“My dear!” he greeted her. “A final word, if I may, before you depart.”
She nodded, then glanced up as the porters hoisted her trunks onto the roof and a small platform at the back of the carriage.
“You may think my sending you to court is premature,” he said quietly, “but my agents have intercepted messages about an attempt on your life. You need to leave here, and I think it best that you be among your peers. You’ll be staying at the Thorold Palace, which is maintained as a common residence in the capital by the heads of the families; it’s doppelgangered and quite safe, I assure you. It will be possible for you to return later.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” she said sarcastically.
“Indeed.” He looked at her oddly. “Well, I must say you look fine. I do commend Olga to you; she is not as stupid as she appears and you will need to learn the high speech sooner rather than later-English is only spoken among the aristocracy.”
“Well, uh, okay.” She shuffled nervously. “I’ll try not to trip over any assassins, and I may even meet an appropriate husband.” She glanced at the coach as one of the horses snorted and shook its harness. She felt even more peculiar when she realized that she was not entirely lying. If marrying Roland-even having another child with him-would get him into her bed on a regular basis, she was willing to at least contemplate the possibility. She needed an ally-and friend-here, and he had the potential to be more than that.
“Indeed.” He nodded at her, and for the first time she noticed that there was a certain translucency to his skin, as if he wasn’t entirely well. “Good hunting.” And then he turned and strode away, leaving her to climb into the carriage and wait for departure.
Court Appearance
The first unpleasant surprise-after finding that the Tylenol was all packed in her trunks and inaccessible-was that the carriage was unheated and the leather seats hard. Her second, as she shivered and tried to huddle into one corner under a thick blanket, came as Olga swept up the steps and into the seat opposite her. Olga’s blonde hair was gathered up under a scarf and hat, and she wore a wool coat over a suit that made her look like a brokerage house yuppie. “Isn’t this wonderful?” she cooed as plump Lady Margit, in twinset and pearls by day, huffed and puffed up and into the seat next to Miriam, expanding to flow over two-thirds of it.
“It’s wonderful.” Miriam smiled weakly as the coachman cracked his whip overhead and released the hand brake. The noise and vibration of wooden wheels turning on cobblestones shuddered through her hangover as the coach creaked and swayed forward.
Olga leaned toward her. “Oh dear, you look unwell!” she insisted, peering into Miriam’s eyes at close range. “What could it be?”
“Something I drank, I think,” Miriam mumbled, turning away. Her stomach was distinctly rough, her head pounded, and she felt too hot. “How long will we be on the road?”
“Oh, not long!” Olga clapped her hands briskly and rubbed them together against the cold. “We can use the duke’s holdings to change teams regularly. If we make good time today and keep driving until dusk, we could be at Ode-mark tomorrow evening and Niejwein the next afternoon! All of two hundred miles in three days!” She glanced at Miriam slyly. “I hear over on the other side you have magical carriages that can travel such a distance much faster?”
“Oh, Olga,” muttered Margit, a trifle peevishly.
“Um.” Miriam nodded, pained. Two hundred miles in three days, she thought. Even Amtrak can do better than that! “Yes, but I don’t think they’d work too well over here” she whuffed out, as a particularly bad rut in the road threw her against the padded side of the carriage.
“What a shame,” Olga replied brightly. “That means we’ll just have to take a little longer.” She pointed out of the carriage door’s open window. “Oh, look! A squirrel! On that elm!”
It was at this point that Miriam realized, with a sickly sinking feeling, that taking a carriage to the capital in this world might be how the aristocracy travelled, but in comfort terms it was the equivalent of an economy-class airline ticket to New Zealand -in an ancient turboprop with malfunctioning air-conditioning. And she’d set off with a hangover and a chatterbox for a fellow traveller, without remembering to pack the usual hand luggage. “Oh god,” she moaned faintly to herself.
“Oh, that reminds me!” Olga sat upright. “I nearly forgot!” From some hidden pocket she pulled out a small, neatly wrapped paper parcel. She opened it and removed a pinch of some powdery substance, then cast it from the window. “Im nama des’Hummelvat sen da’ Blishkin un’ da Geshes des’reeshes, dis expedition an’ all, the mifim reesh’n,” she murmured. Then Olga noticed Miriam looking at her blankly. “Don’t you pray?” she asked.
“Pray?” Miriam shook her head. “I don’t understand-”
“Prayers! Oh, yes, I forgot. Didn’t dear Roland say that on the other side everybody is pagan? You all worship some dead god on a stick, impaled or something disgusting, and pray in English” she said with relish.
“Olga,” Margit said warningly. “You’ve never been there. Roland’s probably telling fibs to confuse you.”
“It’s all right,” Miriam replied. What, Margit isn’t a world-walker? she wondered. Well, that would explain why she’s stuck chaperoning Olga around. “We don’t speak, urn, what is the language called again?”
“Hoh’sprashe?” said Olga.
“Yes, that’s it. And the other side is similar to this side geographically, but the people and how they dress and act and talk are different,” she said, trying to think of something it would be safe to talk about.
“I’d heard that,” said Olga. She leaned back against her bench, thoughtfully. “You mean they don’t know about the Sky Father?”
“Urn.” Miriam’s evident perplexity must have told its own story, because Olga beamed brightly at her.
“Oh, I see! I’ll have to tell you all about the Sky Father and the Church!” Olga leaned forward. “You don’t believe, do you?” she said very quietly.
Miriam sat up. Wha-a-at? she thought, suddenly surprised. “What do you mean?” she asked.
“Sky Father.” Olga glanced sideways at Margit, who appeared to be dozing. “I don’t believe in him,” she said, quietly defiant. “I figured that much out when I was twelve. But you mustn’t ever-ever-act as if you don’t. At least, in public.”
“Hmm.” Miriam tried to think straight, but her headache was militating against coherency. “What’s the problem? Where I come from, I was raised by unobservant Jews-Jews are, like, a minority religion-but I wasn’t Jewish, either, I wasn’t their child and it passes down by birth.” Let’s leave what I actually believe out of this or we ‘II be here all day. “Is there… what’s the Church like? I haven’t seen any sign of it at the duke’s palace.”
“You didn’t see the chapel because he told us you weren’t ready,” Olga said quietly, pitching her voice just above the level of the road noise. “But he told me you’d need to know before court. So you don’t give your enemies anything to use against you.”
“Oh.” Miriam looked at Olga with something approaching respect. The ditz is a self-made atheist? And the families are religious? “Yes, I think he was right,” she said evenly. “Just how influential is the Church?” She asked, steeling herself for bad news.
“Very!” Olga began with forced enthusiasm. “Mass is held every day, to bring the blessing of Sky Father and Lightning Child down upon us. They both have their priests, as does Crone Wife, and the monastic orders, all organized under the Church of Rome by the Emperor-in-God, who rules the Church in the name of Sky Father and interprets Sky Father’s wishes. Not that we hear much from Rome-it has been under the reign of the Great Khan these past decades, and the ocean crossing is perilous and difficult. Next month is Julfmass, when we celebrate Lightning Child driving out the ice wolf of the north who eats the sun; there’ll be big feasts and public entertainments, that’s when betrothals and further knots in the braids are formally annou
nced! It’s so exciting. They’re cemented at Beltaigne, as spring turns toward summer, right after the Clan meets-”
“Tell me about Julfmass,” Miriam suggested. “What happens? What’s it supposed to be about, and what do I need to know?”
Ten miles down the road they were joined by a mounted escort. Rough-looking men on big horses, they wore metal armour over leather. Most of them carried swords and lances, but two-Miriam peeped out at the leaders-had discreetly holstered M-16s, identifying them beyond a shadow of a doubt as family troopers.
“ Halle sum faggon,” the sergeant called out, and the coachman replied, “Fallen she in’an seien Sie welcom, mif ‘nsh.”
Miriam shook her head. Riders ahead and riders behind. “They’re friendly?” she asked Olga over Margit’s open-mouthed snores.
“Oh yes!” Olga simpered her patented dumb-schoolgirl simper, and Miriam waited for her to get over it. She’s been raised wholly apart from men, unless I am very much mistaken, she reasoned. No wonder she goes strange whenever anything that needs to shave passes through the area. “Your uncle’s border guards,” she added. “Aren’t they handsome?”
“Mmmph.” Miriam blinked slowly. Handsome. She had a sudden hot flashover to the night before, Roland’s hands gently teasing her legs apart during a long-drawn-out game that ended with them both spent, damp, and woozy-then she took in Olga’s innocent, happy face and felt abruptly downhearted, as if she’d stolen a child’s toy. This wasn’t part of the plan, she thought dispiritedly. “They’re guards,” she said tiredly. “Seen one set of guards, seen ’em all. I just wish I could get at my suitcase.” She’d stashed her pistol in it last night, along with her notebook computer and the rest of her escape kit.
“Why is that?” asked Olga.
“Well.” Miriam paused. How to put it diplomatically? “What if they wanted to take advantage of us?” she asked, fumbling for an alternative to suggesting that Angbard’s guards might not be effective.
“Oh, that’s all right,” Olga said brightly. She fumbled with something under her blanket, then showed it to Miriam, who blinked again, several times.
“Be careful where you wave that,” she suggested.
“Oh, I’ll be all right! I’ve been training with guns since I was this high,” she said, lowering the machine pistol. “Don’t you do it over there?”
“Ah.” Miriam looked at her faintly. “No, but I suppose conditions are different there.”
“Oh.” Olga looked slightly puzzled. “Aren’t you allowed to defend yourselves?”
“We’ve got this thing called a government,” Miriam said dryly. “It does the defending for us. At least in theory.”
“Hah. There was nobody to do that for our grandmothers when the civil war began. Many of them died before… well, even Daddy said I needed to learn to shoot, and he’s a terrible backwoodsman! There aren’t enough of us with the talent, you know, we all have to muck in like commoners these days. I may even have to join the family trade after I marry, can you believe it?”
“The, ah, thought hadn’t occurred to me.” Miriam tried to sound noncommittal; the idea of Olga running around Cambridge with a machine pistol, a platinum credit card, and a suitcase full of cocaine would have been funny if it hadn’t been so frightening.
“I really hope it happens,” Olga said, slightly more thoughtfully. “I’d like to see… over there.” She sat up. “But you asked about bandits! We are unlikely to meet any unless we travel in the spring thaw. They know too well what will happen if they try the Clan’s post, but after a harsh winter some of them may no longer care.”
“I see.” Miriam tried not to show any outward sign of being disturbed, but for a moment she felt a chill of absolute fear at this naive, enthusiastic, emotional-but not stupid-child. She shuffled her legs together, trying to pinch out the draft. It would be a long day, without any distractions. “Tell me about the Church again…”
Two extremely uncomfortable days passed in chilly boredom. They stopped at a coaching house the first night and Miriam insisted on unloading a suitcase and trunk. The next day she scandalized Margit by wearing jeans, fleece, and hiking boots, and Olga by spending the afternoon engrossed in a book. “You’d best not wear that tomorrow,” Margit said disapprovingly when they stopped that evening at another post house. “It is for us to make a smart entrance, to pay our respects at court as soon as we arrive, do you see? Did you bring anything suitable?”
“Oh hell,” replied Miriam, confusing her somewhat (for Hel was a province administered by Olga’s father). “If you could help me find something?”
Expensive western formal costume-Armani suits, Givenchy dresses, and their equivalents-appeared to be de rigueur among the Clan in private. But in public in the Gruinmarkt, they wore the finery of high nobility. Their peculiarities were kept behind closed doors.
The duke’s resident seamstress had packed one of Miriam’s trunks with gowns fitted to her measurements, and at dawn on the third day Margit shoehorned her into one deemed suitable for a court debut. It was even more elaborate than the gown they’d fitted her for dinner with the duke; it had hooped underskirts, profusions of lace exploding at wrist and throat, and slashed sleeves layered over skin-tight inner layers. Miriam hated everything it said about the status of women in this society. But Olga wore something similar, even more excessively wasp-waisted, with an exaggerated pink bustle behind that suggested to Miriam nothing so much as a female baboon in heat. Margit declared Miriam’s presentation satisfactory. “That’s most fittingly elegant!” she pronounced. “Let no time be lost, now, lest we be undone by our lateness.”
“Mmph,” said Miriam, holding her skirts out of the courtyard dampness and trying to avoid tripping over them on her way over to the coach. Really, she thought. This is crazy! I should have just crossed over and caught the train. But Angbard had insisted-and she could second-guess his reasoning. “Avoid transport bottlenecks where somebody might intercept her-also, see if she breaks.’ After three days on the road she was feeling ripe, long overdue for a shower. The last thing she needed was a new dress, let alone one as intricately excessive as this. Only a grim determination not to play her hand too early made her put up with it. She settled into her accustomed corner in a rustling heap of bottle-green velvet and tried to get comfortable, but her back was stiff, the dress vast and uncontrollable, and parts of her were sweating while other bits froze. Plus, Olga was looking at her triumphantly.
“You look marvellous,” Olga assured her, leaning forward and resting a hand in the vicinity of Miriam’s knee. “I’m sure you’ll make a great entry at court! You’ll be surrounded by suitors before you’ve been there a moment-despite your age!”
“I’m sure,” Miriam said weakly. Give me patience, she prayed to the goddess of suffering in the name of beauty and/or social conformity. Otherwise I swear I’ll strangle someone…
Before they moved off, Margit insisted on dropping the blinds. It reduced the draft, but in the closeness of the carriage Miriam began to feel claustrophobic. Olga insisted on painting Miriam’s cheeks and eyebrows and lips, redoing the procedure while the carriage swayed and bumped along an increasingly well-maintained stone-cobbled street. Other carriages and traffic rattled past, and presently they heard people calling greetings and warnings. “The gates,” Olga said, breathlessly. “The gates!”
Miriam sneaked a peek through the blinds before Margit noticed and scolded her. The gate house was made of stone, perhaps four stories high. She’d seen similar on a vacation in England many years ago. The walls themselves were of stone, but banked with masses of rammed earth in front and huge mounds of mud beyond the ditch. Isn’t that something to do with artillery? she thought, puzzled by memories of an old History Channel documentary.
“Put that down at once, I say!” Margit insisted. “Do you want everyone to see you?”
Miriam dropped the window blind. “Shouldn’t they?” she asked.
“Absolutely not!” Margit looked scandalized.
“Why, it would be the talk of society for months!”
“Ah,” Miriam said neutrally. Olga winked at her. So this is how it works, she realized. Enforcement through peer pressure. If they get the idea that I’m not going to conform, I ‘m never going to hear the end of it, she realized. Olga, far from being her biggest problem, was beginning to look like a potential ally.
Their first call was at the Thorold Palace, a huge rambling stone pile at the end of the Avenue of Rome, a broad stone street fronted by mansions. The carriage drew right up to the front entrance, their escort of guards strung out behind it as servants emerged with a mounting box, which they shoved into place before holding the door open. Margit was the first to leave, followed by Olga, who squeezed through the door with a shake of her behind; Miriam emerged last, blinking in the daylight like a prisoner released from some oubliette.
A butler in some sort of intricate house uniform-a tunic over knee breeches and floppy boots-read from a letter in a loud voice to the assembled gaggle of onlookers. “His Excellency the high Duke Angbard of house Lofstrom is pleased to consign to your care the Lady Margit, Chatelaine of Praha, her Excellency the Baroness Olga Thorold, and her Excellency the Countess Helga Thorold Hjorth, daughter of Patricia of that braid.” He bowed deeply, then gave way to a man standing behind him. “Your Excellency.”
“I bid you welcome to the house in my custody, and urge you to accept my hospitality,” said the man.
“Earl Oliver Hjorth,” Olga stage-whispered at Miriam. Miriam managed a fixed, glassy-eyed smile then followed Olga’s lead by picking up her skirts and dipping. “I thank you, my lord,” Olga replied loudly and clearly, “and accept your protection.”
Miriam echoed him. English, it seemed, was still the general language of nobility here. Her hoh’sprashe was still restricted to a couple of polite nothings.
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