The Revolution Trade (Merchant Princes Omnibus 3)

by Charles Stross

  Which was all very well, and brought Miriam back to herself, lending her the strength for another try at being Helge. Just in time to open the door onto chaos.

  ‘Move that upstairs! No, not that, the other case! You, yes, you, go find the kitchen! Honestly, where do I get these people? Oh, hi, Miriam!’

  The main hallway was full of luggage, heavy trunks and crates, and their attendant grooms, guards, and porters. Brill – Lady Brilliana d’Ost in this time and place, elegant and poised – stood in the middle of it, directing the traffic with the confidence of a born chatelaine. ‘You’d better wait in the blue receiving room while I get this under control. Which reminds me.’ She switched to Hochsprache: ‘Sir Alasdair, your presence is required.’ In English, sotto voce: ‘Alasdair is in charge of your bodyguards, Helge. Yes he’s Clan, a full world-walker, but the offspring of two outer families hence the lack of braid. He’s reliable, and unsworn.’

  ‘He is?’ Miriam murmured, smiling with clenched teeth as a medium-sized mountain of a man shambled across the busy floor, narrowly missing two pieces of itinerant furniture and their cursing porters.

  ‘He is. He’s also my cousin.’ Brill nudged. ‘Alasdair, I’d like you to meet Helge – ’

  ‘Your highness, I am overwhelmed!’ The mountain bowed like a landslide, sweeping the floor before Miriam’s feet with his hat. ‘It is an honor to meet you! My lady has told me so much – ’

  ‘Oh good.’ At least the man-mountain spoke English. Stand up, she thought at the top of his head in mild desperation.

  ‘Sir Alasdair, you must be able to stand in your liege’s presence,’ Olga interrupted, casting Miriam a sidelong look.

  ‘Of course,’ Miriam echoed. Okay, that’s two hints. I get the message. Swear your chief of security!

  ‘Your highness is gracious.’ Brill winked at her and Olga studiously looked away as Alasdair straightened, revealing himself to be a not-unpresentable but extremely large fellow in his mid-thirties, if not for the starstruck expression on his face.

  ‘If you do not mind, I have to be elsewhere,’ Olga told Miriam. She nodded at Brill. ‘You know what must be done?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Well then.’ Olga ducked a brief curtsey in Miriam’s direction, then sidestepped around the doorway and back into the garden.

  ‘What was that about?’ asked Miriam.

  ‘Lady Hjorth is most peculiarly busy right now,’ Brilliana commented. ‘As I should be, too, if you do not mind.’

  Alasdair cleared his throat. ‘If your highness would care to inspect your guard of honor?’

  ‘I’m not anyone’s highness yet,’ Miriam pointed out. ‘But if you insist . . .’

  ‘Alasdair and his men will see to your security,’ Brill repeated, as if she thought Miriam hadn’t already got the message. ‘Meanwhile, I must humbly beg you to excuse me. I’ve got to get all the servants bedded in and the caravan unloaded – ’

  ‘Olga said something about ladies-in-waiting,’ Miriam interrupted. ‘Who did you pick?’

  ‘Look no further.’ Brill raised an eyebrow. ‘Do you think I would put you in the hands of amateurs? I will find suitable assistants as soon as time permits.’

  ‘Oh, thank god.’ Miriam mopped at her brow in barely feigned relief. ‘So, I can leave everything to you?’

  ‘You are my highest priority,’ Brill said drily. ‘You were, even before I swore to you. Now go and meet your guards.’ She turned and swept back into the chaos in the entrance hall, leaving Miriam standing alone with Sir Alasdair.

  ‘Your highness.’ Alasdair rumbled quietly when he spoke. ‘Lady d’Ost has told me something of her time with you. I understand you were raised in America and have little experience of living in civilized manner here. In particular, she said you are unused to servants and bodyguards – is that correct?’

  ‘Pretty much.’ Miriam watched him sidelong as she took in the details of the room: dark, heavy furniture, tapestries on the walls, an unlit hearth, unpadded chairs built so ruggedly they might be intended to bear the weight of history. Sir Alasdair looked to be a part of these environs, save for the Glock holstered on the opposite side of his belt from his saber. ‘What, realistically, can your guards do for me? Other than get in my way?’

  ‘What indeed? Well, there are eight of them, so two are on duty at all times. And when your highness is traveling, all of them will be on duty to cover your path, before and after. We will cover your movements without getting in your way if you but tell us where you wish to go. And when the assassins come, we’ll be ready for them.’

  Assassins? Miriam blinked as Sir Alasdair paused for breath. ‘Charming,’ she muttered.

  ‘My Lady d’Ost told me that you have killed a man who tried to kill you. Our job is to see that you never have to do that again.’

  ‘Well, that’s nice to know. And if I do?’

  ‘Then it will be over our dead bodies,’ Alasdair said placidly. ‘If your highness would care to follow me?’

  ‘If you think – ’ She froze as Alasdair opened the door back onto the semi-organized chaos in the hall. ‘Wait, that man. I know him.’

  She was fumbling with the pouch in her sleeve as Alasdair followed her gaze. He tensed and stepped sideways to place his body in front of her and pull the door closed. He turned to face her. ‘What about him? That’s Sir Gunnar; he’s an experienced bodyguard, used to work for – ’

  Miriam’s heart was thundering as if she were trying to run a marathon. She moved her hands behind her back, then tried again to slide her right hand into her left wristband. This time her fingers closed around the butt of her pistol: The man whose true name she had just learned hadn’t seen her yet. Talking to another guard, he’d been distracted when Alasdair opened the door.

  She swallowed, her mouth unaccountably dry. ‘Speaking hypothetically – if I ordered you to take that man outside and hang him from the nearest tree, would you do it?’ The choking sense of panic was back with a vengeance. The Ferret, she’d called him. No-name. Gunnar.

  ‘If he were a commoner, yes. But he’s one of us,’ Alasdair rumbled. ‘A proven world-walker and thus a gentleman, even though he’s a by-blow of an outer family lass. You’d need to accuse him of something. Hold a trial.’ There was an oddly apprehensive note in his voice. He’s afraid of me, she realized. It was like a bucket of cold water in her face: Sir Alasdair is afraid of me?

  ‘Well, then I won’t ask you to do anything you can’t. But if I ordered you to send him a very long way away from me and make sure I never set eyes on him ever again, could you do that?’

  ‘Of course.’ The tension went out of his voice, replaced by something like mild amusement. ‘Do you want me to do that? May I ask why?’

  ‘Yes. We have a history, him and me.’ For a moment she’d been back in Henryk’s tower with the Ferret loitering outside her bedroom door, an unsleeping jailer – possibly an executioner-in-waiting, she had no doubt about his willingness to kill her if his master ordered it – cold-eyed and contemptuous. And her racing pulse and clammy skin told her that part of her, a part nobody else could see, would always be waiting in that cell for his key to turn and those pale eyes to flicker across her face without registering any emotion. She flexed her fingers and carefully drew her pistol, then lowered her arm to hide it in a fold of her skirts, careful to keep her eyes on Alasdair’s face as she did so. ‘Did you pick him? Is he a friend of yours?’

  ‘He was on the list.’ Alasdair’s nostrils flared. ‘One of the top three available bodyguards by ranking. I wouldn’t say I know him closely.’ Miriam stared into his eyes. Wheels were turning there, slowly but surely. ‘You have relatives who dislike you, my lady, but do you really think they’d – ’

  ‘I think we should find out.’ She took a deep breath. ‘In a moment you’re going to open the door and walk towards G-Gunnar. I’ll be behind you. Close and disarm him if he so much as blinks. If he draws, you may assume he’s an assassin – but if we can take him aliv
e, I have questions I want answering.’

  ‘Your highness.’ Alasdair’s nod was cursory, but he sounded worried. ‘Is this wise?’

  ‘Very little I do is wise, but I’m afraid it’s necessary. If you’re going to be my bodyguard, you’d better get used to it: As you yourself noted, I’m a target. After you, my lord.’

  Sir Alasdair turned back to face the door and pushed it ajar. Then he surprised her.

  The front hall of the country house was roughly rectangular, perhaps forty feet long and twenty feet wide. The grand staircase started at one side, climbing the walls from landing to landing in turn, linking the two upper stories of the house. At the very moment the door opened, the floor held at least nine porters, servants, guards, cooks, maids, and other workers unpacking the small mountain of supplies that Lady d’Ost had rustled up seemingly out of nowhere to furnish the Countess Helge’s entourage. Gunnar was two-thirds of the way across the floor from the door to the blue room, deep in conversation with another fellow, both of them in the livery of guards of the royal household.

  Miriam had expected Alasdair to approach his prey directly. Instead, he stood in the doorway for a couple of seconds, scanning the room: Then he broke into a run. But he didn’t run towards Gunnar – instead he ran at right-angles to the direct line. As he ran, he drew his sword, with a great shout of ‘Ho! Thief!’ that echoed around the room.

  Why did he – Miriam raised her pistol, bringing it to bear on the Ferret with both hands – oh, I see.

  At the last moment, Alasdair spun on his heel before the porter he’d been threatening to skewer – the fellow was frozen in terror, his eyes the size of dinner plates – and rebounded towards the Ferret, who was only now beginning to react to the perceived threat, reaching for a sidearm –

  ‘Freeze!’ Alasdair shouted. ‘She has the better of you! Don’t throw your life away!’

  Miriam swallowed, carefully tightening her aim. He knew I’d drawn. And he deliberately cleared my line of fire! When am I going to stop underestimating these people?

  The Ferret’s face, framed in her sights, was corpse-gray.

  ‘Raise your hands!’ she called.

  The Ferret – Sir Gunnar, he’s got a name, she reminded herself – slowly raised his hands. Sir Alasdair stood perhaps six feet away from him, his raised saber lethally close. A healthy man could lunge across ten feet in a second, with arm’s reach and sword’s point to add another six – the Glock holstered at Gunnar’s belt might as well have been as far away as the moon. If you’ve got a gun and your assailant has a knife, don’t ever let them get within twelve feet of you, she distantly remembered a long-ago instructor telling her.

  Miriam took a shuffling step forward, then another, feeling for solid footing with her toes. It got easier to ignore the sensation of her heart trying to climb out through her mouth with practice, she noted absently.

  ‘Disarm him,’ she heard Sir Alasdair tell the other guard, who glanced nervously over his shoulder at her – at her – then hastily pulled the gun and the sword from Gunnar’s belt.

  Miriam risked lengthening her stride. Her breath was coming hard. Amusement and hysteria vied for control. She stopped when she was about fifteen feet from her target. ‘Who sent you here?’ she demanded.

  ‘I’m not going to plead for mercy.’ The Ferret’s eyes, staring at her over the iron sights of her pistol, seemed to drill right through her. ‘You’re going to kill me anyway.’ He sounded curiously resigned.

  He’d beaten her, once, to make a point: Obey me or I will hurt you. That he’d been following orders rather than giving rein to his own sadistic urge made no difference to Miriam. But – Hold a trial. And accuse him of what, exactly? Of being her jailer after Henryk had violated Clan law and process by not executing her for what she’d done? If she gave him a trial, stuff better swept under the rug would come out. Kill him out of hand, and her enemies – the ones who’d tried to have her raped, or killed, or maimed several times over the past year – would find a way to make use of it, but at least he wouldn’t be able to rat her out. Likely they’d use it as evidence of her instability or anger – anger was always a good one to pin on a threatening woman. But it was nothing like as damaging as what he could reveal.

  She licked her lips. ‘Not necessarily.’ Don’t tempt me struggled briefly with a moment of revulsion: Life is too damned cheap here as it is. ‘Restrain him.’ The other guard was already loosening the Ferret’s belt. ‘Lower your arms. Slowly.’

  The room was very quiet. Miriam blinked back from her focus through the sights of the gun and realized all the servants had scurried for cover. Smart of them. ‘I hold him covered,’ Sir Alasdair said conversationally.

  ‘Oh. Thanks.’ She blinked again, then lowered the gun and carefully unhooked her finger from the trigger guard, which seemed to have somehow shrunk to the gauge of a wedding ring. The guard worked the Ferret’s arms behind his back and tied them together with his own belt. She glanced at Sir Alasdair. ‘Tell him what I told you to do with him. I don’t think he’ll believe it, coming from me.’

  Alasdair kept his sword raised. ‘Her highness ordered me to send you a very long way away from her and make sure she never set eyes on you again. Her exact words.’ His cheek twitched. ‘I don’t have to kill you.’

  ‘Highness?’ Gunnar’s face slumped, defiance draining out of it to leave wan misery behind. ‘So it’s true?’

  ‘Is what true?’ she asked.

  ‘You’re carrying. The heir.’

  She stared at Sir Gunnar. ‘You didn’t know?’

  ‘My lord did not see fit to tell me.’ He was pale, almost greenish. Miriam stared at the blue eyes set in a nondescript face, the balding head and wiry frame, trying to remember how scant seconds ago she’d looked at them and seen a monster. Who’s the real monster here? she asked herself.

  ‘It’s true,’ she told him. ‘And what Sir Alasdair told you is true. You don’t have to die; all you have to do is stay the hell away from me. And tell us how your name got on that list.’

  ‘What list?’ He looked away, at Sir Alasdair. ‘What the hell is she talking about?’

  ‘Why are you here? Look at me!’ Miriam shifted her grip on her pistol.

  The Ferret turned his head, reluctantly. ‘What list?’ he asked again.

  ‘The master roster of available bodyguards for council members,’ Sir Alasdair rumbled. ‘You were right at the top of it.’

  ‘As if I shouldn’t be?’ Gunnar snorted. ‘What do you take me for?’

  ‘Wait,’ said Miriam. ‘What did you do for Henryk? Officially?’

  There was a pause. ‘I was his chief of security. Officially.’

  Ah. ‘And unofficially?’

  Gunnar made a small shrug. Now that he wasn’t staring down the barrel of a pistol held by an incandescently angry woman he seemed to be recovering his poise. ‘The same. I was his chief of security. Until the Pretender did for him.’

  ‘Right.’ She glanced at Sir Alasdair. ‘Maybe you’d like to tell him what I asked you first.’

  ‘Highness, I think he can guess.’ Alasdair’s smile was humorless, and it wiped the nascent defiance right off Gunnar’s face. ‘I am ordered, and empowered, to act with any necessary force in defense of your person. Do you consider this man a threat to your person?’

  It was hard to look at the Ferret’s frightened face and still want to see him swinging from a tree. It had been tempting in the abstract, but ven Hjalmar was the real villain of the piece, and beyond her reach if he was indeed dead; in the clarity of the moment she found the Ferret pathetic rather than threatening, an accomplice rather than a ringleader. ‘Right now . . . no. But he knows things. And I don’t trust where he’s been, why he’s here. It stinks.’ She glanced at Sir Alasdair. ‘Escort him from the premises and make sure he doesn’t come back, but don’t kill him. I need to talk to you later, but first I have other work to do.’ Her cheek twitched as she looked back at the Ferret. ‘Payback can be a bitch,
can’t it? Have a nice day.’

  Gunnar’s control finally cracked. ‘High-born cunt! The doctor was right about you!’ he shouted after her. But she had already turned her back on him, and he could not possibly see her shock. The sound of her guards beating him followed her up the staircase.

  BEGIN RECORDING

  ‘WELLSPRING?’

  ‘MYRIAD?’

  ‘No, I’m the fucking tooth fairy – who do you think? You’ve missed three calls in a row. This had better be good.’

  ‘Oh yes? Well, that stunt you pulled with the physics package could have killed me! What the hell were you thinking?’

  ‘Hey, I didn’t pull the trigger on that one. We’re not a monolith; stovepipes melt and shit falls between the cracks. Did you just place this call so you could bitch at me or do you have something concrete?’

  (Indignant snort.) ‘Certainly. Your message in a pipe bomb, up near Concord? It was received loud and clear.’

  ‘Really? Good – ’

  ‘No, bad. You know there was a pocket-sized civil war going on over there? Well, your timing was brilliant. You wiped out an entire army. Only trouble is, it was the wrong one. You handed the tinkers victory on a plate – they’re busy mopping up right now, chasing down the last stragglers. They’ve even got some kind of half-cocked claim to the throne lined up, and you killed the only legitimate heir who wasn’t in their pocket! Did you know that? You’ve just killed off all their enemies, and let them know into the bargain that it’s war to the knife.’

  (Silence.)

  ‘Hello? Are you still there?’

  ‘Jesus.’

  ‘The phrase they use hereabouts is “God-on-a-stick”; but, yes, I echo the sentiment.’

  ‘Can you just confirm all that, please?’

  ‘Certainly. When you blew up the Hjalmar Palace, the royalist army that was fighting the tinkers had just occupied it. They had evacuated it a couple of hours earlier. Among the casualties was the crown prince – ’