The Hidden Family

History Lesson

You are telling me that you don’t know where she is?”

The man standing by the glass display case radiated disbelief, from his tensed shoulders to his drawn expression.

Normally the contents of the case—precious relics of the Clan, valuable beyond belief—would have fascinated him, but right now his attention was focused on the bearer of bad news.

“I told you she’d be difficult.” The duke’s secretary was unapologetic. He didn’t sneer, but his expression was one of thinly veiled impatience. “You are dealing with a woman who was born and raised on the other side; she was clearly going to be a handful right from the start. I told you that the best way to deal with her would be to coopt her and move her in a direction she was already going in, but you wouldn’t listen. And after that business with the hired killer—”

“That hired killer was my own blood, I’ll thank you to remember.” Esau’s tone of voice was ominously low.

“I don’t care whether he was the prince-magistrate of Xian-Ju province, it was dumb! Now you’ve told Angbard’s men that someone outside the Clan is trying to kill her, and you’ve driven her underground, and you’ve ruined her usefulness to me. I had it all taken care of until you attacked her. And then, to go after her but kill the wrong woman by mistake when I had everything in hand…!”

“You didn’t tell us she was traveling in company. Or hiding in the lady Olga’s rooms. Nor did we expect Olga’s lady-in-waiting to get nosy and take someone else’s bait. We’re not the only ones to have problems. You said you had her as good as under control?” Esau turned to stare at Matthias. Today the secretary wore the riding-out garb of a minor nobleman of the barbarian east: brocade jacket over long woolen leggings, a hat with a plume of peacock feathers, and riding boots. “You think forging the old man’s will takes care of anything at all? Are you losing your grip?”

“No.” Matthias rested his hand idly on his sword’s hilt. “Has it occurred to you that as Angbard’s heir she would have been more open to suggestions, rather than less? Wealth doesn’t necessarily translate into safety, you know, and she was clearly aware of her own isolation. I was trying to get her under control, or at least frightened into cooperating, by lining up the lesser families against her and positioning myself as her protector. You spooked her instead, before I could complete the groundwork. You exposed her to too much too soon, and the result is our shared loss. All the more so, since someone—whoever—tried to rub her out with Lady Olga.”

“And whose fault is it that she got away?” Esau snarled quietly.

“Whose little tripwire failed?”

“Mine, I’ll admit.” Matthias shrugged again. “But I’m not the one around here who’s blundering around in the dark. I really wanted to enlist her in our cause. Willingly or unwillingly, it doesn’t matter. With a recognized heir in our pocket, we could have enough votes that when we get rid of Angbard…well. If that failed, we’d be no worse off with her dead, but it was hardly a desirable goal. It’s a good thing for you that I’ve got some contingency plans in hand.”

“If the balance of power in the Clan tips too far toward the Lofstrom-Thorold-Hjorth axis, we risk losing what leverage we’ve got,” warned Esau.

“Never mind the old bat’s power play. What did she think she was up to, anyway? If the council suspected…” He shook his head. “You have to get this back under control. Find her and neutralize her, or we likely lose all the ground we have made in the past two years.”

“I risk losing a lot more than that,” Matthias reminded him pointedly.

“Why did your people try to kill her? She was a natural dissident. More use to us alive than dead.”

“It’s not for the likes of you to question our goals.” Esau glared.

Matthias tightened his grip on his sword and turned slowly aside, keeping his eyes on Esau the whole time. “Retract that,” he said flatly.

“I—” Esau caught his eye. A momentary nod. “Apologize.”

“We are partners in this,” Matthias said quietly, “to the extent that both our necks are forfeit if our venture comes to light. That being the case, it is essential that I know not only what your organization’s intended actions are, but why you act as you do—so that I can anticipate future conflicts of interest and avoid them. Do you understand?”

Esau nodded again. “I told you there might be preexisting orders. There was indeed such an order,” he said reluctantly. “It took time to come to light, that’s all.”

“What? You mean the order for—gods below, you’re still trying to kill the mother and her infant? After what, a third of a century?”

It was Esau’s turn to shrug. “Our sanctified elder never rescinded the command, and it is not for us to question his word. Once they learned of the child’s continued existence, my cousins were honor-bound to attempt to carry out the orders.”

“That’s as stupid as anything I’ve ever heard from the Clan council,” Matthias commented dryly. “Times change, you know.”

“I know! But where would we be without loyalty to our forefathers?” Esau looked frustrated for a moment. Then he pointed to the glass display case. “Continuity. Without it, what would the Clan be? Or the hidden families?”

“Without—that?” Matthias squinted, as against a bright light. A leather belt with a curiously worked brass buckle, a knife, a suit of clothes, a leatherbound book. “That’s not the Clan, whatever you think. That’s just where the Clan began.”

“My ancestor, too, you know.”

Matthias shook his head. “It wasn’t clever, meeting here,” he murmured.

“We’re safe enough.” Esau turned his back on the Founder’s relics.

“The question is, what are we to do now?”

“If you can get your relatives to stop trying to kill her, we can try to pin the blame on someone else,” Matthias pointed out. “A couple of candidates suggest themselves, mostly because they have been trying to kill her. If we do that then we can go back to plan A, which you’ll agree is the most profitable outcome of this situation.”

“Not possible.” Esau draw a finger across his throat. “The elders spoke, thirty-three years ago.”

Matthias sighed. “Well, if you insist, we can play it your way. But it’s going to be a lot harder, now. I suppose if I can get my hands on her foster-mother that will probably serve as a lure, but it’s going to cost you—”

“I believe I can arrange a gratuity if you’d take care of this loose end for us. Maybe not on the same scale as owning your own puppet countess, but sufficient recognition of your actions.”

“Well, that would be capital. I’ll set the signs and alert my agents. At least here’s something we can agree on.”

“Indeed.”

Matthias opened the door into the outer receiving room of the cramped old merchant’s house. “Come on.”

Esau followed Matthias out of the small storeroom and down a narrow staircase that led out into the courtyard of the house. “So what do you propose to do once she’s dead?”

“Do?” Matthias stopped and stared at the messenger, his expression unreadable. “I’m going to see if I can salvage the situation and go right on as I was before. What did you expect?”

Esau tensed. “Do you really think you can take control of the Clan’s security—even from your current position—without being an actual inner family member and Clan shareholder?”

Matthias smiled, for a moment. “Watch me.”

Gathering twilight. Miriam hid from the road behind a deadfall half buried in snow while she stripped off her outer garments. Her teeth chattering from cold as she pulled on a pair of painfully cold jeans. She folded her outfit carefully into the upper half of her pack, then stacked the disguise she’d started out wearing in the morning on top. Then she unfolded and secured the bike. Finally she hooked the bulky night-vision glasses around her face—like wearing a telescope in front of each eye, she thought—zipped the seam in the backpack that turned it into a pair of panniers, slung them over the bike, and set off.

The track flew past beneath her tires, the crackle of gravel and occasional pop of a breaking twig loud in the forest gloom. The white coating that draped around her seemed to damp out all noise, and the clouds above were huge and dark, promising to drop a further layer of fine powdery snow across the scene before morning.

Riding a bike wasn’t exactly second nature, but the absence of other traffic made it easier to get to grips with. The sophisticated gears were a joy to use, making even the uphill stretches at least tolerable. Seven-league boots, she thought dreamily. The other town, whatever it was called, not-Boston, was built for legs and bicycles. She’d have to buy one next time she went there, whenever that was. Despite her toast to the prospects of future business with Burgeson, she had her reservations. Poor Laws, Sedition Acts, and a cop who obligingly gave directions to a clearly bent pawnbroker—it added up to a picture that made her acutely nervous. It’s so complex! What did he mean, there’s no Scotland? Until I know what their laws and customs are like it’s going to be too dangerous to go back.

The miles spun by. After an hour and a half Miriam could feel them in her calf muscles, aching with every push on the pedals—but she was making good speed, and by the time darkness was complete the road dipped down toward the coast, paralleling the Charles River. Eventually she turned a corner, taking her into view of a hunched figure squatting by the roadside.

Miriam braked hard, jumped off the bike. “Brill?” she asked.

“Miriam?” Brill’s face was a bright green pool in the twilight displayed by her night goggles. “Is that you?”

“Yes.” Miriam walked closer, then flicked her goggles up and pulled out a pocket flashlight. “Are you okay?”

“Frozen half to death.” Brill smiled shakily. “But otherwise unharmed.”

A vast wave of relief broke over Miriam. “Well, if that’s all…”

“This cloak lining is amazing,” Brill added. “The post house is just past the next bend. I’ve only been waiting for an hour. Shall we go?”

“Sure.” Miriam glanced down. “I’d better change, first.” It was the work of a few minutes to disassemble the bike, pull on her outfit over her trousers, and turn the bike and panniers into a backpack disguised by a canvas cover. “Let’s get some dinner,” Miriam suggested.

“Your magic goggles, and lantern.” Brill coughed discreetly.

“Oh. Of course.” Together they fumbled their way through the darkness toward the promise of food and a bed, be it ever so humble.

Almost exactly twenty-four hours later, Paulette’s doorbell chimed. “Who is it?” she called from behind the closed door.

“It’s us! Let us in!” She opened the door. Brill stumbled in first, followed by Miriam. “Trick or treat?”

“Trick.” Paulette stood back. “Hey, witchy!”

“It is, isn’t it.” Miriam closed the door. “It itches, too. I don’t know how to put this discreetly—have you got any flea spray?”

“Fleas! Away with you!” Paulette held her nose. “How did it go?”

“I’ll tell you in a few minutes. Over a coffee, once I’ve made it to the bathroom—oh shit.” Miriam stared up the staircase at Brilliana’s vanishing feet. “Well at least that’s sorted.” She dropped her pack onto the carpet; it landed with a dull thump. “’Scuse me, but I am going to strip. It’s an emergency.”

“Wait right there,” said Paulie, hurrying upstairs.

By the time she returned, bearing a T-shirt and a pair of sweats from the luggage, Miriam had her boots off and was down to outer garments.

“Damn, central heating,” she said wonderingly. “There’s nothing to make you appreciate it like three days in a Massachusetts winter without it. Well, two and a half.”

“Did you got where you wanted to go?” Paulie asked, pausing.

“Yeah.” Miriam cracked a wide, tired grin.

“Give me five, baby!”

High fives were all very well, but when Miriam winced Paulette got the message. “Use the living room,” she said. “Get the hell out of those rags and then go up to my bedroom, okay? You can use the bedroom shower.”

“You’re a babe, babe.” Miriam nodded. She pulled a face. “Oh shit. I think I’m coming on.”

“That’s no fun. Look, go. I’ll sort the mess out later, ’kay?”

An hour later Miriam—infinitely warmer and cleaner—sat curled at one end of Paulette’s living room sofa with a mug of strong tea. Brill, wrapped in a borrowed bathrobe, sat at the other end. “So tell me, how was your walk in the woods?” Paulette asked Brill. “Meet any bears?”

“Bears?” Brill looked puzzled. “No, and a good thing—” she caught Miriam’s eye. “Oh. No, it was uneventful.”

“Well then.” Paulie focused on Miriam. “You had more luck, huh? Not just a walk in the woods?”

“Well, apart from Brill half freezing to death while I was trying not to get arrested, it was fine.”

“Getting. Arrested.” Paulette picked up the teapot and poured herself a mug. “You’re not getting away with that, Beckstein. Didn’t they accept your press pass or something?”

“It’s Boston, but not as we know it,” Miriam explained. “Uh, about two miles southeast of here I found myself on the edge of town. They speak English and they drive automobiles, but that’s about as far as the similarities go.” She pulled out her dictaphone and turned the volume up: “zeppelin overhead, with a British flag on it! Uh, four propellers, sounds like diesel engines. There goes another steam car. They seem to make them big deliberately, I don’t think I’ve seen anything smaller than a fifty-eight Caddy yet.”

Paulette closed her mouth with a visible effort. “Did you take photographs?” she asked.

“Uh-huh.” Miriam grinned and held up her wrist “You’ll have them just as soon as I get my Casio secret agent watch plugged into the computer. I knew those Inspector Gadget toys would come in handy sooner or later.”

“Toys.” Paulette rolled her eyes.

“Well, now we’ve got a whole new world to not understand,” said Miriam. “Any constructive suggestions?”

“Yep.” Paulette put her mug down. “Before you go over again, girl, we work out what you’re going to do. You need a lawyer or business manager over there, right? And you need money, and somewhere to live, and we need to find a place on the far side that’s away from human habitation in Brill’s world and we can rent on our own side. Right? And we need to understand what you’re messing with before you get yourself arrested. So spill it!”

Miriam reached into her bag and pulled out two books then dumped them on the table with a bump. “History lesson time. Watch out for the one with the brown paper cover,” she warned. “It bites.”

Paulette opened that one first, looked at the flyleaf, and sucked in her breath. “Communist?” she asked.

“Nope, it’s much weirder than that.” Miriam picked up the other book.

“I’ll start with this one, you start with that one, then we’ll swap.”

Paulette glanced at the window. “It’s nearly eleven, for Pete’s sake! You want I should pull an overnighter?”

“No, that won’t be necessary.” Miriam put her book down and looked at her. “I’ve been meaning to raise this for a while. I’ve been staying here, and I didn’t mean to. I really appreciate you putting Brill up, but two guests is two too many and—”

“Shut up,” Paulette said fiercely. “You’re going to stay here till you’ve told me what you’ve seen and gotten your act together to move out properly! And bit the deadline,” she muttered under her breath.

“Deadline?” Miriam raised an eyebrow.

“The Clan summit,” Brill explained tonelessly. She yawned. “I told Paulie about it.”

“You can’t let them do it!” Paulette insisted.

“Do what?” Miriam blinked.

“Move to declare you incompetent and make you a permanent ward of whoever the Clan deems appropriate,” Brill explained. She looked puzzled.

“Didn’t you know? That’s what Olga said Baron Oliver was muttering about.”

Iris raised the cup of coffee to her lips with both hands. She looked a little shaky today, but Miriam knew better than to make a fuss. “So what did you do next?” she asked.

“I went to bed.” Miriam leaned back, then glanced around. The level of background noise in the museum food court was high and all their neighbors seemed to be otherwise preoccupied. “What else could I do? Beltaigne is nearly five months away, and I’m not going to let the bastards stampede me.”

“But the other place, this new one—” Iris sounded distracted—

“doesn’t it take you a whole day to go each way, even if you have somewhere to stay at the other end?”

“There’s no point going off half-cocked, Ma.” Miriam idly opened a tube of sugar crystals and stirred them into her latte. “Look, if Baron Hjorth wants to declare me incompetent, he’s going to have to come up with some evidence. He might shove it through if I’m not there to defend myself, but I figure the strongest defense I can get is proof that there’s a conspiracy out there—a conspiracy that murdered my birth-mother and is trying to murder me, too, not just the petty shit he and my—grandmother—are shoveling at me. A second-strongest defense is evidence that I may be erratic, but I’ve come up with something valuable. Now, the assassin’s locket takes me to this other world—call it world three—and I’ve got to wonder. Does this mean they’re not part of the Clan or families? They’re working on the other side and in world three, while the Clan works on the other side and here, call here world two and Niejwein is part of world one. I’m, I guess, the first member of the Clan to actually become aware of world three and be able to get over there. That means that I can see about finding whoever’s sending the killers—see defense one, above—or see about opening up a whole new trade opportunity—see defense two, above. I’m going to tie the whole story up with a bow and hand it to them. And mess up Baron Hjorth’s game into the bargain.” She rolled up the empty sugar tube into a tight little wad and threw it at the back of the booth.

“That sounds like my daughter,” Iris said thoughtfully. She grinned.

“Don’t let the bastards realize you’ve got the drop on them until it’s too late for them to dodge.” She put the smile aside. “Morris would be proud of you.”

“Um.” Miriam nodded, unable to trust her tongue. “How have you been? How did you get away from them tonight?”

“Well, you know, I haven’t had much trouble with being under surveillance lately.” Iris sipped her coffee. “Funny how they don’t seem to be able to tell one old woman in a motorized blue wheelchair from another, isn’t it?”

“Ma, you shouldn’t have!”

“What, give some of my friends an opportunity for a little adventure?” Iris snorted and pushed her bifocals up her nose. Slyly: “Just because my daughter thinks she can go baring off to other worlds, running away from her problems—”

“It’s the source of my goddamn problems, not the solution,” Miriam interrupted.

“Well good, just as long as you understand that.” Iris met her eyes with a coolly unreadable expression that slowly moderated into one of affection.

“You’re grown up now and there’s not a lot I can teach you. Just as well really, one day I won’t be around to do the teaching and it’d be kind of embarrassing if—”

“—Mother!”

“Don’t you ‘mother’ me! Listen, I raised you to face facts and deal with the world as it really is, not to pretend that if you stick your head in the sand problems will go away. I’m in late middle age and I’m damned if I’m not going to inflict my hard-earned wisdom on my only daughter.” She looked mildly disgusted. “Come to think of it, I wish someone had beaten it into me when I was a child. Pah. But anyway. You’re playing with fire, and I would really hate it if you got burned. You’re going to try and track down these assassins from another universe, aren’t you? What do you think they are?”

“I think—” Miriam paused. “They’re like the Clan and the families,” she said finally. “Only they travel between world one and world three, while the Clan travel between world one and world two, our world. I figure they decided the Clan were a threat a long time ago and that’s probably something to do with, with why they tried to nail my mother. All those years ago. And they’re smaller and weaker than the Clan, that much seems obvious, so I can maybe set up in world three, their stronghold, before they notice me. I think.”

“Ambitious.” Iris didn’t crack a smile. “What did I tell you when you were young, about not jumping to conclusions?”

“Um. You know better? Is there something you haven’t been telling me?”

Iris nodded sharply. “Can you permit your mother to keep one or two things to herself?”

“Guess so.” Miriam shrugged uncomfortably. “Can you give your daughter any hints?”

“Only this.” Iris met her gaze unflinchingly. “Firstly, do you really think you’d have been hidden from the families for all these years without someone over there covering your trail?”

“Ma—”

“I can’t tell you for sure,” she added, “but I think someone may have been watching over you. Someone who didn’t want you dragged into all this—at least not until you were good and ready to look out for yourself.”

Miriam shook her head. “Is that all? You think I’ve got a fairy godmother?”

“Not exactly.” Ms finished her coffee. “But here’s a ‘secondly’ for you to think about. Shortly after you surfaced, the strangers, these assassins, started hunting for you. To say nothing of the second bunch who tried to wipe out this Olga person. Doesn’t that suggest something? What about that civil war among the families that you told me about?”

“Are you trying to suggest it’s part of some sixty-year-old feud?” Miriam demanded. “Or that it isn’t over?”

“Not exactly. I’m wondering if the sixty-year-old feud wasn’t part of this business, if you follow my drift. Like, started by outsiders meddling for their own purposes.”

“That’s—” Miriam paused for thought—“Paranoid! I mean, why—”

“What better way to weaken a powerful enemy than to get it fighting itself?” Ms asked.

“Oh.” Miriam was silent for a while. “You’re saying that because of who I am—nothing more, just because of who my parents were—I’m the focus of a civil war?”

“Possibly, And you may just have reignited it by crawling out of the woodwork.” Ms looked thoughtful. “Do you have any better suggestions? Are you involved in anything else that might explain what’s going on?”

“Roland—” Miriam stopped. Ms stared at her. “You said not to trust any of them,” Miriam continued slowly, “but I think I can trust him. Up to a point.”

Iris met her eyes. “People do the strangest things for money and love,” she said, a curious expression on her face. “I should know” She chuckled humorlessly. “Watch your back, dear. And…call me if you need me. I don’t promise I’ll be there to help—with my health that would be rash—but I’ll do my best.”

The next morning Paulette arrived back at the house around noon, whistling jauntily. “I did it!” she declared, startling Miriam out of the history book she was working up a headache over. “We move in tomorrow!”

“We do?” Miriam shook her head as Brill came in behind Paulie and closed the door, carefully wiping the snow off her boots on the mat just inside.

“We do!” Paulette threw something at her; reaching out instinctively, Miriam grabbed a bunch of keys.

“Where to?”

“The office of your dreams, madam chief high corporate executive!”

“You found somewhere?” Miriam stood up.

“Not only have I found somewhere, I’ve rented it for six months up front.” Paulette threw down a bundle of papers on the living room table.

“Look. A thousand square feet of not-entirely-brilliant office space not far from Cambridgeport. The main thing in its favor is a downstairs entrance and a backyard with a high wall around it, and access. On-street parking, which is a minus. But it was cheap—about as cheap as you can get anything near the waterfront for these days, anyway.” Paulie pulled a face. “Used to belong to a small and not very successful architect’s practice, then they moved out or retired or something and I grabbed a three-year lease.”

“Okay.” Miriam sighed. “What’s the damage?”

“Ten thousand bucks deposit up front, another ten thousand in rent. About eight hundred to get gas and power hooked up, and we’re going to get a lovely bill from We the Peepul in a couple of months, bleeding us hard enough to give Dracula anemia. Anyway, we can move in tomorrow. It could really use a new carpet and a coat of paint inside, but it’s open plan and there’s a small kitchen area.”

“The backyard looked useful,” Brill said hesitantly.

“Paulie took you to see it?”

“Yeah.” Brill nodded. Where’d she pick that up from? Miriam wondered: Maybe she was beginning to adjust, after all.

“What did you think of it?” Miriam asked as Paulette hung her coat up and headed upstairs on some errand.

“That it’s where ordinary people work? There’s nowhere for livestock, not enough light for needlework or spinning or tapestry, not enough ventilation for dyeing or tanning, not enough water for brewing—” She shrugged. “But it looks very nice. I’ve slept in worse palaces.”

“Livestock, tanning, and fabric all take special types of building here,” Miriam said. “This will be an office. Open-plan. For people to work with papers. Hmm. The yard downstairs. What did you think of that?”

“Well. First we went in through a door and up a staircase like that one there, narrow—the royal estate agent, is that right? took us up there. There’s a room at the top with a window overlooking the stairs, and that is an office for a secretary. I thought it rather sparse, and there was nowhere for the secretary’s guards to stand duty, but Paulie said it was good. Then there is a short passage past a tiny kitchen, to a big office at the back. The windows overlooking the yard have no shutters, but peculiar plastic slats hung inside. And it was dim. Although there were lights in the ceiling, like in the kitchen here.”

“Long lighting tubes.” Miriam nodded. “And the back?”

“A back door opens off the corridor onto a metal fire escape. It goes down into the yard. We went there and the walls are nearly ten feet high. There is a big gate onto the back road, but it was locked. A door under the fire escape opens into a storage shed. I could not see into any other windows from inside the yard. Is that what you wanted to know?”

Miriam nodded. “I think Paulie’s done good. Probably.” Hope there’s something appropriate on the far side, in “world three,” she thought. “Okay, I’m going to start on a shopping list of things we need to move in there. If it works out, I’ll start ferrying stuff over to the other side—then make a trip through to the far side, to see if we’re in the right place.” She grinned. “If this works, I will be very happy.” And I won’t have to fork out a second deposit for somewhere more useful, she noted mentally.

“How was your reading?” Paulie asked, coming downstairs again.

“Confusing.” Miriam rubbed her forehead. “This history book—” she tapped the cover of the “legal” one—“is driving me nuts.”

“Nuts? What’s wrong with it?”

“Everything!” Miriam raised her hands in disgust. “Okay, look. I don’t know much about English history, but it’s got this civil war in the sixteen-forties, goes on and on about some dude called the Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell. I looked him up in Encarta and yes, he’s there, too. I didn’t know the English had a civil war, and it gets better: They had a revolution in 1688, too! Did you know that? I sure didn’t, and it’s not in Encarta—but I didn’t trust it, so I checked Britannica and it’s kosher. Okay, so England has a lot of history, and it’s all in the wrong order.”

She sat down on the sofa. “Then I got to the seventeen-forties and everything went haywire.”

“Haywire. Like, someone discovered a time machine, went backhand killed their grandfather?”

“Might as well have.” Miriam rolled her eyes. “The Young Pretender—look, I’m not making these names up—sails over from France in 1745 and invades Scotland. And in this book, he got to crown himself king in Edinburgh.”

“Young pretender—what did he pretend to be?”

“King. Listen, in our world, he did the same—then he marched on London and got himself spanked, hard, by King George. That’s George the first, not the King George the thingummy who lost the war of Independence.”

“I think I need an aspirin,” said Paulette.

“What this means is that in the far side, England actually lost Scotland in 1745. They fought a war with the Scots in 1746, but the French joined in and whacked their fleet in the channel. So they whacked the French back in the Caribbean, and the Dutch joined in and whacked the Spanish—settling old scores—and then the Brits, while their back was turned. It’s all a crazy mess. And somewhere in the middle of this mess things went wrong, wrong, wrong. According to Britannica, Great Britain got sucked into something called the Seven Years’ War with France, and signed a peace treaty in 1763. The Brits got to keep Canada but gave back Guadaloupe and pissed off the Germans, uh, Prussians. Whatever the difference is. But according to this looking-glass history, every time the English—not the Brits, there’s no such country—started getting somewhere, the king of Scotland tried to invade—there were three battles in as many years at some place called New Castle. And then somewhere in the middle of this, King George, the second King George, gets himself killed on a battlefield in Germany, and is succeeded by King Frederick, and I am totally confused because there is no King Frederick in Britannica.”

Miriam stopped. Paulette was looking bright, fascinated—and a million miles away. “That was when the French invaded,” she said.

“Huh?” Paulie shook her head. “The French? Invaded where?”

“England. See, Frederick was the crown prince, right? He got sent over here, to the colonies as a royal governor or something—“Prince of the Americas”—because his stepmother the queen really hated him. So when his father died he was over here in North America—and the French and Scottish simultaneously invaded England. Whose army, and previous king, had just been whacked. And they succeeded.”

“Um, does this mean anything?” Paulette looked puzzled.

“Don’t you see?” demanded Miriam. “Over on the far side, in world three, there is no United States of America: Instead there’s this thing called New Britain, with a king-emperor! And they’re at war with the French Empire—or cold war, or whatever. The French invaded and conquered the British Isles something like two hundred and fifty years ago, and have held it ever since, while the British royal family moved to North America. I’m still putting it all together. Like, where we had a constitutional congress and declared independence and fought a revolutionary war, they had something called the New Settlement and set up a continental parliament, with a king and a house of lords in charge.” She frowned. “And that’s as much as I understand.”

“Huh.” Paulette reached out and took the book away from her. “I saw you look like that before, once,” she said. “It was when Bill Gates first began spouting about digital nervous systems and the net. Do you need to go lie down for a bit? Maybe it’ll make less sense in the morning.”

“No, no,” Miriam said absently. “Look, I’m trying to figure out what isn’t there. Like, they’ve had a couple of world wars—but fought with wooden sailing ships and airships. There’s a passage at the end of the book about the ‘miracle of corpuscular transsubstantiation’—I think they mean atomic power but I’m not sure. They’ve got the germ theory of disease and steam cars, but I didn’t see any evidence of heavier-than-air flight or antibiotics or gasoline engines. The whole industrial revolution has been delayed—they’re up to about the 1930s in electronics. And the social thing is weird. I saw an opium pipe in that pawnbroker’s, and I passed a bar selling alcohol, but they’re all wearing hats and keeping their legs covered. It’s not like our 1920s, at least not more than skin-deep. And I can’t get a handle on it,” she added frustratedly. “I’ll just have to go over there again and try not to get myself arrested.”

“Hmm.” Paulette pulled up a carrier bag and dumped it on the table.

“I’ve been doing some thinking about that.”

“You have? What’s about?”

“Well,” Paulie began carefully, “first thing is, nobody can arrest you and hold you if you’ve got one of these lockets, huh? Or the design inside it. Brill—”

“It’s the design,” Brilliana said suddenly. “It’s the family pattern.” She glanced at Paulette. “I didn’t understand the history either,” she said plaintively. “Some of the men…” she tailed off.

“What about them?” Asked Miriam.

“They had it tattooed on their arms,” she said shyly. “They said so, anyway. So they could get away if someone caught them. I remember my uncle talking about it once. They even shaved their scalp and tattooed it there in reverse, then grew their hair back—so that if they were imprisoned they could shave in a mirror and use it to escape.”

Miriam stared at her in slack-jawed amazement. “That’s brilliant!” she said. “Hang on—” her hand instinctively went to her head. “Hmm.”

“You won’t have to shave,” said Paulie, “I know exactly what to do. You know those henna temporary tattoos you can get? There’s this dot-com that takes images you upload and turns them into tattoos, then sends them to you by mail order. They’re supposed to last for a few days. I figure if you put one on the inside of each wrist, then wear something with sleeves that cover it—”

“Wow.” Miriam instinctively glanced at the inside of her left wrist, smooth and hairless, unblemished except for a small scar she’d acquired as a child. “But you said you’d been thinking about something else.”

“Yup.” Paulette upended her shopping bag on the table. “Behold: a pair of digital walkie-talkies, good for private conversations in a ten-mile radius! And lo, a hands-free kit.”

“This is going to work,” Miriam said, a curious fixed smile creeping across her face. “I can feel it in my bones.” She looked up. “Okay. So tell me, Paulie, what do you know about the history of patent law?”

It took Miriam another day to work up the nerve to phone Roland. Before she’d gone back to Niejwein, to the disastrous plot and counterplot introduction to court life that had culminated in two attempts to murder her on the same night, they’d exchanged anonymous mobile phones. If she went outside she could phone him, either his voice mail or his own real-life ear, and dump all the unwanted complexities of her new life on a sympathetic shoulder. He’d understand: That was half the attraction that had sparked their whirlwind affair. He probably grasped the headaches she was facing better than anyone else, Brill included. Brill was still not much more than a teenager with a sheltered upbringing. But Roland knew just how nasty things could get. If I trust him, she thought wistfully. Someone had murdered the watchman and installed the bomb in the warehouse. She’d told Roland about the place, and then…correlation does not imply causation, she told herself.

In the end she compromised halfway, taking the T into town and finding a diner with a good range of exit options before switching on the phone and dialing. That way, even if someone had grabbed Roland and was actively tracing the call, they wouldn’t find her before she ended the call. It was raining, and she had a seat next to the window, watching the slug-trails of rain on the glass as her latte cooled while she tried to work up her nerve to call him.

When she dialed, the phone rang five times before he picked it up, a near-eternity in which she changed her mind about the wisdom of calling him several times. But it was too late: She was committed now. “Hello?” he asked.

“Roland. It’s me.”

“Hello, you.” Concern roughened his voice: “I’ve been really worried about you. Where are—”

“Wait.” She realized she was breathing too fast, shallow breaths that didn’t seem to be bringing in enough oxygen. “You’re on this side. Is anyone with you?”

“No, I’m taking a day off work. Even your uncle gives his troops leave sometimes. He’s been asking about you, though. As if he knows I’ve got some kind of channel to you. When are you going to come in? What have you been doing? Olga had the craziest story—”

“If it’s about the incident in her apartment, it’s true.” Miriam stopped, glanced obliquely at the window to check for reflections. There was nobody near her, just a barrista cleaning the coffee machine on the counter at the other side of the room. “Is Edsger around? He hasn’t gone missing or anything?”

“Edsger?” Roland sounded uncertain. “What do you know about—”

“Edsger. Courier on the Boston—New York run.” Quickly Miriam outlined her departure from the Clan’s holdings in the capital city Niejwein, her encounter with the courier on an Accela express. “Did he arrive alright?”

“Yes. I think so.” Roland paused. “So you’re telling me somebody tried to kill you in the warehouse as well?” A note of anger crept into his voice. “When I find out who—”

“You’ll do nothing,” Miriam interrupted. “And you’re not going to tell me you can provide security. There’s a mole in the organization, Roland, they’d work around you—and I’ve found out something more interesting. There’s a whole bunch of world-walkers you don’t know about, and they’re coming in from yet another world, where everything’s different. What we were talking about, the whole technology transfer thing, it can work there, too. In fact, that’s what I’m doing now, with Brill. The politics—do you know anything about Baroness Hildegarde’s interests? Olga said she’s going to try to get the Clan committee to declare me incompetent. Before that happens I want to be able to make her look like an idiot. I’m working on the other side, Roland, in the third world, building a front company. So I’m going to stay out of touch for quite a bit longer.”

“That makes sense. Can I see you?” he asked. A pause: “I really think we’ve got a lot to work out. I don’t know about you.” Another pause, “I was hoping we could…”

This was the hardest part. “I don’t think so,” Miriam heard herself saying. “I’d love to spend some time with you, but I’ve got so much to do. And there isn’t enough time to do it. I can’t risk you being followed, or Angbard deciding to reel me in too soon. I want to, but—”

“I get it.” He sounded distant.

“I’m not dumping you! It’s just I, I need some time.” She was breathing too fast again. “Later. Give me a week to sort things out, then we’ll see.”

“Oh. A week?” The distant tone vanished. “Okay, a week. I’ll wait, somehow. You’ll take care of yourself? You’re sure you’re safe where you are?”

“For now,” Miriam affirmed, crossing her fingers. “And I’ll have a lot more to tell you then, I’ll need your advice.” And everything else. The urge to drop her resolve, grab any chance to see him, was so strong she had trouble resisting. Keep it businesslike, for now. “I love you,” she said impulsively.

“Me too. I mean, I love you, too.” It came out in a tonguetied rush, followed by a silence pregnant with unspoken qualifications.

“I’d better go,” she said at last.

“Uh. Okay, then.”

“Bye.” She ended the call and stared bleakly at the rain outside the window. Her coffee was growing cold. Now why did I really say that? She wondered, puzzled: Did I really mean it? She’d said those words before, to her husband—now ex-husband—and she’d meant them at the time. Why did this feel different?

“Damn it, I’m a fool,” she told herself gloomily, muttering under her breath so that the waitress at the far end of the bar took pains to avoid looking at her. I’m a fool for love, and if I don’t handle this carefully, I could end up a dead fool. Damn it, why did I have to take that locket in the first place?

The raindrops weren’t answering, so she finished her latte hurriedly and left.

They spent the next three days exercising Miriam’s magic credit card discreetly. Angbard hadn’t put a stop on it. Evidently the message had gotten through: Don’t bug me, I’m busy staying alive. A garden shed, a deluxe shooting hide, and enough gas-powered tools to outfit a small farm vanished into the trunk of Miriam’s rental car in repeated runs between Home Depot and Costco and the new office near Cambridgeport. Miriam didn’t much like the office—it had a residual smell of stale tobacco and some strange coffee-colored stains on the carpet that not even an industrial carpet cleaner could get rid of—but she had to admit that it would do.

They moved a couple of sofa beds into the rear office, and paid a locksmith to come around and beef up the door frame with deadbolts, and install an intruder alarm and closed-circuit TV cameras covering the yard and both entrances. A small fridge and microwave appeared in the kitchen, a television set and video in the front office. Paulette and Miriam groaned at each other about their aches and pains, and even Brill hesitantly joined in the bitching and moaning after they unloaded the flat-pack garden shed. “This had better be worth it,” Miriam said on day three as she swallowed a Tenolol tablet and a chaser of ibuprofen on the back of her lunchtime sub.

“You’re going across this afternoon?” asked Paulie.

“I’m going in half an hour,” Miriam corrected her. “First trip to see if it’s okay. Then as many short ones as I can manage, to ferry supplies over. I’ll take Brill through to help get the shed up and covered, then come back to plot expedition one. You happy with the shopping list?”

“I think so.” Paulette sighed. “This isn’t what I was expecting when we got started.”

“I know.” Miriam grinned. “But I think this is going to work out. Listen, you’ve been going crazy with the both of us living on top of you for the past week, but once we’re gone we’ll be out of your hair for at least five days. Why don’t you kick back and relax? Get in some of that partying you keep moaning about missing?”

“Because it won’t be the same without you! I was planning on showing you some of the good life. Get you hitched up with a date, anyway.”

Miriam sobered. “I don’t need a date right now,” she said, looking worried—and wistful.

“You’re—” Paulette raised an eyebrow. “You still hooked on him?”

Miriam nodded. “It hasn’t gone away. We spoke yesterday. I keep wanting to see him.”

Paulette caught her arm. “Take it from me: don’t. I mean, really, don’t. If he’s for real, he’ll be waiting for you. If he isn’t, you’d be running such a huge risk—”

Miriam nodded, wordlessly.

“I figured that was what it was,” Paulie said softly. “You want him whether or not he’s messed up with the shits who’re trying to kill you or disinherit you, is that right?”

“I think he’s probably got his reasons,” Miriam said reluctantly.

“Whatever he’s doing. And I don’t think he’s working for them. But—”

“Listen, no one is worth what those fuckers want to do to you. Understand?”

“But if he isn’t—” it came out as more of a whine than Miriam intended. She shook her head.

“Then it will all sort itself out, won’t it?” said Paulette. “Eventually.”

“Maybe.”

They broke off as the noise of the door opening downstairs reached them. Two pairs of eyes went to the camera. It was Brill, coming in from the cold: She’d been out shopping on foot, increasingly sure-footed in the social basics of day-to-day life in the twenty-first century. “I look at her, and I think she’ll be like you when she’s done some growing up,” Paulette commented quietly.

“Maybe.” Miriam stood up. “What’ve you got?” she called down the stairwell.

“Food for the trip.” Brill grinned. Then her smile turned thoughtful:

“Do you have a spare gun?” she asked.

“Huh? Why?”

“There are wild animals in the hills near Hasleholm,” she said matter-of-factly.

“Oops.” Miriam frowned. “Do you really think it’s a problem?”

“Yes.” Brill nodded. “But I can shoot. He is very conservative, my father, and insisted I learn the feminine virtues—deportment, dancing, embroidery, and marksmanship. There are wolves, and I’d rather have a long gun for dealing with them.”

Paulette rolled her eyes.

“Okay. Then I guess we’ll have to look into getting you a hunting rifle as soon as possible. In the meantime, there’s the pistol I took from the courier. Where did you stash it?”

“Back at Paulette’s home. But I really could use something bigger in case of wolves or bears,” Brill said seriously. She shoved her hair back out of the way and sniffed. “At least a pistol will protect me from human problems.”

“Deep joy. Try not to shoot any Clan couriers, huh?”

“I’m not stupid.” Brill sniffed again.

“I know: I just don’t want you taking any risks,” Miriam added. “Okay, kids, it’s time to move. And I’m not taking you through just yet, Brill.” She reached for her heavy hiking jacket, pulled it on, and patted the right pocket to check her own gun was in place. “Wish me luck,” she said, as she walked toward the back door and the yard beyond.