Somehow she found herself on the raised chair, with one of her maids behind each shoulder and the lords Menger and Klaus standing before her. A priest she half recognized (he'd been wearing a pinstriped suit at the last Clan council meeting) was advancing on her, swathed in robes. A subordinate followed him, holding a dazzling lump of metal that might have been a crown in the fevered imaginings of a Gaudi; behind him came another six chanting subordinates and a white calf on a rope which looked at her with confused, long-lashed eyes.
The chanting stopped and the audience rose to their feet. The calf moaned as two of the acolytes shoved it in front of the dais and a third thrust a golden bowl under its throat. There was a moment of reverential silence as the bishop turned and pulled his gilt sickle through the beast's throat; then the bubbling blood overflowed the basin and splashed across the flagstones to a breaking roar of approval punctuated by stamping feet.
The bishop raised his sickle, then as the assembled nobles quieted their chant, he began to shout a prayer, his voice hoarse and cracked with hope. What's he saying-Miriam burped again, swallowing acid indigestion-something about sanctification-she was unprepared when he turned to her and, after dipping a hand into the bowl, he stepped towards her and daubed a sticky finger on her forehead. Then the second priest knelt beside him, and the bishop raised the crown above her head.
"It's the Summer Crown," he told her in English. "Try not to break it, we want it back after the ceremony."
When he lowered his arms his sleeves dangled in front of her. The hot smell of fresh blood filled her nostrils as the crowd in the bleachers roared their-approval? Amusement? Miriam closed her eyes. I'm not here. I'm not here. You can't make me behere. She wished the earth would open and swallow her; the expectations bearing down on her filled her with a hollow terror. Mom, I am so going to kill you.
Then the bishop-it's Julius, isn't it? she recalled, dizzily-receded. She opened her eyes.
"Milady!" hissed the lady-in-waiting at her left shoulder. "It's time to say your words."
Words? Miriam blinked fuzzily, the oppressive weight of the metal headgear threatening to unbalance her neck. I'm meant to say something, right? Brill had gone over it with her: She'd practiced with Gerta, she'd practiced with a mirror, she'd practiced until she was sure she'd be able to remember them…
"I, the Queen-Widow Helge, by virtue of the power vested in me by Sky Father, do declare this royal court open…" her memory began.
Oh, that, Miriam remembered. She opened her mouth and heard someone begin to recite formal phrases in an alien language. Her voice was steady and authoritative: She sounded like a powerful and dignified ruler. I wonder if they'll introduce me to her after the performance?
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT (Cockpit voice recorder):
(Rotor noise in background.)
"Climbing two five to flight level three zero, ground speed 150. GPS check."
"GPS check, uh, okay."
"TCAS clear. Ready to engage INS."
"INS ready, fifty-mile orbit at three zero."
"Okay. How's the datalink to that-that-"
"FLIR/DIMT is mapping fine."
"Right. INS engaged. Racetrack. You boys ready back there?"
"ARMBAND is ready."
"Ready."
"Coming up on way point yankee one in fifty seconds, boys. On my mark, activate translation black box."
"Arming translation circuit… okay, she's ready on your command."
"Mark."
"We have translation."
"Radar altimeter check, please. What's the state of ARMBAND?"
"Sir, we've got two translations left, three hours to bingo time-"
"Tower, mike-mike-papa-four, do you read."
"Two translations, three hours, check. You gentlemen will doubtless be pleased to know that as we've only got fuel for 140 minutes we'll be going home well before then."
"Inlet temperature four. External temperature ten and dropping, was fifteen. Cloud cover was six, now four. Holy shit, the ground-it's completely different-"
"FLIR/DIMT is mapping fine. Uh, INS shows six meter z-axis anomaly. INS red light. INS red light. Looks like he took us with him okay."
"Tower, mike-mike-papa-four, do you read."
"INS reset. INS breaker reset. Damn, we're back to dead reckoning. Speed check."
"Ground speed 146. Altitude three zero nine zero by radar altimeter. Lots of trees down there, whole lotta trees."
"Okay, let's do an INS restart."
"Captain, confirmed, tower does not respond."
"FLIR/DIMT lock on north ridge corresponds to INS map waypoint 195604. Restarting. Restarted. Returning to orbit."
"Tower on crest of ridge via FLIR. Got battlements!"
"Fuel, nine thousand. Throttle back on two, eighty percent. Okay, you've got an hour from my mark."
"Got any candidates on IDAS?"
"Not a whisper. It's dead down there. Not even cell phone traffic. Why am I getting this itchy feeling between my shoulder blades?"
"Time check: three hours twenty-nine minutes to dawn. Altitude four one hundred, ground speed 145, visibility zero, six on FLIR. Stop worrying about MANPADs, number two."
"Roger. Waypoint yankee two coming up, turning on zero two zero."
"I'm still getting nothing, sir. Trying FM."
"Use your judgment."
"Fuel eighty six hundred. Throttle on eighty, inlet temperature three."
"Quiet as the grave. Hey, some traffic on shortwave. Twenty megahertz band, low power. Voice traffic… not English."
"Waypoint yankee three coming up, turning on zero nine zero. Climb to flight level five zero."
"Okay, that's enough. We're in class E airspace on the other side, so let's get out of here. ARMBAND?"
"Ready to roll whenever you call, captain."
"Okay, we're going home. Prepare to translate on my mark-"
END TRANSCRIPT (Cockpit voice recorder)
10
A week had passed since the bizarre coronation ritual, and it had been a busy period. Miriam found herself at the center of a tornado of activity, with every hour accounted for. There were banquets with lord this and baron that, introductions until her cheeks ached from smiling and her right hand was red from scrubbing: Their kisses left her feeling unclean, compromised. The dressmakers had moved in, altering garments borrowed from some remnants of the royal wardrobe and fitting her for gowns and dresses suitable for a dowager queen-widow and a mother-to-be. Brill had found time, for a couple of hours every day, to bring a bottle of wine and sit with her while she explained the finer points of political and personal alliances; and Gerta engaged her in conversational hochsprache, nervous and halting at first, to polish her speech. (Which, with total immersion in a sea of servants, few of whom spoke English, was beginning to improve.)
Being Helge was becoming easier, she found. Practice had diminished the role to a set of manners and a half-understood language that she could summon up at need, rather than a claustrophobia-inducing caul. Perhaps she was getting used to it, or perhaps her mother's private crusade and promise of mutual support had given her the impulse she needed to make it work. Whatever the cause, the outcome was that whenever she paused to think about her position Miriam was startled by how smoothly her new life had locked in around her, and with how little friction. Perhaps all she'd needed all along was a key to the gilded cage, and the reassurance that people she could trust were minding the door.
It had not been Miriam's idea to put on the gilded robes of state today, to sit on an unpadded chair in a drafty hall and read aloud a variety of prearranged-bloodcurdling and inevitably fatal-sentences on assorted members of the nobility who had been unlucky enough to back the wrong horse. But it had shown up on her timetable for the week-and Brill, Riordan, and her mother had visited en masse to assure her that it was necessary. They'd even hauled in Julius, to provide a façade of Clannish unity. "You need to sit in on the court and pronounce judgment, without us whispering in your ear all the time," Brill explained, "otherwise people will say you're a figurehead."