The Merchants' War: Book Four of the Merchant Princes

by Charles Stross

  Dear Brill, I survived the massacre at the palace by fleeing into New Britain. I have vital information about a threat to us all. Can you arrange an interview with my uncle? If so, I will make contact on my return to Boston (not less than seven days from now).

  Folding it neatly, she slid the note into an envelope and addressed it, painstakingly carefully, in a language she was far from easy with.

  Next, she took another sheet of paper and jotted down instructions upon it. This she placed, along with a folded six-shilling note, inside another envelope with a different name and address upon it.

  Finally, she took the locket from under her pillow, and copied the design onto the envelope, making a neat sketch of it in place of a postage stamp—taking pains to cover each side of the knotwork as she drew the other half, so that she couldn’t accidentally visualize the whole.

  And then she waited.

  Dunedin was the best part of a thousand miles from New London, a good nine hundred from Boston—the nearest city in her own world to it was Joliet. In this world, with no Chicago, Dunedin had grown into a huge metropolis, the continental hub where railroad and canal freight met on the southern coast of the great lakes. There was a Clan post office in Joliet, and a small fort in the unmapped forests of the world the Clan came from—a no-man’s-land six hundred miles west of the territory claimed by the eastern marcher kingdoms—and now a post office in Dunedin too, a small house in the suburbs where respectable-looking men came and went erratically. Miriam had been there before, had even committed the address to memory for her courier runs: an anonymous villa in a leafy suburb. But the train would only pause for half an hour to change locomotives; she wouldn’t have time to deliver it herself.

  Eventually she heard shuffling and muttering from the other side of the door—and then a tentative knock. “Who is it?” she called.

  “Breakfast time.” It was Erasmus. “Are you decent?”

  “Sure.” She pulled on her shoes and stood up, opening the through door. The folding bunk was stowed: Erasmus looked to have been up for some time. He smiled, tentatively. “The steward will bring us our breakfast here, if you like. Did you sleep well?”

  Miriam yawned. “About as well as can be expected.” She steeled herself: “I need to post a letter when we get to Dunedin.”

  “You do?”

  She nodded. The chair opposite the bench seat was empty, so she sat in it. “It’s to, to one of my relatives who I have reason to trust, asking if it’s safe for me to make contact.”

  “Ah.” Erasmus nodded slowly. “You didn’t mention where you are or where you’re going?”

  “Do I look stupid?” She shrugged. “I told Brill to be somewhere in a week’s time, and I’d make contact. She wasn’t at the royal reception so she’s probably still alive, and if she gets the letter at all she’s in a position to act on it. In any event, I don’t expect the letter to reach her immediately, it’ll take at least a couple of days.”

  “That would be—ah.” He nodded. “Yes, I remember her. A very formidable young woman.”

  “Right.” Miriam managed a smile. “If she shows up in Boston in a week’s time, you’ll know what it means. If she tells me it’s safe to come in from the cold, then and only then I’ll be able to talk to my relatives. So. What do you think?”

  “I think you ought to send that letter.” Erasmus nodded again. “What will you do if a different relative shows up looking for you?”

  “That’s when I have to go to ground.” She twitched: “I’ve got to try. Otherwise I’ll end up spending the rest of my life looking over my shoulder, always keeping an eye open for assassins.”

  “Who doesn’t?” he said ironically, then reached up and pulled the bell rope. “The steward will post the letter for you. Now let’s get some breakfast…”

  12

  Surprise Party

  Despite the summer heat, the grand dining hall in the castle harbored something of a damp chill. Perhaps it was the memory of all the spilled blood that had run like water down the years: despite the eighty-degree afternoon outside, the atmosphere in the hall made Eorl Riordan shiver.

  “Erik, Carl, Rudi. Your thoughts?”

  Carl cleared his throat. Unlike the other two, he was attired in local style, although his chain shirt would have won few plaudits at a Renaissance Faire on the other side. Machine-woven titanium links backing a Kevlar breastplate and U.S. Army–pattern helmet—the whole ensemble painted in something not unlike urban camo pattern—would send entirely the wrong, functional message. Even without the P90 submachine gun strapped to his chest, and the sword at his hip.

  “I think he’d be stupid to invest us. The fort’s built well, nobody’s ever taken it in the past three hundred years, and it has a commanding view of the river and land approaches. Even with cannon, it’ll take him a while to breach the outer curtains. I’ve inspected the outer works and Villem was right—we’ve got a clear field of beaten fire over the six hundred yards around the apron. If he had American artillery, maybe, or if we give him time to emplace bombards behind the ridge line—but a frontal investment would be a fruitless waste of lives. And the pretender may be many things, but I will not insult his victims by calling him stupid.”

  “What about treachery?” asked Erik. A younger ClanSec courtier of the goatee-and-dreadlocks variety, his dress was GAP-casual except for the Glock, the saber, and the bulky walkie-talkie hanging from his belt.

  Eorl Riordan looked disapproving. “That’s only one of the possibilities.” He held up a hand and began counting off fingers. “One, the pretender really is stupid, or has taken leave of his senses. Two, it’s a tactical diversion, planned to tie us up defending a strategic necessity while he does something else. Three, treachery. Four, weapons or tactics we haven’t anticipated. Five…two or more of the above. My assessment of the Pretender is the same as yours, Sieur Carl: He’s crazy like a rat. I forgot to bring a sixth finger, so kindly use your imaginations—but I think he is playing a game with the duke’s intelligence, and he wants us here for some reason that will not rebound to our benefit. So. Let’s set up a surprise, shall we? Rudi, how are the scouts doing?”

  “Nothing to report.” Rudi was another of the younger generation, wiry and gangling in hoodie and cutoffs. “They’re checking in regularly but we’ve only got twelve of them between here and Isjlemeer: he could march an army between them and we might never know. I can’t give you what you want unless you let me use Butterfly, whatever the duke thinks of it.” He grinned, knowingly.

  Riordan snorted. “You and your kite. You know about the duke’s…feelings?”

  “Yep.” Rudi just stood there, hands in pockets. Riordan, about to take him to task, noticed the oversized watch on Rudi’s skinny left arm and paused. “It’s too late to get started today but, weather permitting, I could give you what you want tomorrow.”

  It was a tempting offer. Riordan considered it. Normally he’d have been down on the ass of a junior officer who suggested such a thing like a mountain lion, but he’d been given a very specific job to get done, and Rudi wasn’t wrong. He made a quick executive decision. “You can do your thing tomorrow on my authority, if we haven’t made contact first. The duke will forget to be angry if you get results. But.” He shook a finger at Rudi: “There will be consequences if you make an exhibition of your craft. Do you understand?”

  “Uh, yes, sir. There won’t be any problems. Apart from the weather, and, worst case, we’ve still got the scouts.”

  “Go get it ready,” Riordan said tersely. Rudi nodded, almost bowing, and scurried out of the room in the direction of the stables. Riordan didn’t need telepathy to know what was going through his mind: the duke had almost hit the roof back when Rudi had first admitted to smuggling his obsession across, one component at a time, and it had been all Riordan and Roland had been able to do to talk Angbard out of burning the machine and giving the lad a severe flogging. It wasn’t Rudi’s fault that forty years ago a premature attempt to int
roduce aviation to the Gruinmarkt had triggered a witchcraft panic—superstitious peasants and “dragons” were a volatile combination—but his pigheaded persistence in trying to get his ultralight off the ground flew in the face of established security doctrine. Riordan glanced at Carl. “Yes, I know. But I don’t think it can make the situation any worse at this point, and it might do some good. Now, the defensive works. We’ve got a couple of hours to go until sunset. Think your men will be expecting a surprise inspection…?”

  Brill realized she was being watched as soon as she turned to lock the front door of the shop behind her.

  She’d spent a frustrating hour in Burgeson’s establishment. The monitor on the door was working exactly as intended—she couldn’t fault Morgan for that—but the fact remained, it hadn’t been triggered. And it didn’t take her long to figure out that somebody had been in the shop recently. The drawers in the desk in the back office were open, someone had been rummaging through the stock, and the dust at the top of the cellar stairs was disturbed. She’d looked down the steps into the darkness and cursed, realizing exactly what had happened. Morgan had secured the front door, and even the back door onto the yard behind the shop, but it hadn’t occurred to him that a slippery customer like Burgeson might have a rat run out through the cellar. Better check it out, she thought grimly, extracting a pocket flashlight from her handbag.

  The cellar showed more signs of recent visitors: disturbed dust, a suspicious freshness to the air. She glanced around tensely, aiming the flashlight left-handed at the nooks and crannies of the cellar. The floor…she focused the beam, following a scuffed trail in the dust. Right. The trail led through a side door into another cellar room full of furniture, and dead-ended against a wooden cabinet full of labeled cloth bundles. Brill walked towards it, staring. The back of the cabinet was dark, too dark. “Clever,” she muttered, peering past a bundle: there was a gap between the cabinet and the side wall, and behind it, she saw another wall—two feet farther in. The smell of dust, and damp, and something else—something oily and aromatic, naggingly familiar—tugged at her nostrils. She took a sharp breath, then slipped behind the cabinet and edged along it, through the hole in the bricks at the other end of the cellar, into the tunnel. There was a side door into another, hidden back room: the smell was stronger here. Tarpaulins covered wooden barrels, a thin layer of dust caking them. She raised a cover, glanced inside, and nodded to herself. If someone—Burgeson? Miriam?—hadn’t left the back door open, the smell wouldn’t have given it away, but down here the stink of oiled metal was almost overpowering. She let the tarp fall, then slid back out of the concealed storeroom. So Miriam keeps dangerous company, she reminded herself, her lips quirking in a faint smile. Maybe that’s no bad thing right now.

  But it certainly wasn’t a good thing, and as she turned to lock the front door she paid careful attention to the reflections in the window panes in front of her. Maybe it was pure coincidence that a fellow in a threadbare suit was lounging at the corner of the alley, and maybe it wasn’t, but with at least twenty rifles stashed in that one barrel alone, Brill wasn’t about to place any bets. She walked away briskly, whistling quietly to herself—let any watchers hurry to keep up—and turned left into the high street. There were more people here, mostly threadbare men hanging around the street corners in dispirited knots, some of them holding out hats or crudely lettered signs. She paused a couple of doors down the street to glance in a shop window, checking for movement behind her. Alley Rat was trying to look inconspicuous about fifty feet behind her, standing face-to-cheek with one of the beggars who wore a shapeless cloth hat and frayed fingerless gloves as gray as his face.

  Tail. Brill tensed, glancing up the street. “How annoying,” she murmured aloud. There were no streetcars in sight, but plenty of alleyways. Worse than annoying, she added to herself as she thrust her right hand into her bag. Try to shed him, first…

  She started moving again, hurrying, letting her stride lengthen. She glanced over her shoulder—no advantage to be gained in hiding her awareness now, if she needed cover from civilians she could just say she was being chased—and spotted Mr. Threadbare and Mr. Hat blundering towards her, splitting in a classic pincer. Most of the bystanders had evaporated or were feigning inattention—nobody wanted to be an audience for this kind of street theater. Brill took a deep breath, stepped backwards until she came up against the brick wall of a shop, then held her handbag out towards Mr. Hat, who was now less than twenty feet away. “Stop right there,” she said pleasantly, and when he didn’t, she shot him twice. The hand bag jerked, but the suppressor and the padding kept the noise down to the level of an enthusiastic hand clap. She winced slightly and shook her wrist to dislodge a hot cartridge as Mr. Hat went to one knee, a look of utter surprise on his face, and she spun sideways to bear on Mr. Threadbare. “Stop, I said.”

  Mr. Threadbare stopped. He began to draw breath. She focused on him, noting absently that Mr. Hat was whimpering quietly and slumping sideways against a shop front, moving one hand to his right thigh. “Who do you think—”

  Brill jerked her hand sideways and shot Mr. Hat again. He jerked and dropped the stubby pistol he’d been drawing, and she had her bag back on Mr. Threadbare before he could reach inside his jacket. “If you want to live, you will walk ten feet ahead of me,” she said, fighting for calm, nerves screaming: Where’s their backup? Clear the zone! “Move.”

  Mr. Threadbare twitched at Mr. Hat: “But he’s—”

  An amateur. Brill tensed up even more: amateurs were unpredictable. “Move!”

  Mr. Threadbare moved jerkily, like a puppet in the hands of a trainee. He couldn’t take his eyes off Mr. Hat, who was bleeding quite copiously. Brill circled round the target and toed the gun away from him, in the direction of the gutter. Then she gestured Mr. Threadbare ahead of her, along the sidewalk. For a miracle, nobody seemed to have noticed the noise. Mr. Threadbare shuffled slowly: Brill glanced round quickly, then nodded to herself. “Left into the next alleyway.”

  “But you—”

  She closed the gap between them and pushed the gun up against the small of his back. “Don’t turn. Keep walking.” He was shaking, she noticed, and his voice was weak. “Left here. Stop. Face the wall. Closer. That’s right. Raise your right hand above your head. Now raise your left.” Nobody in the alley, no immediate witnesses if she had to world-walk. “Who do you work for?”

  “But I—” He flinched as brick dust showered his face.

  “That’s your last warning. Tell me who you work for.”

  “Red Hand thief-taker’s company. You’re in big trouble, miss, Andrew was a good man and if you’ve killed—”

  “Be quiet.” He shut up. “You tailed me. Why?”

  “You burgled the pawnbroker’s—”

  “You were watching it. Why?”

  “We got orders. The Polis—”

  Thief-takers—civilian crime prevention, mostly private enterprise—working for the polis—government security? “What were you watching for?” She asked.

  “Cove called Burgeson, and some dolly he’s traveling with. He’s Wanted, under the Sedition Act. Fifty pounds on his head and the old firm’s taking an interest, isn’t it?”

  “Is it now?” Brill found herself grinning, teeth bared. In the distance, a streetcar bell clanged. “Kneel.”

  “But I told you—”

  “I said, kneel. Keep your hands above your head. Look away, dammit, that way, yes, over there. I want you to close your eyes and count to a hundred, slowly. One, two, like that, I’ll be counting too. If you leave this alley before I reach a hundred, I may shoot you. If you open your eyes before I reach a hundred, I may shoot you. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Start counting. Aloud.”

  On the count of ten, Brill backed away towards the high street. Seeing Mr. Threadbare still counting as fervently as a priest telling his rosary, she turned, lowered her handbag, and darted out into the open. The stree
tcar was approaching: Mr. Hat lolled against a wall like an early drunk. She held her arm out for the car, forcing her cheeks into an aching smile. Miriam, what have you gotten yourself into this time?

  The Hjalmar Palace fell, as was so often the case, to a combination of obsolescent design, treachery, and the incompetence of its defenders. And, Otto ven Neuhalle congratulated himself, only a little bit of torture.

  About three hundred years ago, the first lord of Olthalle had built a stone round tower on this site, a bluff overlooking the meeting of two rivers—known in another world as the Assabet and Sudbury—that combined to feed the Wergat, gateway to the western mountains. Over the course of the subsequent decades he and his sons had fought a bitter grudge war, eventually driving the Musketaquid wanderers west, deeper into the hills and forests of the new lands where they’d not trouble the ostvolk. But then there’d been a falling out in the east, among the coastal settlements. An army had marched up the river and burned out the keep and its defenders, leaving smoking ruins and a new lentgrave to raise the walls afresh. He learned from his predecessor’s mistake, and built his walls thick and high.

  More years passed. The Olthalle tower sprouted a curtain wall with five fine round bastion towers and a gate-house larger than the original keep. Within the grounds, airy palace wings afforded the baron’s family a measure more comfort than the heavily fortified castle. The barons of Olthalle fell on hard times, and seventy years earlier the Hjalmars had married into the castle, turning it into a gathering place for the clan of recently ennobled tinker families. They’d bridged the Wergat, levying tolls, then they’d driven a road into the hills to the west and wrestled another fortune from the forests. The town of Wergatfurt had grown up a couple of miles downstream, a thriving regional market center known for its timber yards and smithies. His majesty had been unable to leave such a vital asset in the hands of the witches—the Hjalmar estates were a dagger aimed at the heart of the kingdom. And so, it had come to this…