“Is that any way to address your grandmother?” The old dowager looked down her nose at her. “I beg your pardon, your majesty, one needs must teach the young flower that those who stand tallest are the first to be cut down to size.”
“This is your doing,” Helge accused.
“Hardly. It’s traditional.” Hildegarde snorted. “Eat your sweetbreads. It’s long past time you and I had a talk and cleared the air between us.”
“We’d listen to her, if we were you,” the king told Helge. Then he turned to speak to the elderly courtier on his right, effectively locking her out of his sphere of conversation.
“There’s nothing to talk about,” Helge said sullenly. She toyed with her food, some sort of meat in a glazed sugar sauce.
“Your traditional demeanor does you credit, my dear, but it doesn’t deceive me. You’re still looking for a way out. Let me tell you, there isn’t one.”
“Uh-huh.” Helge took a mouthful of appetizer. It was disgustingly rich, implausible as an appetizer. Oily, too.
“Every woman in our lineage goes through this sooner or later,” explained the dowager. She stabbed a piece of meat with her knife, held it to her mouth, and nibbled delicately at it with her yellowing teeth. “You’re nothing special, child.”
Helge stared at her, speechless with rage.
“Go on, hate me,” Hildegarde said indulgently. “It goes with the territory.” She’d switched to English, in deference to her granddaughter’s trouble with the vernacular, but now Miriam was having trouble staying in character as Helge. “It’ll go easier for you if you hate me. Go on.”
“I thought you didn’t believe in me.” Miriam bit into the sweetbread. Sheep’s pancreas, a part of her remembered. “Last time we met you called me a fraud.”
“Allow me to concede that your mother vouched for you satisfactorily. And I will admit she is who she claims to be. Even after a third of a century of blessed peace and quiet she’s hard to deny, the minx.”
“She’s no—”
“Yes she is. Don’t you see that? She even fooled you.”
“No she didn’t.”
“Yes she did.” The dowager put her fork down. “She’s always been the devious viper in my bosom. She brought you up to be loyal to her and her only. When she decided to come in from the cold, she sent you on ahead to test the waters. Now she’s making a play for the royal succession. And she’s got you thinking she’s a poor, harmless victim and you’re doing this to protect her, hasn’t she?”
Miriam stared at Hildegarde, aghast. “That’s not how it is,” she said hesitantly.
Her grandmother looked at her disdainfully. “As you grow older you’ll see things more clearly. You won’t feel yourself changing on the inside, but the outside—ah, that’s different. You’ve got to learn to look beneath the skin, child. The war of mother against daughters continues, and you can’t simply opt out of it by imagining there to be some special truce between your mother and yourself.” Servants were circulating with silver goblets of pale wine. “Ah, it’s time.”
“What?”
“Don’t drink that yet,” the dowager snapped. “It’s mead,” she added, “not that I’d expect you to know what that is, considering how Patricia neglected your upbringing.”
Miriam flushed.
There was another blast of trumpets. Everyone downed eating-knives and looked at the raised platform expectantly.
“A toast,” announced the king, raising his voice. “This evening, we have the honor to announce that our son Creon offers his hand to this lady, the Countess Helge voh Thorold d’Hjorth, in alliance of marriage. Her guardian, the Dowager Duchess Hildegarde voh Hjorth d’Hjalmar, is present this evening. My lady, what say you?”
He’s not talking to me, Miriam realized, as the dowager shuffled to her feet. “Your majesty, my lord. On behalf of my family I thank you from the bottom of my heart for this offer, and I assure you that she would be delighted to accept.”
Miriam stared, rosy-cheeked with embarrassment and anger, at her ancient grandmother.
“Thank you,” the king said formally. “May the alliance of our lines be peaceful and fruitful.” He raised his silver goblet. “To the happy couple!”
Several hundred silver goblets flashed in the light from the huge chandelier that dominated the ceiling of the room. A rumble of approval echoed like thunder across the room. Miriam looked around, her head twitching like a trapped bird.
“You can drink now,” the dowager murmured, casting her voice over the racket. “You look like you need it.”
“But I—do I get a chance to say anything?”
“No, for what would you say? In a decade you’ll be glad you didn’t speak. Just remember you owe me this opportunity to better yourself! I’ve worked hard for it, and if you let me down, girl—”
Incandescent with anger, Miriam glared across the table at her grandmother. “You told Henryk to threaten Mom. Didn’t you?”
“What if I did?” The dowager stared at her. “Your mother’s misled you quite enough already. It’s time you learned how the world works. You’ll understand in your time, even if you don’t like it now. And one day you’ll be a player yourself.”
“I wouldn’t cross the road to piss on you if you were on fire,” Miriam retorted half-heartedly. She took a deep mouthful of the mead. It tasted of honey and broken hearts. Her cheeks itched. Overtaken by an obscure emotion, she pulled her veil down again. Tears of sorrow, tears of rage—who could tell the difference? Not her. I’ll get you, she thought. I will be different! And nothing like this will ever happen to any daughter of mine!
The thunder of applause didn’t seem to be dying down. To her left, an elderly count was looking around in puzzlement. “Eh, what-what?” The applause had a rhythmic note, almost thunderous, as if a huge crowd outside was stamping their feet in synchrony.
“That’s enough,” called the king. “You can stop now!” He sounded in good spirits.
People were looking around. That’s odd, thought Miriam, puzzled. That’s not applause. If I didn’t know better I’d say it was—
There was an angry bang, with a harsh, flat note to it, then a sound, like a trillion angry bees. The windows overhead blew in, scattering shards of glass across the diners. Amidst the screams Miriam heard a harsh banging sound from outside, the noise of wheel-lock guns firing. The king turned to her. “Get under the table,” he said quietly: “Now.”
What? Miriam shuddered. Fragments of glass fell across the dining table. A jagged piece landed on the back of her hand, sticking into her glove. There was no pain at first. “What—”
Abruptly the king wasn’t there anymore. The dowager was gone, too. There was another deep thud that jarred her teeth and made her ears hurt. The main door to the hall was open, and smoke came billowing in through it.
Suddenly Miriam was very afraid. She tried to slide down under the table but her voluminous skirts got in the way, trapping her in a twisted mound of fabric. There was shouting, and more banging, gunfire. From off to one side she heard the flat crackle of an automatic weapon, firing in controlled bursts. People were running around the hall, trying to get out. She tugged and managed to get untangled. What the hell is going on? She ducked round the back of the throne, dropping to the floor behind the raised platform. Half a dozen servants and diners cowered there, including James Lee: he opened his mouth to ask her something.
A body fell from the platform in a spray of blood. Miriam crouched, arms covering her head. There was another bang from the room at the back where the royal party had assembled for dinner, an eternity ago. Men in black—black combat fatigues, torsos bulky with flak jackets, heads weirdly misshapen with gas masks—ran past the back of the dais, two of them staying to train guns behind. “Get down!” screamed one of the men in black. Then he saw her. “Milady? This way, now.” Shit, Clan security, Angbard’s men, Miriam thought, dizzy with the need for oxygen: What’s happening?
“This way.”
Miriam flinched. “Who’s attacking us?”
“I don’t know, milady—move!” She rose to a crouch, began to duck-walk along the back of the platform. “You, sir! On your feet, have you a gun?”
There was a noise behind her, so loud that she didn’t hear it so much as feel it in her abdomen. Someone thumped her hard in the small of her back and she went down, trying to curl up, her spine a red-hot column of agony. She was dimly aware of Clan guards rushing past. Blood on the floor, plaster and debris pattering down from the ceiling. There was more gunfire, some shouting.
As Miriam caught her breath she began to realize that the gunfire was continuing. And the Clan guards—there’s only a handful of them, she realized. They may have modern weapons, but that’s a lot of muskets out there. And cannon, by the sound of it. Sick fear gripped her. What’s going on?
Miriam felt sick to her stomach. The pain in her back was easing. It was bad, but not crippling: the boning of her corset had spread the force of the blow. She risked pushing herself to her knees and nothing happened. Then she looked round.
King Alexis Nicholau III sat with his legs sprawled apart, leaning against an ornamental pillar with an expression of ironic amusement on what was left of his face. About half of his brains were spread across the pillar, forming the body of an exclamation mark of which his face was the period.
“Surrender in the name of his majesty!” The hoarse voice sounded slightly desperate, as if he knew that if they didn’t surrender his head was going to end up gracing the top of a pike. “Yield in the name of his majesty, King Egon!”
Miriam kilted up her dress and began to crawl rapidly across the floor, past bodies and a howling, weeping old woman she didn’t recognize. She passed a servant lying on his back with blood pooling around him: evidently he hadn’t understood enough English. There was more smoke now, and it smelled of wood. I’ve got to get out of here, she realized. Fucking Egon! His accession to the throne depended on the support of the nobility, of course. He’ll have to kill everyone here, she realized coldly. If he thought his father had decided to sideline him in favor of his younger brother, how better to assure himself of the support of the old nobility than to liquidate the one group of noble houses who were the greatest threat to them?
She turned and crawled toward the door to the reception chamber. A bullet cracked off the tiled floor in front of her, spraying chips of marble, and she pulled back hastily.
It was twilight outside, and the chandelier was down. The soldiers outside seemed determined to bottle a couple of hundred people up inside a burning building with no fire extinguishers. People who’d come here to celebrate her betrothal. She felt a rising sense of nausea. Not that she’d wanted it herself, but this wasn’t her idea of how to extract herself from the situation—
There was a side door, discreet and undecorated, behind one of the pillars. She eyed the bullet holes high up it warily, then glanced round at the dais. It was partly shielded. She crawled forward again, her shoulder blades twitching. People were screaming now, cries of alarm mingling with the awful panting gasps of the wounded.
The door opened onto darkness. Miriam stood up as she ducked inside. Isn’t this the passage they brought me through to see the queen, the first time? she wondered. If so, there should be another door here—
She pushed the door carefully and it opened into another room, largely obscured by the pillar and drapes positioned to hide it from genteel attention. She froze in place, trying to look like another ornate swag of curtain. Half a dozen soldiers in what looked like stained leather overalls worn under chain-mesh surcoats were standing guard. Some held swords, but a couple were armed with modern-looking pistols. Two of them were covering a group of captives who lay facedown on the floor. “You will guard these tinkers in the rear,” one of them told his companion. “If there is any risk of escape, kill them.” He continued in rapid hochsprache, too fast for Miriam’s ear.
Two of the guards were yanking the captives to their feet. They seemed slow to move, disoriented. The guards were brutally efficient, dragging them forward toward the main door. The talkative one bent over a lump on the floor and did something. “Hurry!” Then he followed the others out hastily.
Shit. That’s got to be a bomb. As soon as he was out, Miriam scurried forward. It was green, it had shoulder straps, and there was some kind of timer on top of it. One of Matthias’s leftover toys. Why am I not surprised? If I move it—She froze, indecisive. What if there’s a trembler switch? She glanced at the door they’d left through. I’ve got to get out of here!
Miriam ducked into the next servant’s passage, darting along it. She reached the outer receiving chamber with the floor-to-ceiling glass doors, worth a fortune in this place, just about the time the men in black were leaving it. Creeping forward, she looked out across a scene of devastation. Beyond the shattered windows lay what seemed to be half the palace guard. They lay in windrows, many of them still clutching their broken pikestaffs. Another gout of thunder and a lick of flame told her why: across the ha-ha at the end of the terrace, a group of figures moved urgently about their business, manhandling an archaic-looking cannon back into position to bear on the west wing of the palace. More isolated gunfire banged across the garden, the flat bursts of the black powder weapons sounding like a Fourth of July party.
Jesus, it’s a full-scale coup, she thought, just as another distinctive figure stumbled around the front of the building.
“Creon!” she called out, forgetting that she was trying to hide. He was out in front, while she was at the back of the reception room, in near-darkness. He probably couldn’t hear her anyway. Her heart lurched. What’s he doing? Who the hell knows what he thinks he’s doing? Right now he was silhouetted against the twilight outside, but in a moment—
Creon loped away from the front of the palace, toward the gun crew. He seemed to be waving his arms
“Creon! No!” she yelled. Too late. One of the pikemen beside the cannon saw him, pointed: another soldier raised an ominously modern weapon, a rifle. They’re protecting their artillery, she realized blankly. Probably realize there’ll be no more modern ammunition when—Creon dropped like a stone.
Miriam shook herself, like a dog awakening from a deep sleep. Appalled, she took a step forward.
Someone grabbed at her from behind. He missed her, snagging her veil instead. She spun round and lashed out hard with her left fist, all the anger and frustration of the past days boiling up inside her. Then she doubled over in pain as her assailant punched her in the stomach.
“Aushlaant’ bisch—”
She gasped for air, looking up. He had a dagger in his hand, and an expression on his face that made her elbows and knees turn to jelly. He’s going to—
The back of the man’s head vanished in a red spray, and he dropped like a stone.
“Fuck!” she screamed, finally getting her breath back.
“Miriam?” Hesitantly. I know that voice, she thought dizzily. “Are you all right?”
“No,” she managed to choke. Putting one arm out she tried to lever herself up.
“Let me help—”
“No.” She managed to half sit up, then discovered her corset wouldn’t let her. “Yes.” What the fuck are you doing here? she wondered.
A hand under her left armpit gave her the support she needed. Her right hip hurt and her back and stomach felt bruised. She stood gasping for a minute, then turned and stared, too tired and bewildered to feel any surprise. He was wearing hiking gear and what looked like an army-surplus camo jacket under a merchant’s robe, obviously picked up on his way here. It was simply the final ironic joke to cap a whole day of petty horrors. “Tell me what you’re doing here,” she said, trying to keep her tone level. Think of the devil and he’ll drop by to say hello . . .
“I don’t know,” he said shakily. “It wasn’t meant to go like this. I was just sent here to have a quiet chat with you, gunfights weren’t on the agenda.” He stared at the body and swallowed.
“The agenda,” she said tartly, forcing herself to ignore it. “Are you still working for the DEA? Would this happen to be their idea?”
He cleared his throat. “I’m still a DEA agent, yes. In a manner of speaking. But there are chain-of-command issues.” He shook his head. “Any idea why that guy was trying to kill you?”
She felt an inane giggle trying to work its way up her throat, stifled it ruthlessly. Three years older, three years wiser. The last time she’d seen Mike she’d told him to scratch her name out of his address book. She’d been half-convinced he was a psychopath. Now she’d met some real psychopaths and she wasn’t so sure. “People just sort of keep trying to kill me around here. It seems to be the national sport.”
“Poor Miriam.” His tone was mock-sympathetic, but when she looked at him sharply his expression was anything but light. “I was sent here to have a little talk with you. Our intelligence was that this was a royal garden party: do they always blow the place up for kicks?”
“No. But the king was supposed to be announcing a royal wedding.” She glanced over her shoulder again. “The groom’s brother seems to have taken exception.”
“If this is their idea of a wedding party, I’d hate to see a divorce. Who’re the happy couple?”
“That’s the groom, over here.” She nodded at the window, at the darkness and flames beyond. “This was meant to be my engagement.” That’s right, oversimplify the situation for him, she mocked herself. “Only it seems to have turned into the excuse for a coup. I reckon this bastard was one of Egon’s thugs.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, that’s all right,” she said numbly. “It was an arranged marriage. They like to deal with uppity women by marrying them off.” She stared at him fixedly. I can’t believe I’m standing in a burning palace talking to Mike Fleming! “So this is DEA business, right? I guess Matthias spilled his guts in return for protection?”
“DEA—Matthias—” He stared at her tensely. A thought struck Miriam: hoping he wouldn’t notice, she clasped her hands together in front of her, trying to unobtrusively unfasten one cuff.
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