The Hidden Family

by Charles Stross

  “Ah.” Burgeson nodded to her. “That is a good choice. It will, however, cost you one pound fourteen and sixpence.”

  “Sure.” Miriam nodded. “Next, I want a history book.”

  “A history book.” He looked at her oddly. “Any particular title?”

  She smiled thinly. “One covering the past three hundred years, in detail.”

  “Hmm.” Burgeson ducked back into the back of the shop. While he was gone, Miriam located a pair of kidskin gloves and a good topcoat. The hats all looked grotesque to her eye, but in the end she settled on something broad-brimmed and floppy, with not too much fur. He returned and dumped a hardbound volume on the glass display case. “You could do worse than start with this. Alfred’s Annals of the New British.”

  “I could.” She stared at it. “Anything else?”

  “Or.” He pulled another book up—bound in brown paper, utterly anonymous, thinner and lighter. “This.” He turned it to face her, open at the fly-leaf.

  “The Hanoverian Exodus Reconsidered”—she bit her lip when she saw the author. “Karl Marx. Hmm. Keep this on the bottom shelf, do you?”

  “It’s only prudent,” he said, apologetically closing it and sliding it under the first book. “I’d strongly recommend it, though,” he added. “Marx pulls no punches.”

  “Right. How much for both of them?”

  “Six shillings for the Alfred, a pound for the Marx—you do realize that simply being caught with a copy of it can land you a flogging, if not five years exile in Canadia?”

  “I didn’t.” She smiled, suppressing a shudder. “I’ll take them both. And the hat, gloves, and coat.”

  “It’s been a pleasure doing business with you, madam,” he said fervently. “When shall I see you again?”

  “Hmm.” She narrowed her eyes. “No need for the money tomorrow. I will not be back for at least five days. But if you want another of those pieces—”

  “How many can you supply?” he asked, slipping the question in almost casually.

  “As many as you need,” she replied. “But on the next visit, no more than two.”

  “Well then.” He chewed his lower lip. “For two, assuming this one tests out correctly and the next do likewise, I will pay the sum of two hundred pounds.” He glanced over his shoulder. “But not all at once. It’s too dangerous.”

  “Can you pay in services other than money?” she asked.

  “It depends.” He raised an eyebrow. “I don’t deal in spying, sedition, or popery.”

  “I’m not in any of those businesses,” she said. “But I’m really, truly, from a long way away. I need to establish a toehold here that allows me to set up an import/export business. That will mean... hmm. Do you need identity papers to move about? Passports? Or to open a bank account, create a company, hire a lawyer to represent me?”

  He shook his head. “From too far away,” he muttered. “God help me, yes to all of those.”

  “Well, then.” She looked at him. “I’ll need papers. Good papers, preferably real ones from real people who don’t need them anymore—not killed, just the usual, a birth certificate from a babe who died before their first birthday,” she added hastily.

  “You warm the cockles of my heart.” He nodded slowly. “I’m glad to see you appear to have scruples. Are you sure you don’t want to tell me where you come from?”

  She raised a finger to her lips. “Not yet. Maybe when I trust you.”

  “Ah, well.” He bowed. “Before you leave, may I offer you a glass of port? Just a little drink to our future business relationship.”

  “Indeed you may.” She smiled, surreptitiously pushing back her glove to check her watch. “I believe I have half an hour to spare before I must depart. My carriage turns back into a pumpkin at midnight.”

  Part 2

  Point Of Divergence

  History Lesson

  “You are telling me that you don’t know where she is?” The man standing by the glass display case radiated disbelief, from his tensed shoulders to his drawn expression.

  Normally the contents of the case—precious relics of the Clan, valuable beyond belief—would have fascinated him, but right now his attention was focused on the bearer of bad news.

  “I told you she’d be difficult.” The duke’s secretary was unapologetic. He didn’t sneer, but his expression was one of thinly veiled impatience. “You are dealing with a woman who was born and raised on the other side; she was clearly going to be a handful right from the start. I told you that the best way to deal with her would be to co-opt her and move her in a direction she was already going in, but you wouldn’t listen. And after that business with the hired killer—”

  “That hired killer was my own blood, I’ll thank you to remember.” Esau’s tone of voice was ominously low.

  “I don’t care whether he was the prince-magistrate of Xian-Ju province, it was dumb! Now you’ve told Angbard’s men that someone outside the Clan is trying to kill her, and you’ve driven her underground, and you’ve ruined her usefulness to me. I had it all taken care of until you attacked her. And then, to go after her but kill the wrong woman by mistake when I had everything in hand ... !”

  “You didn’t tell us she was traveling in company. Or hiding in the lady Olga’s rooms. Nor did we expect Olga’s lady-in-waiting to get nosy and take someone else’s bait. We’re not the only ones to have problems. You said you had her as good as under control?” Esau turned to stare at Matthias. Today the secretary wore the riding-out garb of a minor nobleman of the barbarian east: brocade jacket over long woolen leggings, a hat with a plume of peacock feathers, and riding boots. “You think forging the old man’s will takes care of anything at all? Are you losing your grip?”

  “No.” Matthias rested his hand idly on his sword’s hilt. “Has it occurred to you that as Angbard’s heir she would have been more open to suggestions, rather than less? Wealth doesn’t necessarily translate into safety, you know, and she was clearly aware of her own isolation. I was trying to get her under control, or at least frightened into cooperating, by lining up the lesser families against her and positioning myself as her protector. You spooked her instead, before I could complete the groundwork. You exposed her to too much too soon, and the result is our shared loss. All the more so, since someone—whoever—tried to rub her out with Lady Olga.”

  “And whose fault is it that she got away?” Esau snarled quietly. “Whose little tripwire failed?”

  “Mine, I’ll admit.” Matthias shrugged again. “But I’m not the one around here who’s blundering around in the dark. I really wanted to enlist her in our cause. Willingly or unwillingly, it doesn’t matter. With a recognized heir in our pocket, we could have enough votes that when we get rid of Angbard ... well. If that failed, we’d be no worse off with her dead, but it was hardly a desirable goal. It’s a good thing for you that I’ve got some contingency plans in hand.”

  “If the balance of power in the Clan tips too far toward the Lofstrom-Thorold-Hjorth axis, we risk losing what leverage we’ve got,” warned Esau. “Never mind the old bat’s power play. What did she think she was up to, anyway? If the council suspected ...” He shook his head. “You have to get this back under control. Find her and neutralize her, or we likely lose all the ground we have made in the past two years.”

  “I risk losing a lot more than that,” Matthias reminded him pointedly. “Why did your people try to kill her? She was a natural dissident. More use to us alive than dead.”

  “It’s not for the likes of you to question our goals,” Esau glared.

  Matthias tightened his grip on his sword and turned slowly aside, keeping his eyes on Esau the whole time. “Retract that,” he said flatly.

  “I—” Esau caught his eye. A momentary nod. “Apologize.”

  “We are partners in this,” Matthias said quietly, “to the extent that both our necks are forfeit if our venture comes to light. That being the case, it is essential that I know not only what your organization
’s intended actions are, but why you act as you do—so that I can anticipate future conflicts of interest and avoid them. Do you understand?”

  Esau nodded again. “I told you there might be preexisting orders. There was indeed such an order,” he said reluctantly. “It took time to come to light, that’s all.”

  “What? You mean the order for—gods below, you’re still trying to kill the mother and her infant? After what, a third of a century?”

  It was Esau’s turn to shrug. “Our sanctified elder never rescinded the command, and it is not for us to question his word. Once they learned of the child’s continued existence, my cousins were honor-bound to attempt to carry out the orders.”

  “That’s as stupid as anything I’ve ever heard from the Clan council,” Matthias commented dryly. “Times change, you know.”

  “I know! But where would we be without loyalty to our forefathers?” Esau looked frustrated for a moment. Then he pointed to the glass display case. “Continuity. Without it, what would the Clan be? Or the hidden families?”

  “Without—that?” Matthias squinted, as against a bright light. A leather belt with a curiously worked brass buckle, a knife, a suit of clothes, a leatherbound book. “That’s not the Clan, whatever you think. That’s just where the Clan began.”

  “My ancestor, too, you know.”

  Matthias shook his head. “It wasn’t clever, meeting here,” he murmured.

  “We’re safe enough.” Esau turned his back on the Founder’s relics. “The question is, what are we to do now?”

  “If you can get your relatives to stop trying to kill her, we can try to pin the blame on someone else,” Matthias pointed out. “A couple of candidates suggest themselves, mostly because they have been trying to kill her. If we do that then we can go back to plan A, which you’ll agree is the most profitable outcome of this situation.”

  “Not possible.” Esau draw a finger across his throat. “The elders spoke, thirty-three years ago.”

  Matthias sighed. “Well, if you insist, we can play it your way. But it’s going to be a lot harder, now. I suppose if I can get my hands on her foster-mother that will probably serve as a lure, but it’s going to cost you—”

  “I believe I can arrange a gratuity if you’d take care of this loose end for us. Maybe not on the same scale as owning your own puppet countess, but sufficient recognition of your actions.”

  “Well, that would be capital. I’ll set the signs and alert my agents. At least here’s something we can agree on.”

  “Indeed.”

  Matthias opened the door into the outer receiving room of the cramped old merchant’s house. “Come on.”

  Esau followed Matthias out of the small storeroom and down a narrow staircase that led out into the courtyard of the house. “So what do you propose to do once she’s dead?”

  “Do?” Matthias stopped and stared at the messenger, his expression unreadable. “I’m going to see if I can salvage the situation and go right on as I was before. What did you expect?”

  Esau tensed. “Do you really think you can take control of the Clan’s security—even from your current position—without being an actual inner family member and Clan shareholder?”

  Matthias smiled, for a moment. “Watch me.”

  Gathering twilight

  Miriam hid from the road behind a deadfall half buried in snow while she stripped off her outer garments, her teeth chattering from cold as she pulled on a pair of painfully cold jeans. She folded her outfit carefully into the upper half of her pack, then stacked the disguise she’d started out wearing in the morning on top. Then she unfolded and secured the bike. Finally she hooked the bulky night-vision glasses around her face—like wearing a telescope in front of each eye, she thought—zipped the seam in the backpack that turned it into a pair of panniers, slung them over the bike, and set off.

  The track flew past beneath her tires, the crackle of gravel and occasional pop of a breaking twig loud in the forest gloom. The white coating that draped around her seemed to damp out all noise, and the clouds above were huge and dark, promising to drop a further layer of fine powdery snow across the scene before morning.

  Riding a bike wasn’t exactly second nature, but the absence of other traffic made it easier to get to grips with. The sophisticated gears were a joy to use, making even the uphill stretches at least tolerable. Seven-league boots, she thought dreamily. The other town, whatever it was called, not-Boston, was built for legs and bicycles. She’d have to buy one next time she went there, whenever that was. Despite her toast to the prospects of future business with Burgeson, she had her reservations. Poor Laws, Sedition Acts, and a cop who obligingly gave directions to a clearly bent pawnbroker—it added up to a picture that made her acutely nervous. It’s so complex! What did he mean, there’s no Scotland? Until I know what their laws and customs are like it’s going to be too dangerous to go back.

  The miles spun by. After an hour and a half Miriam could feel them in her calf muscles, aching with every push on the pedals—but she was making good speed, and by the time darkness was complete the road dipped down toward the coast, paralleling the Charles River. Eventually she turned a corner, taking her into view of a hunched figure squatting by the roadside.

  Miriam braked hard, jumped off the bike. “Brill?” she asked.

  “Miriam?” Brill’s face was a bright green pool in the twilight displayed by her night goggles. “Is that you?”

  “Yes.” Miriam walked closer, then flicked her goggles up and pulled out a pocket flashlight. “Are you okay?”

  “Frozen half to death.” Brill smiled shakily. “But otherwise unharmed.”

  A vast wave of relief broke over Miriam. “Well, if that’s all...”

  “This cloak lining is amazing,” Brill added. “The post house is just past the next bend. I’ve only been waiting for an hour. Shall we go?”

  “Sure.” Miriam glanced down. “I’d better change, first.” It was the work of a few minutes to disassemble the bike, pull on her outfit over her trousers, and turn the bike and panniers into a backpack disguised by a canvas cover. “Let’s get some dinner,” Miriam suggested.

  “Your magic goggles, and lantern,” Brill coughed discreetly.

  “Oh. Of course.” Together they fumbled their way through the darkness toward the promise of food and a bed, be it ever so humble.

  Almost exactly twenty-four hours later, Paulette’s doorbell chimed. “Who is it?” she called from behind the closed door.

  “It’s us! Let us in!” She opened the door. Brill stumbled in first, followed by Miriam. “Trick or treat?”

  “Trick.” Paulette stood back. “Hey, witchy!”

  “It is, isn’t it.” Miriam closed the door. “It itches, too. I don’t know how to put this discreetly—have you got any flea spray?”

  “Fleas! Away with you!” Paulette held her nose. “How did it go?”

  “I’ll tell you in a few minutes. Over a coffee, once I’ve made it to the bathroom—oh shit.” Miriam stared up the staircase at Brilliana’s vanishing feet. “Well at least that’s sorted.” She dropped her pack onto the carpet; it landed with a dull thump. “’Scuse me, but I am going to strip. It’s an emergency.”

  “Wait right there,” said Paulie, hurrying upstairs.

  By the time she returned, bearing a T-shirt and a pair of sweats from the luggage, Miriam had her boots off and was down to outer garments. “Damn, central heating,” she said wonderingly. “There’s nothing to make you appreciate it like three days in a Massachusetts winter without it. Well, two and a half.”

  “Did you got where you wanted to go?” Paulie asked, pausing.

  “Yeah.” Miriam cracked a wide, tired grin.

  “Give me five, baby!”

  High fives were all very well, but when Miriam winced Paulette got the message. “Use the living room,” she said. “Get the hell out of those rags and then go up to my bedroom, okay? You can use the bedroom shower.”

  “You’re
a babe, babe.” Miriam nodded. She pulled a face. “Oh shit. I think I’m coming on.”

  “That’s no fun. Look, go. I’ll sort the mess out later, ’kay?”

  An hour later Miriam—infinitely warmer and cleaner—sat curled at one end of Paulette’s living room sofa with a mug of strong tea. Brill, wrapped in a borrowed bathrobe, sat at the other end. “So tell me, how was your walk in the woods?” Paulette asked Brill. “Meet any bears?”

  “Bears?” Brill looked puzzled. “No, and a good thing—” she caught Miriam’s eye. “Oh. No, it was uneventful.”

  “Well then.” Paulie focused on Miriam. “You had more luck, huh? Not just a walk in the woods?”

  “Well, apart from Brill half freezing to death while I was trying not to get arrested, it was fine.”

  “Getting. Arrested.” Paulette picked up the teapot and poured herself a mug. “You’re not getting away with that, Beckstein. Didn’t they accept your press pass or something?”

  “It’s Boston, but not as we know it,” Miriam explained. “Uh, about two miles southeast of here I found myself on the edge of town. They speak English and they drive automobiles, but that’s about as far as the similarities go.” She pulled out her dictaphone and turned the volume up: “Zeppelin overhead, with a British flag on it! Uh, four propellers, sounds like diesel engines. There goes another steam car. They seem to make them big deliberately, I don’t think I’ve seen anything smaller than a fifty-eight Caddy yet.”