The Traders' War (Merchant Princes Omnibus 2)

by Charles Stross

  ‘There’d better not be.’ They were at the foot of the steps now.

  ‘I’m getting sick of this.’ She pushed the door open. ‘Follow me.’

  She duckwalked into a cellar, past a damp-stained mattress, then through a tangle of old and decrepit wooden furniture that blocked off the back wall. Erasmus followed her. There was a hole in the brickwork, and he bent down to retrieve a small electric lantern from the floor just inside it. As he stood up, he began to cough.

  ‘You can’t go in like that, they’ll hear you.’ Miriam stared at him in the gloom. ‘Give me the lamp. I’ll check out the shop.’

  ‘But if you – ’

  She rested a hand lightly on his shoulder. ‘I’ll be right back. Remember, I’m not the one with the cough.’ And besides, I’m sick of just waiting for stuff to happen to me. At least this made it feel as if she was back in control of her destiny.

  Erasmus nodded. He handed over the lantern without a word. She took it carefully and shone it along the tunnel. She’d been this way before, six months ago. Is this entirely sensible? She asked herself, and nearly burst into hysterical laughter: nothing in her life had been entirely sensible for about a year, now, since her mother had suggested she retrieve a shoebox full of memories from the attic of the old family house.

  The smuggler’s corridor zigzagged underground, new brick and plasterwork on one side showing where neighboring tenement cellars had been encroached on to create the rat run. A sweet-sick stink of black water told its own story of burst sewer pipes. Miriam paused at a T-junction, then tiptoed to her left, where the corridor narrowed before coming to an end behind a ceiling-high rack of pigeonholes full of dusty bundles of rags. She reached out and grabbed one side of the rack. It slid sideways silently, on well-greased metal runners. The cellar of Erasmus’s store was dusty and hot, the air undisturbed for days. Flicking the lamp off, Miriam tiptoed towards the central passage that led to the stairs up to the shop. Something rustled in the darkness and she froze, heart in mouth; but it was only a rat, and after a minute’s breathless wait she pressed on.

  At the top of the stairs, she paused and listened. It’s empty, she told herself. Isn’t it? It’s empty and all I have to do is take two more steps and I can prove it. Visions paraded through her mind’s eye, the last time she’d ventured into a seemingly unoccupied residence, a horror-filled flashback that nailed her to the spot. She swallowed convulsively, her hand tightening on the rough handrail nailed to the wall. She’d gone into Fort Lofstrom, ahead of the others, and Roland had died – This is crazy. Nothing’s going to happen, is it?

  She took a step forward, across inches that felt like miles: then another step, easier this time. The short passage at the top of the stairs ended in the back room. She crept round the door: everything was as empty as it should be. The archway leading to the main room – there was an observation mirror, tarnished and flyspecked. Relaxing, she stepped up to the archway and peered sidelong into the shop itself.

  It was a bright day, and sunbeams slanted diagonally across the dusty window display shelves and the wooden floorboards. The shop was empty, but for a few letters and circulars piling up under the mail slot in the door. If it had been dark, she wouldn’t have noticed anything out of the ordinary, and if she’d been coming in through the front door she wouldn’t have seen it until it was too late. But coming out of the dimness of the shop . . . her breath caught as she saw the coppery gleam of the wire fastened to the door handle. The sense of déjà vu was a choking imposition on her fragile self-confidence. She’d seen too many trip wires in the past year: Matt had made a bad habit of them, damn him, wherever he was. She turned and retraced her steps, gripping the banister rail tightly to keep her hands from shaking.

  ‘The shop is empty, but someone’s been inside it. There’s a wire on the door handle.’ She shuddered, but Erasmus just looked curious.

  ‘This I must see for myself.’

  ‘It’s too dangerous!’

  ‘Obviously not,’ he replied mildly. ‘You’re still alive, aren’t you?’

  ‘But I –’ she stopped, unable to explain the dread that gripped her.

  ‘You saw it in time. It won’t be a petard, Miriam, not if it’s the Polis, probably not if it’s your relatives. Your bête noir, the mad bomber, is unlikely, isn’t he? We’ll take care not to trip over any other wires. I’ll wager you it turns out to be a bell, wired to wake up a watcher next door. Someone wants to know when I return, that’s all.’

  ‘That’s all?’ She wanted to stamp her feet in frustration. ‘They broke into your shop and installed a trip wire and you say that’s all? Come on, let’s go – you can buy new clothes – ’

  ‘I need the book.’ He was adamant.

  She took a deep breath. ‘I don’t like it.’

  ‘Neither do I, but . . .’ He shrugged.

  Paradoxically, Miriam felt herself begin to relax once they returned to the back room. Trip wires and claymore mines were Matthias’s stock in trade, a nasty trick from the days of the Clan-on-Clan civil war. But Matthias wasn’t a world-walker, and he couldn’t be over here, could he? He’d gone missing in the United States six months earlier, a week before the first series of targeted raids had shut down the Clan’s postal service. While she waited patiently, Erasmus sniffed around his shelves, the writing desk and dusty ledgers, the battered sink with the tin teapot and oil burner beside it, the cracked frosted-glass windowpane with the bars on the outside. ‘Nobody’s touched these,’ he said after a few minutes. ‘I’m going to look in the shop.’

  ‘But it’s under observation! And there’s the wire – ’

  ‘I don’t think anyone outside will be able to see in, not while the sun’s out. And I want to fetch some stuff. Come help me?’

  Miriam tensed, then nodded.

  Erasmus slowly walked into the front of the shop, staying well back from the windows. He paused between two rails of secondhand clothing. ‘That’s interesting,’ he said.

  ‘What is it?’

  He pointed at the door handle. ‘Look.’ The copper wire ran to the doorframe, then round a nail and down to the floor where it disappeared into a small gray box, unobtrusively fastened to the skirting board. ‘What’s that?’

  Miriam peered at the box. It was in shadow, and it took her a few seconds to make sense of what she was seeing. ‘That’s not a claymore –’ She swallowed again.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked.

  It was gray, with rounded edges – as alien to this world as a wooden automobile would be in her own. And the stubby antenna poking out of its top told another story. ‘I think it’s a rad – a, uh, an electrograph.’ And it sure as hell wasn’t manufactured over here. ‘It might be something else.’

  ‘How very interesting,’ Erasmus murmured, stooping further to retrieve the letters. ‘You were right, earlier,’ he added, glancing her way: ‘if this was planted by the men who followed us in New London, they’re not looking for me. They’re looking for you.’

  And they’re not the same as the men staking out the front door, damn it. She nodded. ‘Let’s get your stuff and hit the road. I don’t like this one little bit.’

  *

  They hanged the servants beneath the warmth of the early afternoon sun, as Neuhalle’s minstrel played a sprightly air on the hurdy-gurdy. It was hard work, and the men were drinking heavily during their frequent breaks. ‘It takes half the fun out of it, having to do all the heavy lifting yourself,’ Heidlor grumbled quietly as he filled his looted silver tankard from the cask of ale sitting on the cart.

  Neuhalle nodded absently as another half-naked maid swung among the branches, bug-eyed and kicking. The bough groaned and swayed beneath its unprecedented crop, much of which was still twitching. ‘You don’t have to,’ he pointed out. ‘Your men seem to be enjoying themselves.’

  ‘Maybe, but it’s best to set a good example. Besides, they’ll change their minds when they run out of beer.’

  The tree emitted another ominou
s creak, like the half-strangled belch of a one-eyed god. ‘Start another tree,’ Neuhalle ordered. ‘This one is satisfied. That one over there looks like he’s willing to serve.’

  ‘Aye, sir.’

  ‘Sky Father will be grateful for your work today,’ Neuhalle added, and his sergeant’s face split in a broad grin.

  ‘Oh, aye, sir!’

  It paid to put a pious face on such affairs, Otto reflected, to remind the men that the sobbing women and shivering, whey-faced lads they were dispatching were a necessary sacrifice to the health of the realm, a palliative for the ailment that had afflicted the royal dynasty for the past three generations. The servants of the tinker families – no, the clan of witches, Neuhalle reminded himself – weren’t the problem: the real problem was the weakness of the dynasty and the debauched compliance of the nobility. Egon might be unable to sacrifice himself or another of the royal bloodline for the strength of the kingdom, but at least he could satisfy Sky Father by proxy. The old ways were bloody, sure enough, but sometimes they provided a salutary lesson, strengthening the will of the state. And so these unfortunates’ souls would be dedicated to Sky Father, the strength of their lives would escheat to the Crown, and their gold would pay for the royal army’s progress.

  Neuhalle was sitting on his camp chair with an empty cup, watching his soldiers manhandle a hog-tied and squalling matron towards the waiting tree, when a horseman rode up to the ale cart and dismounted. He cast about for a moment, then looped his reins around the wagon’s shaft and walked towards Otto. Otto glanced at the fellow, and his eyes narrowed. He stood up: as he did so, his hand-men appeared, clearly taking an interest in the stranger with his royalist sash and polished breastplate.

  ‘Sir, do I have the honor of addressing Otto, Baron Neuhalle?’

  Second impressions were an improvement: the fellow was young, perhaps only twenty, and easily impressed – or maybe just stupid. ‘That would be me.’ Otto inclined his head. ‘And who are you?’ He kept his right hand away from his sword. A glance behind the fellow took in Jorg, ready to draw at a moment’s notice, and he nodded slightly.

  ‘I have the honor to be Eorl Geraunt voh Marlburg, second son of Baron voh Marlburg, my lord. I am here at the word of my liege his majesty –’ He broke off, nonplussed, at a particularly loud outbreak of wailing and prayers from the corral. ‘– I’m sorry, my lord, I bear dispatches.’

  Otto relaxed slightly. ‘I would be happy to receive them.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Jorg, fetch a tankard of ale for Eorl Geraunt, if you please.’ Jorg nodded and headed for the ale cart, his hand leaving his sword hilt as he turned, and the other hand-man, Hein, took a step back. ‘Have you had a difficult time finding us?’

  ‘Not too difficult, sir.’ Geraunt bobbed his head: ‘I had but to follow the trail of wise trees.’ Behind Otto, the wailing prayers were choked off abruptly as his men raised further tribute to Sky Father. ‘His majesty is less than a day’s hard ride away.’

  Otto glanced at Geraunt’s horse. He could take a hint. ‘Henryk, if you could find someone to see to the eorl’s horse . . .’ He turned back to Geraunt as his other hand-man strode off. ‘How fares his majesty?’

  Sir Geraunt grinned excitedly. ‘He does great deeds!’ A nod at the tree: ‘Not to belittle your own, my lord, but he sweeps through the countryside like the scythe of his grandsire, reaping the fields of disorder and uprooting weeds!’ He reached into the leather purse dangling from his belt and pulled out a parchment envelope, sealed with wax along its edges. ‘His word, as I stand before you, my lord.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Otto accepted the letter, glanced at the seal, then slit it open with his small knife. Within, he found the crabbed handwriting of one of Egon’s scribes. ‘Hmm.’ The message was short and to the point. He glanced round, as Jorg returned with Geraunt’s beer and Heidlor walked over.

  ‘Sergeant, how long until you are finished with the prisoners?’

  Heidlor shrugged. ‘Before sundown, I would say, sir. Perhaps in as little as one bell.’

  Otto frowned. This was taking too long. ‘We have orders to march. Much as it pains me to deprive Sky Father of his own, I think we’d better speed things up. So once the men have finished decorating that branch –’ he pointed: there was barely room for another three hanging bodies ‘– hmm, how many are we left with? Two score?’ This particular house had been full of refugees, and the village with collaborators. ‘Strip them naked, whip them into the woods, and fire the buildings with their clothes and chattels inside. We’ll have to rely on winter to do the rest of our work here.’

  Sir Geraunt blanched. ‘Isn’t that a bit harsh?’ he asked.

  ‘His majesty was most specific.’ Otto tapped his finger on the letter. ‘I don’t have time to gently send them to their one-eyed father – you say his majesty is a day’s ride away? We have to meet with him by this time tomorrow. With my men.’

  ‘Oh, I see. If I may be permitted to ask, did he issue orders for my disposition, my lord? I am anxious to return – ’

  ‘You may ride with us.’ He turned and walked away, towards his tent. ‘I’m sure there’ll be enough wise trees for everyone if he’s right about this,’ he muttered to himself, for the summons was unequivocal: It is time to seek a concentration of fluxes, his majesty had ordained. To draw the tinker-witches into a real battle, by threatening a target they couldn’t afford to lose with force they couldn’t ignore. It would mean attacking a real target, not just another of these tedious manor estates. It would probably be either Fort Lofstrom or Castle Hjorth, and Otto would be willing to bet good money on the latter.

  BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

  ‘Good evening, your grace!’

  ‘Indeed it is, indeed it is, Eorl Riordan. A lovely evening. And how

  are you?’

  ‘I am well, sir. As well as can be expected.’

  ‘For a fellow who is well, your face is uncommonly glum. Here, sit down. A glass of the Cabernet, perhaps?’

  ‘Thank you, sir. What can I do for you?’ ‘Hmm, direct and to the point. Let me ask you a leading question, then. You may answer as indiscreetly as you care – it will go no farther than this room. How do you rate our performance?’

  ‘Tactical or strategic? Or logistic and economic?’

  ‘Whichever you deem most important. I want to know, in confidence, what you think we’re doing wrong and what you think we’re doing right.’

  ‘Doing right?’ (Brief laughter.) ‘Nothing.’

  ‘That’s –’ (Pause.) ‘– a provocative statement. Would you elaborate?’

  ‘Yes, your grace. May I start with a summary?’

  ‘Be my guest.’

  ‘We are engaged in a war on two fronts. I shall ignore the first hostility for now, and concentrate on the second, because that’s the one you assigned me to deal with. Hostilities started when the former crown prince usurped the throne. It is evident from the speed and nature of his actions that he had been planning to do so for some time, and that he had already assured himself of the support of a sufficiently broad base of the nobility, before he moved, to have some hope of success. However, his move may well have been reactive – a response to the imminent marriage of his younger brother. So to start with, we are fighting an opponent who has studied his enemies and who has prepared extensively for this conflict, but whose execution was rushed.’

  ‘Hmm. How do you evaluate his preparations?’

  ‘They were confoundedly good, your grace. His control over the Royal Life Guards, for one thing – that was a nasty surprise. His ability to install explosives in the palace – his possession of them – speaks of a level of planning that has given me sleepless nights. The Pervert may be many things but he isn’t stupid. Despite his well-known antipathy for our number, he has studied us closely. It is impossible to now ask his grand-dame how much lore she may have passed on to him, but we should take it as read that when he refers to us as ‘witches’ he knows exactly what we are capable of. For example, rathe
r than holding Niejwein and the castles surrounding it, he immediately departed for the field, where I am told he sleeps among his troops, never in the same tent twice. Sir, he clearly knows how the civil war was fought: he knows exactly what tactics we would first think to use against an enemy noble, and his defenses are as good as anything we could muster for one of our own.’

  ‘You’ve considered the usual routes, I take it? An assassination team from the other side?’

  ‘Yes, your grace. It would be suicidal. For one thing, as I said, he sleeps among his men, in the field, always moving – for another, he has body doubles. We have identified at least two of them on different occasions, and they’re good actors: there is a good chance we would be striking at a puppet rather than their master. Finally, he has bodyguards. And I fear we have been too liberal with our gifts over the past decades: either that, or they’ve captured some hedge-lord’s private cabinet of arms, because I have confirmation that his majesty’s hand-men carry MP5s.’

  (Pause.) ‘All right, so the Pervert’s a hard target. Now. The strategic picture?’

  ‘Certainly, your grace. The enemy has divided his forces into battalion-strength raiding units. They’re in the field and they’re hurting us. It’s a – this is embarrassing – a classic insurgency. The royal battalions fall on our outlying villages, hit them hard, massacre and destroy everything they can get their hands on, then disappear into the forest again. It’s absolutely not how you’d expect an eastern monarch to fight, it’s downright dishonorable – but it’s how the Pervert is fighting. He’s serious, sir, he’s trying to force us to divide our strength. And he’s succeeded. We’ve had to move as many dependents as possible over to the other side, and keep couriers on standby everywhere. And even that’s not enough. We’ve used helicopters to rush armed detachments into position on the other side a couple of times, and it worked on that bastard Lemke – he won’t be burning any more villages – but the more we do it, the greater the risk that the Americans will notice. He’s got us on the defensive, and each time he hits us we either lose a village or we lose men we can’t afford to – and he gains honor. This week I’ve lost eleven dead and fourteen injured badly enough they won’t be fighting again for months. That’s not including the outer family members, dependents, servants, peasants and the like. I think we’ve accounted for a good couple of hundred of the foe, but they’re not stupid: usually the first warning of an attack we have is when a cannonball comes through a manor house door. There’s a limit to what a lance with M16s and a SAW can do against a battalion of dragoons and a cavalry squadron – some of whom have Glocks.’