face, put up her hair, and hang a few kilograms of gold, silver, and precious stones off her. At the end of the process, Miriam walked in front of the mirror (a full two feet in diameter, clearly imported from the other side) and took a comic double-take. “Is that me?” she asked.

“Should it not be?” Brilliana replied. Miriam glanced at her. Brilliana’s outfit looked to Miriam to be both plainer and more elegant than her own, not to mention easier to move in. “It is a work of art,” Brilliana explained, “fit for a countess.”

“Hah. ‘A work of art!’ And here I was, thinking I was a plain old journalist.” Miriam nodded to herself. All face, she thought. All the wealth goes on the outside to show how rich you are. That’s how they think. If you don’t display it, you ain’t got it. Remember that. This outfit seemed marginally less overblown than the last: Maybe she was getting used to local styles. “Is there,” she asked doubtfully, “anywhere that I can put a few small items?”

“I can assign a maid to carry them, if it pleases you—” Brilliana caught her expression. “Oh that kind of item,”

“Yes.” Miriam nodded, afraid that smiling would crack her makeup.

“She could use a muff, for her hands?” suggested Kara.

“A ‘muff’?” asked Miriam.

“This.” Kara produced a cylindrical fur hand-warmer from somewhere. “Will it do?”

“I think so.” Miriam tried stuffing her hands in it. It had room to spare—and a small pocket. She smiled in spite of herself. “Yes, this will do,” she said. She walked over to her day sack and fished around in it. “Dammit, this is ridiculous—got it!” She stood up triumphantly clutching the bag and pulled out a number of small items that she proceeded to stuff into the muffler.

“Milady?” Kara looked puzzled.

“Never go out without a spare tampon,” Miriam told her. “You know, tampons?” She blinked in surprise. “Well, maybe you don’t. And a few other things.” Like a strip of beta-blocker tablets, a small bottle of painkillers, a tarnished silver locket, a credit card wallet, and a mobile phone. That should cover most eventualities, she told herself.

“Milady—” Kara looked even more puzzled.

“Yes, yes,” Miriam said briskly. “We can go now—or as soon as you’re ready, right? Only,” she held up a finger, “it occurs to me that it would be a good idea to keep our carriage ready to return at a moment’s notice. Do you understand? Against the possibility that my mystery admirer turns up again.”

“I’ll see to it,” said Brilliana. She looked slightly worried.

“Do so.” Miriam took a deep breath. “Shall we leave now?”

Travelling by carriage seemed to involve as much preparation as a flight in a light plane and was even less comfortable. A twenty-minute slog in a freezing cold carriage, sandwiched between Kara and Brilliana, didn’t do anything good to Miriam’s sense of tolerance and goodwill. The subsequent hour of walking across the king’s brilliantly polished parquet supporting a fixed, gracious grin and a straight back wouldn’t normally have done anything to help, either—but Miriam had done trade shows before, and she found that if she treated this whole junket as a fancy-dress industry event, she actually felt at home in it. Normally she’d use a dictaphone to record her notes—a lady-in-waiting in a red gown would have been rather obtrusive at a trade show—but the principle was the same, she decided, getting into the spirit of things. “Is that so?” she cooed, listening attentively to Lord Ragnr and Styl hold forth on the subject of the lobster fishermen under his aegis. “And do they have many boats?” she asked. “What kind do they prefer, and how many men crew them?”

“Many!” Lord Ragnr and Styl puffed up his chest until it almost overshadowed his belly, which was proud and taut beneath a layer of sashes and diadems. “At last census, there were two hundred fishing crofts in my isles! And all of them but the most miserable with boats of their own.”

“Yes, but what type are they?” Miriam persisted, forcing a smile.

“I’m sure they’re perfectly adequate fishing boats; I shouldn’t worry on their behalf, my lady. You should come and visit one summer. I am sure you would find the fresh sea air much to your favour after the summer vapours of the city, and besides—” he huffed—“didn’t I hear you say you were interested in the whales?”

“Indeed.” Miriam dipped her head, chalking up another dead loss—yet another feudal drone who didn’t know or wouldn’t talk about the source of his own wealth, being more interested in breeding war horses and feuding with the king’s neighbours. “May I have the pleasure of your conversation later?” she asked. “For I see an old friend passing, and it would be rude not to say hello—”

She ducked away from Ragnr and Styl, and headed toward the next nobleman and his son—she was beginning to learn how to spot such things—and wife. “Ambergris, Brill, may be available from Ragnr and Styl. Make a note of that, please, I want to follow it up later. Who’s this fellow, then?”

“This is Eorl Euan of Castlerock. His wife is Susan and the son is, um, I forget his name. Rural aristocracy, they farm and, uh, they’re clients of the Lords Arran. How do you spell Ambergris?”

Miriam advanced on Eorl Euan with a gracious smile. “My lord!” She said. “I am sorry, but I have not been gifted with the privilege of your acquaintance before. May I intrude upon your patience for a few minutes?”

It was, she had discovered, a surprisingly effective tactic. The manners were different, the glitz distracting, and the products and press releases took a radically dissimilar form—but the structure was the same. At a trade show she was used to stalking up to a stand where some bored men and women were waiting to fall upon such as she and tell her their business plans and their life stories. She’d had no idea what happened at a royal court event, but evidently a lot of provincial nobility turned up in hope of impressing all and sundry and carving out a niche as providers of this or that—and they were as much in search of an audience with a bright smile and a notepad as any marketing executive, did they but know it.

“What are you doing, mistress?” Brilliana asked during one gap in the proceedings.

“I’m learning, Brill. Observe and take notes!”

She was nodding periodically and looking seriously, as Lord Something of This told her about Earl Other of That’s infringement upon his historically recognized deer forest in pursuit of coal in the Netherwold Mountains down the coast, when she became aware of a growing silence around her. As Lord Something ran down, she turned her head—and saw a posse advancing on her, led by a dowager of fearsomely haughty aspect, perhaps eighty years old but as dry as a mummy, with curiously drooping eyelids, two noble ladies to either side, and a train borne by no less than three pages astern. “Ah,” said the dowager. “And this is the Countess Thorold Hjorth I have heard so much about?” she asked the younger of her two companions, who nodded, avoiding Miriam’s eyes.

Miriam turned and smiled pleasantly. “Whom do I have the honour of addressing?” she asked. Where’s Brill? she wondered. Dammit, why did she have to wander off right now? The dowager was exuding the kind of chill Miriam associated with cryogenic refrigerants. Or maybe her venom glands were acting up. Miriam smiled wider, trying to look innocent and friendly.

“This is the grand dowager Duchess Hildegarde Thorold Hjorth, first of the Thorold line, last of the Thorold Hjorth braid,” announced the one who’d spoken to the dowager.

Oh. Miriam dipped as she’d been taught: “I’m honoured to meet you,” she said.

“So you should be.” Miriam nearly let her smile slip at that, the first words the duchess had spoken to her. “Without my approval, you wouldn’t be here.”

“Oh, really?” Her smile was becoming painful. “Well, then I am duly grateful to you.” Brilliana! Why now? Who is this dragon?

“Of course.” The dowager’s expression finally relaxed, from an expression of intense disapproval into full-on contempt. “I felt the need to inspect the pretender for myself.”

‘Pretender’? “Explain yourself,” Miriam demanded, tensing. There must have been something frightening about her expression: One of the ladies-in-waiting took a step backward and the other raised a hand to her mouth. “Pretender to what?”

“Why, to the title you assume with so little preparation and polish, and manners utterly unfitted to the role. A mere commoner from the mummer’s stand, jumped up and gussied up by Cousin Lofstrom to stake his claim.” The dowager’s look of fierce indignation reminded Miriam of a captive eagle she’d once seen in a zoo. “A pauper, dependent on the goodwill and support of others. If you were who you claim to be, you would be of substance.” Duchess Hildegarde Thorold Hjorth made a little flicking motion, consigning her to the vacuum of social obscurity. “Come, my—”

“Now you wait right here!” Miriam took a step forward, right into the dowager’s path. “I am not an impostor,” she said, her voice pitched low and even. “I am who I am, and if I am not here happily and of my own free will, I will not be spoken to with contempt.”

“Then how will you be spoken to?” asked the duchess, treating her to a little acid smile that showed how highly she rated Miriam in this company.

“With the respect due my station,” Miriam threw at her, “or not at all.”

The dowager raised one hooded eyebrow. “Your station is a matter of debate, child, but not for you—and it is a debate that will be settled at Beltaigne, when I shall take great pleasure in ensuring that it is brought before the Clan council and given the consideration it deserves. And you might wish to give some thought to the matter of your competence, even if your identity is upheld.” The little smile was back, dripping venom: “If you joust with the elite, do not be surprised when you are unhorsed.” She turned and walked away, leaving Miriam gaping and angry.

She was just beginning to realize she’d been outmaneuvered when Brilliana appeared at her elbow. “Why didn’t you warn me?” she hissed. “Who is that poisonous bitch?”

Brilliana looked astonished. “But I thought you knew! That was your grandmother.”

“Oh. Oh.” Miriam clapped a hand to her mouth. “I have a grandmother?”

“Yes and a—” Brilliana stopped. “You didn’t know,” she said slowly.

“No,” Miriam said, looking at her sharply.

“Everyone says you’ve got the family temper,” Brill let slip, then looked shocked.

“You mean, like—that?” Miriam looked at her, aghast.

“Hmm.” Brill clammed up, her face as straight as a gambler with an inside flush. “Oh look,” she said, glancing behind Miriam. “Isn’t that—”

Miriam glanced around, then turned, startled. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here,” she said, trying to pull herself together in the aftermath of the duchess’s attack.

The duke’s keeper of secrets nodded. “Neither was I, until yesterday,” he said stone-faced. He looked her up and down. “You appear to be settling in here.”

“I am.” Miriam paused, unsure how to continue. Matthias looked just as intimidating in Niejwein court finery as he had in a business suit. It was like having a tank take a pointed interest in her. “Yourself? Are you doing all right?”

“Well enough.” Matthias noticed Brilliana. “You. Please leave us, we have important matters to discuss.”

“Humph.”

Brill turned and was about to leave. “Do we?” Miriam asked, pointedly. “I rather think we can talk in front of my lady-in-waiting.”

“No we can’t.” Matthias smiled thinly. “Go away, I said.” He gestured toward the wall, where secluded window bays, curtain-lined against the cold, provided less risk of being overhead. “Please come with me.”

Miriam followed him reluctantly. If they ever make a movie about the Clan, they’ll have to hire Schwarzenegger to play this guy, she decided. But Arnie has a sense of humour. “What is there to talk about?” she asked quietly.

“Your uncle charged me to deliver this to you.” Matthias held out a small wooden tube, like a miniature poster holder.

“For the king, a sworn affidavit testifying to your identity.” His expression was unreadable. “I am to introduce you to his majesty on behalf of my master.”

“I, uh, see.” Miriam took the tube. “Any other messages?”

“Security.” Matthias shook his head. “It’s not so good here. I gather that Baron Hjorth assigned you no guards? That’s bad. I’ll deal with it myself in the morning.” He leaned over her like a statue.

“Um.” Miriam looked up at him. “Is that all?”

“No.” His cheek twitched. “I have some questions for you.”

“Well. Ask away.” Miriam glanced around, increasingly uncomfortable with the way Matthias had corralled her away from the crowd. “What about?”

“Your upbringing. This is important because it may help me identify who is trying to kill you. You were adopted, I believe?”

“Yes.” Miriam shrugged. “My parents—I was in care, the woman I was found with was dead, stabbed, a Jane Doe. So when Morris and Iris went looking for a child to adopt, I was around.”

“I see.” Matthias’s tone was neutral. “Was your home ever burgled when you were a child? Did anyone ever attack your parents?”

“My—no, no burglaries.” Miriam shook her head. “No attacks. My father’s death, that was a hit-and-run driver. But they caught him; he was just a drunk. Random chance.”

“ ‘Random chance.’” Matthias sniffed. “Do not underestimate random chance.”

“I don’t,” she said tersely. “Listen, why the third degree?”

“Because.” He stared at her unblinkingly: “I take a personal interest in all threats to Clan security.”

“Bullshit. You’re secretary to the duke. And a member of the outer families, I believe?” She looked up at him. ‘That puts a glass ceiling right over your head, doesn’t it? You sit in Fort Lofstrom like a spider, pulling strings, and you run things in Boston when the duke is elsewhere, but only by proxy. Don’t you? So what’s in it for you?”

“You are mistaken.” Matthias’s eyes glinted by candlelight. “To get here, I left the duke’s side this morning.”

“Oh, I get it. Someone gave you a lift across and you caught the train.”

“Yes.” Matthias nodded. “And here is something else you should understand, your ladyship. I am not of high birth. Or rather, but for an accident of heredity … but like many of my relatives I have reached an accommodation with the Clan.” He took her arm. “I know a little about your history. Not everyone who lives here is entirely happy with the status quo, the way the Clan council is run. You have a history of digging—”

“Let go of my wrist,” Miriam said quietly.

“Certainly.” Matthias dropped his grip. “Please accept my apologies. I did not intend to give offence.”

Miriam paused for a moment. “Accepted.”

“Very well.” Matthias glanced away. “Would you care to hear some advice, my lady?”

“It depends,” she said, trying to sound noncommittal, trying to stay in control. First a hostile grandmother, now what…? She felt slightly dizzy, punch-drunk from too much information, much of it unwelcome. “In what spirit is the advice offered?”

Matthias’s face was as stiff and controlled as a mask. “In a spirit of friendly solicitude and perfect altruism,” he murmured.

She shrugged uncomfortably. “Well, then, I suppose I should take it in the manner in which it is intended.”

Matthias lowered his voice. “The Clan has many secrets, as you have probably realized, and there are things here that you should avoid showing a conspicuous interest in. In particular, the alignment of inner members, those who vote within the council, is vulnerable to disturbance if certain proxies were realigned. You should be careful of embarrassments; the private is public, and you never know what seeming accidents may be taken by your enemies as proof of your incompetence. I say this as a friend: You would do well to find a protector—or a faction to embrace—before you become a target for the fears of every conspirator.”

“Do you know who’s threatening me? Are you threatening me?” she asked.

“No and no. I am simply attempting to educate you. There are more factions here than anyone will admit to.” He shook his head. “I will visit you tomorrow and see to your guards—if that meets with your approval. I can provide you with a degree of protection if you choose to accept it. Do you?”

“Hah. We’ll see.” Miriam backed away from him, trying to cover her confusion. She retreated back into the flood of light shed by the enormous chandeliers overhead, back toward the torrent of faces babbling in their endless arrogant status games and power plays, just as Brilliana came hurrying up to her. “You have a summons!” Brill said hastily. “His royal highness would like you to present before him.”

“Present what, exactly? My hitherto-undiscovered family tree, a miracle of fratricidal squabbles and—”

“No, your credentials.” Brilliana frowned. “He gave them to you?”

Miriam held up the small scroll and examined the seal. It was similar to the one Olga had shown her, but different in detail.

“Yes,” she said, finally.

“Was that all he wanted?” Brilliana asked.

“No.” Miriam shook her head. “Time for that later. You’d better take me to his majesty.”

The royal party held their space in another window bay backed by curtains and shutters. All the cloth didn’t completely block the chill that exuded from the stonework. Miriam approached the long as she’d been shown, Brilliana—and a Kara she’d found somewhere—in tow, and made the deepest curtsy she could manage.

“Rise,” said his high majesty, Alexis Nicholau III. “I believe we have met? The night before last?”

He smelled of stale wine and old sweat. “Yes, your majesty.” She offered her scroll to him. “This is for you.”

He cracked the seal with a shaky hand, unrolled it, then nodded to himself and handed it to a page. “Well, if you’re good enough for Angbard, you’re good enough for me.”

“Um. Your majesty?”

He waved vaguely at the curtains. “Angbard says you’ll do, and what he says has a habit of sticking.” One of the two princes sidled up behind him, trailing a couple of attendants. “So I’ve got m’self a new countess.”

“It would appear so, your majesty.”

“You’re his heir,” said the king, relishing the last word.

Miriam’s jaw dropped. “M-majesty?”

“Well, he says so,” said King Alexis. “Says so right there.” He stabbed a finger at the page who held the parchment. “ ’N, who d’you think really runs this place?”

“Pardon me, please. He hadn’t told me.”

“Well, I’m telling you,” said the king. The prince—was it Creon or Egon? She couldn’t tell them apart yet—leaned over his majesty’s shoulder and stared at her frankly. “Doesn’t matter much.” The king sniffed. “You won’t fill that man’s shoes, girl. The man you marry might, though. If you both live long enough.”

“I see,” she said. The prince was clearly in his twenties, had long dark hair, an embroidered gold blouse, and a knife at his belt that looked to be a solid mass of gemstones. He regarded her with an expression of slack-jawed vacancy. What is this? Miriam wondered with growing fear. Shit, I knew it! They ‘re trying to set me up!

“There’s one way of seeing to that,” the king added. “I believe you’ve not been introduced to my son Creon?”

“Delighted, absolutely delighted!” Miriam tried to smile at him. Creon nodded back at her happily.

“Creon is long past an age to marry,” the king said thoughtfully. “Of course, whoever he took to wife would be a royal princess, you realize?” He looked down his nose at her. “Of course anyone who would be pledged to a royal household would need a very special dowry—” his glance was dark and full of veiled significance—“but I believe Angbard’s relatives might find the price affordable. And the prince would benefit from the intelligent self-interest of an understanding wife.”

“Uh-huh.” She looked past the king, at Prince Creon. The prince beamed at her, a delighted, friendly expression that was nevertheless undermined by the way he simultaneously drooled on his collar. “I’d be delighted to meet with the prince later, under more appropriate circumstances,” she gushed. “Delighted! Of course!” She beamed, desperately racking her brain for platitudes recovered from a thousand and one annual shareholders’ meetings gone bad. “I’d love to hear from you, really I would, but I am still being introduced to so many fascinating people and I owe you my full attention, it would be awful to devote less than my full energies and attention to your son! I quite appreciate your—”

“Yes, yes, that’s enough.” The king beamed at her. “There’s no need for sycophancy. I have heard so much I am far beyond its reach, and he—” he nodded—“will never be within it.”

Gulp. “I see, your majesty.”

“Yes, he’s an idiot,” King Alexis said genially. “And you’re too old.” Some instinct for self-preservation made Miriam swallow an automatic protest. “But he’s my idiot, and were he to marry his child would be third in line to the throne, at least until Egon’s wife bears issue. I urge you to think on this, young lady: Should you meet anyone suitable, I would be most interested to hear of them. Now begone with you, to these vastly important strangers who fascinate you so conspicuously. I won’t hold it against you.”

“Uh—thank you! Thank you most kindly!” Miriam fled in disarray, outmanoeuvred for the third time this evening. Just what is it with these people? she wondered. The king’s overture was undoubtedly well-meant; just alarming and demoralizing, for it highlighted the depths of her own inadequacy in trying to play power politics with these sharks. The king wants to marry his son into the Clan, and he thinks I’m a useful person to talk to? It was desperately confusing. And why had Angbard named her his heir? That was the real question. Without an answer, nothing else seemed to make sense. What was he trying to achieve? Didn’t it make her some kind of target?

Target.

She stopped, halfway from pillared bay to dancing floor, as if struck in the head by a two-by-four.

“Milady Miriam? What is it?” Brilliana was tugging at her sleeve.

“Shush. I’m thinking.”

Target. Thirty-two years ago someone had pursued and murdered her mother, while she was en route to this very court to pay attendance to the king—probably Alexis’s father. During the civil war between the families, before the Clan peace was installed. Her mother’s marriage had been the peace settlement that cemented one corner of the arrangement.

Since she’d come here, someone had tried to kill her at least twice.

Miriam thought furiously. These people hold long grudges. Are the incidents connected? If so, it could be more than Baron Hjorth’s financial machinations. Or Matthias’s mysterious factions. Or even the dowager grandmother, Duchess Hildegarde Thorold Hjorth.

Someone ignorant of her past. Of course! If they’d known about her before, or on the other side, she’d have been pushed under a subway train or run over by a car or shot in a random drive-by incident long before she’d discovered the way back. How common is it to conceal an heir? she wondered.

“Mistress, you’ve got to come.”

“What is it?” Something about Brilliana’s insistent nudging attracted Miriam’s attention. It’s not me, it’s something to do with who I am, she realized vaguely, groping for the light. I’m so important to these people that they can’t conceive of me not joining in their game. It would be like the vice president refusing to talk to the Senate. Even if I don’t do anything, tell them I want to be left alone, that would be seen as some kind of deep political game. “What’s happening?” she asked distractedly.

“It’s Kara,” Brill insisted. “We’ve got a problem.”

“I’m here,” she said, shaking her head, dazed by her insight. I’ve got to be a politician, whether I like it or not… “What is it now?”

As it happened, Kara was somewhat the worse for wear, not to say steaming drunk. A young Sir Nobody-in-Particular had been plying her with wine, evidently fortified by freezing—her speech was slurred and incoherent and her hair mussed—quite possibly with intent to climb into her clothing with her. He hadn’t got far, perhaps because Kara was more enthusiastic than discreet, but it wasn’t for want of trying. Though Kara protested her innocence, Miriam detected more than a minor note of concern on Brill’s part. “Look, I think there’s a good reason for going home,” Miriam told the two of them. “Can you get into the carriage?” she questioned Kara.

“Course I can,” Kara slurred. “N’body does ’t better!”

“Right.” Miriam glanced at Brilliana. “Let’s get her home.”

“Do you want to stay, mistress?” Brilliana looked at her doubtfully.

“I want—” Miriam stopped. “What I want doesn’t seem likely to make any difference here,” she said bleakly, feeling the weight of the world descend on her shoulders. Angbard named me his heir because he wanted me to attract whatever faction tried to kill my mother, she thought. Hildegarde takes against me because I can’t bring back, or be, her daughter, and now I’ve got these two ingénues to look out for. Not to mention Roland. Roland, who might be—

“Got a message,” announced Kara as they were halfway to the door.

“A message? How nice,” Miriam said dryly.

“For th’ mistress,” Kara added. Then she focused on Miriam. “Oh!”

From between her breasts, she produced a thin scrap of paper. Miriam stuffed it in her hand-warmer and took Kara by the arm. “Come on home, you,” she insisted.

The carriage was literally freezing. Icicles dangled from the steps as they climbed in, and the leather seats crackled as they sat down. “Home,” Brilliana told the driver. With a shake of the reins, he set the horses to walking, their breath steaming in the frigid air. “That was exciting!” she said. “Shame you spoiled it,” she chided Kara. “What were you arguing about with those gentles?” she asked Miriam timidly. “I’ve never seen anything like it!”

“I was being put in my place by my grandmother, I think,” Miriam muttered. Hands in her warmer, she fumbled for the blister-pack of beta-blocker tablets. She briefly brought a hand out and dry-swallowed one, along with an ibuprofen. She had a feeling she’d be needing them soon. “What do you know about the history of my family, Brill?” she asked.

“What, about your parents? Or your father? Families or braids?”

Miriam shut her eyes. “The civil war,” she murmured. “Who started it?”

“Why—” Brilliana frowned. “The civil war? ’Tis clear enough: Wu and Hjorth formed a compact of trade, east coast to west, at the expense of the Clan; Thorold, Lofstrom, Arnesen, and Hjalmar returned the compliment, sending Andru Arnesen west to represent them in Chang-Shi, and he was murdered on his arrival there by a man who vanished into thin air. Clearly it was an attempt to prevent the Clan of four from competing, so they took equivalent measures against the gang of two. What made it worse was that some hidden members of each braid seemed to want to keep the feud burning. Every time it looked as if the elders were going to settle things up, a new outrage would take place—Duchess Lofstrom abused and murdered, Count Thorold-Arnesen’s steading raided and set alight.”

“That’s—” Miriam’s eyes narrowed. “You’re a Hjahnar, right?”

“Yes?” Brilliana nodded. “Why? What does it mean?”

“Just thinking,” Miriam said. Left-over grudges, a faction that didn’t want the war to stop, to stop eating the Clan’s guts out. She hit a brick wall. It’s as if someone from outside had stepped in, intervened to set cousins against each other… She sat up.

“Weren’t there originally seven sons of Angmar the Sly?”

“Urn, yes?” Brill looked puzzled.

“But one was lost, in the early days?”

Brill nodded. “That was Markus, or something. The first to head west to make his fortune.”

“Aha.” Miriam nodded.

“Why?”

“Just thinking.” Hypothesis: There is another family, outside the Clan. The Clan don’t know about them. They’re not numerous, and they ‘re in the same import/export trade. Won’t they see the Clan as a threat? But why? Why couldn’t they simply marry back into the braids? She shook her head. I should have tried those experiments with the photograph of the locket.

The carriage drew up at the door of the Thorold Palace, and Miriam and Brilliana managed to get Kara out without any untoward incidents. Then Kara responded to the cold air by stumbling to the side of the ornate portico, bending over as far as she could, and vomiting in an ornamental planter.

“Ugh,” said Brilliana. She glanced sidelong at Miriam. “This should not have happened.”

“At least the plants were dead first,” Miriam reassured her. “Come on. Let’s get her inside.”

“No, that’s not what I meant.” Brill took a deep breath. “Euen of Arnesen plied her with fortified wine while she was out with my sight. I should have seen it, but was myself besieged when not following your lead.” She frowned. “This was deliberate.”

“You expect me to be surprised?” Miriam shook her head. “Come on. Let’s get her up to our rooms and see she doesn’t—” a flashback to Matthias’s warning—“embarrass us further.”

Brill helped steer Kara upstairs, and Miriam ensured that she was sat upright on a chaise lounge, awake and complaining with a cup of tea, before she retreated to her bedroom. She started to remove her cloak then remembered the hand-warmer, and the message Kara had passed her. She unrolled it and read.

“Shit,” she mumbled under her breath. “Brill!”

“Yes, Miriam?”

“Help me undress, will you?”

“What, right now? Are you going to bed?”

“Not immediately,” Miriam said grimly. “Our assassin seems to have gotten tired of trying to sneak up on me and is trying to reel me in like a fish. Only he’s made a big mistake.” She turned to present her back. “Unlace me. I’ve got places to go, and it’d be a shame to get blood on this gown.”

Black jeans, combat boots, turtleneck, and leather jacket: a gun in her pocket and a locket in her left hand. Miriam breathed deeply, feeling naked despite everything. She felt as if the only thing she was wearing was a target between her shoulder blades.

Across the room Brilliana looked worried. “Are you sure this is the right thing to do?” she asked again. “Do you want me to come? I am trained using a pistol—”

“I’ll be fine. But I may have to world-walk in a hurry.” I won’t be fine, Miriam corrected herself silently: But if I don’t deal with this trouble sooner or later, they’ll kill me. Won’t they? And the one thing an assassin wouldn’t be expecting would be for her—not one of the Clan-raised hotheads born with her hands on a pistol, but a reasonable, civilized journalist from a world where that sort of thing just didn’t happen—to turn on them. She hoped.

Miriam hitched her day sack into place and checked her right pocket again, the one with the gun and a handful of spare cartridges. She didn’t feel fine: There were butterflies in her stomach. “If there’s a problem, I’ll stay the night on the other side, safely out of the way. But I need to know. I want you to wait half an hour, then take Kara around to Olga and sit things out with her there. With your gun, and Olga, and her own guards, in a properly doppelgängered area, you should be safe. But I don’t want her tripping and falling downstairs before we learn who gave her that note. D’you understand? Matthias promised to sort me out some guards tomorrow, but I don’t trust him. If he’s in on this—or just being watched—there’ll be an attempt on my life tonight. Except this time I think they got sloppy, expecting me to turn up for it like it’s an appointment. So I’m going to avoid it entirely.”

“I understand.” Brill stood up. “Good luck,” she said.

“Luck has nothing to do with it.” Miriam took two steps toward the door, then pulled out her locket.

Dizziness, mild nausea, a headache that clamped around her head like a vice. She looked around. Nothing seemed to have changed in the warehouse attic, other than the dim light getting dimmer and the bad smell from somewhere nearby. It was getting worse, and it reminded her of something. “Hmm.”

Miriam ducked behind a wall of wooden crates, her head pounding. She pulled the pistol out, slightly nervous at first. It was a self-cocking revolver, reliable and infinitely reassuring in the gloom. Stay away from guns, the training course had emphasized. But that was then, back where she was a journalist and the world made sense to rational people. But if they’re trying to kill you, you have to kill them first, was another, older lesson from the firearms instructor her father had sent her to. And here and now, it seemed to make more sense.

Carefully, very slowly, she inched forward over the edge of the mezzanine floor and looked down. The ground floor of the warehouse was a maze of wooden cases and boxes. The mobile home that constituted the site office was blocked up in the middle of it. There was no sign of anybody about, none of the comforting noises of habitation.

Miriam rose to a crouch and scurried down the stairs as quietly as she could. She ducked below the stairs, then from shadow to shadow toward the door.

There was a final open stretch between the site office and the exit. Instead of crossing it, Miriam tiptoed around the wall of the parked trailer, wrinkling her nose at a faint, foul smell.

The site office door was open and the light inside was on. Holding her gun behind her, she stood up rapidly and climbed the three steps to the door of the trailer. Then she looked inside.

“Fuck!”

The stench was far worse in here, and the watchman seemed to be smiling at her. Smiling? She turned away blindly, sticking her head out of the door, and took deep breaths, desperately trying to get her stomach back under control. Cultivate your professional detachment, she told herself, echoing a half-forgotten professor’s admonition from med school. Reflexes left over from anatomy classes kicked in. She turned back to the thing that had surprised her and began to make observations, rattled to her core but still able to function. She’d seen worse in emergency rooms, after all.

It was the old guy she’d met with the clipboard, and he was past any resuscitation attempt. Someone had used an extremely sharp knife to sever his carotid artery and trachea, and continued to slice halfway through his spine from behind. There was dried blood everywhere, huge black puddles of it splashed over walls and floor and the paper-strewn desk, curdling in great thick viscous lumps—the source of only some of the smell, for he’d voided his bowels at the same time. He was still lying on top of his tumbled chair, his skin waxy and—she reached out to touch—cold. At least twelve hours, she thought, gingerly trying to lift an arm still locked in rigor mortis, but probably no longer. Would the intense cold retard the processes of decay? Yes, a little bit. That would put it before my last trip over here, but after I saw Paulette.

“Goodfellas,” she whispered under her breath: It came out as an angry curse. During her night with Roland, someone had entered the warehouse, casually murdered the old man, climbed the stairs—breaking the hair—and then, what?

Brought the attacker who’d gone up on the roof and tried to attack Olga? Then he came back later, crossed over to the other side, and emptied a pistol into the dummy made of pillows lying in her bed? Gone away? Correlation does not imply causality, she reminded herself and giggled, shocked at herself and increasingly angry.

“What to do?” Well, the obvious thing was to use her most dangerous weapon. So she pulled out her phone and speed-dialled Roland.

“Yeah?” He picked up at the fourth ring.

“Roland, there’s a problem.” She realized that she was panting, breathing way too fast. “Let me catch my breath.” She slowed down. “I’m in the warehouse on the doppelgänger side of my rooms. The night watchman’s had his throat cut. He’s been dead for between twelve and thirty-six hours. And someone—did you send me a note by way of the reception on the other side, saying to meet you in the orangery at Palace Thorold?”

“No!” He sounded shocked. “Where are you?” She gave him the address. “Right, I’ll tell someone to get a team of cleaners around immediately. Listen, we’re wrestling alligators over here tonight. It looks like the Department of Homeland Security has been running some traffic analysis on frequent fliers looking for terrorists and uncovered one of our—”

“I get the message,” she interrupted. “Look, my headache is that I planted a hair across the top step when I came through last night, and it was broken when I went back over this morning. I’m fairly sure someone from the Clan came here, killed the watchman, headed up to the mezzanine that’s on the other side of my suite—breaking the hair—and crossed over. There was another attempt to kill me in my suite last night, Roland. They want me dead, and there’s something going down in the palace.”

“Wait there. I’ll be around in person as soon as I can get unstuck from this mess.”

Miriam stared at the phone that had gone dead in her hand, paranoid fantasies playing through her head.

“Angbard set me up,” she muttered to herself. “What if Roland’s in on it?” It was bizarre. The only way to be sure would be to go to the rendezvous, surprise the assassin. Who had come over from this side. Yes, but if they could get into her apartment, why bother with the silly lure?

“What if there are two groups sending assassins?” she asked the night watchman. He grinned at her twice over. “The obvious one who is clearly a Clan member, and, and the subtle one—”

She racked her brains for the precise number of paces from the stairs up to her room to the back door opening into the grounds of the palace. Then she remembered the crates laid out below. The entrance will be next door, she realized. She jumped out of the trailer with its reek of icy death and dashed across to the far wall of the warehouse—the one corresponding to the main entrance vestibule of the palace. It was solid brick, with no doors. “Damn!” She slipped around to the front door and out into the alley, then paced out the fifty feet it would take. Then she carefully examined the next frontage.

It was a bonded warehouse. Iron bars fronted all the dust-smeared windows, and metal shutters hid everything within from view. The front door was padlocked heavily and looked as if nobody had opened it in years. ‘This has got to be it,” she muttered, looking up at the forbidding façade. What better way to block off the entrance to a palace on the other side? Probably most of the rooms behind the windows were bricked off or even filled with concrete, corresponding to the positions of the secure spaces on the other side. But there had to be some kind of access to the public reception area, didn’t there?

Miriam moved her locket to her left hand and pulled out her pistol. “How the hell do they do this in the movies?” she asked herself as she probed around the chain. “Oh well.” She carefully aimed the gun away from her, at the hasp of the padlock. Then she pulled the trigger.

The crack of the gun was deafeningly loud in the night time quiet, but the lock parted satisfyingly easily. Miriam yanked it away, opened the bolt, and pushed the door in.

An alarm began to jangle somewhere inside the building. She jumped, but there wasn’t anything to be done about it She was standing at one end of a dusty linoleum-floored corridor. A flick of a switch and the dim lights came on, lighting a path into the gloom past metal gates like jail cell doors that blocked access to rooms piled ceiling-high with large barrels. Miriam closed the door behind her and strode down the corridor as fast as she dared, hoping desperately that she was right about where it led. There was a reception room at the end: cheap desks and chairs covered in dust sheets and a locked and bolted back door. It was about the right distance, she decided. Taking a deep breath, she raised her locket and focused on the symbol engraved inside it—

—And she was cold, and the lights were out, and her skull felt as if she’d run headfirst into a brick wall. Snowflakes fell on her as she doubled over, trying to prevent the intense nausea from turning into vomiting. I did that too fast, she thought vaguely between waves of pain. Even with the beta-blockers. The process of world-walking seemed to do horrible things to her blood pressure. Good thing I’m not on antidepressants, she thought grimly. She forced herself to stand up and saw that she was just in the garden behind the palace—outdoors. Anyone trying to invade the palace by way of the doppelgänger warehouse on the other side would find themselves under the guns of the tower above—if the defences were manned. But it was snowing tonight, and someone obviously wanted as few witnesses around as possible …

An iron gate in the wall behind her was the mirror image of the door to the warehouse office. “Orangery,” she muttered through gritted teeth. She slid along the wall like a shadow, letting her eyes grow accustomed to the night. The orangery was a familiar hump in the snow, but something was wrong. The door was ajar, letting the precious heat (and how many servants did it take to keep that boiler fed?) escape into the winter air.

“Well, isn’t that just too cute,” she whispered, tightening her grip on her pistol. ‘Welcome to my parlor’ said the spider to the fly, she thought. The style is all wrong. Assassin #1 breaks into my mom and shoots up the bedding. Twice. Assassin #2 tries to bounce Olga into shooting me for him, then sends an RSVP on an engraved card. Assassin #3 shows me an open door. Which of these things is not like the other? She shivered—and not from the cold: the hot rage she’d been holding back ever since she’d first been abducted was taking hold.

The wall at this end of the orangery was of brick, and the glassy arch of the ceiling was low, beginning only about ten feet up. Miriam gritted her teeth and fumbled for finger and toe holds. Then she realized there was a cast-iron drain pipe, half-buried under the snow where the wall of the orangery met the corner of the inner garden wall. Aha. She put the pistol in her pocket and began to climb, this time with more confidence.

On top of the wall she could look out across a corrugated sheet of whiteness—the snow was settling on the orangery faster than the heat from below could melt it. Leaning forward, she used her sleeve to rub a clear swathe in the glass. Paraffin lamps shed a thin glow through the orangery, helping with the warmth and providing enough light to see by. To Miriam’s night-adapted vision it was like a glimpse into a dim subterranean hell. She hunted around and saw, just behind the door, a hunched shadow. And after a minute of watching—during which time her hands began to grow numb—she saw the shadow move, shifting in position just like a man shuffling his feet in the cold draft from outside.

“Right,” she whispered tensely, feeling an intense, burning sense of hatred for the figure on the other side, just as the door opened further and someone else came in.

What happened then happened almost too fast to see—Miriam froze atop the window, unable to breathe in the cold air, her head throbbing until she wondered if she was coming down with a full-blown migraine. The shadow flowed forward behind the person who’d entered the orangery. There was a flurry of activity, then a body collapsed on the floor in a spreading pool of… of—Holy shit, thought Miriam, he’s killed him!

Shocked out of her angry reverie, she slid back down the drainpipe, scraping hands and cheek on the rough stonework, and landed in a snowdrift hard enough that it nearly knocked the breath out of her. Quick! Fumbling for her pistol, she skidded toward the door and yanked it open. She brought the gun up in time to see a man turning toward her. He was dressed all in black, his face covered by a ski mask or something similar: The long knife in his hand was red with blood as he straightened up from the body at his feet. “Stop—” Miriam called. He didn’t stop, and time telescoped in on her. Two shots in the torso, two more—then the dry click of a hammer on a spent cartridge. The killer collapsed toward her and Miriam shook her head and took a step back, wishing she hadn’t heard the sound of bullets striking flesh.

Time caught up with her again. “Shit!” She called out, heart lurching between her ribs like a frightened animal. A sense of gathering wrongness overcame her, as if what had just happened was impossible. Another old reflex caught up, and she stepped forward. “Gurney—” she bit her tongue. There were no gurneys here, no haemostats, no competent nurses to get the bleeding staunched and no defibrillators—and especially no packets of plasma and operating theatres in which to struggle for the victim’s life.

She found herself an indefinite time later—probably only seconds had passed, although it felt like hours—staring down at a spreading pool of blood around her feet. Blood, and the body of a man, dressed from head to foot in black. A long curve-bladed knife lay beside him. Behind him—“Mar-git!” It was Lady Margit, Olga’s chaperone. The fat lady had sung her last: There was nothing to be done. She still twitched, and maybe a modern ER room could have done something for her—but not here, not with a massive exsanguinating chest wound that had already stopped pumping. Probably the dorsal aorta or a ventricle, she realized. Oh hell. What was she doing here! For a moment, Miriam wished she believed in something—someone—who’d look after Margit. But there wasn’t time for that now.

She turned back to the assassin. He was alive—but no, that was just residual twitching, too. She’d actually nailed him through the heart with her first two shots, the second double-tap turning his chest into a bloody mess. There was already a stench of excrement in the air as his bowels relaxed. She pulled back his hood. The assassin was shaven-headed and flat-faced: He looks Chinese, she realized with a mixture of astonishment and regret. She’d just killed a man, but—there was a chain around his neck.

“What the fuck?” she asked through the haze of her headache and anxiety, then she pulled out a round sealed locket, utterly unadorned and plain. “Clan.” She put it in her pocket and glanced at Margit’s cooling body. “What on earth possessed you to come down here at midnight?” she asked aloud. “Was it a message for—” she trailed off.

They’re after Olga, too, she realized, and with that realization came both a sick fear. I have to warn Olga!

Miriam left the orangery and headed toward the palace, half-empty for the evening with its noble residents enjoying the king’s hospitality. She wouldn’t be able to world-walk from her own rooms any more, but if Brilliana was in, they’d have a little chat. She knows more than she’s saying, Miriam realized. Slowing. What a mess! The implication was just beginning to sink in. “Wheels within wheels,” she muttered. Her hands were shaking violently and the small of her back was icy cold with sweat from the adrenaline surge when she’d shot the assassin. She paused, leaning against the cold outside wall of the orangery while she tried to gather her composure. “He was here to kill me.” The chill from the wall was beginning to penetrate her jacket. She dug around in her pocket for spare cartridges, fumbling as she reloaded the revolver. Got to find Olga. And Brill.

And then she’d have to go undercover.

One way of looking at it was that there was a story to dig up, a story about her long-dead mother, blood feuds, and civil war, a tale of assassins who came in the night and drug-dealing aristocrats who would brook no rival. Just like any other undercover investigative exposé—not that Miriam was used to undercover jobs, but she’d be damned if she’d surrender to the editorial whims of family politics before she broke that story all over them—at the Clan gathering on Beltaigne night.

“Get moving, girl,” she told herself as she pushed off the wall and headed back toward the palace. “There’s no time to lose…”