The Revolution Trade (Merchant Princes Omnibus 3) (11 page)

City Hall, a neoclassical lump of concrete reinforced with steel – and, curiously, featuring no windows less than eighteen feet above ground level, and clear lines of fire in all
directions – was the logical place to go. And so, when they were stopped two blocks from the place by a barricade manned by marines who had torn their insignia of rank from their uniforms,
Erasmus climbed out of the car. ‘I’m here to see Adam,’ he said. ‘Take me to him.’

It took a while, but half an hour later Erasmus slid to the front of a queue of supplicants. They were queuing to see the man in the mayor’s office, but the man behind the mayor’s
desk was not the mayor, and he wasn’t doing ordinary civic business as usual. When Erasmus entered the room he was holding forth animatedly with a group of hard-looking types who he
recognized instantly as party cadres. Sir Adam Burroughs had aged in the nearly twenty years since Erasmus had last seen him: His hair was thin and straggling, and his high forehead was deeply
grooved with worry lines. But the magnetic charm and hyperactive temperament remained –

‘Hello? Who’s this?’ Burroughs looked at him for a few seconds. Then his eyes widened. ‘Joshua? Is that you?’

‘It is indeed.’ Erasmus bowed low – not a flourishing courtier’s bow, but a salute born of deep respect. ‘Lady Margaret sends her regards, and her hopes for your
success in this venture.’ He smiled. ‘Though it seems to me that you’ve made a good start already!’

‘Joshua, man – ’ Burroughs stood up and flew from behind his desk, then gripped Erasmus by the shoulders. ‘It’s been too long!’ He turned to face his
half-dozen assistants. ‘This man is Joshua Cooke! During the eighty-six he was my secretary and correspondent, he ran the
People’s Voice
in New York. Since then he’s been a
mainstay of the movement out east.’ Eyes were staring, lips mumbling silently. ‘You’ve come to join us, I take it.’

‘Oh yes.’ Erasmus nodded. ‘And to plug you into what’s been happening out east. I go by the name of Erasmus Burgeson these days, and it’s gotten to be something of
a habit. I was delayed, I’m afraid, by the Polis – got away, but it was a near thing. And everywhere I went, rumor was chasing falsehood’s tail for truth’s bone. I take it
loyalists are thin on the ground around here?’

‘Vanished like rats from a sinking ship,’ grumped one of Burroughs’s new assistants, a heavy-set fellow with a nautical beard. ‘We’ll root ’em out.’

‘Organization first,’ Burroughs said mildly. ‘Josh – Erasmus, is it? – you’ve arrived at exactly the right time. We’ve got to get the word out, now that
the Hanoverian has emptied his treasury, get control – I want you to take a flying picket down to the
Petrograd Times
and get the presses rolling again. And the telautograph senders on
the east bay mount. I need a solid hand running the propaganda ministry. Can you do that?’

Erasmus cracked his knuckles, grinning cadaverously. ‘It’ll be a good start.’

*

‘An accident.’ Miriam stared at Brill across the width of the safe house’s kitchen.
She looks like someone told her the family dog’s got cancer
.
‘What kind of accident?’

‘The duke – ’ Brill swallowed.

Huw sidestepped towards the sink, making an adroit grab for a water glass.

‘Yes?’ Miriam said encouragingly, her heart sinking.

‘He’s had a stroke, they say. World-walking.’

‘But why would he – ’ Huw fell silent, seeing Miriam’s expression.

‘The pretender’s army took the Hjalmar Palace by treachery. His grace was organizing a force to take it back when . . . something happened, something bad. Near Concord. Everyone had
to cross over in a hurry. They retook the fortifications, but the duke – ’

Brilliana swallowed.

‘Well
shit,’
Huw said.

Miriam raised a finger. ‘Is he still alive?’ she asked. ‘Is he conscious? Because – ’

‘Wait.’ Brill took the water glass from Huw’s fingers. ‘Anything. To put in this?’

‘There’s a bottle of brandy in the luggage.’ Huw headed for the door. ‘Don’t go away. Be right back.’

Miriam pulled a stool out and steered it behind Brilliana, who sat, gratefully.

‘He’s in a bad way,’ she said eventually, visibly gathering her wits. ‘Paralyzed on one side. They need to get him to a neurology ward but they’re trapped in the
Hjalmar Palace – a big castle near Concord, in this world – by some Winter Crone-cursed police or paramilitary force that tried to raid them just as they were mounting the counterattack
on the pretender’s forces.’

Huw reappeared with a dark green bottle. ‘Here.’ He splashed amber fluid into Brill’s glass, then fetched down another and offered it to Miriam. ‘Yourself?’

‘No thanks.’ She glanced at him dubiously as he poured two fingers for himself. ‘What if you need to drive somewhere?’

‘Firstly, I delegate to Yul, and secondly, there’s a difference between having a shot and getting drunk. Are you sure . . . ?’

‘Oh hell, go ahead.’ Miriam snorted. Sometimes it was the little things about her relatives who’d grown up in the Gruinmarkt that tripped her up the hardest, like their
extremely un-American attitude to alcohol. ‘Can they get him to a hospital?’

Brill lowered her glass. ‘It’s in train, I think. I mean, Olga’s there, she’s working something out with Earl Riordan. They couldn’t tell me more – need to
know. But – it’s spooky. The feds swooped on ClanSec just as they concentrated to go across to relieve the Hjalmar Palace. It’s almost as if someone told them exactly when –
’

‘Matthias is dead,’ Miriam interrupted.

‘Matthias?’ Huw looked fascinated. ‘Wasn’t he the duke’s personal secretary? I knew he disappeared, but – ’

Miriam looked at Brill, who silently shook her head. ‘Later, Huw,’ she promised. ‘Brill, we need to get back to, to – ’ She stopped, the words
to wherever we
need to be
piling up like a car crash on her tongue.

Brill took a sip of brandy. ‘By the time we could get back to the east coast it’d all be over,’ she said huskily. ‘The important thing is what happens after
that.’

I can’t believe how fast it’s all falling apart
. Miriam shook her head. ‘Something about this doesn’t make sense,’ she said. ‘Things fell to pieces in
Niejwein when Egon decided Henryk’s little power play was a personal threat to him, that’s clear. But this new stuff, the feds – it’s one coincidence too many.’ She
paused. ‘Could they be connected? Beyond the obvious, beyond Matthias defecting and spilling his guts?’

Brill gave her an odd look. ‘You might think that. I couldn’t possibly comment.’

‘Oh for – ’ Miriam forced herself to stop. ‘Okay, let me tell you what I think is probably happening, Brill.
You’re
in Angbard’s chain of command,
you
deal with it.’

‘You’d better wait outside, Huw,’ Brill said sharply.

He shrugged and walked over to the door. ‘Call me when you’ve finished politicking,’ he called, then closed it.

Miriam took a deep breath and tried to gather the unraveling threads of her concentration.
Too much, too fast
. ‘I think that we figured out Matthias had defected seven, eight months
ago, when it first happened. And what followed was a factional race to get into the best position to come out on top when the US government figured out what was going on and brought the hammer down
on the trade network. I stood up and told them their business model was flawed, and they didn’t do anything – but they weren’t all ignoring me. The conservative faction, led by
Baron Henryk, decided to shut me up, but they had to be subtle about it. Angbard didn’t block him because he hoped they’d fail and discredit themselves in the process. Meanwhile, some
other groups were looking into the possibilities dragged up by my stumbling over the hidden family and New Britain. That’d be where Huw comes in, yes? Angbard’s sitting at the center of
a web, like a spider, holding everything together – trying to keep business running as usual, but trying to hedge everybody’s bets.’

She swallowed, then took a sip of brandy. ‘Trouble is, everybody’s doing different things. There have been sub rosa attempts to modernize the Clan going on for decades; I just
didn’t recognize them. That’s what I got wrong – I took you all at face value, didn’t look below the surface. Everyone pays lip service to the status quo, but not everyone
goes along with it. There’s the breeding program that was intended to rebuild the population base eroded by the civil war over the past fifty years, and crack the manpower monopoly
effectively controlled by the marriage-brokering old grannies’ – she watched Brilliana for signs of surprise, but didn’t see any – ‘and that debating society and
talking shop Huw’s into. There’s even Clan Security, for heaven’s sake! Which is more like the, the Russian KGB, than something you’d expect in a post-feudal society like
the Gruinmarkt. Am I right?’

She waited for Brill to say something, but the silence dragged out. After a few seconds, she cleared her throat and continued. ‘So, I upset a bunch of applecarts, and the fallout included
Matthias going over the wall. I expect someone’s been trying to negotiate with the feds, buying time, patching things up. And I expect everyone’s been scrambling to secure a workable
Plan B for their particular faction. I’m not going to ask what the hell ClanSec or the Council or whoever thought they were doing, messing around with stolen nukes, it’s immaterial; I
just want to note that it was a
really
bad idea, because from the feds’ point of view it turned the Clan from a minor nuisance into a deadly threat. You can negotiate with a nuisance,
but you shoot threats – isn’t that right?’ She put her glass down and looked at Brill. After a minute she asked, ‘Well?’

Brilliana looked uncomfortable. ‘I can’t talk about . . . certain . . . matters without getting permission first. But broadly speaking’ – she looked at Miriam
appraisingly – ‘you are speculating along the right lines.’ She coughed. ‘But please, refrain from airing your speculation in public? Lest other factions conclude that you
know more than you do, and attempt to silence you.’

Miriam’s left eyelid twitched. ‘I’ve had enough of that, thank you. Since even my dear mother is prone to, to . . .’ It was too painful to continue. She rested one hand
on her lap. ‘And what that bastard ven Hjalmar tried to do. Did.’ A long pause. ‘It’s only been about six weeks. I could get an abortion.
If
I’m
pregnant.’

Brill looked at her oddly. ‘If you did that, you’d be throwing away your best lever.’ She took another sip of brandy. ‘Because it’s Creon’s get, and
you’ve got a fistful of witnesses to the betrothal, including the conservative faction and – by implication – the pretender. That’s the throne to the Gruinmarkt,
Miriam.’

‘And it’s my body.’ Miriam looked at her half-empty glass and twitched, then she picked it up again and swallowed it in a single mouthful. ‘Not that that seems to mean
much to you people.’

Brilliana reached out and grabbed her hand. ‘Helge!’

‘What?’ Miriam glared at her across the breakfast bar.

‘This world is not fair or just. But I swore I would look after you – ’

‘ – Who to?’

‘To you, and to your uncle: but that is not important. I swore an oath to protect you. I must tell you that as long as you carry the heir to the throne of Niejwein, nobody in the six
families will
dare
to lift a finger against you. And if, if we are still alive in eight months, things will be different. The pretender will be dead and Angbard will need a regent’s
council and at a minimum you will be on it. He told me, if necessary’ – her voice cracked – ‘tell her that if she does this thing, all debts are canceled.’

‘And if I don’t?’ Miriam made as if to pull her arm back, but paused. ‘You know there are no guarantees. I’m old for this. Miscarriages aren’t that unusual in
older pregnancies. And there’s only a fifty-fifty chance it’s a boy, anyway. What if it doesn’t work?’

‘Then at least you tried.’ Brill moderated her voice. ‘You came back willingly: That weighs in your favor. The more you do for us, the harder it becomes for your enemies to
belittle or ignore you. Thus has it ever been.’

‘You make it sound as if the Clan runs on honor.’

‘But it does!’ Brill’s expression of surprise took her aback. ‘How else do you control an aristocracy?’

‘I don’t think I’ll ever understand you guys.’ Miriam watched while Brill refilled both their glasses. ‘Hey, I’m probably pregnant? You want to go easy with
that.’

‘What’s that got to do with it?’ She looked perplexed.

‘The Surgeon General’s – no,
fuck
it.’ Miriam picked up the glass. ‘Next time you send someone out for a pizza, try and get them to buy me a pregnancy test
kit . . . hell, make that two of them, just in case.’ She sipped at her brandy defiantly. ‘So anyway, I kicked over an anthill. And Henryk’s faction try to tie me down, to control
the damage, and it backfired spectacularly and set Egon off. Is that how I’m reading it? While at the same time, I set Matthias off, which set the feds on us. Right?’

‘Wrong.’ Brill raised her glass and stared at it. ‘It was a powder keg, Helge. Even before you returned, it was balanced on a sword’s edge. You unleashed chaos, but
without you – you strengthened Angbard’s hand immensely, did you not notice that? And you have unleashed Huw. Don’t underestimate him. He has connections. You can be at the center
of things if you play the hand you have been dealt.’

‘There won’t be any center to be at, if the feds figure out a way of getting over here in force,’ Miriam said darkly.

‘They won’t.’

‘Huh. But anyway. Is it all right to bring him back in?’

‘What? You’ve finished spilling our innermost secrets?’

‘Innermost secrets, feh: It’s just uninformed speculation. No, I need to talk to Huw.
We
need to talk, that is.’

‘Oh. All right.’ Brill stood up and walked to the door. ‘Huw!’

A moment’s silence, then feet pounded down the staircase. ‘Yes? What’s – oh.’

‘Come in, sit down,’ Miriam called over. ‘We’ve got to head back to Boston tomorrow, or as soon as possible.’