The Traders' War (Merchant Princes Omnibus 2) (51 page)

He paused for a minute while his guards opened the thick oak side door and checked the garden for threats. Then he turned and strode through into the light summer rain, his face upturned towards
the sky.

The formal gardens in the grounds of the Thorold Palace had been a byword for splendor among the aristocracy of the Gruinmarkt for decades. The hugely rich clan of tinker families had spared no
expense in building and furnishing their residence in the capital: individuals might dress to impress, but stone and rampart were the gowns of dynasties. Some might even think that Egon had brought
his court to the captured palace because it was (in the aftermath of the fighting that had damaged the Summer Palace) the most fitting royal residence in the city of Niejwein. Rows of carefully
cultivated trees marched alongside the high walls around the garden; rose beds, fantastically sculpted, blossomed before the windowed balconies fronting the noble house. A pool, surmounted by a
grotesque fountain, squatted in the midst of a compass rose of gravel paths: beyond it, a low curved building glinted oddly through the falling rain. The walls were made of glass, huge slabs of it,
unbelievably regular in thickness and clear of hue, held in a framework of cast iron. Green vegetation shimmered beyond the windows, whole trees clearly visible like a glimpse into some fantastic
tropical world. Egon strode towards it, not once glancing to either side, while his guards nervously paced alongside, eyes swiveling in every direction.

Innsford hurried to keep up with the royal personage. He cleared his throat: ‘Your Majesty, if the tinkers suspect you are making free with their former estate –’

Egon rounded on him. ‘It’s not their estate,’ he snapped. ‘It’s mine. And don’t you forget it.’ He continued, moderating his tone, ‘Why do you
think everyone around me dresses alike?’ His ill-humor slipped away. ‘Yes, they can send their assassins, but how will the assassin identify his target? And besides, I will not stay
here long.’

They were at the orangery doors. ‘Where does your majesty wish his court to reside?’ the duke inquired.

‘Right here. While I play the King of Night and Mist.’ Egon glanced over his shoulder at Sir Markus. ‘I need a beater for the royal hunt. Would you fancy the title of
general?’

Markus, a strapping fellow with an implausibly bushy mustache, thrust his chest out, beaming with pride: ‘Absolutely, sire! I am dizzy with delight at the prospect!’

‘Good. Kindly make yourself scarce for a few minutes. You too, Carlsen, I’ll have words with you both shortly but first I must speak in confidence with his grace.’

The orangery doors were open and the guards completed their study; Egon stepped over the threshold, and the small gaggle of courtiers followed him. Innsford studied Markus sidelong. Some
backwoods peer’s eldest son, beholden to Egon for his drinking space at a royal table, ancestral holdings down at heel over the past five decades: more interested in breaking heads and
carousing than the boring business of politicking that his father before him was so bad at. And Egon had just casually offered him a post from which he could reap the drippings from the royal
trencher? Innsford blinked slowly, watching the two young bloods bounce away into the glazed pavilion, marveling loudly and crudely about its trappings. ‘A beater for the hunt should hold the
title of general?’ he asked.

‘When you’re hunting for armies, why yes, I believe that is customary.’ His majesty’s lips quirked slightly, in what might have been intended to be a smile. ‘If I
am in the field at the head of an army, I am clearly looking to the defense of my realm, am I not? Such a grand undertaking will have, I hope, a salutary effect on any secret ambitions the father
of my betrothed might hold towards our lands. Leading an army against the tinkers will permit me to burnish my honor, strive for glory, and ensure that those who rally to my banner do so under my
eyes so that their claims to the spoils of victory may be adjudicated immediately.’
Oh, so you don’t trust your vassals to handle sharp implements out of your sight?
Innsford
nodded gravely, while Sir Markus beamed like an idiot.
A useful idiot, come to think of it.
‘And the tinker assassins will have little success in striking from the shadows if they do
not know, from one day to the next, where I make my bed.’

The duke nodded again. ‘I am pleased by your majesty’s perspicacity and foresight,’ he said carefully.
Sky Father! He’s sharp.
If Egon was going to go into the
field at the head of an army, he was going to slay about six birds with one stone. Hunting down the tinker Clan’s holdings in the wild would compel them to confront him on his own terms,
while making it difficult for their assassins to stick a knife in his ribs. An army in being would prevent the neighbors from getting any ideas about picking off a province here or a holding there.
Meanwhile, Egon had rung a bell to make his backwoods vassal dogs salivate at the thought of loot: now he would go into the field to gather the leashes of the men they had released for service. He
could simultaneously claim the lion’s share of the spoils he’d promised, while maintaining the appearance of generously disbursing treasure to his followers. Handled carefully it would
raise him to the stature of a true warrior king – somebody only fools or the truly desperate would scheme against – without the attendant risks of declaring war on one of the
neighboring kingdoms.
If it worked
– ‘I see much in your plan to commend it.’ Egon came to a halt in front of a bench at the center of a circle of low, dark green trees.
Small orange fruits glimmered among their shadowy branches. ‘But you did not summon me here to tell me this, your majesty.’

‘Indeed not.’ Egon inhaled deeply, closing his eyes for a moment. Innsford sniffed, but his sinuses – chronically congested, the aftermath of a broken nose in his youth –
stubbornly refused to disclose the cause of Egon’s blissful expression. The king opened his eyes: ‘I have some – problems. I believe you might be able to assist me in their
resolution.’

Ah. Here it comes.
Innsford had lived through the reign of two kings before this young upstart; nevertheless, his stomach tingled and he felt a shiver of fear, as if a black cat walked
across his future grave. ‘I am yours to command, your majesty.’

‘While I am on campaign, I must look to the good cultivation of my earthly field.’
Niejwein and territories,
Innsford translated. ‘I must also look to the good
administration of my army. Who am I to trust, in the halls of power while I am elsewhere?’ For a moment the royal gaze fell on Innsford, unblinking and cold as a snake. ‘His grace of
Niejwein is under threat from the tinker knives if he stays in the capital whose name he bears: perhaps he would be safer were he to undertake a pilgrimage to the southern estates? His eldest son
will be all too pleased to look to the household’s duties in his father’s absence, while his grace could earn my gratitude by looking to the good management of those
provinces.’

Innsford stiffened.
But Niejwein’s
your
man
! he thought indignantly. Then he unpacked Egon’s plan further.
Niejwein’s too powerful, here. Send him away
from his power base while keeping his son – inexperienced – as a hostage, and he can serve your ends safely. Is that what you plan?
‘You have a task in mind for me.’ It
was an admission, but denying any awareness of the deeper political realities would merely suggest to Egon that he was too stupid to be of any use. And Innsford had a nasty feeling that being
pigeonholed as useless by King Egon was unlikely to be conducive to a peaceful and prosperous old age. Especially if one was of high enough birth to be a potential threat.

‘Indeed.’ Egon smiled again, that disturbing smirk with a telltale narrowing of the eyes. ‘Laurens – the next Duke of Niejwein, I should say – is none too bright
himself. He’ll need his hand holding and his back watching.’ The smirk faded. ‘The defense of Niejwein is no minor task, your grace, because I am certain the tinkers will attempt
to retake the city. Their holdings are not well adapted to support a war of maneuver, and they are by instinct and upbringing cosmopolitans. Furthermore, Niejwein is the key to their necromantic
trade with the land of shades. There are locations in this city that they need. I must assign an army to the defense of the capital, but I would be a thrice-damned fool to leave it in his grace of
Niejwein’s own hands. Will you take it?’

‘I –’ Innsford swallowed. ‘You surprise me.’

‘Not really!’ Egon said lightly. ‘You know as well as I the value of a certain – reputation.’ His own reputation for bloody-handed fits of rage had served well
enough at court to keep his enemies fearful. ‘Should you accept this task, then this palace will be yours – and your son Franz? He is well, I trust? I will be needing a page. Franz will
accompany me and win glory on the battlefield, and in due course he will inherit the second finest palace in the land from his father’s prudence in this matter.’

‘I wo-would be delighted to accept your gracious offer,’ Innsford forced out.
You’re going to leave me in charge of this death trap while you take my son as your page?
The audacity was offensive, but as an act of positioning it was a masterstroke: rebel against the king and Egon would already hold his firstborn hostage.
But meanwhile . . .
thoughts
whirled in his head. ‘You expect the tinkers to try to retake the city, my liege?’ he asked: ‘Is there sound intelligence to this effect?’

‘Oh, indeed.’ Egon’s reply was equally casual in tone, and just as false. ‘I have my ways. Well, truth be told, I have my spies.’ He chuckled dryly. ‘You
understand more than you can politely say, my lord, so I shall say it for you: I trust no one.
No one.
But don’t let that fool you. The rewards for being true and constant to my
service will be great and in time you’ll come round to my way of thinking, I’m sure. It is no blind ambition that desires my impression of your son: I have a nation to rid of witchcraft
and nightmares, to make fit for men such as your son to live in. He will eventually play a privileged role at court; I would like to meet him sooner rather than later. But now –’ He
gestured at the orange grove around them. ‘– I have arrangements to make. There is a war to conduct, and once I have seen to my defense I must look to my arms.’ He took another
deep breath. ‘If success smells half so sweet as this, I shall count myself a lucky man.’

*

The bench seat stank of leather, old sweat, gunpowder, and a cloying reek of fear. It rattled and bounced beneath Mike, to the accompaniment of a metallic squeaking like damaged
car shock absorbers. His leg ached abominably below the knee, and whenever he tried to move it into a less painful position it felt as if a pack of rabid weasels were chewing on it. His face
pressed up against the rear cushion of the seat as the contraption swayed from side to side, bouncing over the deep ruts in the cobblestone surface of the road.

Despite the discomfort, he was calm: everything was distant, walled off from him by a barrier of placid equanimity, as if he was wrapped in cotton wool.
They’ll kill me when they find
out,
he told himself, but the thought held no fear.
Wow, whatever Hastert stuck me with is
really
smooth.

Not that life was entirely a bed of roses. He winced at a particularly loud burst of gunfire rattling past the carriage window. One of the women on the other bench seat rattled off something in
Hochsprache: he couldn’t follow it but she sounded scared. The old one tut-tutted. ‘Sit down, you’ll only get your head blown off if you give them a target,’ she said in
English.

More Hochsprache: something about duty, Mike thought vaguely.

‘No, you shouldn’t . . .’

The distinctive sound of a charging handle being worked, followed by a gust of cold air.

Crack
. The sound of a rifle firing less than a meter from his ear penetrated Mike’s haze. He pushed back against the seat back, rolling onto his back just as a particularly
violent pothole tried to swallow one of the carriage’s rear wheels, and the shooter fired again: a hot brass cartridge case pinged off the back of the seat and landed on his hand. Curiously,
it hurt.

‘
Ow
–’ He twitched, shaking the thing off, wincing repeatedly as the woman in the fur coat leaning out of the carriage window methodically squeezed off another three
shots.
What’s the word for
. . . ? ‘My leg, it hurts,’ he tried.

‘Speak English, your accent’s atrocious,’ said the old woman. ‘It won’t fool anyone.’

Mike stared at her. In the semidarkness of the carriage her face seemed to hover in the darkness, disembodied. Outside the window, men shouted at each other. The carriage lurched sideways, then
bounced forward, accelerating. The shooter withdrew her head and shoulders from the window. ‘That is all of them for now, I believe,’ she announced, with an accent of her own that could
have passed for German. She glanced at Mike, mistrustfully, and adjusted her grip on the gun. The full moon, outside, scattered platinum highlights off her hair: for a moment he saw her face
side-lit, young and striking, like a Russian princess in a story, pursued by wolves.

‘Close the window, you don’t want to make a target of yourself,’ said the babushka huddling beneath the pile of rugs. ‘And I don’t want to catch my death of
cold.’ A cane appeared from somewhere under the heap, ascending until it battered against the carriage roof. ‘Shtoppan nicht, gehen’su halt!’ She was old, but her lungs were
good. She glanced at Mike. ‘So you’re awake, are you?’

Answering seemed like too much of an effort, so Mike ignored her: it was much easier to simply close his eyes and try to keep his leg still. That way the weasels didn’t seem to bite as
hard.

A moment later, the cane poked him rudely in the ribs. ‘Answer when you’re spoken to!’ snapped the Russian princess. He opened his eyes again. The thing prodding his side
wasn’t a cane, and she might be pretty, but she was also clearly angry.
Is it something I did?
he wondered hazily. ‘Where am I?’