The Bloodline Feud (Merchant Princes Omnibus 1)

by Charles Stross

  *

  The next morning Paulette arrived back at the house around noon, whistling jauntily. ‘I did it!’ she declared, startling Miriam out of the history book she was working up a headache over. ‘We move in tomorrow!’

  ‘We do?’ Miriam shook her head as Brill came in behind Paulie and closed the door, carefully wiping the snow off her boots on the mat just inside.

  ‘We do!’ Paulette threw something at her; reaching out instinctively, Miriam grabbed a bunch of keys.

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘The office of your dreams, madam chief high corporate executive!’

  ‘You found somewhere?’ Miriam stood up.

  ‘Not only have I found somewhere, I’ve rented it for six months up front.’ Paulette threw down a bundle of papers on the living room table. ‘Look. A thousand square feet of not-entirely-brilliant office space not far from Cambridgeport. The main thing in its favor is a downstairs entrance and a yard with a high wall around it, and access. The parking is on the street, which is a minus. But it was cheap – about as cheap as you can get anything near the waterfront for these days, anyway.’ Paulie pulled a face. ‘Used to belong to a small and not very successful architect’s practice, then they moved out or retired or something and I grabbed a three-year lease.’

  ‘Okay.’ Miriam sighed. ‘What’s the damage?’

  ‘Ten thousand bucks deposit up front, another ten thousand in rent. About eight hundred to get gas and power hooked up, and we’re going to get a lovely bill from We the Peepul in a couple of months, bleeding us hard enough to give Dracula anemia. Anyway, we can move in tomorrow. It could really use a new carpet and a coat of paint inside, but it’s open plan and there’s a small kitchen area.’

  ‘The backyard looked useful,’ Brill said hesitantly.

  ‘Paulie took you to see it?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Brill nodded. Where’d she pick that up from? Miriam wondered: Maybe she was beginning to adjust, after all.

  ‘What did you think of it?’ Miriam asked as Paulette hung her coat up and headed upstairs on some errand.

  ‘That it’s where ordinary people work? There’s nowhere for livestock, not enough light for needlework or spinning or tapestry, not enough ventilation for dyeing or tanning, not enough water for brewing – ’ She shrugged. ‘But it looks very nice. I’ve slept in worse palaces.’

  ‘Livestock, tanning, and fabric all take special types of building here,’ Miriam said. ‘This will be an office. Open plan. For people to work with papers. Hmm. The yard downstairs. What did you think of that?’

  ‘Well. First we went in through a door and up a staircase like that one there, narrow – the royal estate agent, is that right? – took us up there. There’s a room at the top with a window overlooking the stairs, and that is an office for a secretary. I thought it rather sparse, and there was nowhere for the secretary’s guards to stand duty, but Paulie said it was good. Then there is a short passage past a tiny kitchen, to a big office at the back. The windows overlooking the yard have no shutters, but peculiar plastic slats hung inside. And it was dim. Although there were lights in the ceiling, like in the kitchen here.’

  ‘Long lighting tubes.’ Miriam nodded. ‘And the back?’

  ‘A back door opens off the corridor onto a metal fire escape. It goes down into the yard. We went there and the walls are nearly ten feet high. There is a big gate onto the back road, but it was locked. A door under the fire escape opens into a storage shed. I could not see into any other windows from inside the yard. Is that what you wanted to know?’

  Miriam nodded. ‘I think Paulie’s done good. Probably.’ Hope there’s something appropriate on the far side, in ‘world three’, she thought. ‘Okay, I’m going to start on a shopping list of things we need to move in there. If it works out, I’ll start ferrying stuff over to the other side – then make a trip through to the far side, to see if we’re in the right place. If this works, I will be very happy.’ And I won’t have to fork out a second deposit for somewhere more useful, she thought to herself.

  ‘How was your reading?’ Paulie asked, coming downstairs again.

  ‘Confusing.’ Miriam rubbed her forehead. ‘This history book – ’ she tapped the cover of the ‘legal’ one – ‘is driving me nuts.’

  ‘Nuts? What’s wrong with it?’

  ‘Everything!’ Miriam raised her hands. ‘Okay, look. I don’t know much about English history, but it’s got this civil war in the sixteen-forties, goes on and on about some dude called the Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell. I looked him up in Encarta and yes, he’s there, too. I didn’t know the English had a civil war, and it gets better: They had a revolution in 1688, too! Did you know that? I sure didn’t, and it’s not in Encarta – but I didn’t trust it, so I checked Britannica and it’s there. Okay, so England has a lot of history, and it’s all in the wrong order.’

  She sat down on the sofa. ‘Then I got to the seventeen-forties and everything went haywire.’

  ‘Haywire. Like, someone discovered a time machine, went back, and killed their grandfather?’

  ‘Might as well have. The Young Pretender – look, I’m not making these names up – sails over from France in 1745 and invades Scotland. And in this book, he got to crown himself king in Edinburgh.’

  ‘Young pretender – what did he pretend to be?’

  ‘King. Listen, in our world, he did the same – then he marched on London and got himself spanked, hard, by King George. That’s the first King George, not the King George who lost the War of Independence. That was his grandson.’

  ‘I think I need an aspirin,’ said Paulette.

  ‘What this means is that in the far side, England actually lost Scotland in 1745. They fought a war with the Scots in 1746, but the French joined in and whacked their fleet in the channel. So they whacked the French back in the Caribbean, and the Dutch joined in and whacked the Spanish – settling old scores – and then the Brits, while their back was turned. It’s all a crazy mess. And somewhere in the middle of this mess things went wrong, wrong, wrong. According to Britannica, in our world, Great Britain got sucked into something called the Seven Years’ War with France, and signed a peace treaty in 1763. The Brits got to keep Canada but gave back Guadeloupe and pissed off the Germans, uh, Prussians. Whatever the difference is. But according to this looking-glass history, every time the English – not the Brits, there’s no such country – started getting somewhere, the king of Scotland tried to invade – there were three battles in as many years at some place called New Castle. And then somewhere in the middle of this, King George, the second King George, gets himself killed on a battlefield in Germany, and is succeeded by King Frederick, and I am totally lost now because there is no King Frederick in the Encyclopedia Britannica.’

  Miriam stopped. Paulette was looking bright, fascinated – and a million miles away. ‘That was when the French invaded,’ she said.

  ‘Huh?’ Paulie shook her head. ‘The French? Invaded where?’

  ‘England. See, Frederick was the crown prince, right? He got sent over here, to the colonies as a royal governor or something – ‘Prince of the Americas’ – because his stepmother the queen really hated him. So when his father died he was over here in North America – and the French and Scottish simultaneously invaded England. Whose army, and previous king, had just been whacked. And they succeeded.’

  ‘Um, does this mean anything?’ Paulette looked puzzled.

  ‘Don’t you see?’ demanded Miriam. ‘Over on the far side, in world three, there is no United States of America: Instead there’s this thing called New Britain, with a king-emperor! And they’re at war with the French Empire – or cold war, or whatever. The French invaded and conquered the British Isles something like two hundred and fifty years ago, and have held it ever since, while the British royal family moved to North America! I’m still putting it all together. Like, where we had a constitutional congress and declared independence and fought a revolutionary war, they had something called the N
ew Settlement and set up a continental parliament, with a king and a house of lords in charge.’ She frowned. ‘And that’s as much as I understand.’

  ‘Huh.’ Paulette reached out and took the book away from her. ‘I saw you look like that before, once,’ she said. ‘It was when Bill Gates first began spouting about digital nervous systems and the internet. Do you need to go lie down for a bit? Maybe it’ll make less sense in the morning.’

  ‘No, no. Look, I’m trying to figure out what isn’t there. Like, they’ve had a couple of world wars – but fought with wooden sailing ships and airships. There’s a passage at the end of the book about the “miracle of corpuscular transubstantiation” – I think they mean atomic power but I’m not sure. They’ve got the germ theory of disease and steam cars, but I didn’t see any evidence of heavier-than-air flight or antibiotics or gasoline engines. The whole industrial revolution has been delayed – they’re up to about the 1930s in electronics. And the social thing is weird. I saw an opium pipe in that pawnbroker’s, and I passed a bar selling alcohol, but they’re all wearing hats and keeping their legs covered. It’s not like our 1920s, at least not more than skin-deep. And I can’t get a handle on it,’ she added. ‘I’ll just have to go over there again and try not to get myself arrested.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Paulette pulled up a carrier bag and dumped it on the table. ‘I’ve been doing some thinking about that.’

  ‘You have? What about?’

  ‘Well,’ Paulie began carefully, ‘first thing is, nobody can arrest you and hold you if you’ve got one of these lockets, huh? Or the design inside it. Brill – ’

  ‘It’s the design,’ Brilliana said suddenly. ‘It’s the family pattern.’ She glanced at Paulette. ‘I didn’t understand the history either,’ she said plaintively. ‘Some of the men . . .’ she tailed off.

  ‘What about them?’ Asked Miriam.

  ‘They had it tattooed on their arms,’ she said shyly. ‘They said so, anyway. So they could get away if someone caught them. I remember my uncle talking about it once. They even shaved their scalp and tattooed it there in reverse, then grew their hair back – so that if they were imprisoned they could shave in a mirror and use it to escape.’

  Miriam stared at her in slack-jawed amazement. ‘That’s brilliant!’ she said. ‘Hang on – ’ her hand instinctively went to her head. ‘Hmm.’

  ‘You won’t have to shave,’ said Paulie, ‘I know exactly what to do. You know those henna temporary tattoos you can get? There’s this dot-com that takes images you upload and turns them into tattoos, then sends them to you by mail order. They’re supposed to last for a few days. I figure if you put one on the inside of each wrist, then wear something with sleeves that cover it – ’

  ‘Wow.’ Miriam instinctively glanced at the inside of her left wrist, smooth and hairless, unblemished except for a small scar she’d acquired as a child. ‘But you said you’d been thinking about something else.’

  ‘Yup.’ Paulette upended her shopping bag on the table. ‘Behold: a pair of digital walkie-talkies, good for private conversations in a ten-mile radius! And lo, a hands-free kit.’

  ‘This is going to work,’ Miriam said, a curious smile creeping across her face. ‘I can feel it in my bones.’ She looked up. ‘Okay. So tell me, Paulie, what do you know about the history of patent law?’

  *

  It took Miriam another day to work up the nerve to phone Roland. If she went outside she could phone him, either his voice mail or his own real-life ear, and dump all the unwanted complexities of her new life on a sympathetic shoulder. He’d understand: That was half the attraction that had sparked their whirlwind affair. He probably grasped the headaches she was facing better than anyone else, Brill included. Brill was still not much more than a teenager with a sheltered upbringing. But Roland knew just how nasty things could get. If I trust him, she thought. Someone had murdered the watchman and installed the bomb in the warehouse. She’d told Roland about the place, and then . . . Correlation does not imply causation, she reminded herself.

  In the end she compromised, taking the T into town and finding a diner with a good range of exit options before switching on the phone and dialing. That way, even if someone had grabbed Roland and was actively tracing the call, they wouldn’t find her before she hung up. It was raining, and she had a seat next to the window, watching the slug-trails of moisture run down the glass as her latte cooled and she tried to work up her nerve to call him.

  When she dialed, the phone rang five times before he picked it up, a near-eternity in which she changed her mind about the wisdom of calling him several times. ‘Hello?’ he asked.

  ‘Roland. It’s me.’

  ‘Hello, you.’ Concern roughened his voice: ‘I’ve been really worried about you. Where are – ’

  ‘Wait.’ She realized she was breathing too fast, shallow breaths that didn’t seem to be bringing in enough oxygen. ‘You’re on this side. Is anyone with you?’

  ‘No, I’m taking a day off work. Even your uncle gives his troops leave sometimes. He’s been asking about you, though. As if he knows I’ve got some kind of channel to you. When are you going to come in? What have you been doing? Olga had the craziest story – ’

  ‘If it’s about the incident in her apartment, it’s true.’ Miriam stopped, glanced obliquely at the window to check for reflections. There was nobody near her, just a barrista cleaning the coffee machine on the counter at the other side of the room. ‘Is Edsger around? He hasn’t gone missing or anything?’

  ‘Edsger?’ Roland sounded uncertain. ‘What do you know about – ’

  ‘Edsger. Courier on the Boston–New York run.’ Quickly Miriam outlined her encounter with the courier. ‘Did he arrive all right?’

  ‘Yes. I think so.’ Roland paused. ‘So you’re telling me somebody tried to kill you in the warehouse as well?’ A note of anger crept into his voice. ‘When I find out who – ’

  ‘You’ll do nothing,’ Miriam told him. ‘And you’re not going to tell me you can provide security. There’s a mole in the organization, Roland, they’d work around you – and I’ve found out something more interesting. There’s a whole bunch of world-walkers you don’t know about, and they’re coming in from yet another world, where everything’s different. What we were talking about, the whole technology transfer thing, it can work there, too. In fact, that’s what I’m doing now, with Brill. The politics – do you know anything about Baroness Hildegarde’s interests? Olga said she’s going to try to get the Clan committee to declare me incompetent. Before that happens I want to be able to make her look like an idiot. I’m working on the other side, Roland, in the third world, building a front company. So I’m going to stay out of touch for quite a bit longer.’

  ‘Can I see you?’ he asked. A pause. ‘I really think we’ve got a lot to work out. I don’t know about you.’ Another pause. ‘I was hoping we could . . .’

  This was the hardest part. ‘I don’t think so,’ Miriam heard herself saying. ‘I’d love to spend some time with you, but I’ve got so much to do. And there isn’t enough time to do it. I can’t risk you being followed, or Angbard deciding to reel me in too soon. I want to, but – ’

  ‘I get it.’ He sounded despondent.

  ‘I’m not dumping you! It’s just I, I need some time.’ She was breathing too fast again. ‘Later. Give me a week to sort things out, then we’ll see.’

  ‘Oh. A week?’ The distant tone vanished. ‘Okay, a week. I’ll wait it out. You’ll take care of yourself? You’re sure you’re safe where you are?’

  ‘For now,’ Miriam affirmed, crossing her fingers. ‘And I’ll have a lot more to tell you then, I’ll need your advice.’ And everything else. The urge to drop her resolve, grab any chance to see him, was so strong she had trouble resisting. Keep it businesslike, for now. ‘I love you,’ she said impulsively.

  ‘Me too. I mean, I love you, too.’ It came out in a tongue-tied rush, followed by a silence freighted with unspoken qualifications.


  ‘I’d better go,’ she said at last.

  ‘Okay, then.’

  ‘Bye.’ She ended the call and stared bleakly at the rain outside the window. Her coffee was growing cold. Now why did I really say that? She wondered, puzzled: Did I really mean it? She’d said those words before, to her husband – now ex-husband – and she’d meant them at the time. Why did this feel different?

  ‘Damn it, I’m a fool,’ she told herself gloomily, muttering under her breath so that the waitress at the far end of the bar took pains to avoid looking at her. I’m a fool for love, and if I don’t handle this carefully, I could end up a dead fool. Damn it, why did I have to take that locket in the first place?

  The raindrops weren’t answering, so she finished her latte and left.

  *

  She spent the next three days exercising her magic credit card discreetly.

  Angbard hadn’t put a stop on it. Evidently the message had gotten through: Don’t bug me, I’m busy staying alive. A garden shed, a deluxe shooting hide, and enough gas-powered tools to outfit a small farm vanished into the trunk of Miriam’s rental car in repeated runs between Home Depot and Costco and the new office near Cambridgeport. Miriam didn’t much like the office – it had a residual smell of stale tobacco and some strange coffee-colored stains on the carpet that not even an industrial cleaner could get rid of – but she had to admit that it would do.

  They moved a couple of sofa beds into the back room, and paid a locksmith to come around and beef up the door frame with dead-bolts, and install an intruder alarm and closed-circuit TV cameras covering the yard and both entrances. A small fridge and microwave appeared in the kitchen, a television set and video in the front office. Paulette and Miriam groaned at each other about their aches and pains, and even Brill hesitantly joined in the bitching and moaning after they unloaded the flat-pack garden shed. ‘This had better be worth it,’ Miriam said on day three as she swallowed a Tenolol tablet and a chaser of ibuprofen on the back of her lunchtime sub.