Brill was one of the last people Miriam had expected to meet in California—and she seemed to have brought a bunch of others with her. “You’re unhurt?” Brill asked again, anxiously.
The trio of Clan agents she’d turned up with—two men and a woman, sweating and outlandish in North Face outdoor gear—as if they’d just parachuted in from a camping expedition somewhere in the Rockies, in winter—had taken up positions outside the station. One of them Miriam half-recognized: Isn’t he the MIT postgrad? Perhaps, but it was hard for her to keep track of all the convoluted relationships in the Clan, and right now—covering the approach track with a light machine gun from behind a bullet-riddled steam car—he didn’t exactly look scholarly. Brilliana was at least dressed appropriately for New British customs.
“I’m unhurt, Brill.” Miriam tried to hold her voice steady, tried not to notice Erasmus staring, his head swiveling like a bird, as he took in the scattered bodies and the odd-looking machine pistols Brill and the other woman carried. The Polis inspector and his men had tried to put up a fight, but revolvers and rifles against attackers with automatic weapons appearing out of thin air behind them “—Just got a bit of a headache.” She sat down heavily on the waiting room bench.
“Wonderful! I feared you might attempt to world-walk.” Brill looked concerned. “I must say, I was not expecting you to get this far. You led us a merry chase! But your letter reached me in time, and a very good thing too. His grace has been most concerned for your well-being. We shall have to get you out of here at once—”
Miriam noticed Brill’s sidelong glance at Burgeson. “I owe him,” she warned.
Erasmus chuckled dryly. “Leave me alive and I’ll consider the debt settled in my favor.”
“I think we can do better than that!” Brill drew breath. “I remember you.” She glanced at Miriam. “How much does he know?”
“How much do you think?” Miriam stared back at her. This was a side to Brill that she didn’t know well, and didn’t like: a coldly calculating woman who came from a place where life was very cheap indeed. “They were lying in wait for us because they intercepted your telegram. The least we can do is get him to his destination. Leave him in this, and…” She shrugged.
Brill nodded. “I’ll get him out of here safely. Now, will you come home willingly?” she asked.
The silence stretched out. “What will I find if I do?” Miriam finally replied.
“You need not worry about Baron Henryk anymore.” Brill frowned. “He’s dead; but were he not, the way he dealt with you would certainly earn him the disfavor of the council. He overplayed his hand monstrously with the aid of Dr. ven Hjalmar. The duke is minded to sweep certain, ah, events into the midden should you willingly agree to a plan he has in mind for you.” Her distant expression cracked: “Have you been sick lately? Been unable to world-walk? Is your period late?”
Miriam blinked. “Yes, I—” she raised a hand to her mouth in dawning horror. “Fuck.”
Brill knelt down beside her. “You have borne a child before, did you not?”
“But I haven’t slept with—” Miriam stopped. “That fucking quack. What did he do to me?”
“Miriam.” She looked down. Brill was holding her hands. “Ven Hjalmar’s dead. Henryk is dead. Creon is dead. But we’ve got living witnesses who will swear blind that you were married to the crown prince at that ceremony, and this was the real reason why Prince Egon rebelled. Ven Hjalmar, with the queen mother’s connivance…it’s unconscionable! But we’re at war, Miriam. We’re at war with half the nobility of the Gruinmarkt, and you’re carrying the heir to the throne. You’re not a pawn on Angbard’s chessboard anymore, Miriam, you’re his queen. Whatever you want, whatever it takes, he’ll give you—”
Miriam shook her head. “There’s only one thing I truly want,” she said tiredly, “and he can’t give it to me.” The claustrophobic sense of losing control that she’d fled from weeks ago was back, crushingly heavy. She lowered one hand to her belly, self-consciously: Why didn’t I think of this earlier? she wondered. All those examinations…Shit. Then another thought struck her, and she chuckled.
“What ails you?” Brilliana asked anxiously.
“Oh, nothing.” Miriam tried to regain control. “It’s just that being figurehead queen mother or whatever scheme Angbard’s penciled in for me isn’t exactly a job with a secure future ahead of it. Even if you get this rebellion under control.”
“My lady?”
“I was planning on bargaining,” Miriam tried to explain. “But I don’t need to, so I guess you want to know this anyway: it’s too late. I ran into an old acquaintance on my way out of the burning palace. His people had been watching it when the shit hit the fan. It’s the U.S. government. They’ve got agents into the Gruinmarkt, and it’s only a matter of time before—”
“Oh, that,” Brill snorted dismissively and stood up. “That’s under control for now; your mother’s running the negotiations.”
Miriam held a hand before her eyes. Make it stop, she thought faintly. Too much!
“In any event, we have worse things to worry about now,” she added. “Sir Huw was sent to do a little job for the duke that I think you suggested—he’ll brief you about what he found on the flight home. The CIA or the DEA and their friends are the least of our worries now.” Brill laid a hand on her shoulder. Quietly, she added: “We need you, Miriam. Helge. Or whoever you want to be. It’s not going to be the same this time round. The old guard have taken a beating: and some of us understand what you’re trying to do, and we’re with you all the way. Come home with me, Miriam, and we’ll take good care of you. We need you to lead us…”
The treason room was a simple innovation that Angbard’s last-but-two predecessor had installed in each of the major Clan holdings: a secret back door against the day when (may it never arrive) Clan Security found itself locked out of the front. Like almost all Clan holdings of any significance, the Hjalmar Palace was doppelgangered—that is, the Clan owned, and in most cases had built on, the land in the other world that any world-walker would need to cross over from in order to penetrate its security.
For an empty field, the location where they’d set up the HISTORY FAIRE had a remarkably sophisticated security system, and the apparently decrepit barns at the far end of the field, collocated with the palatial eastern wing, were anything but easy to break into.
The treason room in the Hjalmar Palace had once been part of a guard room on the second floor of the north wing. That is, it had been part of the guard room until Clan Security had moved everybody out one summer, installed certain innovative features, then built a false wall to conceal it. The cover story was that they’d been installing plumbing for the nobs upstairs. In fact, the treason room, its precise location surveyed to within inches, was an empty space hidden behind a false wall, located twenty feet above the ground. The precise coordinates of the treason rooms were divided between the head of Clan Security, and the office of the secretary of the Clan’s commerce committee, and their very existence was a dark secret from most people.
Now, Helmut watched tensely as two of his men ascended towards the middle of the tent on a hydraulic lift.
“Ready!” That was Martyn. Big and beefy, he waved at Helmut.
“Me too,” called Jorg. He pulled the oxygen mask over his head and made a show of adjusting the flow from his tank, then gave a thumbs-up while Martyn was still fiddling with his chin straps.