The Merchants’ War

Security Breaches

Angbard’s bad day started out deceptively, with a phone call that he had taken for a positive development at first. It was not until later, when events began to spin out of control, that he recognized it for what it was–the very worst disaster to befall the Clan during his tenure as chief of external security.

This week his grace was staying on the other side, in a secluded mansion in upstate New York that he had acquired from the estate of a deceased record producer who had invested most of the money his bands had earned in building his own unobtrusive shrine to Brother Eater. (Not that they used the Hungry God’s true name in this benighted land, but the principle was the same.) The heavily wooded hundred-acre lot, discreet surveillance and security fittings, and the soundproofed basement rooms that had once served as a recording studio, all met with the duke’s approval. So did the building’s other-side location, a hilly bluff in the wilds of the Nordmarkt that had been effectively doppelgangered by a landslide until his men had tunneled into it to install the concealed exits, supply dumps, and booby-trapped passages that safety demanded.

Of course the location wasn’t perfect in all respects—in Nordmarkt it was a good ten miles from the nearest highway, itself little more than an unpaved track, and in its own world it was a good fifty-minute drive outside Rochester—but it met with most of his requirements, including the most important one of all: that nobody outside his immediate circle of retainers knew where it was.

These were desperate times. The defection of the duke’s former secretary, Matthias, had been a catastrophe for his personal security. He had been forced to immediately quarantine all his former possessions in the United States, the private jet along with the limousines and the houses: all out of reach for now, all contaminated by Matthias’s insidiously helpful management. He had holdouts, of course, the personal accounts held with offshore institutions that not even his secretary had known about—Duke Lofstrom had grown up during a time of bloody-handed paranoia, and never completely trusted anyone–but by his best estimate, it had cost him at least one hundred and twenty-six million dollars. And that was just how much it had cost him, as an individual. To the Clan as a whole, this disaster had cost upwards of two billion dollars. It was not beyond the realm of possibility that some of the more angry or desperate cousins might try to take their share out of his hide.

Events started with a phone call shortly after 11 p.m. Or rather, they started with what passed for a phone call where the duke was concerned: although he received it on an old-fashioned handset, it arrived at the safe house by a circuitous route involving a very off-the-books patch into the local phone company exchange, dark fiber connections between anonymous Internet hosts, and finally an encrypted data call to a stolen mobile phone handset. Angbard, Duke Lofstrom, might write his personal correspondence with a fountain pen and leave the carrying of mobile phones to his subordinates, but his communications security was the best that the Clan’s money could buy.

When the phone rang, the duke had just finished dining with the lords-comptrollers of the Post Office: the two silver-haired eminences who were responsible for the smooth running of the Clan’s money-making affairs to the same degree that he was responsible for their collective security. The brandy had been poured, the last plates removed, and he had been looking forward to a convivial exploration of the possibilities for expansion in the new territories when there was a knock on the dining room side door.

“Excuse me,” he nodded to his lordship, Baron Griben ven Hjalmar, causing him to pause in mid-flow: “Enter!”

It was Carlos, one of his security detail, looking apologetic. “The red telephone, my lord. It’s ringing in your office.”

“Ah.” The duke glanced at his dining companions: “I must apologize, perforce, but this requires my immediate attention. I shall return presently.”

“Surely, sir.” Baron ven Hjalmar raised his glass: “By all means!” He smiled indulgently.

The duke rose and left the table without further ado. On his way out, Carlos took up the rear. “Who is it?” he asked as soon as the dining room door had closed behind them.

“The officer of the day in the Thorold Palace has just declared an emergency. The signal is Tango Mike. He crossed over to report in person. He’s on the phone now.”

The duke swore. “Who is he? On the duty roster?” The officer of the day was the Clan member entrusted with ensuring the security of Clan members in their area, and he would not cross over to the other world to make a report—effectively abandoning their post, if only for a few minutes—without a very good reason.

“I believe it’s Oliver, Earl Hjorth.”

The duke swore again. Then they were at his office door. He picked up the telephone before he sat down. “Put him through.” His face fell unconsciously into an odd, pained expression: Oliver was a member of his half-sister’s mother’s coterie, an intermittent thorn in his side—but not one that he could remove without unpleasant consequences. What made it even worse was that Oliver was competent and energetic. If it wasn’t for Hildegarde’s malign influences, he might be quite useful…“Good evening, Baron. I gather you have some news for me.”

A quarter of an hour later, when he put the phone down, the duke’s expression was, if anything, even more stony. He turned to stare at Carlos, who stood at parade rest by the door. “Please inform their lordships ven Hjalmar and Ijsselmeer that I deeply regret to inform them that there has been a development that requires—” He paused, allowing his head to droop. “Let me rephrase. Please inform them that an emergency has developed and I would appreciate their assistance, in their capacity as representatives of the Post Office board, in conducting a preliminary assessment of the necessary logistic support for execution of the crisis plan in the affected areas. Then bring them here.” He sighed deeply, then looked up. “Go on.”

“Sir.” Carlos swerved through the door and was gone.

The duke half-smiled at the closing door. The fellow was probably scared out of his wits by whatever he’d overheard of the duke’s conversation with Earl Hjorth. Who should, by now, be back in Niejwein, and organizing his end of the crisis plan. The duke shook his head again. “Why now?” He muttered to himself. Then he picked up the phone and dialed the digit 9. “Get me Mors. Yes, Mors Hjalmar. And Ivan ven Thorold. Teleconference, right now, I don’t care if they’re in bed or unavailable, tell them it’s an emergency.” He thought for a moment. “I want every member of the council who is in this world on the line within no more than one hour. Tell them it’s an emergency meeting of the Clan council, on my word, by telephone.” This was unprecedented; emergency meetings were themselves a real rarity, the last having been one he’d called at the behest of his niece barely six months ago. “And if they don’t want to make time, tell them I’ll be very annoyed with them.”

Angbard hung up the phone and settled down to wait. A knock at the door: one of his men opened it. “Sir, their lordships—”

“Send them in. Then fetch a speakerphone.” Angbard rose, and half-bowed to Hjalmar and Ijsselmeer. “I must apologize for the informality, but there has been an unfortunate development in the capital. If you would both please be seated, I will arrange for coffee in a minute.”

Hjalmar found his voice first; diffidently—incongruously, too, for he was a big bear of a man—he asked: “is something the matter?”

Angbard grinned. “Of course something is the matter!” he agreed, almost jovially. “It’s the crown prince!”

“What? Has Egon had an accident—”

“In a manner of speaking.” Angbard sat down again, leaning back in his chair. “Egon has just murdered his own father and brother, not to mention Henryk and my niece Helge and a number of other cousins, at the occasion of his brother’s betrothal. He’s sent troops to lay siege to the Thorold Palace and he’s issuing letters of attainder against us, promising our land to anyone who comes to his aid.” Angbard’s grin turned shark-like. “He’s made his bid at last, gentlemen. The old high families have decided to cast their lot in with him, and we can’t be having that. An example will have to be made. King Egon the Third is going to have one of the shortest reigns on record—and I’m calling this meeting because we need to establish who we’re going to put on the throne once Egon is out of the way.”

Hjalmar blanched. “You’re talking about high treason!”

The old scar on Angbard’s cheek twitched. “It’s never treason if you win.” His smile faded into a frown and he made a steeple of his fingers. “And I don’t know about you gentlemen, but I see no alternative. Unless we are to hang—and I mean that entirely literally—we must grasp the reins of power directly. And the very first thing we must do is remove the usurper from the throne he’s claimed.”

Morning in Boston: a thick fog, stinking of coal dust and burned memories, swirled down the streets between the brown brick houses, blanketing the pavement and forming eddies in the wake of the streetcars. Behind a grimy window in a tenement flat on Holmes Alley a man coughed in his sleep, snorted, then twitched convulsively. The distant factory bells tolled dolorously as he rolled over, clutching the battered pillow around his head. It was an hour past dawn when a bell of a different kind broke through his torpor, tinkling in the hallway outside the kitchen.

The gaunt, half-bald man sat up and rubbed his eyes, which fastened on a cheap tin alarm clock that had stopped, its hands mockingly pointed at the three and the five on the dial. He focused on it blearily and swore, just as the doorbell tinkled again.

For someone so tall and thin, Erasmus Burgeson could move rapidly. In two spidery strides he was at the bedroom door, nightgown flapping around his ankles; three more strides and his feet were on the chilly stone slabs of the staircase down to the front door. Upon reaching which he rattled the chain and drew back the bolts, finally letting the door slide an inch ajar. “Who is it?” he demanded hoarsely as an incipient wheeze caught his ribs in its iron fist.

“Post Office electrograph for a Mister Burgeson?” piped a youthful voice. Erasmus looked down. It was, indeed, a Post Office messenger urchin, barefoot in the cold but wearing the official cap and gloves of that institution, and carrying a wax-sealed envelope. “Thruppence-ha’penny to pay?”

“Wait one.” He turned and fumbled behind the door for his overcoat, in one pocket of which he always kept some change. Three and a half pence was highway robbery for an electrograph: the fee had gone up two whole pennies in the past year, a sure sign that the Crown was desperate for revenue. “Here you are.”

The urchin shoved the envelope through the door and dashed off with his money, obviously eager to make his next delivery. Burgeson shut and bolted the door, then made his way back upstairs, this time plodding laboriously, a little wince crossing his face with each cold stone step. His feet were still warm and oversensitive from bed: with the fire embargo in effect on account of the smog, the chill of the stairs bit deep into his middle-aged bones.

At the top step he paused, finally giving in to the retching cough that had been building up. He inspected his handkerchief anxiously: there was no blood. Good. It was nearly two months, now, and the cough was just the normal wheezing of a mild asthmatic caught out by one of Boston’s notorious yellow-gray smogs. Erasmus placed the electrograph envelope on the stand at the top of the staircase and shuffled into the kitchen. The cooking range was cold, but the new, gas-fired samovar was legal: he lit it off, then poured water into the chamber and, while it was heating, took the bottle of miracle medicine from the back of the cupboard and took two more of the strange cylindrical pills.

Miriam had given him the pills, three months ago, last time she’d visited. He’d barely dared believe her promises, but they seemed to be working. It was almost enough to shake his belief in the innate hostility of the universe. People caught the white death and they died coughing up their lungs in a bloody foam, and that was it. It happened less often these days, but it was still a terror that stalked the camps north of the Great Lakes—and there was no easy cure. Certainly nothing as simple as taking two tablets every morning for six months! And yet…I wonder where she is? Erasmus pondered, not for the first time: probably busying herself trying to make another world a better place.

The water was close to boiling. He spooned loose tea into the brewing chamber then wandered over to the window, squinting against the smog-diffused daylight in hope of glimpsing one of the neighborhood clock towers. He’d have to wind and reset the alarm once he’d worked out by how long it had betrayed him. Still, nobody had jangled the bell-pull tied to the shop door handle while he was sleeping like a log. Business had boomed over the springtime and early summer, but things had fallen ominously quiet lately—nobody seemed to have the money to buy their possessions back out of hock, and indeed, nobody seemed to be buying much of anything. Even the local takers were slacking off on enforcing the vagrancy laws. Things seemed alright in the capital whenever his other business took him there to visit—the rich man’s cup spilleth over; the poor man gets to suck greedily on the hem of the tablecloth—and the munitions factories were humming murderously along, but wages were being cut left and center as the fiscal crisis deepened and the banks called in their loans and the military buildup continued.

Finally the water began hissing and burbling up into the brewing chamber. Erasmus gave up on staring out the window and went in search of his favorite mug. A vague memory of having left it in the lounge drew him into the passage, between the bookcases stacked above head-height with tracts and treatises and rants, and as he passed the staircase he picked up the letter and carried it along. The mug he found sitting empty on top of a pyramid of antinomianist-utilitarian propaganda tracts and a tottering pile of sheet music.

Back in the kitchen, he spooned rough sugar into the mug. The samovar was still hissing like a bad-natured old cat, so he slit open the electrograph’s seal while he was waiting for it to finish brewing. The letter within had been cast off a Post Office embosser, but the words had been composed elsewhere. YOUR SISTER IN GOOD HANDS DURING CONFINEMENT STOP MIDWIFE OPTIMISTIC STOP WHY NOT VISIT STOP BISHOP ENDS.

His eyebrows furrowed as he stared at the slip of paper, his morning tea quite forgotten. Nobody in the movement would entrust overtly coded messages to the government’s postal service; the trick was to use electrographs for signaling and the movement’s own machinery for substantive communications. But this wasn’t a prearranged signal, which made it odd. He’d had a sister once, but she’d died when he was six years old: what this was telling him was that Lady Bishop wanted him to visit her in New London. He stared at it some more. It didn’t contain her double cross marker—if she’d signed her first name to a signal it would mean I’ve been captured—and it did contain her negative marker—if a message contained an odd number of words that meant I am at liberty. But it wasn’t a scheduled meeting: however he racked his brains he couldn’t think of anything that might warrant such an urgent summons, or the disruption to his other duties.

Does this mean we have a breach? He put the treacherous message down on the kitchen table and turned off the gas, then poured boiling hot tea into his mug. If Margaret’s been taken, it’s a catastrophe. And if she hasn’t—gears spun inside his mind, grinding through the long list of possibilities. Whatever the message meant, he needed to be on a train to the capital as soon as possible.

An hour later, Erasmus was dressed and ready to travel, disguised as himself (electrograph in wallet, along with ID papers). He carefully shut off the gas supply and, going downstairs, hung up the CLOSED DUE TO ILLNESS sign in the shop window. It needed no explanation to such folk as knew him, and in any case the Polis had been giving him a wide berth of late, ever since his relapse in their cells. They probably think I’m out of the struggle for good, he told himself, offering it as a faint prayer. If he could ever shed the attention he’d attracted, what use he could make of anonymity with his age and guile!

It took him some time to get to the new station besides the Charles River, but once there he discovered that the mid-morning express had not yet departed, and seats in second class were still available. And that wasn’t his only good fortune. As he walked along the pier past the streamlined engine he noticed that it had none of the normal driving wheels and pistons, but multiple millipede-like undercarriages and a royal coat of arms. Then he spotted the string of outrageously streamlined carriages strung out along the track behind it, and the way the gleaming tractor emitted a constant gassy whistling sound, like a promise from the far future. It was one of the new turbine-powered trains that had been all the talk of the traveling classes this summer. Erasmus shook his head. This was unexpected: he’d hoped to reach New London for dinner, but if what he’d heard about these machines were true he might arrive in time for late lunch.

His prognostications were correct. The train began to move as he settled down behind a newspaper, accelerating more like an electric streetcar than any locomotive he’d been on, and minutes later it was racing through the Massachusetts countryside as fast as an air packet.

Burgeson found the news depressing but compelling. Continental Assembly Dismissed! screamed the front page headline. Budget Deadlock Unresolved. The king had, it seemed, taken a right royal dislike to his Conservative enemies in the house, and their dastardly attempts to save their scrawny necks by raising tariffs to pay for the Poor Law rations at the expense of the Navy. Meanwhile, the rocketing price of Persian crude had triggered a run on oil futures and threatened to deepen the impending liquidity crisis further. Given a choice between a rock and a hard place—between the need to mobilize the cumbersome and expensive apparatus of continental defense in the face of French aggression, and the demands of an exhausted Treasury and the worries of bondholders—the king had gone for neither, but had instead dismissed the quarrelsome political mosquitoes who kept insisting that he make a choice between guns and butter. It would have struck Erasmus as funny if he wasn’t fully aware that it meant thousands were going to starve to death in the streets come winter, in Boston alone—and that was ignoring the thousands who would die at sea and on foreign soil, because of the thrice-damned stupid assassination of the young prince.

There were some benefits to rule by royal edict, Erasmus decided. The movement was lying low, and the number of skulls being crushed by truncheons was consequently small right now, but with the dismissal of the congress, everyone now knew exactly who to blame whenever anything bad happened. There was no more room for false optimism, no more room for wishful thinking that the Crown might take the side of the people against his servants. The movement’s cautious testing of the waters of public opinion (cautious because you never knew which affable drinking companion might be an agent provocateur sent to consign you to the timber camps, and in this time of gathering war time hysteria any number of ordinarily reasonable folks had been caught up in the most bizarre excesses of anti-French and anti-Turkish hysteria) suggested that, while the king’s popularity rose whenever he took decisive action, he could easily hemorrhage support by taking responsibility for the actions usually carried out by the home secretary in his name. No more lying democracy: no more hope that if you could just raise your thousand-pound landholder’s bond you could take your place on the electoral register, merging your voice with the elite.

The journey went fast, and he’d only just started reading the small-print section near the back (proceedings of divorce and blasphemy trials; obituaries of public officials and nobility; church appointments; stock prices) when the train began to slow for the final haul into Queen Josephina Station. Erasmus shook his head, relieved that he hadn’t finished the paper, and disembarked impatiently. He pushed through the turbulent bazaar of the station concourse as fast as he could, hailed a cab, and directed it straight to a perfectly decent hotel just around the corner from Hogarth Villas.

Half an hour later, after a tense walk-past to check for signs that all was in order, he was relaxing in a parlor at the back of the licensed brothel with a cup of tea and a plate of deep-fried whitebait, and reflecting that whatever else could be said about Lady Bishop’s establishment, the kitchen was up to scratch. As he put the teacup down, the side door opened. He rose: “Margaret?”

“Sit down.” There were bags under her eyes and her back was stooped, as if from too many hours spent cramped over a writing desk. She lowered herself into an overpadded armchair gratefully and pulled a wry smile from some hidden reservoir of affect: “How was your journey?”

“Mixed. I made good time.” His eyes traveled around the pelmet rail taking in the decorative knick-knacks: cheap framed prints of music hall divas and dolly-mops, bone china pipe-stands, a pair of antique pistols. “The news is—well, you’d know better than I.” He turned his head to look at her. “Is it urgent?”

“I don’t know.” Lady Bishop frowned. There was a discreet knock at the door, and a break in the conversation while one of the girls came in with a tea tray for her. When she left, Lady Bishop resumed: “You know Adam is coming back?”

Erasmus jolted upright. “He’s what? That’s stupid! If they catch him—” That didn’t bear thinking about. He’s coming back? The very idea of it filled his mind with the distant roar of remembered crowds. Inconceivable—

“He seems to think the risk is worth running, given the nature of the current crisis, and you know what he’s like. He said he doesn’t want to be away from the capital when the engine of history puts on steam. He’s landing late next week, on a freighter from New Shetland that’s putting into Fort Petrograd, and I want you to meet him and make sure he has a safe journey back here. Willie’s putting together the paperwork, but I want someone who he knows to meet him, and you’re the only one I could think of who isn’t holding a ring or breaking rocks.”

He nodded, thoughtfully. “I can see that. It’s been a long time,” he said, with a vertiginous sense of lost time. It must be close on twenty years since I last heard him speak. For a disturbing moment he felt the years fall away. “He really thinks it’s time?” He asked, still not sure that it could be real.

“I’m not sure I agree with him…but, yes. Will you do it?”

“Try and stop me!” He meant it, he realized. Years in the camps, and everything that had gone with that…and he still meant it. Adam’s coming back, at last. And the nations of men would tremble.

“We’re setting up a safe house for him. And a meeting of the Central Executive Committee, a month from now. There will be presses to turn,” she said warningly. “He’ll need a staff. Are you going to be fit for it?”

“My health—it’s miraculous. I can’t say as how I’ll ever have the energy of a sixteen-year-old again, but I’m not an invalid any more, Margaret.” He thumped his chest lightly. “And I’ve got lost time to make up for.”

Lady Bishop nodded, then took a sip of her tea.

“There’s another matter, I needed to speak with you about,” She said. “It’s about your friend Miss Beckstein.”

“Yes?” Erasmus leaned forward. “I haven’t heard anything from her for nearly two months—”

“A woman claiming to be her turned up on my doorstep three nights ago: we’ve spent the time since then questioning her. I have no way of identifying her positively, and if her story is correct she’s in serious trouble.”

“I can tell you—” Erasmus paused. “What kind of trouble?”

Margaret’s frown deepened. “First, I want you to look at this portrait.” She pulled a small photograph from the pocket of her shalwar suit. “Is this her?”

Erasmus stared at it for a moment. “Yes.” It was slightly blurred but even though she was looking away from the camera, as if captured through the eye of a spy hole, he recognized her as Miriam. He looked more closely. Her costume was even more outlandish than when she’d first shown up on his doorstep, and either the lighting was poor or there was a bruise below one eye, but it was definitely her. “That’s her, all right.”

“Good.”

He glanced up sharply. “You were expecting a Polis agent?”

“No.” She reached for the picture and he let her take it. “I was expecting a Clan agent.”

“A—” Erasmus stopped. He picked up his teacup again to disguise his nervousness. “Please explain,” he said carefully. “Whatever I am permitted to know.”

“Don’t worry, you’re not under restriction.” Lady Bishop’s frown momentarily quirked into a smile. “Unfortunately, if Miss Beckstein is telling the truth, it’s very bad news indeed. It appears she fell into disfavor with her family of the first estate—to the point where they imprisoned her, and then attempted to marry her off. But the arranged marriage provoked a violent backlash from the swain’s elder brother, and it seems she is now destitute and in search of a safe harbor. Her family doesn’t even know if she’s still alive, and she believes many of them are dead. Which leaves me with a very pressing dilemma, Erasmus. If this was subterfuge or skulduggery, some kind of plot to pressure us by her relatives, it would be easy enough to address. But under the circumstances, what should I do with her?”

Burgeson opened his mouth to speak, then froze. Think very carefully, because your next words might condemn her. “I, ah, that is to say—” He paused, feeling the chilly fingers of mortal responsibility grasp the scruff of his neck like a hangman’s noose. “You invited me here to be her advocate,” he accused.

Lady Bishop nodded. “Somebody has to do it.”

The situation was clear enough. The movement existed from day to day in mortal peril, and had no room for deadweight. Prisons were a luxury that only governments could afford. At least she invited me here to speak, he realized. It was a generous gesture, taken at no small risk given the exigencies of communication discipline and the omnipresent threat of the royal security Polis. Despite the organization’s long-standing policies, Lady Bishop was evidently looking for an excuse not to have Miriam liquidated. Heartened by this realization, Erasmus relaxed a little. “You said she turned up on your doorstep. Did she come here voluntarily?”

“Yes.” Lady Bishop nodded again.

“Ah. Then that would imply that she views us as allies, or at least as possible saviors. Assuming she isn’t working for the Polis and this isn’t an ambush—but after three days I think that unlikely, don’t you? If she is then, well, the ball is up for us both. But she’s got a story and she’s been sticking to it for three days…? Under extraordinary pressure?”

“No pressure. At least, nothing but her own isolation.”

Erasmus came to a decision. “She’s been a major asset in the past, and I am sure that she isn’t a government sympathizer. If we take her in, I’m certain we can make use of her special talents.” He put his teacup down. “Killing her would be a—” tragic “—waste.”

Lady Bishop stared at him for a few seconds, her expression still. Then she nodded yet again, thoughtfully. “I concur,” she said briskly.

“Well, I confess I am relieved.” He scratched his head, staring at the picture she still held.

“I value your opinions, Erasmus, you must know that. I needed a second on this matter; my first leaning was to find a use for her, but you know her best and if you had turned your thumb down—” she paused. “Is there a personal interest I should know about?”

He looked up. “Not really. I consider her a friend, and I find her company refreshing, but there’s nothing more.” Nothing more, he echoed ironically in the safety of his own head. “I incline towards leniency for all those who are not agents of the state—I think it unchristian and indecent to mete out such punishment as I have been on the receiving end of—but if I thought for an instant that she was a threat to the movement I’d do the deed myself.” And that was the bald unvarnished truth—a successful spy would condemn dozens, even hundreds, to the gallows and labor camps. But it was not the entire truth, for it would be a harsh act to live with afterwards: conceivably an impossible one.

Lady Bishop sipped her tea again. “Then I think you’ll be the best man for the job.”

“What job?”

“Finding a use for her, of course. In your copious spare time, when you’re not off being Sir Adam’s errand boy.”

Erasmus blinked. “Excuse me?”

“I’d have thought it obvious.” She put her teacup down. “We can’t keep her here. Her inexperience would render her dangerous, her strange ideas and ways would be hazardous and hard to conceal in the front of the house, and, bluntly, I think she’d draw unwelcome attention to herself. If we’re not to send her to the Miller, it’s essential to put her somewhere safe. You’re the only person she knows or trusts here, so you drew the short straw. Moreover, I suspect you know more about how to make use of her unique ability than I do. So, unless you protest, I’m going to assign her to you as an additional responsibility, after you see to Adam’s travel arrangements. Take her in and establish how we can use her. What do you say?”

“I say—um.” His head was spinning: Erasmus blinked again. “That is to say, that makes sense, but—”

Lady Bishop clapped her hands together before he could muster a coherent objection. “Excellent!” She smiled. “I’ll have Edward sort out documents and some suitable clothing for her, and you can take her back to Boston as soon as possible. What do you say?”

“But—” The servant’s room is full of furniture in hock, the second bedroom doesn’t have room to swing a cat for all the old clothing and books I’ve got stored in it, and the old biddies up the street will wag their tongues so fast their jaws explode—“I think the word Miss Beckstein would use is ‘okay.’” He sighed. “This is going to be interesting.”

His Majesty King Egon the Third had convened his special assizes in the grand hall of the Thorold Palace—still smoking, and somewhat battered by his soldiers in their enthusiasm to drive out the enemy—precisely thirty-six hours after the explosion and subsequent attack on his father. “By parties of great treachery in league with the Tinker tribe,” as the gebanes dispatched by royal messenger to all his vassal lords put it: “Let all know that by decree of this court in accordance with the doctrine of outlawry the afore-named families are declared outwith the law, and their chattels and holdings hereby escheat to the Crown.” The writs were flying by courier to all quarters of the kingdom; now his majesty was dictating a codicil.

“This ague at the heart of our kingdom pains us grievously, but we are young and healthy enough that it shall soon be overcome and the canker cut out,” his majesty said. “To this end, an half of all real properties and chattels recovered from the outlaw band is hereby granted to whosoever shall yield those properties to the Crown.” He frowned: “is that clear enough do you suppose, Innsford?”

“Absolutely clear, my lord.” His excellency the duke of Innsford bobbed his head like a hungry duck plowing a mill pond. “As clear as temple glass!” Whether it is wise is another matter, he thought, but held his counsel. Egon might be eager to rid himself of the tinker clan, and declaring them outlaw and promising half their estates to whoever killed them was a good way to go about the job, but in the long run it might come back to haunt him: other kings had been overthrown by ambitious dukes, with coffers filled and estates bloated by the spoils of a civil war fought by proxy. Innsford harbored no such ambitions—his old man’s plans did not call for a desperate all-or-nothing gamble to take the throne—but others might think differently. Meanwhile, the scribe seated at the table behind him scratched on, his pen bobbing between ink pot and paper as he committed the King’s speech to paper.

His majesty glanced up at the huge, clear windows overhead, frames occupied by flawless sheets of plate imported from the shadowlands by the tinkers. “May Sky Father adorn his tree with them.” In the wan morning light his expression was almost hungry. Innsford nodded again. The king—a golden youth only a handful of years ago, now come into his full power as a young man, handsome as an eagle and strong as an ox—was not someone anyone would disagree with openly. He was fast to laugh, but his cruel streak was rarely far below the surface and his mind was both deceptively sharp and coldly untrusting. He kept his openness for a small coterie of friends, their loyalty honed beyond question by bleak years of complicity during the decade when his father had held him at arm’s reach, suspicious of the brain rot inflicted on his younger brother Creon during a sly assassination attempt. The other courtiers (of whom there were no small number, Duke Innsford among them) would have a long wait until they earned his confidence.

And as Egon had demonstrated already, losing the royal confidence could be a fatal blunder.

Egon glanced at the scribe: “That’s enough for now.” He stood up, shifting his weight from foot to foot to restore the circulation that the hard wooden chair had slowed. “My lord Innsford, attend us, please. And you, my lord Carlsen, and you, Sir Markus.”

The middle-aged duke rose to his feet and half-bowed, then followed as the young monarch walked towards the inner doors. Four bodyguards paced ahead of him, and two to the rear—the latter spending more time looking over their shoulders than observing their royal charge—with the courtiers Carlsen and Markus, and their attendant bodyguards, and Innsford’s own retainers and guards taking up the tail end of the party. His majesty affected a scandalous disregard for propriety, dressing in exactly the same livery and chain mail jerkin as his escorts, distinguishable only by his chain of office—and even that was draped around his neck, almost completely hidden by his tunic. It was almost as if, the duke mused, his majesty was afraid of demonic assassins who might spring out of the thin air at any moment. As if. And now that the duke noticed it, even Egon’s courtiers wore some variation on the royal livery…

“Markus, Carl, we go outside. I believe there is an orangery?”

“Certainly, sire.” Carlsen—another overmuscled blond hopeful—looked slightly alarmed. “But snipers—”

“That’s what our guards are for,” Egon said dismissively. “The ones you don’t see are more important than the ones you do. We are at greater risk in this ghastly haunted pile—from tinker witches sneaking back in from the shadowlands to slip a knife in my ribs—than in any garden. The less they know of our royal whereabouts, the happier I’ll be.”

“The land of shadows?” Innsford bit his tongue immediately, but surprise had caught him unawares: does he really believe they come from the domain of the damned? How much does he know?

The king glanced round and grinned at him lopsidedly, catching him unawares. It was a frighteningly intimate expression. “Where did you think they came from? They’re the spawn of air and darkness. I’ve seen it myself: one moment they’re there, the next…” He snapped his fingers. “They walk between worlds and return to this one loaded with eldritch treasure, weapons beyond the ken of our royal artificers and alchemists: they buy influence and insidiously but instinctively pollute the purity of our noble bloodlines with their changeling get!” His grin turned to a glare. “I learned of this from my grandmother, the old witch—luckily I did not inherit her bloodline, but my brother was another matter. Had Creon not been poisoned in his infancy there is no doubt that once he reached his majority I should shortly have met with an accident.”

He paused for a minute while his guards opened the thick oak side door and checked the garden for threats. Then he turned and strode through into the light summer rain, his face upturned towards the sky.

The formal gardens in the grounds of the Thorold Palace had been a byword for splendor among the aristocracy of the Gruinmarkt for decades. The hugely rich clan of tinker families had spared no expense in building and furnishing their residence in the capital: individuals might dress to impress, but stone and rampart were the gowns of dynasties. Some might even think that Egon had brought his court to the captured palace because it was (in the aftermath of the fighting that had damaged the Summer Palace) the most fitting royal residence in the city of Niejwein. Rows of carefully cultivated trees marched alongside the high walls around the garden; rose beds, fantastically sculpted, blossomed before the windowed balconies fronting the noble house. A pool, surmounted by a grotesque fountain, squatted in the midst of a compass rose of gravel paths: beyond it, a low curved building glinted oddly through the falling rain. The walls were made of glass, huge slabs of it, unbelievably even in thickness and clear of hue, held in a framework of cast iron. Green vegetation shimmered beyond the windows, whole trees clearly visible like a glimpse into some fantastic tropical world. Egon strode towards it, not once glancing to either side, while his guards nervously paced alongside, eyes swiveling in every direction.

Innsford hurried to keep up with the royal personage. He cleared his throat: “Your Majesty, if the tinkers suspect you are making free with their former estate—

Egon rounded on him with a grimace. “It’s not their estate,” he snapped. “It’s mine. And don’t you forget it.” He continued, moderating his tone, “Why do you think everyone around me dresses alike?” His ill-humor slipped away. “Yes, they can send their assassins, but who is the assassin to shoot first? And besides, I will not stay here long.”

They were at the orangery doors. “Where does your majesty wish his court to reside?” the duke inquired, almost casually.

“Right here.” Egon flashed him a momentary grin. “While I play the King of Night and Mist.” He glanced over his shoulder at Sir Markus. “I need a beater for the royal hunt. Would you fancy the title of general?”

Markus, a strapping fellow with an implausibly bushy mustache, thrust his chest out, beaming with pride: “Absolutely, sire! I am dizzy with delight at the prospect!”

“Good. Kindly make yourself scarce for a few minutes. You too, Carlsen, I’ll have words with you both shortly but first I must speak in confidence with his grace.”

The orangery doors were open and the guards completed their study: Egon stepped over the threshold, and the small gaggle of courtiers followed him. Innsford studied Markus sidelong. Some backwoods peer’s eldest son, beholden to Egon for his drinking space at a royal table, ancestral holdings down at heel over the past five decades: more interested in breaking heads and carousing than the boring business of politicking that his father before him was so bad at. And Egon had just casually offered him a post from which he could reap the drippings from the royal trencher? Innsford blinked slowly, watching the two young bloods bounce away into the glazed pavilion, marveling loudly and crudely about its trappings. “A beater for the hunt should hold the title of general?” he asked.

“When you’re hunting for armies, why yes, I believe that is the custom.” His majesty’s lips quirked slightly, in what might have been intended to be a smile. “If I am in the field at the head of an army, I am clearly looking to the defense of my realm, am I not? Such a grand undertaking will have, I hope, a salutary effect on any secret ambitions the father of my betrothed might hold towards our lands. Leading an army against the tinkers will permit me to burnish my honor, strive for glory, and ensure that those who rally to my banner do so under my eyes so that their claims to the spoils of victory be adjudicated immediately.” Oh, so you don’t trust your vassals with sharp implements out of your sight? Innsford nodded gravely, while Sir Markus beamed like an idiot. A useful idiot, come to think of it. “And the tinker assassins will have little success in striking from the shadows if they do not know, from one day to the next, where I make my bed.”

The duke nodded thoughtfully. “I am pleased by your majesty’s perspicacity and foresight,” he said carefully, thinking: Sky Father! He’s sharp. If Egon was going to go into the field at the head of an army, he was going to slay about six birds with one stone. Hunting down the tinker Clan’s holdings in the wild would compel them to confront him on his own terms, while making it difficult for their assassins to stick a knife in his ribs. An army in being would prevent the neighbors from getting any ideas about picking off a province here or a holding there. Meanwhile, Egon had rung a bell to make his backwoods vassal dogs salivate at the thought of loot: now he would go into the field to gather the leashes of the men they had released for service. He could simultaneously claim the lion’s share of the spoils he’d promised, while maintaining the appearance of generously disbursing loot to his followers. Handled carefully it would raise him to the stature of a true warrior king—somebody only fools or the truly desperate would scheme against—without the attendant risks of declaring war on one of the neighboring kingdoms. If it worked—“I see much in your plan to commend it.” Innsford paused. Egon had come to a halt in front of a bench at the center of a circle of low, dark green trees. Small orange fruits glimmered among their shadowy branches. “But you did not summon me here to tell me this.”

“Indeed not.” Egon inhaled deeply, closing his eyes for a moment. Innsford sniffed, but his sinuses—chronically congested, the aftermath of a broken nose in his youth—stubbornly refused to disclose the cause of Egon’s blissful expression. The king opened his eyes: “I have some—problems. I believe you might be able to assist me in their resolution.”

Ah. Here it comes. Innsford had lived through the reign of two kings before this young upstart: nevertheless, his stomach tingled and he felt a shiver of fear, as if a black cat walked across his future grave. “I am at your command, your majesty.”

“While I am on campaign, I must look to the good cultivation of my earthly field.” Niejwein and territories, Innsford translated. “I must also look to the good administration of my army. Who am I to trust, in the halls of power while I am elsewhere?” For a moment the royal gaze fell on Innsford, unblinking and cold as any snake. “His grace of Niejwein is under threat from the tinker knives if he stays in the capital whose name he bears: perhaps he would be safer were he to undertake a pilgrimage to the southern estates? His eldest son will be all too pleased to look to the house hold’s duties in his father’s absence, while his grace could earn my gratitude by looking to the good management of those provinces.”

Innsford stiffened. But Niejwein’s your man! he thought indignantly. Then he unpacked Egon’s plan further. Niejwein’s too powerful, here. Send him away from his power base while keeping his son—inexperienced—as a hostage, and he can serve your ends safely. Is that what you plan? “You have a task in mind for me.” It was an admission, but denying any awareness of the deeper political realities would merely suggest to Egon that he was too stupid to be of any use. And Innsford had a nasty inkling that being pigeonholed as useless by King Egon was unlikely to be conducive to a peaceful and prosperous old age. Especially if one was of high enough birth to conceivably be a threat.

“Indeed.” Egon smiled again, that disturbing smirk with a telltale narrowing of the eyes. “Laurens—the next Duke of Niejwein, I should say—is none too bright himself. He’ll need his hand holding and his back watching.” The smirk faded. “The defense of Niejwein is no minor task, your grace, because I am certain the tinkers will attempt to retake the city. Their holdings are not well adapted to support a war of maneuver, and they are by instinct and upbringing cosmopolitans. Furthermore, Niejwein is the key to their necromantic trade with the land of shades. There are locations in this city that they need. I must assign an army to the defense of the capital, but I would be a thrice-damned fool to leave it in his grace of Niejwein’s own hands. Will you take it?”

“I—” Innsford swallowed. “You surprise me.”

“Not really!” Egon said lightly. “You know as well as I the value of a certain—reputation.” His own reputation for bloody-handed fits of rage had served well enough at court to keep his enemies fearful. “Should you accept this task, then this palace will be yours—and your son Franz? He is well, I trust? I will be needing a page. Franz will accompany me and win glory on the battlefield, and in due course he will inherit the second finest palace in the land from his father’s prudence in this matter.”

Innsford stared. “I wo-would be delighted to accept your gracious offer,” he forced out. You’re going to leave me in charge of this death trap while you take my son as your page? The audacity was offensive, but as an act of positioning it was a masterstroke: rebel against the king and Egon would already hold his firstborn hostage. But meanwhile… thoughts whirled in his head. “You expect the tinkers to try to retake the city, my liege?” he asked: “Is there sound intelligence to this effect?”

“Oh, indeed.” Egon’s reply was equally casual in tone, and just as false. “I have my ways.” He smirked again. “Well, truth be told, I have my spies.” He chuckled dryly. “You understand more than you can politely say, my lord, so I shall say it for you: I trust no one. No one. But don’t let that fool you. The rewards for being true and constant to my service will be great and in time you’ll come round to my way of thinking, I’m sure. It is no blind ambition that desires my impression of your son: I have a nation to rid of witchcraft and nightmares, to make fit for men such as your son to live in. He will eventually play a privileged role at court; I would like to meet him sooner rather than later. But now—” He gestured at the orange grove around them. “—I have arrangements to make. There is a war to conduct, and once I have seen to my defense I must look to my arms.” He took another deep breath. “If success smells half so sweet as this, I shall count myself a lucky man.”

The bench seat stank of leather, old sweat, gunpowder, and a cloying reek of fear. It rattled and bounced beneath Mike, to the accompaniment of a metallic squeaking like damaged car shock absorbers. His leg ached abominably below the knee, and whenever he tried to move it into a less painful position it felt as if a pack of rabid weasels was chewing on it. His face pressed up against the rear cushion of the seat as the contraption swayed from side to side, bouncing over the deep ruts in the cobblestone surface of the road.

Despite the discomfort, he was calm: everything was distant, walled off from him by a barrier of placid equanimity, as if he was wrapped in cotton wool. They’ll kill me when they find out, he told himself, but the thought held no fear. Wow, whatever Hastert stuck me with is really smooth.

Not that life was entirely a bed of roses. He winced at a particularly loud burst of gunfire rattling past the carriage window. One of the women on the other bench seat rattled off something in hochsprache: he couldn’t follow it but she sounded scared. The old one tut-tutted. “Sit down, you’ll only get your head blown off if you give them a target,” she said in English.

More hochsprache: something about duty, Mike thought vaguely.

“No, you shouldn’t…”

The distinctive sound of a charging handle being worked, followed by a gust of cold air.

Crack. The sound of a rifle firing less than a meter from his ear penetrated Mike’s haze. He pushed back against the seat back, rolling onto his back just as a particularly violent pot-hole tried to swallow one of the carriage’s rear wheels, and the shooter fired again: a hot brass cartridge case pinged off the back of the seat and landed on his hand. Curiously, it hurt.

“Ow—” He twitched, shaking the thing off, wincing repeatedly as the woman in the fur coat leaning out of the carriage window methodically squeezed off another three shots. What’s the word for…? “My leg, it hurts,” he tried.

“Speak English, your accent’s atrocious,” said the old woman. “It won’t fool anyone.”

Mike stared at her. In the semi-darkness of the carriage her face seemed to hover in the darkness, disembodied. Outside the window, men shouted at each other. The carriage lurched sideways, then bounced forward, accelerating. The shooter withdrew her head and shoulders from the window. “That is all of them for now, I believe,” she announced, with an accent of her own that could have passed for German. She glanced at Mike, mistrustfully, and adjusted her grip on the gun. The real moon, outside, scattered platinum highlights off her hair: for a moment he saw her face side-lit, young and striking, like a Russian princess in a story, pursued by wolves.

“Close the window, you don’t want to make a target of yourself,” said the old biddy from beneath the pile of rugs. “And I don’t want to catch my death of cold.” A cane appeared from somewhere under the heap, ascending until it battered against the carriage roof. “Shtoppan nicht, gehen’su halt!” She was old, but her lungs were good. She glanced at Mike. “So you’re awake, are you?”

Answering seemed like too much of an effort, so Mike ignored her: it was much easier to simply close his eyes and try to keep his leg still. That way the weasels didn’t seem to bite as hard.

A moment later, the cane poked him rudely in the ribs. “Answer when you’re spoken to!” snapped the Russian princess. He opened his eyes again. The thing prodding his side wasn’t a cane, and she might be pretty, but she was also clearly angry. Is it something I did? he wondered hazily. “Where am I?”

“In a carriage,” said the old woman. “I’d have thought that was obvious.” She snorted. “The question you meant to ask is, how did I end up in this carriage in particular?”

“Jah: and, how am I, it, to leave, alive?” The Russian princess gave his ribs a final warning poke, then withdrew into the opposite corner of the cramped cabin, next to the old woman. Mike tried to focus: as his eyes adjusted he saw that under her fur coat she was wearing a camouflage jacket. The rifle—he focused some more—was exotic, some sort of foreign bullpup design with a huge night vision scope bolted above its barrel. Blonde bombshell with fur coat and assault rifle. His gaze slid sideways to take in the older one, searching for reassurance: she smiled crookedly, one eyebrow raised, and he shuddered, déjà vu spiking through his guts as sharply as the pain from his damaged leg.

“That’s enough, Olga,” the old lady said sharply, never taking her eyes off Mike. “We’ve met, in case you’d forgotten.”

Oh shit. The penny dropped: that’s the entire mission blown! He stared at her in mortified disbelief, at a complete loss for words. His mind flashed back to events earlier in the evening, to a hurried snatch of conversation with Miriam, the way she’d stared at him in perplexity as if she couldn’t quite fathom the meaning of his reappearance in her life: now he felt the same scene repeating, horribly skewed. “You were—” he paused. “Mrs. Beckstein. Well…” His lips were as dry as the day when Miriam had casually suggested they stop off on their way to the restaurant to say hello, just for ten minutes, so you’ve met my mother—“I’m surprised. I thought you’d adopted Miriam? What are you doing here?”

Olga, the Russian princess as he’d started thinking of her, glared at him malevolently: her rifle pointed at the floor, but he had no doubt she could bring it to bear on his head in an eyeblink. But Mrs. Beckstein surprised him. She began to smile, and then her smile widened, and she began to chuckle, louder and louder until she began to wheeze and subsided into a fit of coughing. “You really believed that? And you saw us together? What kind of cop are you?” Something else must have tweaked her funny bone because a moment later she was off again, lost in a paroxysm of thigh-slappingly disproportionate mirth. Or maybe it was just relief at being out of the fire-fight.

“I do not see the thing that is so funny,” Olga said, almost plaintively.

“Ah, well, but he was such a nice young—” Mrs. Beckstein began coughing again. Olga looked concerned, but given a choice between keeping Mike under observation and trying to help the older woman—“Sorry, dear,” she told Olga, when she got her voice back. “That’s how Miriam described you.” She nodded at Mike. “Before she changed her mind.”

Mike closed his eyes again. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, is this a fuckup! He winced: obviously demons were feeding his leg-weasels crystal meth. “He’s called Mike,” Mrs. Beckstein continued remorselessly, “Mike something-beginning-with-F, I’ve got it in my diary. And he works for the Drug Enforcement Agency. Or he used to work for the DEA. Do you still work for the DEA, Mike?”

He opened his eyes, unsure what to do: the painkillers were subsiding but he still felt unfocused, blurry about the edges. “I’m not supposed to talk—”

“You will talk, boy.” Mrs. Beckstein glared at him, and he recoiled at the anger in her expression. “You can take your chances with me, or you can make your excuses to my half-brother’s men, but you are going to talk sooner or later.” She glanced at Olga. “Sometimes I can’t believe my luck,” she said dryly. She turned back to Mike, her expression harsh: “What have you done with my daughter?”

“I—” Mike stopped. Time seemed to slow. My brother’s men. Jesus, she’s been one of them all along! How deep does this go? He shuddered, his guts churning. Until now he’d known, understood in the abstract, that Miriam was involved with these alien gangsters, narcoterrorists from Middle Earth: even meeting Miriam, dressed up for a medieval wedding in the middle of an exploding castle, hadn’t really shaken what he’d thought he knew. But Miriam’s mother was a different matter entirely, a disabled middle-aged woman living quietly in a small house in New England suburbia—they’re everywhere! He swallowed, choking back hysterical laughter. “I don’t know where she went. She said she had a, one of the lockets, got it from a friend. Said she’d be in touch later. There was a perp in black, tried to stab her so I shot him—”

“Why?”

“Orders.” He cleared his throat. “They told me, talk to her. Offer her whatever she…well, anything.”

Mrs. Beckstein glanced at the Russian princess: evidently her expression meant something because a moment later she turned back to him. “You’re colluding with Egon.”

“Who?” His bewilderment must have been obvious, because a moment later she nodded.

“All right. So how did you get over here?”

Mike stared at her.

Mrs. Beckstein took a deep breath. “Olga. If Mr. Fleming here doesn’t answer my questions, you have my permission to shoot him in the kneecap. At will.”

“Which one?” asked the Russian princess.

“Whichever you want.” Mrs. Beckstein sniffed. “Now, Mike. I want you to understand one thing, and one thing only—I’m concerned for my daughter’s well-being. I’m especially concerned when an ex-boyfriend of hers with a highly dubious employment record appears out of nowhere at a—” she coughed “—joyous occasion, and all hell breaks loose. And I am more concerned than you can possibly begin to imagine that she has vanished in the middle of the sound and the fury, because there is an official decree in force that says if she world-walks without the permission of the Clan committee, her life is forfeit. She is my daughter, and blood is thicker than water, and I am going to save her ass. Call it atonement for earlier mistakes, if you like: I’ve not always been a terribly good mother.” She leaned closer. “Now, you may be able to help me save her ass. If I think you might be useful to me, I can protect you up, to a point. Or.” She nodded at Olga. “Lady Olga is a friend of Miriam’s. She’s concerned for her welfare, too. Miriam has more friends than she realizes, you see. Thousands and thousands of them…So the question is: are we all agreed that we are friends of Miriam, and that we intend to save her ass? Or—” she fixed Mike with a vulture stare “—were you stringing her along?”

“No!” he exclaimed. “Whoa. Ow.” The weasels had graduated from carnivore school and were working on their diplomas in coyote impersonation. “What do you want to know?”

“Let’s start with, how you got over here.”

“Same way Matthias got over to our—my—world.” He could almost see the lightbulbs going on over Olga’s and Mrs. Beckstein’s heads. “Family Trade captured a couple of world-walkers. Forced them to carry.” He tried to shrug himself into a more comfortable position, half-upright.

“Forced? How?” Olga stared at him. “And what is Family Trade?”

“Collar…bombs. They carry a cargo and come back, Family Trade resets the timer. They don’t come back, it blows their head off. When they’re not world-walking, FTO keeps them in a high-rise jail.”

Mrs. Beckstein interrupted. “Family Trade—this is some spook agency, isn’t it?”

“Yes. I’m—seconded—to it. Not my idea. Matt walked into the Boston downtown office while Pete—my partner—and I were on the desk. That’s all.”

“Ah.” Mrs. Beckstein nodded to herself. “And they sent you here because they worked out that Miriam was…okay. I think I get it. Am I right?” She raised an eyebrow.

“Yes, mostly,” he said hastily: Olga was still glaring at him from her corner. “We don’t have much intel on the ground. Colonel Smith figured she’d be able to develop a spy ring for us, in return for an exit opportunity. He wants informants. I told him it was half-assed and premature, but he ordered the insertion.”

“He wants informants, does he?” Mrs. Beckstein grinned. “What do you make of that, Olga?”

Olga’s expression of alarm surprised Mike in its intensity, cutting through the fog of drugs: “you can’t be serious! That would be treason!”

“It’s not treason if it’s known to ClanSec in advance.” Mrs. Beckstein waved a hand in dismissal. “One man’s spy is another man’s diplomatic back channel to the other side; it just depends who’s playing the game and for what stakes.” Her eyes narrowed as she looked at Mike. “Your colonel wants information? Well, he shall have it, and you shall take it to him. But in return, you’re going to find my daughter.” A brief sideways nod: “you and Lady Olga, that is.”