The Revolution Business

Covered Wagon

To a soldier in an army dependent on muscle power, there are few sights as grim as a fortress occupied by an enemy force standing directly in the line of advance.

The Hjalmar Palace was palatial only on the inside: Squatting behind ominous earthworks at the fork of a major river, the face it presented to the world at large was eyeless and intimidating, scarred by cannon and fire. The merchant clan barons who had reinforced and extended the revetments around the central keep over the past fifty years had not been as parochial as their backwoodsman cousins. They’d scoured the historical archives of the Boston Public Library, keeping a wary eye on the royal army’s ironworks and the forging of their great siege bombards. Behind the outer wet moat and its fortified gatehouse, beyond the flat killing ground of the apron, the stone walls of the castle sank below ground level; backed by rammed earth to absorb the blows of any cannon balls that might make it over the rim, the walls rose harsh and steep before the deep dry moat.

It had taken treachery to get Otto’s men into the palace the first time round, using a shortcut revealed under duress by one of the residents. He’d been in the process of preparing defenses against the inevitable attempt to retake the complex, but the Clan had struck back with astonishing speed and terrifying force—a far cry from their dilatory defensiveness when outlying estates and villages were picked off. They weren’t really exerting themselves until we threatened their fortresses instead of their farms, Otto mused. It was an unpleasant realization. His defenses hadn’t been ready; they’d driven him out and he still didn’t know for sure precisely where they’d flooded back into the building from. But if nothing else, at least now he had a map of the internal layout. In principle that should make things easier. In practice—

He lowered his binoculars, then looked back. The fortress was still there, looming in the east, mocking him. Your bones, at my feet, it was saying. Your blood: my mortar.

A loud crack! caught his attention. Behind the line, the royal artillery’s light cannon began to fire, deep-throated coughs that spat clouds of smoke and sparks as they threw cold iron at the gatehouse. Stone chips flew, but the gatehouse was, itself, a castle in miniature, and beyond it the drawbridge across the wet moat and the sunken road allowed the defenders to reinforce it at need. The range was almost half a mile: The bombardment wouldn’t do much save to make the defenders keep their heads down. But that was better than nothing, Otto supposed. That, and the king’s plan—if it worked—might get them close enough to the defenses to at least have a chance. And if the king’s plan didn’t work, at least we’ve got an entire army, he told himself. Scant comfort, looking up at those ramparts.

Otto turned back to the clump of men waiting behind him. “Tomorrow the king’s going to reduce the gatehouse,” he announced. “Then it’s right on to the castle. But we’ve got an easy job to do. Once Raeder’s men finish moving the ammunition up, we’re to advance behind the vanguard and keep the witches’ heads down.” He looked his men in their eyes. “There will be no indiscriminate firing.” Not like the day before yesterday, when his undertrained men had burned through crates of priceless ammunition and wrecked a pair of irreplaceable M60 barrels. “There will be no damaged guns. If any man wrecks a witch-gun barrel by firing too fast, I’ll forge it to red-heat and beat him to death with it. And there will be no casualties, if I have any say in the matter.” He assayed a thin smile. His hetmen had been quietly gloomy, a minute ago; now they visibly cheered up. “The other side’s to do the dying today, and for our side, the fresh troops are to be the making of them. We’ll just stay nice and safe in the rear, and rain on the enemy battlements with lead.”

“Aye!” Shutz knew his cue, and put his leathery lungs into it. The sergeants and hetmen, not to mention the sprinkling of hedge-knights who’d joined his banner out of hope of self-enrichment, joined in enthusiastically.

“To your men, then, and let them know,” Otto said, allowing himself to relax slightly. “I will make an inspection round in the next hour, and give you your disposition before we advance, an hour before sunset.”

Night fell heavy on the castle walls, illuminated by the slow lightning of the field cannon and the echoing thunder, and the moans of the victims, growing weaker now. Olga stared from a darkened window casement, following the action around the base of the gatehouse, picked out in the livid green of night vision goggles. “The stupid, stupid bastards,” she hissed.

Behind her, Earl Oliver cleared his throat. The distant sounds of preparations, banging and scraping and swearing, carried through the door from the grand hall. “As long as the Pervert’s troops think we’re heavily invested, and unable to move . . .”

“But the waste! Lightning Child strike him blind.” Olga was not prone to fits of unreasoning rage. Bright, hot, anger was no stranger; but it passed rapidly, and she knew better than to let it rule her. But what the king had done outside the barred gate of the moat house was something else. It’s a deliberate provocation, she told herself. He doesn’t want or expect our surrender, so he thinks to unhinge us. And he was certainly trying hard. No one sane would have used noble prisoners as he had done outside the gatehouse, forgoing all hope of ransom and calling down eternal blood feud from their surviving relatives.

“Carl will deal with him tomorrow, I am sure,” Oliver declared, although whether he was being patronizing towards her age and status, or merely ironically detached, Olga was unsure. “Tonight we have other work.”

“Indeed.” Olga lowered her goggles and switched them off, blinking at the twilight.

“Meanwhile, Earl Riordan sent his compliments, and would like to know what additional resources you need to move the duke, and when you’ll be ready.”

Since when is he employing you as a messenger boy? Olga stepped aside from the window and turned to face him. “I’ve got a corpsman and two soldiers, one to do the portage and one secondary bodyguard; between them they’re a stretcher team. That’s plenty until we get to the crossover point. What I then need is for Grieffen or whoever’s in Central Ops to arrange to have a secure ambulance waiting for us in Concord at zero four hundred hours, and I need their mobile number so I can guide them in when we cross over.” She patted her belt. “I’ve got a GPS unit and a phone. We’ll travel with everyone else as far as the drop zone then continue on a little further before we go back to the United States.” It wasn’t the entire truth—and not just because she didn’t trust the Baron. Oliver was trustworthy after his own fashion; but his loyalty was to his conception of the Clan, not to Olga’s faction. He didn’t have any need to know the details, and Olga wasn’t inclined to take even the remotest of risks with the duke’s personal security.

“Do you want me to arrange the ambulance?” he asked attentively.

That did it: He was questioning her competence. “No!” she snapped. “I’ll do it myself. The sooner I see him in a hospital bed the happier I’ll be.” Moving an acute stroke patient was risky enough without trying to do it in the dark, possibly under fire, and without benefit of any specialized medication more sophisticated than a couple of aspirin; the only reason even to consider it was out there in the dark and the chaos before the gatehouse, broken on the wheel.

“So will we all,” he said piously, turning to leave.

The hours passed quickly, in a frenzy of preparations for the evacuation. Not everyone was to leave; someone had to light the keep, fill the helmets visibly watching over it, and fire the occasional volley to convince the besieging forces that the palace wasn’t an empty prize. But eight in every ten men and women would be world-walking out of the Hjalmar Palace before dawn, stealing away like thieves in the night once the hastily printed and laminated knotwork cards arrived. Almost everyone—Olga, the duke, and the wounded excepted—would return, with the early morning sun at their backs, half a mile behind the pretender’s encampment. Trapped between the machine guns on the battlements and the rifles and recoilless rockets of the mobile force, the royalists would have scant time to regret their misplaced allegiance; their best strategy ought to be to melt back into the trees again. But from the lack of movement in the enemy camp it looked as if they’d swallowed the bait: While they clearly knew of the world-walker’s ability, it seemed that they had not fully understood its tactical significance. That, or their commander was getting greedy.

Olga took a couple of hours to catch a nap, on a cot at the end of Angbard’s bed. She awakened in near-darkness as a hand touched her shoulder. She grasped a wrist almost before she opened her eyes. “What time? . . .”

“Midnight plus four minutes, milady.” The soldier—a stocky woman called Irma, one of Helmut’s lance and the daughter of an earl, if Olga remembered her rightly—straightened up. “Martyn and I are your detail, along with Gerd”—the corpsman—“to take his grace to safety, is that right?”

“Yes,” Olga said tersely. She rubbed her eyes and sat up, shook her head to clear the cobwebs, and yawned. “You have a stretcher, yes? And suitable clothes.”

“A stretcher, aye,” Gerd called softly from the far side of the four-poster bed. “He still sleeps, milady,” he added, forestalling her next question.

Irma grimaced. “I hate stretchers.” She stepped back, to leave Olga some space. “On the subject of suitable clothes—we are going to America, to meet an ambulance, at dead of night, I was told? But this other world, I’ve never been there before. So I don’t know what’s a suitable disguise for sneaking around there. . . .”

“Don’t worry about that aspect of things, we’ve got transport.” I hope. Olga sat up creakily. “Here’s the plan. We’re going to cross over with everyone else. Have the cards arrived yet?” Irma shook her head. “Well. When they arrive—it’s a new world. This site is undeveloped farmland. Our agents have laid on trucks, and they’ll drive Captain Hjorth and his force to the drop-off point for the counterattack. We’ll be taking a car into Irongate, which is near as makes no difference sitting on the south side of Concord, and where there’s a doppelgangered building in this world. Then we make two more transfers, crossing back at zero five hundred, and I’ll phone for an ambulance. I’ve got GPS, so we should be picked up within half an hour. Our main challenges are: keeping his grace comfortable, avoiding attention from the locals, and not killing ourselves by world-walking too much. Is that clear?”

“Yes, milady. Makes things easier.” Irma shook her head. “Four crossings in four hours—that’s harsh.”

“Yes. That’s why for the first crossing we’ll all be going piggyback on whichever members of your lance draw the short straws. And for the second crossing, Gerd will carry his grace and Martyn will carry you. On the third crossing, you can take the duke. The fourth will be the hardest, but that way, only one of us risks breaking our head.”

“Do you think we should ditch our field gear?”

Olga thought for a moment. “If it’s not too much to carry, I think we should hang onto it until we’re ready to make the final transit. But once we hit Concord”—she paused—“we can’t be wearing armor or carrying long arms. What clothing did you find for us?”

“Nothing for sure, milady, we must see if it fits—but the baron’s family maintained a wardrobe with some American clothing, and it has not been looted yet. I hope,” she added under her breath.

“Let’s go see, shall we,” Olga suggested, stretching as she stood up. Her own state she passed over: She and Angbard had never expected to wind up here, and her neat trouser suit would be fine. “We need clothing that will pass at a distance for Gerd, Martyn, and you.”

“This way, then.” Irma led her from the master bedroom into an adjacent room, its rich paneling splintered and holed by small arms fire. Chests of drawers and a huge wooden chest dominated half a wall. “I think this is what you’re looking for.”

Late afternoon.

Miriam segued into wakefulness to the rattle and jabber of daytime television fuzzed into incoherence through a thin stud wall. Gathering her wits, she rolled over. The bed isn’t moving, she realized. She’d found it difficult to rest, her worries chasing their tails through her mind, but she’d spent the last few nights on a transcontinental express train and the novelty of a bed that didn’t sway side-to-side and periodically bump across railroad points had eventually drawn her down into a deep abyss of dreamless sleep. Yawning, she sat up and rolled off the comforter. What time is it? . . . She glanced at the dressing table. Her notebook PC sat there, its LEDs winking as it charged. Whether it would start up was a moot point—it had spent six months in a hidden compartment in a disused office—but it had a clock; maybe it would still be working. She reached over and pressed the power button, then started gathering her clothes.

The regular startup chord and busy clicking of a hard disk provided welcome background noise as she dressed; but as the computer seemed to want to twiddle its thumbs instead of talking to her, she locked the screen and headed for the bathroom, and then the stairs, rather than waiting. To think that only four days ago she’d risked arrest and imprisonment to retake the thing, seeing it as central to her hopes for survival and prosperity! . . . Her understanding of her circumstances was changing almost from hour to hour, leaving her adrift and unable to rely on plans she’d made only the day before. It gave her an anxious sense of insecurity, rising to the level of nervous dread whenever her thoughts circled back to the pregnancy question.

The television noise was coming from the living room, along with other sounds. As Miriam pushed the door open she caught a burst of conversation: “She’s right, then what are we going to do? We won’t be able to go back! Had you thought of”—A blond head turned—“Oh, hi!”

Miriam paused. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything. . . .”

“Not really.” Huw was slouched in a recliner, propping up a laptop, while the two younger ones, Yul and Elena, had been either watching TV or arguing about something while sharing a large pizza of uncertain parentage. “Feel free to join us.”

“Yah,” agreed Yul, chewing rhythmically.

Elena thumped him. “Don’t talk with your mouth full!”

“Yuh.” He took her punch on one shoulder, looking amused rather than hurt.

Miriam turned to address Huw. “Where’s Brill?”

“Oh, she went out.” He sounded disinterested. “Hmm, that’s interesting.”

Miriam glanced at the window. It was clearly getting late, and the shadows of the trees out front were lengthening. “Is there anything to eat around here?” Her gaze was drawn to Elena and Yul’s pizza, almost against her will.

“Uh?” Huw looked up at her, and visibly did a double take. “Food? Um . . . yeah, food! Just a minute.” A rattle of hastily struck keys later, he closed the laptop’s lid and stood up. “Let’s see what’s in the kitchen?”

The kitchen was as sparsely equipped as it had been earlier in the afternoon. Huw headed straight for the freezer and the microwave, but Miriam stopped him. “Let me.” While she rooted around in the cupboards, she asked, “Any idea where Brill went? Did she ask you to get me a pregnancy test kit?”

“A what?” He walked over to the kitchen door and closed it carefully. “No, that’s women’s stuff. If you asked for such a thing, she wouldn’t trust a man to procure it.”

“Oh.” Miriam froze for a couple of seconds, disappointed. Then she sighed and opened the next cupboard. “So where did she go?”

“If not to attend to your request, I’d guess she has a private call to make. She was getting extremely itchy about being on the wrong coast, and even itchier about how we’re going to get back out east without attracting attention.”

“Attention”—Miriam paused to pull out a can of tomatoes and a bag of pasta—”what kind of attention?”

“She came out here in the company biz-jet, but . . . someone tipped the feds off about where ClanSec were concentrating? Somewhere near Concord, apparently. We’ve had hints”—Miriam rattled past him, rifling a drawer in search of utensils—“they’re getting serious about tracking us down. So I don’t think there’s a biz-jet ride home in our immediate future.” Miriam slammed the cupboard door. “What?”

“This is useless!” She pointed at her haul. “What did they think we were going to do, eat at Mickey D’s every day?”

“Freezer. Microwave.” Huw pulled a face. “If you were stocking a house for a bunch of kids who’re not used to living away from home without servants, what would you do?”

“Leave a cookbook!”

“We-ell, okay.” Huw made for the freezer again. “Memo to Duke Angbard Lofstrom, Office of Clan Security. Re: training program for armed couriers. Classification: Clan Confidential. All couriers must attend mandatory Cooking with Rachael Ray video screening and Culinary Skills 101 course prior to commencing overnight missions. Malnutrition a threat to morale, combat-readiness, and operational security.” He straightened up, a pizza box in each hand. “Meat lover’s feast or four cheese, my lady?”

“Oh hell, I’ll take the cheese.” She forced a smile to take the sting out of her words. “Sorry. It just bugs me.”

“It’d be good to have a staff, or use a hotel or something,” Huw agreed. “But this is less conspicuous, and less conspicuous is good right now.” He pulled a face.

“What do you mean?” She pulled out a chair and sat down.

“Well.” He slid the first pizza onto a plate and put it in the microwave. “I have a nasty suspicion that in the interests of looking inconspicuous we’re going to end up driving back to Massachusetts. Or driving part of the way, to avoid tracking. If we just fly point-to-point and they’re paying attention we’d show up. And then there’s the communication discipline. All Internet traffic is monitored by the NSA. All of it. So we fall back on 1930’s tech—old-fashioned letters written in runic hochsprache, flash memory cards sealed under postage stamps instead of microdots, that kind of thing. It’s probably why my lady Brilliana is taking so long.”

“Oh.” Miriam stared at the second pizza, feeling a stab of acute déjà vu. It was just like Erasmus’s problems in New Britain, seen through a high tech looking glass. “I think I’m getting a headache.”

The oven pinged for attention. Huw opened it, sniffed, then slid the steaming microwave-limp pizza in front of her. “Sorry—”

“Don’t be, it’s not your fault.” She picked up a knife and began to cut as he put the second pizza in. “What do you want, Huw?”

“Huh?”

“What do you want?” She put down her knife. “Here, help yourself to a slice.”

“Uh, you mean, what do I want, as in, what is my heart’s desire, or what do I want, as in, what am I trying to achieve right now?” He reached over and took a piece, holding it twitchily on his fingertips.

“The former.” Miriam picked up a wedge of hot pizza and nibbled at it. “Because I’d say, right now you’re trying not to burn your fingers.”

“Ouch, yes! Um, life’s little ambitions. I want to finish my masters, and I wanted to do a Ph.D., obviously. Only the duke more or less handed me a doctoral subject a couple of weeks ago! Hell, not a doctorate: a life’s work. The implications are enormous. As for the other stuff . . . I’m a younger son. Clan shareholder, but at least I’m not going to get roped in and tied down into running a backwoods estate. There’s more to life than the Gruinmarkt and if I must do the getting married and raising a family thing I want to do it somewhere civilized, with electricity and running water, and a partner of my own choosing.”

“Got anyone in mind?”

“Oh, I think so.” His expression turned inward for a moment. “Although it’s too early to ask. . . .” He shook his head. The microwave dinged again. “Is that what you wanted to know?”

“It’ll do for a start.” Miriam watched as he stood up and pulled the second pizza out of the oven. “How many—of your generation—do you think see eye-to-eye with you on the last bit? Electricity and running water and marrying for love rather than because your parents say so?”

Huw reached for the knife. “It’s funny . . . there are a bunch of foreign students at MIT? You can’t go there and not know a couple of them. We had a lot in common. It’s like, we all got used to the amenities and advantages of living over here, but it’s not home. The Chinese and Middle-Eastern and developing-nation students all wanted to spend time over here, earning a stake, maybe settle down. It’s a deprivation thing. I didn’t see that with the European students—there weren’t as many of them, either—but then, you wouldn’t. The difference in standards of living isn’t so pronounced. But you want to know about my generation? There are those who’ve never spent much time over here—a minority, these days—and they don’t know any better, but there’s an outright majority who’d be over the wall in an instant if they could keep visitation rights. And if you promised to install electricity and running water and start Niejwein developing, they’d elect you pope-emperor. Shame that’s not going to happen, of course. I’d have liked to see you on the throne in the Summer Palace, taking names and kicking butt. I think you’d have been good at it.”

“You think.” Miriam gnawed at a fresh chunk of pizza. “Well, we’ve got a bigger problem now.”

“Yes, I was just thinking that. . . .” Huw slid another portion onto her plate. “Here, have a chunk of mine. Um. So what’s your life’s ambition?”

“Uh?” Miriam stared at him, a chunk of pizza crust held in one hand. “Excuse me?”

“Go on.” Huw grinned. “There must be something, right? Or someone?”

“I—uh.” She lowered the piece of crust very carefully, as if it had suddenly been replaced by high explosive. “You know,” she continued, in a thoughtful tone of voice, “I really have absolutely no idea.” She cleared her throat. “Is there anything to drink?”

“Wine, or Diet Coke?”

“Ugh. Wine, I think, just not too much of it. . . .”

“Okay.” Huw fetched a pair of glasses and a bottle.

“I used to think I had the normal kinds of ambition,” she said thoughtfully. “Married, kids, the family thing. Finish college, get a job. Except it didn’t quite work out right, whatever I did. I did everything the wrong way round, the kid came too soon and I gave her up for adoption because things were . . . fucked up right then? Yes, that’s about the size of it. Mom suggested it, I think.” Her face froze for a moment. “I wonder why,” she said softly.

Huw slid a glass in front of her. “I didn’t know you had a child?”

“Most people don’t.” She sipped briefly, then took a mouthful of wine. “I married him. The father. Afterwards, I mean. And it didn’t work out and we got divorced.” She stifled an unhappy laugh. That’s what I mean about doing things in the wrong order. And before you ask, no, I’m not in contact with the adoptive parents. Mom might know how to trace them, but I bet”—she looked thoughtful—“she won’t have made it easy. For blackmail, you see. So anyway, after my marriage fell apart I had a career for a decade until some slime in a vice president’s office flushed it down the toilet. And I’d still have a career, a freelance one, except I discovered I had a family, and they wanted me to get married and have a baby, preferably in the right order, thanks, electricity and running water strictly optional. Oh, and my mother is an alien in both senses of the word; the first man I met in ten years who I thought I’d be willing to risk the marriage thing with was shot dead in front of me; the boyfriend before that, who I dropped because of the thousand-yard stare, turns out to be a government spy who’s got my number; I’m probably pregnant with a different dead man’s baby; and the whole world’s turned to shit.” She was gripping the glass much too tightly, she realized. “I just want it to stop.”

Huw was staring at her as if she’d grown a second head. Poor kid, she thought. Still at the mooning after girlfriends stage, not sure what he wants—why did I dump all that on him? Now she knew what to look for—now she knew the pressure that had broken Roland—she could see what was looming in his future, the inevitable collision between youthful optimism and brutal realpolitik. Did I really just say all that?

While she was trying to work it out, Huw reached across the breakfast bar and laid a finger on the back of her hand. “You’ve been bottling that up for a long time, haven’t you?”

“How old are you?” she asked.

“I’m twenty-seven,” he said calmly, taking her by surprise: He had five years on her estimate. “And I hear what you’re not saying. You’re what, thirty? Thirty-one? And—”

“Thirty-four,” she heard herself saying.

“—Thirty-four is a hard age to be finding out about the Clan for the first time, and even harder if you’re a woman. It’s a shame you’re not ten or fifteen years older,” he continued, tilting his head to one side as he stared at her, “because they understand old maids; they wouldn’t bother trying to marry you off.” He shook his head abruptly. “I’m sorry, I’m treating your life like a puzzle, but it’s . . .”

“No, that’s okay.”

“Ah, thank you.” He paused for a few seconds. “I shall forget whatever you wish me to, of course.”

“Um?” Miriam blinked.

“I assume you don’t want your confidences written up and mailed to every gossip and scandalmonger in the Gruinmarkt?” He raised a wicked eyebrow.

“Of course not!” Catching the gleam in his eye: “You wouldn’t. Right?”

“I’m not suicidal.” He calmly reached out and took the final wedge of her pizza. “I bribe easily.”

“Here’s to wine and pizza!” She raised her glass, trying to cover her rattled nerves with a veneer of flippancy. Damn, he’s not that unsophisticated at all. Why do I keep getting these people wrong?

“Wine and pizza.” Huw let her off the hook gracefully.

“You wanted to know what my life’s ambitions were,” she said slowly. “May I ask why?”

Huw stopped chewing, then swallowed. “I’d like to know what motivates the leader I’m betting my life on.” He looked at her quizzically. “That heavy enough for you?”

“Whoa!” She put her glass down slightly too hard. “I’m not leading anyone!” But Brill’s words, earlier, returned to her memory. Your mother intends to put you on the throne; and we intend to make sure you’re not just there for show. “I’m—” She stopped, at a loss for words.

“You’re going to end up leading us whether you like it or not,” Huw said mildly. “I’m not going to shove you into it, or anything like that. You’re just in the right position at the right time, and if you don’t, we’ll all hang. Or worse.”

“What do you mean?” She leaned forward.

Huw turned his head and looked at the window, his expression shuttered. “The duke has been holding the Clan together, through ClanSec, for a generation. He’s, he’s a modernizer, in his own way. But there aren’t enough of us, and he’s aging. He’s also a fascist.” Huw held up a finger: “I say that in the strict technical sense of the word—he’s what you get when you take the principle of aristocratic exceptionalism and push it down a level onto the bourgeoisie, and throw in a big dose of the subordination of the will of the individual to the needs of the collective. Ahem.”

He took a sip of wine. “Sorry, Political Econ 301, back before I ended up in MIT. The Clan—we’re only five generations removed from folks who remember being itinerant tinkers. We are the nearest thing that the Gruinmarkt has thrown up to a middle class, and it’s the lack of any effective alternative that had our great-grandparents buying titles of nobility and living it up. Anyway, the duke has taken a bunch of warring, feuding extended families and given them a security organization that guards them all. He’s kicked butt and taken names, and secured a truce, and virtually everyone now agrees it’s a good thing. But he’s a single point of failure. When he goes, who’s going to be the next generalissimo? Your trouble is that you’re his niece, by his red-headed wildcat stepsister. More importantly, you’re the only surviving one in the direct line of succession—the attrition rate forty years ago was fearsome. So if you decide not to play your cards you’d better be ready to run like hell. Whichever of the conservative hard-liners comes out on top will figure you’re a mortal threat.”

“Hang on, whichever? Conservatives? Aren’t you jumping the gun—”

“No, because we’re not ready. Give us another few years and maybe Earl Riordan could do it. Or Olga, Baroness Thorold, although she’s even younger. There are others: Kennard Heilbrunner ven Arnesen, Albericht Hjalmar-Hjorth. But they’re not in position. You’re in an unusual spot: You’re young but not too young, you’ve got different experience, you demonstrated a remarkable ability to innovate under pressure, and—the icing on the cake—assuming you’re pregnant, you’re carrying a legitimate heir to the throne. Or at least one who everyone who survived the betrothal will swear is legitimate, and that’s what counts. And they’ll swear to it because, while the old nobility wouldn’t know a DNA paternity test from a hole in the ground, the Clan nobility have heard of it, and even the old folks have a near-superstitious respect for the products of science.”

“But I’m not”—Miriam stopped. She picked up her glass again, rolling it between her palms. “Did Brill tell you the details of Dr. ven Hjalmar’s creepy plan?” Huw nodded. “Good. But you know something? I’m old, and not all pregnancies come to term, and I am really not fucking happy about being turned into a brood mare. And I completed enough of pre-med that if—that’s an if—I decide to lose it, you—that’s a collective you—are going to have to keep me in a straitjacket for the next nine months if you want your precious heir. Assuming it exists and it’s a boy. And I haven’t made my mind up yet. And as for what ven Hjalmar’s got coming, if he isn’t dead, if I ever see him again . . .”

Silence. Then Huw spoke, in a low voice, as if talking to himself: “Miriam, if you are pregnant and you decide you don’t want to go through with it, I would consider it a matter of my personal honor to help you end it. Just as long as you keep it quiet . . . the old folks, they wouldn’t understand. But I won’t be party to keeping you in a straitjacket.”

“Uh. I. Er.” Miriam drained her wineglass, trying to cover her confusion. “What you just offered. You know what you just said?”

“Yes.” Huw nodded. “I will either get you the appropriate medication, or, if it’s too late for that, help you get to an abortion clinic.” He paused. “It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve helped a girl out that way.”

“Uh.” Miriam stared at him. Just when I think I’m getting to understand them . . . “No offense, but you made it sound like organizing a shopping trip. . . .”

“I may be an MIT graduate student, but I’m from the Gruinmarkt.” Huw visibly searched for words. “We don’t place much stock in a babe ‘til it’s born, usually. Which is perhaps a good thing. You wouldn’t want it to be born if it would trigger a blood feud that would claim its own—and its parents’—lives, would you?”

“But—you said it was leverage—”

“Yes, I did.” He looked back at her. “But it’s not the only lever you’ve got. The duke’s accident elevates your rank in the game. You might still have a chance, even if you throw it away.” He slid off his bar stool and picked up the dirty plates. “Just try to give the rest of us some warning when you make your mind up, huh?”

“I know what this looks like.” She was still gripping the wineglass tightly, she realized, tightly enough to stop her hands shaking. “I am not going to flip. I’ve been here before, a long time ago.”

“But”—Huw peered at her—”you’re doing fine, so far.”

“It’s a control thing.” Miriam forced herself to let go of the glass. “You never know, I might not be pregnant. I need a test kit. And then I need some space to think, to get my head around this.” She paused. “Were you serious about that offer?”

Huw hesitated for a few seconds before answering. “All the plans anyone’s making—they all rely on your active participation. We need you to trust us. Therefore”—he shrugged uncomfortably—“having made that offer I’m bound by it; if I forswear myself you’ll never trust me, or any of us, ever again. And we, my faction, need you to show us what to do. That’s more important than any crazy plan Henryk hatched to manipulate the succession. We need your trust. And that’s something that can only be bought with our own.”

Three o’clock in the morning.

The occasional crack of heavy-caliber gunfire, punctuated by the boom of a black-powder cannon, split the nighttime quiet outside the castle walls. Nobody was getting much sleep, least of all the guards who hunkered down in the courtyard around the central keep, night-vision goggles active, waiting for a sign.

The sign, when it came, was a mere flickering in the shadows near the dynamited well house. Two of the guards spotted it at once, lowered their guns, and darted out across the open ground towards it. Their target bent over, emptying his stomach on the hard-packed cobblestones. “This way, sir! We need to get under cover.”

The traveler nodded weakly, straightening up. “Take. This.” He held out a shoulder bag. “I’ll mark the spot. It’s crowded around there.” His clothing was unfamiliar, but not his face; the sergeant nodded and took his bag.

“You sit down and wait, then. We’ll be along presently.” He glanced at the sky: So far the enemy forces hadn’t tried lobbing shells into the courtyard at random, but it was only a matter of time before they got bored with sniping at window casements. “Try to stay close to the wall.”

He dashed back towards the keep, not bothering to jink—they held the walls so far, Lightning Child be praised—going flat-out with the shoulder bag clenched in both hands.

Carl was waiting in the grand hall with his staff. By lamplight, his face was heavily lined. He seemed, to the sergeant’s eye, to have aged a decade in the past two days. “Let’s see that,” he suggested.

“Sir.”

The guard up-ended the bag’s contents in the middle of the table with a thin clatter of plastic. Carl picked one of the cards up and carefully angled it for a glance. He drew breath sharply. “What do you think?”

Oliver Hjorth took the card and squinted at it. “Yes, this looks like the right thing.” He glanced at the guard. “You recognized the courier.”

“It’s Morgan du Hjalmar, somewhat the worse for wear.”

The baron thought for a moment. “He’ll be wanting a ride back over, won’t he.”

Carl nodded. “See to it,” he told the sergeant, then glanced sideways at Helmut Anders, his lieutenant. “Get everyone moving out. The recon lance first, as planned, then if the insertion is cold the, the casualty and his party”—he couldn’t bring himself to refer to the duke by name—“followed by everyone else. My lord Hjorth, if you’d care to accompany my headquarters staff . . . Let’s get a move on, people!”

The crowd gathered around the table scattered, except for the core of officers and Helmut, who carefully removed his helmet and scooped the laminated plastic cards into it, being careful to avert his eyes. He moved to stand by the door, waiting for the clatter and clump of boots as the recon lance descended the grand staircase, weapons ready.

“Take a card, move on out, Morgan over by the well house will show you the transit spot,” he told them, holding the helmet before him. “You know what to do.”

“Secure the area!” Erik grinned at Helmut, his enthusiasm evidently barely dampened by the disaster on the rooftop two days ago.

“They’re supposed to be friendly,” Helmut chided him. “So use your discretion.”

“Aye!” Erik took a card and stepped forward. “Come on, you guys. Party’s this way.”

Olga watched from the back of the hall as the recon lance marched towards the well house and an appointment with an uncertain world. Better them than me, she told herself. There were any number of things that could go wrong. They might have the wrong knotwork, a subtle flaw in the design, and go . . . somewhere. Or the long-lost cousins of the hidden family might decide to use this opportunity to settle their old score against the eastern families. Any number of nasty little possibilities lay in that particular direction. Morgan’s appearance suggested otherwise, but Olga had no great faith in his abilities, especially after what Helge—Miriam—had told her about the way he’d run her works in New Britain into the ground. Whatever can go wrong, probably has already gone wrong, and there’s no point worrying about it. She tried the thought for size and decided it was an ill-fit for her anxiety. There’s nothing to be done but wait and see. . . .

Minutes passed, then there was another flicker in the shadows, out in the courtyard. A brief pause, then a figure trotted back towards the great hall.

“Sir! The area was as described, and Cornet du Thorold sends word that he has secured the perimeter.” The soldier looked slightly pale, but otherwise in good shape—he’d made his first transit on a comrade’s back, specifically so he’d be able to make a quick return dash. “To my eye it’s looking good. There are four covered trucks waiting, and eight men, not obviously armed, with your cousin Leonhard.”

“Good.” Captain Wu nodded. Then he glanced Olga’s way. “Your cue, milady.”

“Indeed.” Olga turned back to the side chamber where her small team was waiting. They’d brought the duke downstairs earlier. Now he lay on a stretcher, eyes closed, breathing so slowly that she had to watch him closely to be sure he was still alive. “Come on,” she told Irma, Gerd, Martyn, and the four soldiers she’d roped in. “Let’s get him to safety.”

The slow march out to the moonlit well house, matching her pace to the stretcher beside her, the smooth touch of the laminated card between her fingers: Olga felt herself winding tight as a watch spring. The gun slung across her shoulder was a familiar presence, but for once it was oppressive: If she found herself using it in the next few minutes, then the duke’s life—and by extension, the stable governance of the Clan—would be in mortal jeopardy. This has to work. Because if it doesn’t . . .

Seconds spun down into focused moments. Olga found herself crouching astride a heavily built trooper. “Are we ready?” she asked, as the soldiers raised their cards and shone pocket flashlights on them. “Because—”

The world lurched—

“Oh,” she said, and slid down her porter’s back as he staggered.

There were floodlights. And walls of wood, and between the walls, four large trucks of unfamiliar design, and soldiers. Familiar soldiers, thank Sky Father, in defensive positions near the gates to the compound. “What is this place?” she demanded.

“Lumberyard,” said Leonhard Wu, beside her shoulder.

Olga suppressed an unladylike urge to punch him. Leonhard always left her feeling slightly dirty: something about the way his gaze always lingered for just a few seconds too long. “Nice to see you, too,” she replied. Whose lumberyard, she left unasked. The security implications were likely to prove disquieting, and right now she had a single task to focus on—

“How is he?” she asked Gerd, who crouched beside the duke, holding his wrist.

“As good as can—”

“—Is that the duke?” Leonhard’s voice cracked into a squawk.

“Hsst.” Olga leaned towards him. “This is not Angbard Lofstrom, he wasn’t here, and you haven’t seen him. Not now, not here, not in this state. Do you understand?” She smiled coldly.

“No need for that!” He nearly collapsed in his haste to back away. “Ah, no, I haven’t seen anything. But, uh, don’t you think you ought to get your nothing-to-see-here out of sight, Olga? Before the cousins—”

“That’s the idea.” She nodded at the trucks. “Which of them is designated for officers?”

“That one—”

“Good. You can help Gerd here carry John Doe over to the load bed and make him comfortable. Hmm. Irma, why don’t you go with Leonhard here and make sure everyone works together splendidly? I have another job to do before we leave.”

She left Leonhard looking over his shoulder at her in fear and strode towards the gate, where Erik, the cornet in charge of the recon lance, stood with a couple of unfamiliar men in strange, drab clothing.

“Cornet, gentlemen.” She nodded. “I believe you have a tactical plan.”

One of the men looked vaguely familiar. “Lady, ah, Thorold-Hjorth? You are a friend of, of Helge?”

She blinked. “Yes. You are . . . ah, Sir James.” She bobbed her head. “I see you made it back home.”

“Indeed.” He smiled faintly. “And how may I serve you?”

“Let’s walk.”

“Certainly.”

James Lee had been dangerously smooth, she remembered, so smooth you could almost forget that his uncle and ancestors had waged a quiet war of assassination against her parents and grandparents, almost as soon as they’d concluded—erroneously—that their patriarch had been abandoned by his eastern brothers. James was friendly, affable, polished, and a much better diplomat than anyone had expected when, as part of the settlement between the families, he’d been sent to stay in Niejwein as a guest—or hostage. Which makes him dangerous, she reminded herself. “I have a little problem,” she said quietly.

“A problem?” He raised an eyebrow as they neared the rear of the truck where Irma and Gerd, with Leonhard’s unwilling help, were lifting the duke into the covered load bed.

“A passenger who is somewhat . . . sick. We need dropping off elsewhere from the rest of Carl’s men, to make a crossing to the United States where he can receive urgent medical care.”

“If he’s so sick, why—” James paused. “Oh. Who is he?”

“I don’t think you want to know. Officially.”

James paused in midstride. “There have been signals,” he said. “Huge disturbances, civil strife in Gruinmarkt. We have eyes and ears; we cannot help but notice that things are not going according to your plans.”

Olga nodded politely, trying not to give anything away. “Your point, sir?”

“You are imposing on us for a big favor,” he pointed out. “Six months ago our elders were at daggers’ drawn. Some of them are still not sure that sheathing them was a good idea. We have our own external security problems, especially here, and escorting your soldiers through our territory is bound to attract unwanted attention. I’m sorry to have to say this so bluntly, but I need something to give my elders, lest they conclude that you have nothing to offer them.”

“I see.” Olga kept her smile bland as she frantically considered and discarded options. Shoot his men and steal their vehicles was, regrettably, not viable; without native guides to the roads of Irongate they’d risk getting hopelessly lost, and in any case the hidden family’s elders wouldn’t have sent James without an insurance policy. Offer him something later would send entirely the wrong signal, make her look as weak as the debtor turning out his purse before a loan shark’s collection agents. Her every instinct screamed no at the idea of showing him the duke in his current state, but on the other hand . . .

“Let me put it to you that your elders’ interests are served by the continued stability of our existing leadership,” she pointed out. “If one of our . . . leaders . . . had experienced an unfortunate mishap, perhaps in the course of world-walking, it would hardly enhance your security to keep him from reaching medical treatment.”

“Of course not.” James nodded. “And if I thought for a second that one of your leaders was so stricken, I would of course offer them the hospitality of our house—at least, for as long as they lingered.” He raised an eyebrow quizzically.

Olga sighed. “You know we travel to another world, not like New Britain.” Well, of course he did. “Their doctors can work miracles, often—at least, they are better than anything I’ve ever seen here, or anything available back home. It does not reflect on your honor that I must decline your offer of hospitality; it is merely the fact that the casualty might survive if we can get him into the hospital that is waiting for him, but he will probably die if we linger here.” She looked James Lee in the eye. “And if he dies without a designated successor, all hell will break loose.”

James swallowed. The violent amber flare of the floodlights made it hard to be sure, but it seemed to her that he looked paler than normal. “If it’s the duke—” He began to turn towards the truck, and Olga grabbed him by one elbow.

“Don’t!” she said urgently. “Don’t get involved. Forget your speculation. It’s not the duke; the duke cannot possibly be allowed to be less than hale, lest a struggle to inherit his seat break out in the middle of a civil war with the Pervert’s faction. Let Ang—Let our sick officer pass, and if he recovers he will remember; and if he dies, you can remind his successors that you acted in good faith. But if you delay us and he dies . . . you wouldn’t want that to happen.”

She felt him tense under her hand, and clenched her teeth. James was taller than she, and significantly stronger: If he chose not to be restrained, if he insisted on looking in the truck—

He relaxed infinitesimally, and nodded. “You’d better go, my lady.” Shadows flickered behind them—another lance of Wu’s soldiers coming through. “Right now. Your men Leonhard or Morgan, one of them can guide you. Take this truck; I will arrange a replacement for your comrades.” Olga released his elbow. He rubbed it with his other hand. “I hope you are right about your dream-world’s doctors. Losing the thin white duke at this point would indeed not be in our interests.”

“I’m pleased you agree.” Olga glanced round, spotted Leonhard walking towards the driver’s cabin. “I’d better go.”

“One thing,” James said hastily. “Is there any news of the lady Helge?”

“Helge?” Olga looked back at him. “She passed through New London a week ago. One of my peers is following her.”

“Oh,” James said quietly. “Well, good luck to her.” He turned and walked back towards the gate.

Olga watched him speculatively for a few seconds. Now what was that about? she wondered. But there was no time to be lost, not with the duke stricken and semiconscious on the back. She climbed into the cab of the truck behind Leonhard and a close-lipped driver. “Let’s go,” she told them.

“There’s no time to lose.”