The Merchants' War: Book Four of the Merchant Princes

by Charles Stross

  He tried to focus, but overhead the stars were graying out, one by one: shock, blood loss, and morphine conspired to put him under. But unlike the others, he was still alive when the Clan soldiers covering the escape of their leaders from the Thorold Palace reached the killing zone and paused to check the identity of the victims.

  3

  Security Breaches

  Angbard’s bad day started out deceptively, with a phone call that he had taken for a positive development at first. It was not until later, when events began to spin out of control, that he recognized it for what it was–the very worst disaster to befall the Clan during his tenure as chief of external security.

  This week his grace was staying on the other side, in a secluded mansion in upstate New York that he had acquired from the estate of a deceased record producer who had invested most of the money his bands had earned in building his own unobtrusive shrine to Brother Eater. (Not that they used the Hungry God’s true name in this benighted land, but the principle was the same.) The heavily wooded hundred-acre lot, discreet surveillance and security fittings, and the soundproofed basement rooms that had once served as a recording studio, all met with the duke’s approval. So did the building’s other-side location, a hilly bluff in the wilds of the Nordmarkt that had been effectively doppelgangered by a landslide until his men had tunneled into it to install the concealed exits, supply dumps, and booby-trapped passages that safety demanded.

  Of course the location wasn’t perfect in all respects—in Nordmarkt it was a good ten miles from the nearest highway, itself little more than an unpaved track, and in its own world it was a good fifty-minute drive outside Rochester—but it met with most of his requirements, including the most important one of all: that nobody outside his immediate circle of retainers knew where it was.

  These were desperate times. The defection of the duke’s former secretary, Matthias, had been a catastrophe for his personal security. He had been forced to immediately quarantine all his former possessions in the United States, the private jet along with the limousines and the houses: all out of reach for now, all contaminated by Matthias’s insidiously helpful management. He had holdouts, of course, the personal accounts held with offshore institutions that not even his secretary had known about—Duke Lofstrom had grown up during a time of bloody-handed paranoia, and never completely trusted anyone–but by his best estimate, it had cost him at least one hundred and twenty-six million dollars. And that was just how much it had cost him, as an individual. To the Clan as a whole, this disaster had cost upwards of two billion dollars. It was not beyond the realm of possibility that some of the more angry or desperate cousins might try to take their share out of his hide.

  Events started with a phone call shortly after 11 p.m. Or rather, they started with what passed for a phone call where the duke was concerned: although he received it on an old-fashioned handset, it arrived at the safe house by a circuitous route involving a very off-the-books patch into the local phone company exchange, dark fiber connections between anonymous Internet hosts, and finally an encrypted data call to a stolen mobile phone handset. Angbard, Duke Lofstrom, might write his personal correspondence with a fountain pen and leave the carrying of mobile phones to his subordinates, but his communications security was the best that the Clan’s money could buy.

  When the phone rang, the duke had just finished dining with the lords-comptrollers of the Post Office: the two silver-haired eminences who were responsible for the smooth running of the Clan’s money-making affairs to the same degree that he was responsible for their collective security. The brandy had been poured, the last plates removed, and he had been looking forward to a convivial exploration of the possibilities for expansion in the new territories when there was a knock on the dining room side door.

  “Excuse me,” he nodded to his lordship, Baron Griben ven Hjalmar, causing him to pause in mid-flow: “Enter!”

  It was Carlos, one of his security detail, looking apologetic. “The red telephone, my lord. It’s ringing in your office.”

  “Ah.” The duke glanced at his dining companions: “I must apologize, perforce, but this requires my immediate attention. I shall return presently.”

  “Surely, sir.” Baron ven Hjalmar raised his glass: “By all means!” He smiled indulgently.

  The duke rose and left the table without further ado. On his way out, Carlos took up the rear. “Who is it?” he asked as soon as the dining room door had closed behind them.

  “The officer of the day in the Thorold Palace has just declared an emergency. The signal is Tango Mike. He crossed over to report in person. He’s on the phone now.”

  The duke swore. “Who is he? On the duty roster?” The officer of the day was the Clan member entrusted with ensuring the security of Clan members in their area, and he would not cross over to the other world to make a report—effectively abandoning their post, if only for a few minutes—without a very good reason.

  “I believe it’s Oliver, Earl Hjorth.”

  The duke swore again. Then they were at his office door. He picked up the telephone before he sat down. “Put him through.” His face fell unconsciously into an odd, pained expression: Oliver was a member of his half-sister’s mother’s coterie, an intermittent thorn in his side—but not one that he could remove without unpleasant consequences. What made it even worse was that Oliver was competent and energetic. If it wasn’t for Hildegarde’s malign influences, he might be quite useful…“Good evening, Baron. I gather you have some news for me.”

  A quarter of an hour later, when he put the phone down, the duke’s expression was, if anything, even more stony. He turned to stare at Carlos, who stood at parade rest by the door. “Please inform their lordships ven Hjalmar and Ijsselmeer that I deeply regret to inform them that there has been a development that requires—” He paused, allowing his head to droop. “Let me rephrase. Please inform them that an emergency has developed and I would appreciate their assistance, in their capacity as representatives of the Post Office board, in conducting a preliminary assessment of the necessary logistic support for execution of the crisis plan in the affected areas. Then bring them here.” He sighed deeply, then looked up. “Go on.”

  “Sir.” Carlos swerved through the door and was gone.

  The duke half-smiled at the closing door. The fellow was probably scared out of his wits by whatever he’d overheard of the duke’s conversation with Earl Hjorth. Who should, by now, be back in Niejwein, and organizing his end of the crisis plan. The duke shook his head again. “Why now?” He muttered to himself. Then he picked up the phone and dialed the digit 9. “Get me Mors. Yes, Mors Hjalmar. And Ivan ven Thorold. Teleconference, right now, I don’t care if they’re in bed or unavailable, tell them it’s an emergency.” He thought for a moment. “I want every member of the council who is in this world on the line within no more than one hour. Tell them it’s an emergency meeting of the Clan council, on my word, by telephone.” This was unprecedented; emergency meetings were themselves a real rarity, the last having been one he’d called at the behest of his niece barely six months ago. “And if they don’t want to make time, tell them I’ll be very annoyed with them.”

  Angbard hung up the phone and settled down to wait. A knock at the door: one of his men opened it. “Sir, their lordships—”

  “Send them in. Then fetch a speakerphone.” Angbard rose, and half-bowed to Hjalmar and Ijsselmeer. “I must apologize for the informality, but there has been an unfortunate development in the capital. If you would both please be seated, I will arrange for coffee in a minute.”

  Hjalmar found his voice first; diffidently—incongruously, too, for he was a big bear of a man—he asked: “is something the matter?”

  Angbard grinned. “Of course something is the matter!” he agreed, almost jovially. “It’s the crown prince!”

  “What? Has Egon had an accident—”

  “In a manner of speaking.” Angbard sat down again, leaning back in his chair. “Egon has just murd
ered his own father and brother, not to mention Henryk and my niece Helge and a number of other cousins, at the occasion of his brother’s betrothal. He’s sent troops to lay siege to the Thorold Palace and he’s issuing letters of attainder against us, promising our land to anyone who comes to his aid.” Angbard’s grin turned shark-like. “He’s made his bid at last, gentlemen. The old high families have decided to cast their lot in with him, and we can’t be having that. An example will have to be made. King Egon the Third is going to have one of the shortest reigns on record—and I’m calling this meeting because we need to establish who we’re going to put on the throne once Egon is out of the way.”

  Hjalmar blanched. “You’re talking about high treason!”

  The old scar on Angbard’s cheek twitched. “It’s never treason if you win.” His smile faded into a frown and he made a steeple of his fingers. “And I don’t know about you gentlemen, but I see no alternative. Unless we are to hang—and I mean that entirely literally—we must grasp the reins of power directly. And the very first thing we must do is remove the usurper from the throne he’s claimed.”

  Morning in Boston: a thick fog, stinking of coal dust and burned memories, swirled down the streets between the brown brick houses, blanketing the pavement and forming eddies in the wake of the streetcars. Behind a grimy window in a tenement flat on Holmes Alley a man coughed in his sleep, snorted, then twitched convulsively. The distant factory bells tolled dolorously as he rolled over, clutching the battered pillow around his head. It was an hour past dawn when a bell of a different kind broke through his torpor, tinkling in the hallway outside the kitchen.

  The gaunt, half-bald man sat up and rubbed his eyes, which fastened on a cheap tin alarm clock that had stopped, its hands mockingly pointed at the three and the five on the dial. He focused on it blearily and swore, just as the doorbell tinkled again.

  For someone so tall and thin, Erasmus Burgeson could move rapidly. In two spidery strides he was at the bedroom door, nightgown flapping around his ankles; three more strides and his feet were on the chilly stone slabs of the staircase down to the front door. Upon reaching which he rattled the chain and drew back the bolts, finally letting the door slide an inch ajar. “Who is it?” he demanded hoarsely as an incipient wheeze caught his ribs in its iron fist.

  “Post Office electrograph for a Mister Burgeson?” piped a youthful voice. Erasmus looked down. It was, indeed, a Post Office messenger urchin, barefoot in the cold but wearing the official cap and gloves of that institution, and carrying a wax-sealed envelope. “Thruppence-ha’penny to pay?”

  “Wait one.” He turned and fumbled behind the door for his overcoat, in one pocket of which he always kept some change. Three and a half pence was highway robbery for an electrograph: the fee had gone up two whole pennies in the past year, a sure sign that the Crown was desperate for revenue. “Here you are.”

  The urchin shoved the envelope through the door and dashed off with his money, obviously eager to make his next delivery. Burgeson shut and bolted the door, then made his way back upstairs, this time plodding laboriously, a little wince crossing his face with each cold stone step. His feet were still warm and oversensitive from bed: with the fire embargo in effect on account of the smog, the chill of the stairs bit deep into his middle-aged bones.

  At the top step he paused, finally giving in to the retching cough that had been building up. He inspected his handkerchief anxiously: there was no blood. Good. It was nearly two months, now, and the cough was just the normal wheezing of a mild asthmatic caught out by one of Boston’s notorious yellow-gray smogs. Erasmus placed the electrograph envelope on the stand at the top of the staircase and shuffled into the kitchen. The cooking range was cold, but the new, gas-fired samovar was legal: he lit it off, then poured water into the chamber and, while it was heating, took the bottle of miracle medicine from the back of the cupboard and took two more of the strange cylindrical pills.

  Miriam had given him the pills, three months ago, last time she’d visited. He’d barely dared believe her promises, but they seemed to be working. It was almost enough to shake his belief in the innate hostility of the universe. People caught the white death and they died coughing up their lungs in a bloody foam, and that was it. It happened less often these days, but it was still a terror that stalked the camps north of the Great Lakes—and there was no easy cure. Certainly nothing as simple as taking two tablets every morning for six months! And yet…I wonder where she is? Erasmus pondered, not for the first time: probably busying herself trying to make another world a better place.

  The water was close to boiling. He spooned loose tea into the brewing chamber then wandered over to the window, squinting against the smog-diffused daylight in hope of glimpsing one of the neighborhood clock towers. He’d have to wind and reset the alarm once he’d worked out by how long it had betrayed him. Still, nobody had jangled the bell-pull tied to the shop door handle while he was sleeping like a log. Business had boomed over the springtime and early summer, but things had fallen ominously quiet lately—nobody seemed to have the money to buy their possessions back out of hock, and indeed, nobody seemed to be buying much of anything. Even the local takers were slacking off on enforcing the vagrancy laws. Things seemed alright in the capital whenever his other business took him there to visit—the rich man’s cup spilleth over; the poor man gets to suck greedily on the hem of the tablecloth—and the munitions factories were humming murderously along, but wages were being cut left and center as the fiscal crisis deepened and the banks called in their loans and the military buildup continued.

  Finally the water began hissing and burbling up into the brewing chamber. Erasmus gave up on staring out the window and went in search of his favorite mug. A vague memory of having left it in the lounge drew him into the passage, between the bookcases stacked above head-height with tracts and treatises and rants, and as he passed the staircase he picked up the letter and carried it along. The mug he found sitting empty on top of a pyramid of antinomianist-utilitarian propaganda tracts and a tottering pile of sheet music.

  Back in the kitchen, he spooned rough sugar into the mug. The samovar was still hissing like a bad-natured old cat, so he slit open the electrograph’s seal while he was waiting for it to finish brewing. The letter within had been cast off a Post Office embosser, but the words had been composed elsewhere. YOUR SISTER IN GOOD HANDS DURING CONFINEMENT STOP MIDWIFE OPTIMISTIC STOP WHY NOT VISIT STOP BISHOP ENDS.

  His eyebrows furrowed as he stared at the slip of paper, his morning tea quite forgotten. Nobody in the movement would entrust overtly coded messages to the government’s postal service; the trick was to use electrographs for signaling and the movement’s own machinery for substantive communications. But this wasn’t a prearranged signal, which made it odd. He’d had a sister once, but she’d died when he was six years old: what this was telling him was that Lady Bishop wanted him to visit her in New London. He stared at it some more. It didn’t contain her double cross marker—if she’d signed her first name to a signal it would mean I’ve been captured—and it did contain her negative marker—if a message contained an odd number of words that meant I am at liberty. But it wasn’t a scheduled meeting: however he racked his brains he couldn’t think of anything that might warrant such an urgent summons, or the disruption to his other duties.

  Does this mean we have a breach? He put the treacherous message down on the kitchen table and turned off the gas, then poured boiling hot tea into his mug. If Margaret’s been taken, it’s a catastrophe. And if she hasn’t—gears spun inside his mind, grinding through the long list of possibilities. Whatever the message meant, he needed to be on a train to the capital as soon as possible.

  An hour later, Erasmus was dressed and ready to travel, disguised as himself (electrograph in wallet, along with ID papers). He carefully shut off the gas supply and, going downstairs, hung up the CLOSED DUE TO ILLNESS sign in the shop window. It needed no explanation to such folk as knew him, and in any case the Pol
is had been giving him a wide berth of late, ever since his relapse in their cells. They probably think I’m out of the struggle for good, he told himself, offering it as a faint prayer. If he could ever shed the attention he’d attracted, what use he could make of anonymity with his age and guile!

  It took him some time to get to the new station besides the Charles River, but once there he discovered that the mid-morning express had not yet departed, and seats in second class were still available. And that wasn’t his only good fortune. As he walked along the pier past the streamlined engine he noticed that it had none of the normal driving wheels and pistons, but multiple millipede-like undercarriages and a royal coat of arms. Then he spotted the string of outrageously streamlined carriages strung out along the track behind it, and the way the gleaming tractor emitted a constant gassy whistling sound, like a promise from the far future. It was one of the new turbine-powered trains that had been all the talk of the traveling classes this summer. Erasmus shook his head. This was unexpected: he’d hoped to reach New London for dinner, but if what he’d heard about these machines were true he might arrive in time for late lunch.

  His prognostications were correct. The train began to move as he settled down behind a newspaper, accelerating more like an electric streetcar than any locomotive he’d been on, and minutes later it was racing through the Massachusetts countryside as fast as an air packet.

  Burgeson found the news depressing but compelling. Continental Assembly Dismissed! screamed the front page headline. Budget Deadlock Unresolved. The king had, it seemed, taken a right royal dislike to his Conservative enemies in the house, and their dastardly attempts to save their scrawny necks by raising tariffs to pay for the Poor Law rations at the expense of the Navy. Meanwhile, the rocketing price of Persian crude had triggered a run on oil futures and threatened to deepen the impending liquidity crisis further. Given a choice between a rock and a hard place—between the need to mobilize the cumbersome and expensive apparatus of continental defense in the face of French aggression, and the demands of an exhausted Treasury and the worries of bondholders—the king had gone for neither, but had instead dismissed the quarrelsome political mosquitoes who kept insisting that he make a choice between guns and butter. It would have struck Erasmus as funny if he wasn’t fully aware that it meant thousands were going to starve to death in the streets come winter, in Boston alone—and that was ignoring the thousands who would die at sea and on foreign soil, because of the thrice-damned stupid assassination of the young prince.