The Revolution Business

by Charles Stross

  Seven weeks along. All I have to do is ask. Huw said he’d sort everything out. She held the thought like the key to a prison cell as she paused on the threshold of the examination room, and the guy with curly brown hair sitting at the desk turned to look at her and then rose to greet her. “Hello? Are you Miriam? I’m Dr. Price, Alan Price.” His eyes tracked past her. “And this is . . .”

  “A friend.” She practiced her smile again; she had a feeling that if she was going to go through with this she’d be needing it a lot over the next weeks and months. “Hi. I understand you’re an OB/GYN.” She shuffled sideways as he gestured towards a chair. “Have you ever worked with Dr. ven Hjalmar?”

  Price frowned. “Van Hjelmar . . . no, doesn’t ring a bell.” He shook his head. “Were you seeing him?”

  “A different practice.” Miriam sat down heavily, as if her strings had been cut; a vast weight of dread that she hadn’t even been aware of disappeared. “I really didn’t like him. Hence this, uh . . .”

  “I understand.” Price leaned over and dragged a third chair into position, then waved Brilliana towards it. His face assumed an expression of professional interest. “And your mother, I gather, suggested? . . .”

  “Yes.” Miriam took another deep breath. “My fiancé is, uh—”

  “—He died last month,” Brill picked up without a pause.

  “Oh, I’m sorry!” Price sat up. “Well, that probably explains it.”

  “It was a shooting accident,” Miriam said tonelessly, earning her a sharp look from Brill.

  “Eh.” Price glanced back at his computer screen. “Alright. So you were on his HMO plan, but now you’ve moved to—oh, I see. Well. I think my receptionist’s got the new release forms through—if you can sign one and get your old practitioner’s details to us we can take it from there.”

  “Okay.” Miriam nodded.

  “Meanwhile? . . .” Price raised an eyebrow.

  “Well.” Miriam managed to get a grip on her breathing: mustn’t start hyperventilating. “I’m pregnant.” It was funny how you could change your script and the person who you were talking to would fall into a new pattern of their own, she thought as she watched Price visibly tense as he tried to keep up with the conversation: from polite sympathy through to curiosity to a quickly suppressed wince. Brill glanced sidelong at her again: You’re laying it on too thick, back off! “It wasn’t planned,” she added, not backpedaling exactly but trying to fill in enough details to put Price back on ground he was comfortable with, that wouldn’t raise any questions. “We were going to wait until after the wedding. But . . .” She shrugged helplessly.

  “I see.” Price was visibly trying to get a grip on the situation. “Well, then.” He cleared his throat. “Have you used a pregnancy test kit?”

  “Yes. I assume you’ll want a urine sample so you can verify? . . .”

  “Yes.” Price opened his desk drawer and removed a collection jar. “If you wouldn’t mind? The rest room is through there.”

  When Miriam returned she placed the collection jar on the desk as carefully as if it were full of nitroglycerin. “Here it is.”

  “Right.” Price looked as if he was about to say something else, then changed his mind at the last moment. “I’ll run it right now and then we can take it from there. Is that okay?”

  Miriam didn’t trust herself to reply. She nodded jerkily.

  “Okay. I’ll be right back.” Price pulled on a blue disposable glove, then stood up and carried the sample jar out through a side door.

  Miriam looked at Brill. “How discreet is he going to be?”

  “Very. He’s on salary. Our dime.”

  “Ah.”

  They sat in silence for five minutes; then, as Miriam was considering her conversational options, Dr. Price opened the door again. He was, she noticed, no longer wearing the glove. There was a brief, awkward silence as he sat down again, then: “It’s positive,” he confirmed. Then he picked up his pen and a notepad. “How long ago did you last have sex?”

  The question threw Miriam for a moment, bringing back unwelcome memories of Roland. She was about to say “at least eight months ago,” when suddenly she realized, that’s not what he’s asking. “Seven weeks,” she said. A little white lie; sex had nothing to do with her current situation, except in the most abstract imaginable sense.

  “Well. You’ve made it through the riskiest period—most spontaneous miscarriages occur in the first eight weeks. So the next question is—I’m assuming you’re here because you want to continue with it?” He paused, prompting.

  Miriam could feel the blood pounding in her ears. No matter how she unpacked the question it didn’t quite make sense to her: It felt like the introduction to a much larger question, monstrously large, an iceberg of possibilities. I could say no, she thought. Get this over with right now. Quit the game. Mom might disapprove, the duke might object when he recovered, but they couldn’t stop her if . . . Miriam opened her mouth. “Yes,” she heard herself whisper hoarsely. She swallowed. “Yes,” she said again, louder; thinking, I can change my mind later. There’s still time. “I’m assuming you’re going to want to schedule an amniocentesis appointment, for,” she swallowed, “things like Down’s syndrome and hydrocephalus? Will you be able to check on the—my baby’s—sex?”

  “Eh, we can do that. It’s a bit early for amniocentesis right now, though, if it’s only been seven weeks. I’d like to start by asking some questions about your family and medical history. Then I’m going to take a blood sample to get started with, while we’re waiting for your old records to arrive. Shall we begin?”

  7

  Oath of Fealty

  A

  fter they left the clinic, Brill drove Miriam back to the motel. Miriam could hear the questions tumbling over and over in her head: The silence was so loud that it roared. And now, the talk, Miriam thought, keyed up and tense. It had to come to this sooner or later. . . .

  “You said you wanted to talk,” Brill said into the abrupt emptiness that flooded the car’s interior as she turned off the ignition. She studied Miriam in her mirror, carefully avoiding eye contact.

  “Yes, yes I did.” Miriam opened her door. “Do you have time to come in?”

  “Of course.” Brilliana looked as if she were walking on eggshells. “I imagine this must be hard to adjust to.”

  “That’s the least of it.” Miriam held her tongue as they entered the lobby and walked to her door. “Come in.”

  Brill had rented a suite for her; Miriam took the sofa, and the younger woman perched on the armchair opposite. For a few seconds they stared at each other in silence. Finally, Brill cracked. “It’s hard, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” Miriam kept her eyes on her. “I have three questions, Brill.”

  “Three? Is that all?”

  “I think so.” Because if you can’t convince me I can trust you, then . . . well, that was an interesting question, and not one Miriam wanted to consider just yet. “You work directly for Angbard, don’t you? Tell me, are you sworn to him personally? A vassal under his patronage?”

  Brilliana looked at her warily. “You never asked before.” She rubbed her cheek thoughtfully. “What makes you ask?”

  Miriam licked her lips. “I’d like a straight answer. Please.”

  Suddenly Brill’s expression cleared. “Oh!” The penny had clearly dropped. “I am ranked as a sergeant in the Clan’s Security, that is clear enough. But you have the rest of it, too: His grace swore me to his personal service.” She looked Miriam in the eye. “To be discharged by death, or his word.”

  “Ah.” Miriam nodded, very slightly. So Mom was telling the truth. A tension in her chest began to unclench.

  “Why do you ask?” Brill repeated.

  Miriam took a deep breath. “You—you, and Huw, and my mother, and the tooth fairy, for all I know—say you want me to trust you. Well, right now I find I’m very short on trust. I’ve been locked up, beaten, I’ve been impregnated”—she paused t
o breathe again—“then suddenly a couple of weeks later it’s all ‘trust us, we want you to lead us’! And—factional differences or not—I’m having a hard time buying it. So. Second question. Why did Angbard sic you onto me?”

  Brill closed her eyes, startling Miriam. “Crone give me patience”—she opened her eyes again—“Helge, he’s your uncle. He married but his wife died years ago and they produced no offspring—don’t you get it?”

  “But surely—”

  “Surely nothing! Have you no idea how violent the civil war was? His line were targets! Your mother was targeted, her husband killed! The whole reason for Clan Security is to prevent anything like that happening ever again! Meanwhile, you, you—” Brill’s shoulders were shaking. “Please!”

  “Please, what?” Miriam stared, bewildered. “It’s this social thing again, isn’t it? What am I doing wrong this time?”

  With a visible effort, Brilliana collected herself. “You’re your mother’s heir,” she said quietly. “How hard is it to see that you’re also your uncle’s heir? Or at least his closest surviving descendant by distaff—you’re a woman, so you won’t inherit everything, but you’re attached to the title to a whole damned duchy. God-on-a-stick, Helge, don’t you get it? Henryk wanted you under his thumb because it gave him a weapon against his grace! And it shut you up, but they’ve always had a casual way with their women,” she added with offhand venom. Then she looked back at Miriam. “I am a sworn vassal of your uncle, Helge. Sworn to protect his interests. You are his next of kin. Need I to draw you a diagram?”

  “Uh.” Oh boy. Miriam turned it all over in her mind. Damn, I’m really going to have to work on figuring out how these extended family links work! “But your direct loyalty is to him, not to me. Right?”

  “That’s the picture,” Brilliana said sharply. “I love you like a sister, but you can be so slow at times!”

  “Well, then.” Miriam glanced at the window. “Maybe it’s because I’ve been playing the wrong card game all along,” she said slowly. Then she looked back at Brill. “I’ve been here a year and I haven’t so much as sworn a swineherd to my service. Right?”

  Brill’s eyes widened. “You can’t. I’m sworn to his grace, unto the death—his or mine.”

  Miriam nodded, satisfied. Thanks, Mom. “I understand. But his grace is clearly ill—possibly on his deathbed?”

  Brill nodded jerkily.

  “Well, then. I believe there is a thing called an oath contingent, yes?”

  “Who told you about that?”

  “Look.” Miriam leaned forward. “What are you going to do if—when—my uncle dies?”

  “But that’s different!” It came out almost as a wail.

  “Not according to my mother.” Miriam pinned her in place with a stare. “In the old days, oaths contingent were quite common—to ensure a secure succession in event of an assassination. The contingent liege’s orders are overridden by those of the first lord living. Yes?”

  “I suppose so. But—”

  “Brill.” Miriam paused. “This is my third question. Did his grace give you any orders that would bring you into a conflict of loyalty if you were sworn to me by an oath contingent?”

  The younger woman looked at her, wide-eyed as a doe in the headlights of a truck. “Yes,” she whispered.

  “Uh-oh.” Miriam flopped back on the sofa. She rubbed her forehead. “Well, there goes that good—”

  “Wait.” Brill raised a hand. “You would not have raised the oath contingent unless you planned to live among us, would you?”

  Miriam steeled herself. “I need sworn vassals to defend me if I’m going to live in the Gruinmarkt. I was hoping—”

  “Well.” Brill took a deep breath. “Then the conflict of interests does not arise.” She grimaced. “His grace directed me—while you were in New Britain—to bring you back, alive or dead. Preferably alive, but—”

  “Whoa.” Miriam stared at her. “Do I want to hear this?”

  Brill shuffled, uncomfortable. “You are not planning to offer your services to the American government. Are you?”

  “I—” Miriam flashed back to what Mike had told her in the walls of a smoldering palace. “No. No way.”

  “Well.” Brill held out her hands across the coffee table. “In that case, I can swear to you. If”—she made eye contact—“you still want me?”

  Miriam swallowed. (“It’s a bit like a marriage,” Iris had told her. “A big, rowdy, polygamous one, arguments and all. Minus the sex.”) “This means you’re going to be part of my household and responsibilities for life, doesn’t it?”

  “Once his grace dies or otherwise discharges me.” Brill ducked her head.

  “Then”—Miriam reached out and caught her hands—”I accept. Your oath of loyalty, contingent on the word of your first liege.” She stood, slowly, pulling Brill with her. “We can swear to each other in front of witnesses later, can’t we?”

  “Whenever you ask, milady.” Brilliana bowed low and kissed the backs of both her hands. “There, that is the minimal form. It is done.” Then she smiled happily.

  “Tell me,” said Miriam. “I was a real idiot not to do this when I first arrived, wasn’t I? There are other people I should be swearing, aren’t there?”

  “Yes, milady.” Brill straightened up, her eyes glistening. Then she leaned forward and, surprising Miriam, kissed her on the mouth. Before Miriam could recoil or respond she took a step away. “It’s going to be so much fun working for you! I can tell.”

  Barely a week had passed, but the atmosphere in this meeting was darker by far than its predecessor. The venue was the same—an air-conditioned conference room in a Sheraton hotel adjoining a conference center in the middle of downtown Boston, with heavily padded leather chairs arranged around a boardroom table. And now as then, the attendees were dressed as conservatively as a party of merchant bankers. But there were fewer of them today, barely a round dozen; some of the faces had changed, and two of the newcomers were women. It was, however, none of his business, decided the hotel facilities manager who was seeing to their needs; they were good customers—quiet, serious, utterly unlikely to start shooting each other or snorting crank in the rest room.

  Which just went to show how misleading appearances could be.

  There were thirteen seats at the table today, but one of them—at its head—was vacant. The broad-shouldered man sitting to its left nodded to a younger fellow at the far end. “Rudi, please shut the door. If you would pay attention, please?”

  The quiet conversation ebbed as Rudi sat down again, the door securely locked behind him. “I think we’ll begin with a situation report,” Riordan said quietly. “Lady Thorold, if you wouldn’t mind?”

  “Of course.” Olga opened the leather conference folder she’d brought to the meeting; in a severe black suit, with her long blond hair tied back, she resembled a trial lawyer rather than an intelligence officer. “The duke’s medical condition is stable. That’s the good news.”

  Olga read from her notes: “The average thirty-day survival figures for subarachnoid hemorrhage are around sixtenths. His grace has already come through the main danger period, but the doctors agree his chances of full recovery are slight. He’s paralyzed on the left side, and his speech is impaired. They can’t evaluate his mental functioning yet. He may recover some of his faculties, but he’s likely to be mobility-challenged—probably wheelchair-bound, possibly bedridden—for life. They’ve scheduled a second MRI for him tomorrow to track the reduction of the thrombosis, and they should have more to report on Friday.” She managed the medical terms with an ease that might have surprised Miriam, had she been present; but then, she’d checked her carefully cultivated airhead persona at the door. “The balance of medical opinion is that his grace will definitely not be able to resume even light duties for at least thirty days. Even if he makes a significant recovery, he is unlikely to be back in the chair”—her eyes tracked to the empty seat at the head of the table—“for half a y
ear.”

  The attentive silence she’d been speaking into dissolved in a buzz of expressions of shock and sharply indrawn breath. Earl Riordan brought his hand down on the edge of the table. “Silence!” he barked. “We knew it was going to be bad. Thank you, milady.” He grimaced. “We have a chain of command here. I recognize that I am not equipped to replace his grace in his capacity of director of security policy, or in his management of the intelligence apparatus, but for the former we have the Council of Lords, and for the latter”—he glanced sideways: Olga inclined her head—“there is a parallel line of authority. For the time being I will assume operational command, until his grace resumes his duties or I am removed by order of the Council. Is that clear?”

  There was a vigorous outbreak of nodding. “Have you met with the Council yet?” asked Carl, with uncharacteristic hesitancy.

  “That’s where I’m going as soon as we conclude this meeting.” Riordan leaned back. “Does anyone else wish to comment? On the record?”

  “You’re going to find it hard to convince the stick-in-the-muds to accept Lady Thorold as acting director of intelligence,” remarked Carl, his arms crossed.

  “They’ll like my second-choice candidate even less.” Riordan bared his teeth. “Are you questioning her fitness for the role, or merely her sex?”

  Carl shook his head, his expression shuttered. “Just saying,” he muttered.

  Riordan glanced round the table as Olga closed her file and leaned back, trying to keep all expression off her face.

  “I’ve worked with her for the past six years and I would not propose her for this position if I doubted her capability,” Riordan said sharply. “The empty pots in the conservative club can rattle as much as they please; it’s as good an issue as any to remind them that this is not business as usual.”