‘My health – it’s miraculous. I can’t say as how I’ll ever have the energy of a sixteen-year-old again, but I’m not an invalid any more, Margaret.’ He thumped his chest lightly. ‘And I’ve got lost time to make up for.’
Lady Bishop nodded, then took a sip of her tea.
‘There’s another matter, I needed to speak with you about,’ She said. ‘It’s about your friend Miss Beckstein.’
‘Yes?’ Erasmus leaned forward. ‘I haven’t heard anything from her for nearly two months – ’
‘A woman claiming to be her turned up on my doorstep three nights ago: we’ve spent the time since then questioning her. I have no way of identifying her positively, and if her story is correct she’s in serious trouble.’
‘I can tell you –’ Erasmus paused. ‘What kind of trouble?’
Margaret’s frown deepened. ‘First, I want you to look at this portrait.’ She pulled a small photograph from the pocket of her shalwar suit. ‘Is this her?’
Erasmus stared at it for a moment. ‘Yes.’ It was slightly blurred but even though she was looking away from the camera, as if captured through the eye of a spy hole, he recognized her as Miriam. He looked more closely. Her costume was even more outlandish than when she’d first shown up on his doorstep, and either the lighting was poor or there was a bruise below one eye, but it was definitely her. ‘That’s her, all right.’
‘Good.’
He glanced up. ‘You were expecting a Polis agent?’
‘No.’ She reached for the picture and he let her take it. ‘I was expecting a Clan agent.’
‘A –’ Erasmus stopped. He picked up his teacup again to disguise his nervousness. ‘Please explain,’ he said carefully. ‘Whatever I am permitted to know.’
‘Don’t worry, you’re not under restriction. Unfortunately, if Miss Beckstein is telling the truth, it’s very bad news indeed. It appears she fell into disfavor with her family of the first estate – to the point where they imprisoned her, and then attempted to marry her off. But the arranged marriage provoked a violent backlash from the swain’s elder brother, and it seems she is now destitute and in search of a safe harbor. Her family doesn’t even know she’s still alive, and she believes many of them are dead. Which leaves me with a very pressing dilemma, Erasmus. If this was subterfuge or skullduggery, some kind of plot to pressure us by her relatives, it would be easy enough to address. But under the circumstances, what should I do with her?’
Burgeson opened his mouth to speak, then froze. Think very carefully, because your next words might condemn her. ‘I, ah, that is to say –’ He paused, feeling the chilly fingers of mortal responsibility grasp the scruff of his neck like a hangman’s noose. ‘You invited me here to be her advocate.’
Lady Bishop nodded. ‘Somebody has to do it.’
The situation was clear enough. The movement existed from day to day in mortal peril, and had no room for deadweight. Prisons were a luxury that only governments could afford. At least Margaret invited me here to speak. It was a generous gesture, taken at no small risk given the exigencies of communication discipline and the omnipresent threat of the royal security Polis. Despite the organization’s long-standing policies, Lady Bishop was evidently looking for an excuse not to have Miriam liquidated. Heartened by this realization, Erasmus relaxed a little. ‘You said she turned up on your doorstep. Did she come here voluntarily?’
‘Yes.’ Lady Bishop nodded again.
‘Ah. Then that would imply that she views us as allies, or at least as possible saviors. Assuming she isn’t working for the Polis and this isn’t an ambush – but after three days I think that unlikely, don’t you? If she is then, well, the ball is up for us both. But she’s got a story and she’s been sticking to it for three days . . . ? Under extraordinary pressure?’
‘No pressure. At least, nothing but her own isolation.’
Erasmus came to a decision. ‘She’s been a major asset in the past, and I am sure that she isn’t a government sympathizer. If we take her in, I’m certain we can make use of her special talents.’ He put his teacup down. ‘Killing her would be a –’ tragic ‘– waste.’
Lady Bishop stared at him for a few seconds, her expression still. Then she nodded again. ‘I concur,’ she said briskly.
‘Well, I confess I am relieved.’ He scratched his head, staring at the picture she still held.
‘I value your opinions, Erasmus, you must know that. I needed a second on this matter; my first leaning was to find a use for her, but you know her best and if you had turned your thumb down –’ She paused. ‘Is there a personal interest I should know about?’
He looked up. ‘Not really. I consider her a friend, and I find her company refreshing, but there’s nothing more.’ Nothing more, he echoed ironically in the safety of his own head. ‘I incline towards leniency for all those who are not agents of the state – I think it unchristian and indecent to mete out such punishment as I have been on the receiving end of – but if I thought for an instant that she was a threat to the movement I’d do the deed myself.’ And that was the bald unvarnished truth – a successful spy would condemn dozens, even hundreds, to the gallows and labor camps. But it was not the entire truth, for it would be a harsh act to live with afterwards: conceivably an impossible one.
Lady Bishop sipped her tea again. ‘Then I think you’ll be the best man for the job.’
‘What job?’
‘Finding a use for her, of course. In your copious spare time, while you’re off being Sir Adam’s errand boy.’
Erasmus blinked. ‘Excuse me?’
‘I’d have thought it obvious.’ She put her teacup down. ‘We can’t keep her here. Her inexperience would render her dangerous, her strange ideas and ways would be hazardous and hard to conceal in the front of the house, and, bluntly, I think she’d draw unwelcome attention to herself. If we’re not to send her to the Miller, it’s essential to put her somewhere safe. You’re the only person she knows or trusts here, so you drew the short straw. Moreover, I suspect you know more about how to make use of her unique ability than I do. So, unless you object, I’m going to assign her to you as an additional responsibility, after you see to Adam’s travel arrangements. Take her in and establish how we can use her. What do you say?’
‘I say – um.’ His head was spinning: Erasmus blinked again. ‘That is to say, that makes sense, but – ’
Lady Bishop clapped her hands together before he could muster a coherent objection. ‘Excellent!’ She smiled. ‘I’ll have Edward sort out documents and some suitable clothing for her, and you can take her back to Boston as soon as possible. What do you say?’
‘But –’ The servant’s room is full of furniture in hock, the second bedroom doesn’t have room to swing a cat for all the old clothing and books I’ve got stored in it, and the old biddies up the street will wag their tongues so hard their jaws explode – ‘I think the word Miss Beckstein would use is “okay”.’ He cleared his throat. ‘This is going to be interesting.’
*
His Majesty King Egon the Third had convened his special assizes in the grand hall of the Thorold Palace – still smoking, and somewhat battered by his soldiers in their enthusiasm to drive out the enemy – precisely thirty-six hours after the explosion and subsequent attack on his father. ‘By parties of great treachery in league with the tinker tribe,’ as the gebanes dispatched by royal messenger to all his vassal lords put it: ‘Let all know that by decree of this court in accordance with the doctrine of outlawry the afore-named families are declared outwith the law, and their chattels and holdings hereby escheat to the Crown.’ The writs were flying by courier to all quarters of the kingdom; now his majesty was dictating a codicil.
‘This ague at the heart of our kingdom pains us grievously, but we are young and healthy enough that it shall soon be overcome and the canker cut out,’ his majesty said. ‘To this end, a half of all real properties and chattels recovered from the outlaw band is hereby granted to whosoever sha
ll yield those properties to the Crown.’ He frowned: ‘Is that clear enough do you suppose, Innsford?’
‘Absolutely clear, my lord.’ His excellency the duke of Innsford bobbed his head like a hungry duck plowing a mill pond. ‘As clear as temple glass!’ Whether it is wise is another matter, he thought, but held his counsel. Egon might be eager to rid himself of the tinker clan, and declaring them outlaw and promising half their estates to whoever killed them was a good way to go about the job, but in the long run it might come back to haunt him: other kings had been overthrown by ambitious dukes, with coffers filled and estates bloated by the spoils of a civil war fought by proxy. Innsford harbored no such ambitions – his old man’s plans did not call for a desperate all-or-nothing gamble to take the throne – but others might think differently. Meanwhile, the scribe seated at the table behind him scratched on, his pen bobbing between ink pot and manuscript as he committed the King’s speech to paper.
His majesty glanced up at the huge, clear windows overhead, frames occupied by flawless sheets of plate imported from the shadowlands by the tinkers. ‘May Sky Father adorn his tree with them.’ In the wan morning light his expression was almost hungry. Innsford nodded again. The king – a golden youth only a handful of years ago, now come into his full power as a young man, handsome as an eagle and strong as an ox – was not someone anyone would disagree with openly. He was fast to laugh, but his cruel streak was rarely far below the surface and his mind was both deceptively sharp and coldly untrusting. He kept his openness for a small coterie of friends, their loyalty honed beyond question by bleak years of complicity during the decade when his father had held him at arm’s reach, suspicious of the brain rot inflicted on his younger brother Creon during a sly assassination attempt. The other courtiers (of whom there were no small number, Duke Innsford among them) would have a long wait until they earned his confidence.
And as Egon had demonstrated already, losing the royal confidence could be a fatal blunder.
Egon glanced at the scribe: ‘That’s enough for now.’ He stood up, shifting his weight from foot to foot to restore the circulation that the hard wooden chair had slowed. ‘My lord Innsford, attend us, please. And you, my lord Carlsen, and you, Sir Markus.’
The middle-aged duke rose to his feet and half-bowed, then followed as the young monarch walked towards the inner doors. Four bodyguards paced ahead of him, and two to the rear – the latter spending more time looking over their shoulders than observing their royal charge – with the courtiers Carlsen and Markus, and their attendant bodyguards, and Innsford’s own retainers and guards taking up the tail end of the party. His majesty affected a scandalous disregard for propriety, dressing in exactly the same livery and chain-mail jerkin as his escorts, distinguishable only by his chain of office – and even that was draped around his neck, almost completely hidden by his tunic. It was almost as if, the duke mused, his majesty was afraid of demonic assassins who might spring out of the thin air at any moment. As if. And now that the duke noticed it, even Egon’s courtiers wore some variation on the royal livery . . .
‘Markus, Carl, we go outside. I believe there is an orangery?’
‘Certainly, sire.’ Carlsen – another overmuscled blond hopeful – looked slightly alarmed. ‘But snipers – ’
‘That’s what our guards are for,’ Egon said dismissively. ‘The ones you don’t see are more important than the ones you do. We are at greater risk in this ghastly haunted pile – from tinker witches sneaking back in from the shadowlands to slip a knife in my ribs – than in any garden. The less they know of our royal whereabouts, the happier I’ll be.’
‘The land of shadows?’ Innsford bit his tongue immediately, but surprise had caught him unawares: does he really believe they come from the domain of the damned? How much does he know?
The king glanced round and grinned at him lopsidedly, catching him unawares. It was an intimate expression, rendered frightening by the power of the crown. ‘Where did you think they came from? They’re the spawn of air and darkness. I’ve seen it myself: one moment they’re there, the next . . .’ He snapped his fingers. ‘They walk between worlds and return to this one loaded with eldritch treasure, weapons beyond the ken of our royal artificers and alchemists: they buy influence and insidiously but instinctively pollute the purity of our noble bloodlines with their changeling get!’ His grin turned to a glare. ‘I learned of this from my grandmother, the old witch – luckily I did not inherit her bloodline, but my brother was another matter. Had Creon not been poisoned in his infancy there is no doubt that once he reached his majority I should shortly have met with an accident.’
He paused for a minute while his guards opened the thick oak side door and checked the garden for threats. Then he turned and strode through into the light summer rain, his face upturned towards the sky.
The formal gardens in the grounds of the Thorold Palace had been a byword for splendor among the aristocracy of the Gruinmarkt for decades. The hugely rich clan of tinker families had spared no expense in building and furnishing their residence in the capital: individuals might dress to impress, but stone and rampart were the gowns of dynasties. Some might even think that Egon had brought his court to the captured palace because it was (in the aftermath of the fighting that had damaged the Summer Palace) the most fitting royal residence in the city of Niejwein. Rows of carefully cultivated trees marched alongside the high walls around the garden; rose beds, fantastically sculpted, blossomed before the windowed balconies fronting the noble house. A pool, surmounted by a grotesque fountain, squatted in the midst of a compass rose of gravel paths: beyond it, a low curved building glinted oddly through the falling rain. The walls were made of glass, huge slabs of it, unbelievably regular in thickness and clear of hue, held in a framework of cast iron. Green vegetation shimmered beyond the windows, whole trees clearly visible like a glimpse into some fantastic tropical world. Egon strode towards it, not once glancing to either side, while his guards nervously paced alongside, eyes swiveling in every direction.
Innsford hurried to keep up with the royal personage. He cleared his throat: ‘Your Majesty, if the tinkers suspect you are making free with their former estate –’
Egon rounded on him. ‘It’s not their estate,’ he snapped. ‘It’s mine. And don’t you forget it.’ He continued, moderating his tone, ‘Why do you think everyone around me dresses alike?’ His ill-humor slipped away. ‘Yes, they can send their assassins, but how will the assassin identify his target? And besides, I will not stay here long.’
They were at the orangery doors. ‘Where does your majesty wish his court to reside?’ the duke inquired.
‘Right here. While I play the King of Night and Mist.’ Egon glanced over his shoulder at Sir Markus. ‘I need a beater for the royal hunt. Would you fancy the title of general?’
Markus, a strapping fellow with an implausibly bushy mustache, thrust his chest out, beaming with pride: ‘Absolutely, sire! I am dizzy with delight at the prospect!’
‘Good. Kindly make yourself scarce for a few minutes. You too, Carlsen, I’ll have words with you both shortly but first I must speak in confidence with his grace.’
The orangery doors were open and the guards completed their study; Egon stepped over the threshold, and the small gaggle of courtiers followed him. Innsford studied Markus sidelong. Some backwoods peer’s eldest son, beholden to Egon for his drinking space at a royal table, ancestral holdings down at heel over the past five decades: more interested in breaking heads and carousing than the boring business of politicking that his father before him was so bad at. And Egon had just casually offered him a post from which he could reap the drippings from the royal trencher? Innsford blinked slowly, watching the two young bloods bounce away into the glazed pavilion, marveling loudly and crudely about its trappings. ‘A beater for the hunt should hold the title of general?’ he asked.
‘When you’re hunting for armies, why yes, I believe that is customary.’ His majesty’s lips quirked slightly, i
n what might have been intended to be a smile. ‘If I am in the field at the head of an army, I am clearly looking to the defense of my realm, am I not? Such a grand undertaking will have, I hope, a salutary effect on any secret ambitions the father of my betrothed might hold towards our lands. Leading an army against the tinkers will permit me to burnish my honor, strive for glory, and ensure that those who rally to my banner do so under my eyes so that their claims to the spoils of victory may be adjudicated immediately.’ Oh, so you don’t trust your vassals to handle sharp implements out of your sight? Innsford nodded gravely, while Sir Markus beamed like an idiot. A useful idiot, come to think of it. ‘And the tinker assassins will have little success in striking from the shadows if they do not know, from one day to the next, where I make my bed.’
The duke nodded again. ‘I am pleased by your majesty’s perspicacity and foresight,’ he said carefully. Sky Father! He’s sharp. If Egon was going to go into the field at the head of an army, he was going to slay about six birds with one stone. Hunting down the tinker Clan’s holdings in the wild would compel them to confront him on his own terms, while making it difficult for their assassins to stick a knife in his ribs. An army in being would prevent the neighbors from getting any ideas about picking off a province here or a holding there. Meanwhile, Egon had rung a bell to make his backwoods vassal dogs salivate at the thought of loot: now he would go into the field to gather the leashes of the men they had released for service. He could simultaneously claim the lion’s share of the spoils he’d promised, while maintaining the appearance of generously disbursing treasure to his followers. Handled carefully it would raise him to the stature of a true warrior king – somebody only fools or the truly desperate would scheme against – without the attendant risks of declaring war on one of the neighboring kingdoms. If it worked – ‘I see much in your plan to commend it.’ Egon came to a halt in front of a bench at the center of a circle of low, dark green trees. Small orange fruits glimmered among their shadowy branches. ‘But you did not summon me here to tell me this, your majesty.’
The Traders' War (Merchant Princes Omnibus 2) Page 39