The Revolution Trade (Merchant Princes Omnibus 3)

by Charles Stross

  ‘Milady!’ Gerta sounded confused. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes.’ Miriam glared at her. I am your queen, damn it. Even if I’m fronting for a committee. ‘Do it.’

  ‘Yes, milady.’ Gerta addressed the duke; he seemed confused.

  ‘Have another sweet,’ Miriam offered the Duke of Niejwein by way of her translator.

  It was, Olga had explained, the polite way to do business with noble prisoners: Offer them candied peel and a silk rope to sweeten the walk to the scaffold where, if his crimes were deemed minor, he could expect the relative mercy of a swift hanging. But Niejwein, for some reason, seemed not to have much of an appetite today. And after having sentenced two earls to death earlier in this session – in both cases they had massacred some of her distant relatives with more enthusiasm than was strictly called for, and Riordan had been most insistent on the urgent need to hang them – she could see why. The earls and their retainers were hired thugs; but Niejwein, as head bean counter, had expedited Egon’s reign of terror in a far deadlier way.

  ‘We wanted to speak with you in private,’ Miriam added, trying to ignore the small crowd of eavesdroppers. ‘To discuss your future.’

  Niejwein’s short bark of laughter turned heads; more than one guard’s hand hovered close by a weapon. ‘I have no future,’ Gerta translated.

  ‘Not necessarily. You have no future without the grace and pardon of the crown, but you should not jump to conclusions about your ultimate fate.’

  For the first time the Duke of Niejwein looked frightened. And for the first time Miriam, watching him, began to get an edgy feeling that she understood him.

  Niejwein was outwardly average: middle-aged, of middling stature, heavy-faced, and tired-looking. He sat on a stone bench before her, arms and legs clanking with wrought iron whenever he moved, wearing a nobleman’s household robes, somewhat the worse for wear, ingrained with the grime of whatever cellar they’d ware-housed him in for the run-up to her coronation. He’d been there a week ago, Miriam remembered, staring at her with hollowed eyes, among the other prisoners in the guarded block on the floor of the great hall.

  He’d never been much of a warrior or a scholar, according to Brill. She’d asked for – and, for a miracle, been given – Angbard’s files on the man, and for another miracle they’d been written in English. (Angbard, it seemed, insisted on Clan secrets being written in English when they were to be kept in the Gruinmarkt, and in Hochsprache if they were to be used in the United States.)

  Oskar Niejwein was a second son, elevated into his deceased brother’s shoes after a boar hunt gone wrong and a lingering death from sepsis. He’d distinguished himself by maintaining and extending the royal estates and by tax farming with a level of enthusiasm and ruthlessness not spoken of in recent memory. It was no wonder that Egon hadn’t sent him into the field as a commander, and no surprise that Riordan’s men had seized him with such ease – Niejwein had all the military acumen of a turkey. But that didn’t make him useless to an ambitious monarch planning a purge: quite the opposite. As the old saying had it, knights studied tactics, barons studied strategy, and dukes studied logistics. Oskar was an Olympic-grade tax farmer. Which meant . . .

  ‘Your majesty plays with me,’ said Niejwein. ‘Have you no decency?’

  Miriam kept her face frozen as a ripple of shock spread through her audience. That was not how a vassal should address a monarch, after all. How do I deal with this without looking weak . . . ?

  (Iris – showing a coldly cynical streak Miriam had seldom seen any sign of back home – had laid it out for her in the privy council meeting the morning after the coronation performance: ‘There are certain rules you’ve got to obey in public. You can’t afford to look like a patsy, dear. If they give you backchat it either means they’re scared to death or they think you’re weak. The former is acceptable, but if it’s the latter, you must be ruthless. The rot spreads rapidly and the longer you leave it the harder it becomes to fix the damage. Put it another way: Better to flog them on the spot for insubordination than let things slide until you have to have them broken on the wheel for rebellion.’)

  ‘We are not playing games,’ Miriam said evenly. ‘We are simply trying to decide whether you can be of use to us. But if you insist on seeing malice in place of mercy, you will seal your own fate.’ She waited while Gerta translated. The color drained slowly from Niejwein’s cheeks as she continued: ‘We understand that circumstances placed your neck under our brother-in-law’s boot. We are prepared to make allowances – to a degree. A prudent woodsman does not chop down all the trees in his forest when autumn comes; he harvests the old and rotten, and keeps the healthy for another year. Only the rotten need fear the axe in this demesne.’

  She’d stiffened up again, sitting on this damnable hard-as-a-board throne. Shifting her thighs, she leaned forward as Gerta worked through to the end of the speech. ‘Are you a rotten bough?’ she asked, raising an eyebrow. ‘Or would you like a chance to demonstrate how sound you are?’

  Abruptly, Niejwein was on his knees; she didn’t need the blow-by-blow translation to grasp the gist of his entreaties. Her Hochsprache was still stilted and poor, but she got the sense that he’d only gone along with Egon’s mad usurpation out of terror while unaware of her majesty’s survival, and he was of course loyal to the crown and he’d be her most stalwart vassal forever and a day if, if only, if –

  Damn, he could give lessons in crow-eating to the CEO of a Fortune 100 corporation facing a record loss-making quarter. Miriam managed a faint, slightly perplexed smile as Gerta tried to keep up with the storm of entreaties. Right now, with a royal pardon dangling before his eyes, Niejwein would promise her just about anything to keep his head atop his shoulders and his neck unstretched. Which meant that she’d have to take anything he said with a pinch of salt big enough to pickle a sperm whale. Her eyes narrowed as she considered her options. I can’t kill him now, even if he deserves it – not without looking capricious. But in his undignified hurry to ingratiate himself, the duke was impressing her with his unreliability. Why would he misjudge me like that? she wondered. Chalk it up to another of the gaps between Gruinmarkt and American mores: The political over here was very personal indeed, as everybody kept reminding her.

  ‘Enough.’ She raised her right hand and he stopped so suddenly he nearly swallowed his tongue. Miriam took a deep breath. ‘Rise, your grace. We will not hang a man for a single honest mistake.’ Two mistakes in a row and I might change my mind . . . ‘We would, however, be delighted if you would stay here as our honored guest, while we restore the kingdom to order. Perhaps your wife and eldest son would care to join us as well. We shall take full responsibility for their safety.’ In Hochsprache, there were no separate words to distinguish safety from security. ‘And we would be pleased if you would attend us in session with the council of regents to decide in what manner you can assist us in securing the realm.’

  There. She waited for Gerta to translate, watching the succession of expressions flit across Oskar ven Niejwein’s face, starting with stark relief, then fading into apprehension as he realized just how onerous his rehabilitation was to be. You, your wife, and your eldest son are to be hostages under the Clan’s control. You will devote precisely as much time and money to cleaning up this mess as the council demands. And if you don’t play along, we’ve got you where we want you.

  Well, it beat the usual punishments for high treason, which included the aforementioned peine forte et dure, or just a straightforward impalement-and-burning-at-the-stake, the traditional cutting of the blood eagle being considered too barbaric for this effete and gentle age.

  Miriam suppressed a slight shudder as Niejwein bowed deeply, then bowed again, stuttering a mixture of gracious thanks and praise for her mercy, insight, wisdom, deportment, wit, and general brilliance. She merely nodded. ‘Take him away,’ she said, for the benefit of his jailers, ‘to suitable accommodation for a high noble whose loyalty to the crown is understood by all.�
� Which was to say, a cell with a view.

  *

  It took three more weeks of ceremonial duties, horse-trading with noble descendants of real (but successful) horse thieves, sitting in court sessions and trying to show no sign of discomfort when her judges pronounced bloodcurdling sentences upon the recalcitrant few – not to mention diplomacy, shouting, and some pigheaded sulking – but at last they agreed to book her into a suite in a boutique hotel near Quincy, with an ob/gyn appointment for the following day. The ob/gyn exam was the excuse; the real purpose was to give her a weekend off, lest she explode.

  ‘I think you can take two, or at most three days off before too many questions asked,’ Riordan had said. ‘Then it will be getting close to Hedge-Wife’s Night and you’ll be expected to officiate – ’

  ‘Four,’ said Brill, just as Iris said: ‘Two.’ They stopped and glared at each other warily, like cats sizing each other up for a fight.

  ‘People.’ Miriam rubbed her forehead tiredly. ‘I’ve had too much of this.’ She waved a tired hand, taking in the high ceiling, the ornate tapestries and rugs that did little to soften the wood and plaster of the electricity and aircon-free room, the discreet chamber pots. They were in private, having exiled the servants for the duration of the brief discussion; they’d be back soon enough, like the rats in the walls that kept her awake in the dead of night with their scuttling and fighting. ‘I need to decompress, just for a couple of days – ’

  ‘We can bring doctors to you, there is no need for you to go to them. If we are secure by winter, then you can retreat to the Winter Palace and spend most of your time in Manhattan,’ Iris pointed out.

  ‘That’s months away. And anyway, you can hold down some of my appointments right now if I’m not here,’ Miriam told her. ‘Her grace, the Dowager Duchess Patricia Thorold ven Hjorth, mother of the queen-widow, who is indisposed due to her confinement. Isn’t that the formula?’

  Iris grunted, displeased. ‘Something like that,’ she conceded.

  ‘Admit it, you want some time off, too, don’t you?’

  Her mother shook her head. ‘Coming back to this life hasn’t been easy. If I give up now . . .’

  After much haggling they had arranged that an anonymous carriage would leave town in the morning with Miriam inside, disguised as an anonymous lady-in-waiting of noble rank. An hour later, by way of the Clan’s highly organized courier service, Miriam – wearing jeans and a cotton blouse, feeling almost naked after weeks in court gowns – checked into a four-star hotel near Quincy, with no servants and no visible guards – and no pomp, ceremony, or stench of open sewers outside the windows.

  (That the Clan owned the hotel via a cutout investment company, and that it was carefully monitored for signs of external surveillance, and discreetly guarded by much better than normal security, was another matter entirely. There was a tacit agreement: As long as Miriam agreed not to test the bars on her cage, everyone could pretend they didn’t exist.)

  It had come as a welcome, but monumental, relief to have electricity and air conditioning and toilets and jacuzzis and daytime television and other miracles that had not yet reached the Gruinmarkt. Or even New Britain. It was enough to leave her head spinning and half-dizzy with sudden culture shock: Aside from her brief stay in the safe house out west, she’d been living in strange, backward cultures for months on end. I ought to start with a shower, she thought, almost salivating with the pornographic luxury of it. And turn the air con up to max. And I’ll wash my hair. And then . . . the phone rang.

  ‘What the – ’ She looked round, then made a dive for the room phone. ‘Yes?’ she demanded.

  ‘Ms. Beckworth?’ (That was the name.) ‘This is the front desk, you have a visitor . . .’

  Oh hell. Miriam glanced at her watch. Twenty minutes. ‘Can I talk to them, please?’

  ‘Certainly, ma’am . . .’

  ‘Miriam?’

  ‘Olga?’ Miriam sat down hard on the edge of the bed.

  ‘Hi! It’s me! I heard you were in town and figured I’d drop in. Mind if I come up?’ There was a bright, slightly edgy tone to her voice that set the skin on Miriam’s nape crawling.

  ‘Sure, pass me back to reception and I’ll tell them. Okay – ’

  A couple of seconds later the handset was back on its cradle. Miriam stared at it, hard. ‘Damn,’ she muttered. Her vision blurred: It’s one thing after another. Her carefully fostered illusion of stolen time wavered: What’s happened now?

  There was a knock on the door. Miriam, far less trustful than she’d been even a couple of months ago, checked the spy hole: A familiar face winked at her.

  ‘Come in.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Olga smiled reflexively. Then, as the door closed, her smile slipped. ‘Helge, I am so terribly sorry to impose on you, but we need to talk. Urgently.’

  ‘Oh hell.’ Miriam sat down again, her own face freezing in a smile that mirrored Olga’s in its insincerity. ‘I guessed.’ Something’s come up in the past three hours, and they want my input, even though I’m just a front for the policy committee. Plaintively: ‘Couldn’t it wait?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ Olga took a deep breath. ‘It’s about your mother.’

  ‘She’s not ill, is – ’

  ‘No, it’s not that.’ Olga paused.

  ‘Yes?’ Miriam’s heartbeat settled back to normal. Iris’s multiple sclerosis hadn’t been far from her mind for years now; she’d thought she’d gotten used to the knowledge that sooner or later she’d have a really bad relapse, but all it took was Olga’s ambiguous statement to drag her to the edge of an anxiety attack. ‘It’s not her health?’

  ‘No.’ Olga glanced around the room, her expression wooden. ‘I think – there is no easy way to say this.’

  ‘Yes?’ Miriam felt her face muscles tense unpleasantly.

  ‘Your uncle. When he was ill. He told me to collect certain documents and, and bring them to you.’

  ‘Documents?’ Miriam sat up.

  ‘About the’ – Olga licked her lips – ‘the fertility clinic.’ She stared at Miriam, her expression clear but unreadable.

  ‘You know about it.’

  ‘Know – ’ Olga shook her head. ‘Only a bit. His grace told me something, after the, the war broke out. It has been closed down, Helge, the program ended and the records destroyed.’

  ‘My uncle,’ Miriam said very slowly, ‘would never destroy that program.’

  ‘Well.’ Olga wet her lips again. ‘Someone did.’

  ‘Eh.’ Miriam shook her head. ‘I don’t get it.’

  ‘His grace shut down the program, that’s true enough. He had the records copied, though – taken out of the clinic, physically removed to a medic’s practice office pending transfer to Niejwein. He wanted to keep track of the names, addresses, and details of the children enrolled in the program, but while there was fighting in Niejwein it was too risky to move the records there. And it was too risky to leave everything in the clinic. So . . .’

  ‘You’d better tell me what happened.’

  ‘I went to see Dr. Darling.’ Olga shivered for a moment, then walked across the room and sat down in the solitary armchair. ‘He’s dead. It was a professional hit, almost a month ago. And his office was cleaned out, Helge. The records are missing.’

  ‘But he – ’ Miriam stared. ‘Where does Mom come into this?’

  ‘I had orders to get those records to you.’ Olga looked unhappy. ‘And your mother took them.’

  ‘She was in the same town at the same time, right?’

  ‘Yes.’ The set of Olga’s shoulders relaxed. ‘On its own that would not be conclusive, but – ’

  ‘You’re telling me my mother, who spends half her time in a wheelchair these days, assassinated a doctor, stole several thousand sets of medical records, and made a clean getaway? And why? To stop me from getting my hands on the breeding program’s records?’ Her emphasis on the last three words made Olga wince.

  ‘I am uncertain as to her
motive. But – your mother knew of the program, no? And you must needs be aware of her views on the balance of powers within our circle of families, yes?’

  Miriam sighed. ‘Of course I know what she thinks of – of all that stuff. But that breeding program was just plain odious. I know why they did it, I mean – we’re dangerously short on world-walkers, and if we can use a fertility clinic as a cover to spread the recessive trait around, then pay some of the first-generation women to act as donors – but I tend to agree with Mom that it’s destabilizing as hell. And ethically more than questionable, too. But why would she destroy the records or kill Darling? Was there something else we don’t know about?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Olga looked troubled.

  ‘Then why don’t you ask her?’ Miriam crossed her arms.

  ‘Because.’ Olga bit her lip. ‘She killed Dr. Darling,’ she said, conversationally. ‘She had her woman Mhara do it, in direct contravention of Security protocols. The other thing, Helge, that you did not let me get to, is that there was another witness present.’

  ‘Really?’ Miriam’s shoulders tensed.

  ‘Dr. ven Hjalmar,’ said Olga.

  ‘I want him dead.’ Miriam’s voice was flat.

  ‘We need to find out why she killed Dr. Darling first, don’t we?’

  ‘But – ’ Miriam changed tack. ‘Brill thought ven Hjalmar was dead,’ she said. ‘In fact, she told me so.’

  ‘Hmm. There was some confusion after the palace – perhaps she was not in the loop?’ Olga leaned back and met Miriam’s eyes. ‘I am telling you this because Mhara’s first loyalty is to Security; she was most upset when she learned her actions were unauthorized. What is your mother doing, Helge? How many games is she playing?’

  ‘I . . . don’t . . .’ Miriam fell silent. ‘Dr. ven Hjalmar,’ she said faintly. ‘Is she cooperating with him?’

  Olga stared at her for a long time.

  *

  Summer in the suburbs. The smell of honeysuckle and the creaking of cicadas hung heavy in the backyard of the small house on a residential street in Ann Arbor; there was little traffic outside, the neighbors either already in bed or away from their homes, dining out or working late. But inside the house, behind lowered blinds, the lights were on and the occupants were working. Not that a casual interloper would have recognized their activities as such.