The Merchants’ War

Pursuit

The small house hunkered a short way back from the sidewalk, one of a row of houses in an area that wasn’t exactly cheap—nowhere in Boston was cheap—but that had once been affordable for ordinary working people. Brilliana knew it quite well. She’d been watching it discreetly for over an hour, and she was pretty sure that nobody was home and, more important, nobody else was watching it. Which suited her just fine, because if it was under surveillance what she was about to do would quite possibly get her killed.

Swallowing to clear her over-dry mouth, Brill opened the car door and stepped out into the hot summer sunlight. She slung the oversized leather handbag on her left shoulder, discreetly checking that she could get a hand into it in a hurry, then let the door of the rental car swing shut. The key was in the ignition: the risk of someone stealing the car was, in her view, minor compared to the risk of not being able to get away fast if things went wrong.

The road was clear. She glanced both ways before crossing it, a final check for concealed watchers. I hope Paulie’s all right, she fretted. The ominous turn of recent events was bad enough for those who could look after themselves. Paulette wasn’t a player, and didn’t have the wherewithal to escape if things spun out of control. And Brill owed her. Not that she’d had much time to demonstrate it, lately—the past week had run her ragged, and this was the first free day she’d had to spend in the United States for weeks.

She paused for a moment at the front door, straining for any sign of wrongness, then shrugged. The key slid into the lock and turned smoothly: Brill let herself inside, then closed the door behind her. “Paulie?” She called softly.

No reply. The house felt empty. Brill began to relax. She’s shopping, or at work. Whatever “work” meant these days—Brill couldn’t be sure, but the huge mess that Miriam had landed in had probably cut Paulie loose from her sinecure. She glanced around the living room. The flat-screen TV was new, but the furniture was the same. Yo, big spender! Paulette wasn’t stupid about money. She kept a low profile. Hopefully she’d avoided being caught up in the dragnet so far.

Brill put her bag down on the kitchen counter and pulled out a black box. Switching it on, she paced out the ground floor rooms, front to back, checking corners and walls and especially light fittings. The bug detector stayed stubbornly green-lit. “Good,” she said aloud as she stashed it back in the bag. Next, she pulled out another box equipped with a telephone socket and extension cable, and plugged each of the phone handsets into it in order. A twitter of dialing tones, but the speaker on the box stayed silent: nobody had sneaked an infinity bug onto her landline. That left the Internet link, and Brill didn’t know enough about that to be sure she could sweep Paulie’s computer for spyware; but she was pretty sure that unplugged PCs didn’t snoop on conversations.

“Okay…” Brill picked up her bag and scouted the top floor briefly, then returned to the kitchen. The carton of half-and-half in the fridge was fresh, and there was a neat pile of unopened mail on the tabletop, the most recent postmarked the day before. And there was no dust. She checked her watch: ten past four. Might as well wait, she thought, and began to set up the coffee machine.

An hour later, Brill heard footsteps on the front path, and a rattle of keys. She dropped her magazine and stood up silently, standing just inside the living room door as the front door opened. One person, alone. She tensed for a moment, then recognized Paulette. “Hey, Paulie,” she called.

“What!” A clatter of dropped bags. Brill stepped into the passageway. “Brill! How did you—”

Brill raised a finger to her lips. Paulette glared at her, then bent down to pick up the spilled grocery bags. “Let me,” Brill murmured. “Shut the door.” She gathered the bags: Paulette didn’t need prompting twice, and locked the front door before turning back to stare at her, hands on hips.

“What do you want?”

Brilliana shrugged apologetically. “To talk to you. Do you have a cellular telephone?”

“Yes.” Paulie’s hand tightened on her handbag.

“Please switch it off and remove the battery.”

“But—” Paulie looked round once, then shook her head. “Like that, is it?” she asked, then reached into her bag and pulled out a phone. “What happens next?” Brilliana waited. After a moment Paulette slid the battery out of the phone. “Is that what you wanted?”

Brill nodded. “Thank you. I’d already swept your house for bugs. Would you like a coffee? I’m afraid I’ve been here a while, it’s probably stale, but I could make some more—”

Paulette managed a brief chuckle of laughter. “You slay me, kid.”

“No, never.” Brill managed a wan smile. “I apologize for breaking in. But I had to check that you weren’t under observation.”

“Observation—” Paulette frowned “—why do I get the feeling I’m not going to like this?”

“Because.” Brill took a deep breath: “You’re not going to like it. Before I say any more—when did you last see Miriam?”

“Shit, kid.” For a moment Paulette’s face twisted in pain. “She’s in trouble, isn’t she?”

“When did you last see her?” Brilliana repeated.

“Must be, let me see…about three months ago. We did lunch. Why?” Her expression was guarded.

Brill sighed. “You’re right, she’s in trouble. The good news is, I’ve been ordered to get her out of it. The duke thinks it can be papered over, if she cooperates. I can’t promise you anything, but if you happen to see her, if you could make sure that’s the first thing you tell her…?”

Paulie frowned. “I’m telling you the truth.”

“I know that,” Brill said quietly. “Not everybody would choose to believe you, though. They’d want to believe you’re protecting her. She’s missing, Paulie. Nobody’s seen her for a week, and we’re pretty sure she’s on the run. I’m talking to you because I figure if she makes it over here you’re one of the first people she’ll turn to for help—”

“What do you mean, if?”

“It is a long story.” Brill pulled out one of the kitchen chairs and sat down. “I know part of it. I think you know another part of it?” She raised an eyebrow, but Paulette stared at her mulishly and refused to answer. “All right. Three months ago, Miriam did something really foolish. She stole some information about a project she was not supposed to know of, and then she tried to bluff her way into it. It’s a Clan operation on this side, that’s all I’m allowed to say, and she tampered with the Clan’s postal service—that alone is a high crime. To make matters worse, she was caught by the wrong person, a conservative member of the council’s security oversight board. What Miriam did, that sort of thing—” she shrugged uncomfortably “—carries the death penalty. I’m not exaggerating. Sneaking into that particular operation—” She stopped. “You know the one I’m talking about?”

Paulie nodded once, sharply. “She told me what she was going to do. I tried to talk her out of it, but she wasn’t listening.”

Brilliana rolled her eyes. “I am going to pretend I didn’t hear what you just said, because if I had heard you say it, certain superiors of mine would want to know why I didn’t kill you on the spot.”

“Ah—” Paulette’s face paled. “Thanks, I think.”

“No problem. Just remember, those are the stakes. Don’t let anyone else know that you know.” Brill gestured at the coffee machine. “Shall I refill it? This may take some time.”

“Be my guest.” There was no trace of irony in Paulette’s voice. “You meant that. About the Clan’s involvement in a fertility clinic being so secret people can be killed out of hand for knowing about it?”

Brill stood up and walked over to the coffee machine. “Yes, Paulie, I am absolutely serious. The project the center is working on is either going to change the structure of the Clan completely, and for the better—or it will trigger a civil war. What’s more, the authorities here are now aware of the Clan’s existence. There have been disturbing signs of covert operations…If they discover what has been happening at the clinic, we can’t be certain how they will respond, but the worst case is that several thousand innocent teenagers and their parents will find themselves on a one-way trip down the rabbit hole.” She finished with the coffeemaker and switched it on.

“I find that hard—”

“What do you think the clinic’s doing?” Brill demanded.

“What?” Paulette shook her head. “It’s a fertility clinic, isn’t it? It helps people have babies. Artificial insemination, that kind of…” she trailed off.

“Yup,” Brill said lightly. “And they’ve been helping couples have children for nearly twenty years now. The fact that the children just happen to be de facto outer family members, carriers of the world-walking trait, is an extra. The clinic is still helping couples who’re desperate to have children.” She looked down at the table. “Half of the children are female. In due course, some of them will be getting letters from a surrogacy agency, offering them good money for the use of their wombs. And they’ll be helping other couples have children, too. Children who will be world-walkers. And when they grow up, they’ll get a very special job offer.”

Paulette nodded slowly. “I’d gotten that much.”

“About twenty years from now, the Clan’s going to have to absorb a thousand Miriams, and their male counterparts. They’ll all crop up at once, over about a decade. A torrent of world-walkers. At the peak of our power, before the civil war, there were less than ten thousand of us; now, I’m not sure, but I think only a couple of thousand, at most. Think what that change means. One of the reasons everyone has been bearing down on Miriam is that she’s, she’s a prototype, if you like. Raised outside the Clan. Not uncivilized, but she thinks like an American. They all want to see how—if—she can be integrated. If she’s going to fit in. If Miriam can learn to be part of the Clan, then so can the children. But if not…in fifty years time they could be a majority of our members. And the established elders will not willingly give up their power, or that of their children, in favor of uncivilized upstarts. Think what Miriam is going to do to their lives, if she makes a mess of things now!” Brill stopped abruptly. Her shoulders were shaking.

“What’s it to you?” Paulie demanded. She stared at Brilliana for a few seconds, then jammed her fist across her mouth. “Oh. Oh shit. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.”

“Not your fault. My mother had…difficulties. Around the time the clinic was being set up. Angbard proposed to my father that he and my mother…”

“Oh. Oh dear.”

“My father has issues,” Brill said bitterly. “I believe that is the accepted euphemism. Over here, it’s easy enough to say ‘test tube baby.’” Over there…” She lapsed into silence as the coffee machine began to burble and spit. “In any case. To the matter in hand: Miriam stuck her nose into sensitive business—making life much harsher for people she has never met—and was imprisoned, under house arrest. Baron Henryk decided to see if he could domesticate her, using the stick alongside the carrot.”

“What kind of carrot? And stick?”

“He promised not to execute her, if she married the King’s younger son, the Idiot. She agreed—reluctantly. And to ensure the succession, he arranged for artificial insem—are you all right, my lady?”

Paulette finished coughing. “Bastards.” She stared at Brill blearily. “The bastard. He did that?”

Brill shrugged. “Evidently. He didn’t tell Angbard: this all came to light later, by which time it was too late. There was a betrothal ceremony, to be followed by a wedding at the palace. Egon—the Idiot’s elder brother—got wind of it, and realized he would be a liability once the younger brother’s wife bore a child, so he—”

“Hang on, this is the crown prince we’re talking about? Why would his younger brother’s offspring be a threat?”

“Creon might be damaged, but he’s outer family. There’s a test. The clinic only developed it in the past two years. Egon is not even outer family, he is merely royalty. Obviously, he was afraid that once a royal Clan member was to hand, he might suffer an unfortunate hunting accident. So he contrived an explosion in the great hall and proceeded to kill his father, usurp the throne, and start a civil war in the Gruinmarkt. In the middle of all this, Miriam disappeared. She is either here, or in New Britain. I have agents searching for her over there, and over here—” she shrugged again “—I thought she’d come to you if she was in trouble.”

“Oh sweet Mary, mother of God…” The coffeemaker spluttered and hissed as Paulette stood up and shuffled over to it. She pulled two mugs down from the cupboard: “How do you take yours? White, no sugar, isn’t it?”

“Yes, please.” Brill waited while Paulette filled the mugs and carried them over to the table. Finally she said, in a small voice, “Her plight is perilous.”

Paulette froze for a few seconds. “I seem to recall you said this was good news. Is there anything worse?”

“Oh, plenty.” Brill picked up her mug. “Your government knows about us now. We have reason to believe they know Miriam is connected to us, too. They obviously don’t know about you yet, because they haven’t dragged you off to a secret underground detention facility. Hopefully they won’t notice you—they are tracing the Clan courier routes, which you have never been connected with—but if she shows up on your doorstep, there is a chance they will follow her and find you.” She reached into her handbag and pulled out a business card case. “Here’s my mobile number. If Miriam shows up, ring me at once. If I’m not there, the phone will be answered by a trusted associate. Tell them the word bolt-hole. You will remember that?”

“Bolt-hole.” Paulette licked her lips.

“They’ll tell you where to go and what to do. From that moment on, we will ensure your security. Once we’ve got Miriam back, if you want to go home we’ll make sure it’s safe to do so.” She paused. Paulette was staring at something on the table. Following her gaze, Brill noticed her handbag was gaping. “Oh. I am sorry.” She reached across and flipped it shut.

“You’re carrying. Concealed.”

“Yes.” Brill met her gaze evenly. “It’s not meant for you.”

“Why—” Paulette stopped for a moment. “Why don’t you shoot me? If there’s such a security risk? Surely I know too much?”

“I don’t believe you know anything that could jeopardize our security. The breeding program is being moved: the patient records are already in a safe location while a new clinic is set up. So, strictly speaking, you can’t actually harm us. Besides.” She pulled up a wan grin: “I try not to kill my friends.”

Paulette chuckled weakly. After a moment, Brill joined in. Especially when the friend in question is one of the two people who Miriam is most likely to go to for help, she added silently, and resolved to check back on what progress her employees had made with the other one as soon as possible.

Things in New Britain had clearly gone to hell in a hand-basket while she’d been away, but Miriam’s first intimation that they might have more personal consequences for her came from the set of Erasmus’s shoulders as the streetcar rumbled and clanked past the end of the street.

“What is it?” she asked, as he raised his newspaper to shield his face from the window.

“We’re getting off at the next stop,” he said, standing up to ring the bell. The streetcar turned a corner, wheels screeching on their track, and began to slow. “Come on.”

Miriam followed him out onto the high street’s sidewalk. “Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”

“The shop’s under surveillance.” His expression was grim.

“I see.” They walked past a post box.

“I’m going back there, by the back alley.” He reached into an inner pocket and passed her a small envelope. “You might want to wait in the tearoom up New Bridge Way. If I don’t reappear within half an hour—”

“I’ve got a better idea,” she interrupted. “I’m going first. If there’s someone inside—”

“It’s too—”

“No, Erasmus, going in on your own is the dumbest thing you can do. Come on, let’s go.”

He paused by the entrance to an alleyway. “You don’t want to make my life easy, woman.”

“I don’t want to see you get yourself arrested or mugged, no.”

“Hah. Remember last time?”

“Come on.” She entered the alley.

Piles of rubbish subsided against damp-rotted brickwork: galvanized steel trash cans composting week-dead bones and fireplace ashes. Miriam stifled a gag reflex as Burgeson fumbled with a rusting latchkey set in a wooden gate. The gate creaked open on an overgrown yard piled with coal and metalwork. Erasmus headed for a flight of cellar steps opening opposite. Miriam swallowed, and squeezed past him. “What exactly are we picking up?” she asked.

He glanced over his shoulder: “Clothing, cash, and an antiquarian book.”

“Must be some book.” He nodded jerkily. “Who was watching the shop?”

“Two coves. Ah, you mean why? I’m not sure. They didn’t look like Polis to me, as I said. I think they may be your friends.”

“In which case—” She briefly considered a direct approach, but rejected it as too risky: if they weren’t Clan Security, or if ClanSec had gotten the wrong idea about her, she could be sticking her head in a noose. “—we can just nip in and out without them seeing us. But what if there’s someone in your apartment, waiting?”

“There’d better not be.” They were at the foot of the steps now.

“I’m getting sick of this.” She pushed the door open. “Follow me.”

She duckwalked into a cellar, past a damp-stained mattress, then through a tangle of old and decrepit wooden furniture that blocked off the back wall. Erasmus followed her. There was a hole in the brickwork, and he bent down to retrieve a small electric lantern from the floor just inside it. As he stood up, he began to cough.

“You can’t go in like that, they’ll hear you.” Miriam stared at him in the gloom. “Give me the lamp. I’ll check out the shop.”

“But if you—”

She rested a hand lightly on his shoulder. “I’ll be right back. Remember, I’m not the one with the cough.” And besides, I’m sick of just waiting for shit to happen to me. At least this made it feel as if she was back in control of her destiny.

Erasmus nodded. He handed over the lantern without a word. She took it carefully and shone it along the tunnel. She’d been this way before, six months ago. Is this entirely sensible? She asked herself, and nearly burst into hysterical laughter: nothing in her life had been entirely sensible for about a year, now, since her mother had suggested she retrieve a shoe box full of memories from the attic of the old family house.

The smuggler’s corridor zigzagged underground, new brick and plasterwork on one side showing where neighboring tenement cellars had been encroached on to create the rat run. A sweet-sick stink of black water told its own story of burst sewerage pipes. Miriam paused at a T-junction, then tiptoed to her left, where the corridor narrowed before coming to an end behind a ceiling-high rack of pigeonholes full of dusty bundles of rags. She reached out and grabbed one side of the rack. It slid sideways silently, on well-greased metal runners. The cellar of Erasmus’s store was dusty and hot, the air undisturbed for days. Flicking the lamp off, Miriam tiptoed towards the central passage that led to the stairs up to the shop. Something rustled in the darkness and she froze, heart in mouth: but it was only a rat, and after a minute’s breathless wait she pressed on.

At the top of the stairs, she paused and listened. It’s empty, she told herself. Isn’t it? It’s empty and all I have to do is take two more steps and I can prove it. Visions paraded through her mind’s eye, the last time she’d ventured into a seemingly unoccupied residence, a horror-filled flashback that nailed her to the spot. She swallowed convulsively, her hand tightening on the rough handrail nailed to the wall. She’d gone into Fort Lofstrom, ahead of the others, and Roland had died—This is crazy. Nothing’s going to happen, is it?

She took a step forward, across inches that felt like miles: then another step, easier this time. The short passage at the top of the stairs ended in the back room. She crept round the door: everything was as empty as it should be. The archway leading to the main room—there was an observation mirror, tarnished and flyspecked. Relaxing, she stepped up to the archway and peered sidelong into the shop itself.

It was a bright day, and sunbeams slanted diagonally across the dusty window display shelves and the wooden floor boards. The shop was empty, but for a few letters and circulars piling up under the mail slot in the door. If it had been dark, she wouldn’t have noticed anything out of the ordinary, and if she’d been coming in through the front door she wouldn’t have seen it until it was too late. But coming out of the dimness of the shop…her breath caught as she saw the coppery gleam of the wire fastened to the door handle. The sense of déjà vu was a choking imposition on her fragile self-confidence. She’d seen too many trip wires in the past year: Matt had made a bad habit of them, damn him, wherever he was. She turned and retraced her steps, gripping the banister rail tightly to keep her hands from shaking.

“The shop is empty, but someone’s been inside it. There’s a wire on the door handle.” She shuddered, but Erasmus just smiled.

“This I must see for myself.”

“It’s too dangerous!”

“Obviously not,” he replied mildly. “You’re still alive, aren’t you?”

“But I—” she stopped, unable to explain the dread that gripped her.

“You saw it in time. It won’t be a petard, Miriam, not if it’s the Polis, probably not if it’s your relatives. Your bête noir, the mad bomber, is unlikely, isn’t he? We’ll take care not to trip over any other wires. I’ll wager you it turns out to be a bell, wired to wake up a watcher next door. Someone wants to know when I return, that’s all.”

“That’s all?” She wanted to stamp her feet in frustration. “They broke into your shop and installed a trip wire and you say that’s all? Come on, let’s go—you can buy new clothes—”

“I need the book.” He was adamant.

She took a deep breath. “I don’t like it.”

“Neither do I, but…” He shrugged.

Paradoxically, Miriam felt herself begin to relax once they returned to the back room. Trip wires and claymore mines were Matthias’s stock in trade, a nasty trick from the days of the Clan-on-Clan civil war. But Matthias wasn’t a world-walker, and he couldn’t be over here, could he? He’d gone missing in the United States six months earlier, a week before the first series of targeted raids had shut down the Clan’s postal service. While she waited patiently, Erasmus sniffed around his shelves, the writing desk and dusty ledgers, the battered sink with the tin teapot and oil burner beside it, the cracked frosted-glass window pane with the bars on the outside. “Nobody’s touched these,” he said after a few minutes. “I’m going to look in the shop.”

“But it’s under observation! And there’s the wire—”

“I don’t think anyone outside will be able to see in, not while the sun’s out. And I want to fetch some stuff. Come help me?”

Miriam tensed, then nodded.

Erasmus slowly walked into the front of the shop, staying well back from the windows. He paused between two rails of secondhand clothing. “That’s interesting,” he said quietly.

“What is it?”

He pointed at the door handle. “Look.” The copper wire ran to the door frame, then round a nail and down to the floor where it disappeared into a small gray box, unobtrusively fastened to the skirting board. “What’s that?”

Miriam peered at the box. It was in shadow, and it took her a few seconds to make sense of what she was seeing. “That’s not a claymore—” She swallowed again.

“What is it?” he asked.

It was gray, with rounded edges—as alien to this world as a wooden automobile would be in her own. And the stubby antenna poking out of its top told another story. “I think it’s a rad—a, uh, an electrograph.” And it sure as hell wasn’t manufactured over here. “It might be something else.”

“How very interesting,” Erasmus murmured, stooping further to retrieve the letters. “You were right, earlier,” he added, glancing her way: “if this was planted by the men who followed us in New London, they’re not looking for me. They’re looking for you.”

And they’re not the same as the men staking out the front door, damn it. She nodded. “Let’s get your stuff and hit the road. I don’t like this one little bit.”

They hanged the servants beneath the warmth of the early afternoon sun, as Neuhalle’s minstrel played a sprightly air on the hurdy-gurdy. It was hard work, and the men were drinking heavily during their frequent breaks. “It takes half the fun out of it, having to do all the heavy lifting yourself,” Heidlor grumbled quietly as he filled his looted silver tankard from the cask of ale sitting on the cart.

Neuhalle nodded absently as another half-naked maid swung among the branches, bug-eyed and kicking. The bough groaned and swayed beneath its unprecedented crop, much of which was still twitching. “You don’t have to,” he pointed out. “Your men seem to be enjoying themselves.”

“Maybe, but it’s best to set a good example. Besides, they’ll change their minds when they run out of beer.”

The tree emitted another ominous creak, like the half-strangled belch of a one-eyed god. “Start another tree,” Neuhalle ordered. “This one is satisfied. That one over there looks like he’s willing to serve.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Sky Father will be grateful for your work today,” Neuhalle added, and his sergeant’s face split in a broad grin.

“Oh, aye, sir!”

It paid to put a pious face on such affairs, Otto reflected, to remind the men that the sobbing women and shivering, whey-faced lads they were dispatching were a necessary sacrifice to the health of the realm, a palliative for the ailment that had afflicted the royal dynasty for the past three generations. The servants of the tinker families—no, the clan of witches, Neuhalle reminded himself—weren’t the problem: the real problem was the weakness of the dynasty and the debauched compliance of the nobility. Egon might be unable to sacrifice himself or another of the royal bloodline for the strength of the kingdom, but at least he could satisfy Sky Father by proxy. The old ways were bloody, true, but sometimes they provided a salutary lesson, strengthening the will of the state. And so these unfortunates’ souls would be dedicated to Sky Father, the strength of their lives would escheat to the Crown, and their gold would pay for the royal army’s progress.

Neuhalle was sitting on his camp chair with an empty cup, watching his soldiers man-handle a hogtied and squalling matron towards the waiting tree, when a horseman rode up to the ale cart and dismounted. He cast about for a moment, then looped his reins around the wagon’s shaft and walked towards Otto. Otto glanced at the fellow, and his eyes narrowed. He stood up: as he did so, his hand-men appeared, clearly taking an interest in the stranger with his royalist sash and polished breastplate.

“Sir, do I have the honor of addressing Otto, Baron Neuhalle?”

Second impressions were an improvement: the fellow was young, perhaps only twenty, and easily impressed—or maybe just stupid. “That would be me.” Otto inclined his head. “And who are you?” He kept his right hand away from his sword. A glance behind the fellow took in Jorg, ready to draw at a moment’s notice, and he nodded slightly.

“I have the honor to be Eorl Geraunt voh Marlburg, second son of Baron voh Marlburg, my lord. I am here at the word of my liege his majesty—” He broke off, nonplussed, at a particularly loud outbreak of wailing and prayers from the corral. “—I’m sorry, my lord, I bear dispatches.”

Otto relaxed slightly. “I would be happy to receive them.” He snapped his fingers. “Jorg, fetch a tankard of ale for Eorl Geraunt, if you please.” Jorg nodded and headed for the ale cart, his hand leaving his sword hilt as he turned, and the other hand-man, Hein, took a step back. “Have you had a difficult time finding us?”

“Not too difficult, sir.” Geraunt bobbed his head: “I had but to follow the trail of wise trees.” Behind Otto, the crying and praying was choked off abruptly as his men raised further tribute to Sky Father. “His majesty is less than a day’s hard ride away.”

Otto glanced at Geraunt’s horse. He could take a hint. “Henryk, if you could find someone to see to the eorl’s horse…” He turned back to Geraunt as his other hand-man strode off. “How fares his majesty?”

Sir Geraunt grinned excitedly. “He does great deeds!” A nod at the tree: “Not to belittle your own, my lord, but he sweeps through the countryside like the scythe of his grandsire, reaping the fields of disorder and uprooting weeds!” He reached into the leather purse dangling from his belt and pulled out a parchment envelope, sealed with wax along its edges. “His word, as I stand before you, my lord.”

“Thank you.” Otto accepted the letter, glanced at the seal, then slit it open with his small knife. Within, he found the crabbed handwriting of one of Egon’s scribes. “Hmm.” The message was short and to the point. He glanced round, as Jorg returned with Geraunt’s beer and Heidlor walked over.

“Sergeant. How long until you are finished with the prisoners?”

Heidlor shrugged. “Before sundown, I would say, sir. Perhaps in as little as one bell.”

Otto frowned. This was taking too long. “We have orders to march. Much as it pains me to deprive Sky Father of his own, I think we’d better speed things up. So once the men have finished decorating that branch—” he pointed: there was barely room for another three bodies “—hmm, how many are we left with? Two score?” This particular house had been full of refugees, and the village with collaborators. “Strip them naked, whip them into the woods, and fire the buildings with their clothes and chattels inside. We’ll have to rely on winter to do the rest of our work here.”

Sir Geraunt blanched. “Isn’t that a bit harsh?” he asked.

“His majesty was most specific.” Otto tapped his finger on the letter. “I don’t have time to gently send them to their one-eyed father—you say his Majesty is a day’s ride away? We have to meet with him by this time tomorrow. With my men.”

“Oh, I see. If I may be permitted to ask, did he issue orders for my disposition, my lord? I am anxious to return—”

“You may ride with us.” He turned and walked away, towards his tent. “I’m sure there’ll be enough wise trees for everyone if he’s right about this,” he muttered to himself, for the summons was unequivocal: It is time to seek a concentration of fluxes, his majesty had ordained. To draw the tinker-witches into a real battle, by threatening a target they couldn’t afford to lose with force they couldn’t ignore. It would mean attacking a real target, not just another of these tedious manor estates. It would probably be either Fort Lofstrom or Castle Hjorth, and Otto would be willing to bet good money on the latter.

Begin Transcript:

“Good evening, your grace!”

“Indeed it is, indeed it is, Eorl Riordan. A lovely evening. And how are you?”

“I am well, sir. As well as can be expected.”

“For a fellow who is well, your face is uncommonly glum. Here, sit down. A glass of the Cabernet, perhaps?”

“Thank you, sir. What can I do for you?”

“Hmm, direct and to the point. Let me ask you a leading question, then. You may answer as indiscreetly as you care—it will go no farther than this room. How do you rate our performance?”

“Tactical or strategic? Or logistic and economic?”

“Whichever you deem most important. I want to know, in confidence, what you think we’re doing wrong and what you think we’re doing right.”

“Doing right?” (Brief laughter.) “Nothing.”

“That’s—” (Pause.) “—a provocative statement. Would you elaborate?”

“Yes, your grace. May I start with a summary?”

“Be my guest.”

“We are engaged in a war on two fronts. I shall ignore the first hostility for now, and concentrate on the second, because that’s the one you assigned me to deal with. Hostilities started when the former crown prince usurped the throne. It is evident from the speed and nature of his actions that he had been planning to do so for some time, and that he had already assured himself of the support of a sufficiently broad base of the nobility, before he moved, to have some hope of success. However, his move may well have been reactive—a response to the imminent marriage of his younger brother. So to start with, we are fighting an opponent who has studied his enemies and who has prepared extensively for this conflict, but whose execution was rushed.”

“Hmm. How do you evaluate his preparations?”

“They were confoundedly good, your grace. His control over the royal Life Guards, for one thing—that was a nasty surprise. His ability to install explosives in the palace—his possession of them—speaks of a level of planning that has given me sleepless nights. The Pervert may be many things but he isn’t stupid. Despite his well-known antipathy for our number, he has studied us closely. It is impossible to now ask his grand-dame how much lore she may have passed on to him, but we should take it as read that when he refers to us as ‘witches’ he knows exactly what we are capable of. For example, rather than holding Niejwein and the castles surrounding it, he immediately departed for the field, where I am told he sleeps among his troops, never in the same tent twice. Sir, he clearly knows how the civil war was fought: he knows exactly what tactics we would first think to use against an enemy noble, and his defenses are as good as anything we could muster for one of our own.”

“You’ve considered the usual routes, I take it? An assassination team from the other side?”

“Yes, your grace. It would be suicidal. For one thing, as I said, he sleeps among his men, in the field, always moving—for another, he has body doubles. We have identified at least two of them on different occasions, and they’re good actors: there is a good chance we would be striking at a puppet rather than their master. Finally, he has bodyguards. And I fear we have been too liberal with our gifts over the past decades: either that, or they’ve captured some hedge-lord’s private cabinet of arms, because I have confirmation that his Majesty’s hand-men carry MP-5s.”

(Pause.) “All right, so the Pervert’s a hard target. Now. The strategic picture?”

“Certainly, your grace. The enemy has divided his forces into battalion strength raiding units. They’re in the field and they’re hurting us. It’s a—this is embarrassing—a classic insurgency. The royal battalions fall on our outlying villages, hit them hard, massacre and destroy everything they can get their hands on, then disappear into the forest again. It’s absolutely not how you’d expect an eastern monarch to fight, it’s downright dishonorable—but it’s how the Pervert is fighting. He’s serious, sir, he’s trying to force us to divide our strength. And he’s succeeded. We’ve had to move as many dependents as possible over to the other side, and keep couriers on standby everywhere. And even that’s not enough. We’ve used helicopters to rush armed detachments into position on the other side a couple of times, and it worked on that bastard Lemke—he won’t be burning any more villages—but the more we do it, the greater the risk that the Americans will notice. He’s got us on the defensive, and each time he hits us we either lose a village or we lose men we can’t afford to—and he gains honor. This week I’ve lost eleven dead and fourteen injured badly enough they won’t be fighting again for months. That’s not including the outer family members, dependents, servants, peasants and the like. I think we’ve accounted for a good couple of hundred of the foe, but they’re not stupid: usually the first warning of an attack we have is when a cannon ball comes through a manor house door. There’s a limit to what a lance with M-16s and a SAW can do against a battalion of dragoons and a cavalry squadron—some of whom have Glocks.”

“Ah, yes. I thought you’d bring that up. Be glad you don’t have to explain it to the council, Eorl Riordan. They know it’s wrong, but they still can’t help but petition for protection, which is why three quarters of our number are guarding strategic hamlets or sitting in helicopter hangars on the other side. It’s what we exist for, and we’re being nibbled to death by mice. What would you do, were you in charge?”

“I’d set out a mouse trap, your grace. We can’t afford to suffer the death of a thousand cuts—Clan Security has, what? Two hundred inner family? Nearly a thousand armed and trained retainers? And up to six hundred world-walkers to call in for the corvee, if we need logistic support. The usurper outnumbers us five to one, but we’ve got SAWs and two-way radio while they’re limited to roundshot, grapeshot, and horseback couriers. We should be able to massacre those raiding parties, if we can just once anticipate not only their next target, but their path of advance.”

“Hmm. Suppose I were to tell you exactly where the enemy is planning to mass for a major strike, next Tuesday. Not just one of their battalions, but three of them, a goodly chunk of the royal army. Would that enable you to prepare a suitable reception for him?”

“Would—your grace! Please say it’s true!”

(Pause.) “The source is…troubling. I would not completely discount all risk of it being a deliberate leak, intended to lure us into a trap. Still. Be that as it may, I am informed—by one who stands to profit from that information—that there is a high probability of an attack on Castle Hjorth within the next two weeks. Which strikes me as suicidal, given the location and defenses of the castle, so I advise you to bear in mind the possibility that even if my source is telling the truth, they are not telling us everything. But, having said that, I want you to work out what we’re going to do about it. Because if it is true, my informer tells me that the Pervert himself will lead the attack. And this might be our best opportunity to kill him and end the war.”

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