The Hidden Family tmp-2

by Charles Stross

  Weeks passed: days of pain, days of loss, days of mourning. Finally, an evening clear of snow beneath the winter skies over New London found Miriam standing in the foyer of the Brighton Hotel, dressed to the nines in black, smiling at the guests with a sweet solicitude she hardly felt. “Hello, Lord Macy! And Hello to you too, Mrs. Macy! How have you been? Well, I trust?” The line seemed to stretch around the block, although the red carpet stopped at the curb—many of the visitors were making a point of showing up in new Otto cars, the ones the Durant Motor Company was fitting with the new safety brakes.

  “Hello, my dear lady! You’re looking fine.”

  Her smile relaxed a bit, losing its grim determination. “I think I am, indeed,” she admitted. “And yourself? Is this to your satisfaction?”

  “I think—” Sir Durant raised one eyebrow—“it will do, yes.” He grinned, faintly amused. “It’s your party: Best enjoy it as much as you can. Or are you going to stand by your widowhood forever and a day?” He tipped his hat to her and ambled inside, to the dining room that Miriam’s money had taken over for a night of glittering celebration, and she managed to keep on smiling, holding the line against desolation and guilt. The party was indeed glittering, packed with the high and the mighty of the New London motor trade, and their wives and sons and daughters, and half the board of trade to boot.

  Miriam sighed quietly as the carpet emptied and the doors stopped revolving for a moment. “Busy, isn’t it?” Brill remarked cheerfully behind her.

  “I’ll say.” Miriam turned to face her. “You’re looking beautiful tonight,” she mimicked, and pulled a face. “Anyone would think I was selling them pin-up calendars, not brake shoes.”

  Brill grinned at her cheekily. “Oh, I don’t know,” she began. “If you put out a calendar with yourself on it, that might improve sales—” She held out a full glass of something sparkling.

  “Here, give me that. It’s not suitable for young ladies!” Miriam took it and raised it. “To…something or other.” Her daringly bare shoulders slumped tiredly. “Success.”

  Brill raised the other glass: “Success. Hey, this isn’t bad.” She took a big mouthful, then wiped her lips with the back of one lace glove. “Do you think they’re enjoying it?”

  “They will.” Miriam looked at the dining room doors, then back at the front: It was almost time for the meal to begin. “Or else,” she added bitterly.

  “You haven’t seen Lady Olga yet?” asked Brill.

  “No—” Miriam caught her eye. “Why?”

  “Oh, nothing. It was meant to be her surprise, that’s all. I shan’t give it away.” Brill did her best impression of an innocent at large, nose in the air and glass in hand. “Success,” she muttered. “Most women would be after true love or a rich husband, but this one wants to own skyscrapers.”

  “True love and a helmet will stop bullets,” Miriam said bitterly.

  “You weren’t to know.” Brill looked at her askance. “Was it really true love?”

  “How the fuck should I know?” Miriam drained her glass in one gulp, so that she wouldn’t have to explain. Was it? she wondered, confused. Damn it, he should be here, now. We had so much to talk about.

  “Owning skyscrapers makes the need for a rich husband irrelevant,” Brill pointed out. “And anyway, you’re still young. True love is bound to—” She stopped. Another car was pulling up outside, and a small crowd of partygoers was climbing out.

  “Here, take this,” Miriam said, passing her her empty glass. “Got to be the hostess again.”

  “That’s okay, don’t mind me.” Brill took a step back as Miriam straightened her back and tried to bend her face into a welcoming mask once more. Only another five minutes.

  The door opened. “Olga!” she exclaimed.

  “My dear!” Olga swept forward and insisted on planting a kiss on her cheek. “I brought you a present!”

  “Huh?” Miriam looked past her. The door was still revolving—slowly, for the occupant seemed to be having some trouble. Finally he shuffled out and slowly advanced. “Uncle, you aren’t supposed to be out—”

  “Miriam.” He stopped in front of her, looking faintly amused. His costume was, as ever, impeccable, even though he must have found it passing strange. “I thought I should come and see the new business that the prodigal has built for us.” His smile slipped. “And to apologize for nursing that viper. I understand he cost you more than money can ever repay.”

  “Oh hell.” She frowned at him. Easy for you to be gracious, now Roland’s dead and you don’t have to worry about your precious braids anymore—But somehow the harsh thought didn’t have any fire behind them. She crossed the six feet between them. “Uncle.” He did his best to return the hug, although he winced somewhat. She leaned her chin on his shoulder. “I’m pleased to see you. I think.”

  “It was all her idea,” he said, jerking his chin over his shoulder.

  “Her? Why—mother!”

  The revolving door ejected another late guest who seemed to be walking with a slight limp. Bundled in a voluminous gown and leaning heavily on a cane, she glowered truculently about the hall for a moment, then spotted Miriam and beamed.

  “Hello, dear! You’re looking every inch the princess tonight.”

  “Hah.” Miriam walked forward and kissed her mother on the forehead.

  “Wait till you meet my disreputable friends.”

  “I wouldn’t miss it for the world, dear. We’ve got a family tradition to uphold, haven’t we?”

  “Indeed.” A thought struck Miriam. “Where are you staying tonight? I’ve got a suite here. Olga, if you don’t mind—”

  “I do mind,” said Olga. “If you want me to give up the guest room, I demand the imperial suite here!”

  “But you know that’s booked—” Miriam began, then the doors revolved again and her eyes widened. “What are you doing here?”

  “Is that any way to greet a friend?” Paulette grinned widely as she looked around. “Hey, plush! I thought this was going to be all horse manure and steam engines!”

  “This is Brill’s fault,” Olga confided. “When she heard about the party, she began plotting—”

  “Yeah!” Paulie agreed enthusiastically. “We couldn’t let you keep the limelight all to yourself. Say, is that really a gaslight chandelier? Isn’t that amazing?”

  “Children, you’ll be late for dinner!” Brill interrupted. “Take it up some other time, huh? I don’t want to miss Sir Brakepad’s speech. Isn’t he cute?” She gently moved them in the direction of the dining room, steering Angbard discreetly. Miriam followed behind, arm in arm with her mother, and for the first time in months she dared to hope that the worst was behind her.

  A preview of

  THE CLAN CORPORATE

  CHARLES STROSS

  Now available in paperback

  from Tom Doherty Associates

  1. Tied Down

  Nail lacquer, the woman called Helge reflected as she paused in the antechamber, always did two things to her: it reminded her of her mother, and it made her feel like a rebellious little girl. She examined the fingertips of her left hand, turning them this way and that in search of minute imperfections in the early afternoon sunlight slanting through the huge window behind her. There weren’t any. The maidservant who had painted them for her had poor nails, cracked and brittle from hard work: her own, in contrast, were pearlescent and glossy, and about a quarter-inch longer than she was comfortable with. There seemed to be a lot of things that she was uncomfortable with these days. She sighed quietly and glanced at the door.

  The door opened at that moment. Was it coincidence, or was she being watched? Liveried footmen inclined their heads as another spoke. “Milady, the duchess bids you enter. She is waiting in the Day Room.”

  Helge swept past them with a brief nod—more acknowledgement of their presence than most of her rank would bother with—and paused to glance back down the hallway as her servants (a lady in waiting, a court butler, and tw
o hard-faced, impassive bodyguards) followed her. “Wait in the hall,” she told the guards. “You can accompany me, but wait at the far end of the room,” she told her attendant ingénue. Lady Kara nodded meekly. She’d been slow to learn that Helge bore an uncommon dislike for having her conversations eavesdropped on: there had been an unfortunate incident some weeks ago, and she had not yet recovered her self-esteem.

  The hall was perhaps sixty feet long and wide enough for a royal entourage. The walls, panelled in imported oak, were occupied by window bays interspersed with oil paintings and a few more recent daguerreotypes of noble ancestors, the scoundrels and skeletons cluttering up the family tree. Uniformed servants waited beside each door. Helge paced across the rough marble tiles, her spine rigid and her shoulders set defensively. At the end of the hall an equerry wearing the polished half-armor and crimson breeches of his calling bowed, then pulled the tasselled bell-pull beside the double doors. “The Countess Helge voh Thorold d’Hjorth!”

  The doors opened, ushering Countess Helge inside, leaving servants and guards to cool their heels at the threshold.

  The day room was built to classical proportions—but built large, in every dimension. Four windows, each twelve feet high, dominated the south wall, overlooking the regimented lushness of the gardens that surrounded the palace. The ornate plasterwork of the ceiling must have occupied a master and his journeymen for a year. The scale of the architecture dwarfed the merely human furniture, so that the chaise longue the duchess reclined on, and the spindly rococo chair beside it, seemed like the discarded toy furniture of a baby giantess. The duchess herself looked improbably fragile: gray hair growing out in intricately coiffed coils, face powdered to the complexion of a china doll, her body lost in a court gown of black lace over burgundy velvet. But her eyes were bright and alert—and knowing.

  Helge paused before the duchess. With a little moue of concentration she essayed a curtsey. “Your grace, I are—am—happy to see you,” she said haltingly in hochsprache. “I—I—oh damn.” The latter words slipped out in her native tongue. She straightened her knees and sighed. “Well? How am I doing?”

  “Hmm.” The duchess examined her minutely from head to foot, then nodded slightly. “You’re getting better. Well enough to pass tonight. Have a seat.” She gestured at the chair beside her.

  Miriam sat down. “As long as nobody asks me to dance,” she said ruefully. “I’ve got two left feet, it seems—” she plucked at her lap. “And as long as I don’t end up being cornered by a drunken backwoods peer who thinks not being fluent in his language is a sign of an imbecile. And as long as I don’t accidentally mistake some long-lost third cousin seven times removed for the hat check clerk and resurrect a two hundred year old blood feud. And as long as—”

  “Dear,” the duchess said quietly, “do please shut up.”

  The countess, who had grown up as Miriam but who everyone around her but the duchess habitually called Helge, stopped in mid-flow. “Yes, mother,” she said meekly. Folding her hands in her lap she breathed out. Then she raised one eyebrow.

  The duchess looked at her for almost a minute, then nodded minutely. “You’ll pass,” she said. “With the jewellery, of course. And the posh frock. As long as you don’t let your mouth run away with you.” Her cheek twitched. “As long as you remember to be Helge, not Miriam.”

  “I feel like I’m acting all the time!” Miriam protested.

  “Of course you do.” The duchess finally smiled. “Imposter syndrome goes with the territory.” The smile faded. “And I didn’t do you any favors in the long run by hiding you from all this.” She gestured around the room. “It becomes harder to adapt, the older you get.”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” Miriam frowned momentarily. “I can deal with disguises and a new name and background, I can even cope with trying to learn a new language, it’s the sense of permanence that’s disconcerting. I grew up an only child, but Helge has all these—relatives—I didn’t grow up with, and they’re real. That’s hard to cope with. And you’re here, and part of it!” Her frown returned. “And now this evening’s junket. If I thought I could avoid it, I’d be in my rooms having a stomach cramp all afternoon.”

  “That would be a Bad Idea.” The duchess still had the habit of capitalizing her speech when she was waxing sarcastic, Miriam noted.

  “Yes, I know that. I’m just—there are things I should be doing do that are more important than attending a royal garden party. It’s all deeply tedious.”

  “With an attitude like that you’ll go far.” Her mother paused. “All the way to the scaffold if you don’t watch your lip, at least in public. Do I need to explain how sensitive to social niceties your position here is? This is not America—”

  “Yes, well, more’s the pity.” Miriam shrugged minutely.

  “Well, we’re stuck with the way things are,” the duchess said sharply, then subsided slightly. “I’m sorry dear, I don’t mean to snap. I’m just worried for you. The sooner you learn how to mind yourself without mortally offending anyone by accident the happier I’ll be.”

  “Um.” Miriam chewed on the idea for a while. She’s stressed, she decided. Is that all it is, or is there something more…? “Well, I’ll try. But I came here to see how you are, not to have a moan on your shoulder. So how are you keeping?”

  “Well, now that you ask—” Her mother smiled and waved vaguely at a table behind her chaise longue. Miriam followed her gesture: two aluminium crutches, starkly functional, lay atop a cloisonné stand next to a pill case.

  “The doctor says I’m to reduce the prednisone again next week. The Copaxone seems to be helping a lot, and that’s just one injection a day. As long as nobody accidentally forgets to bring me next week’s prescription I’ll be fine.”

  “But surely nobody would—” Miriam’s whole body quivered with indignation.

  “—Really?” The duchess glanced back at her daughter, her expression unreadable. “You seem to have forgotten what kind of a place this is. The meds aren’t simply costly in dollars and cents: someone has to bring them across from the other world. And courier time is priceless. Nobody gives me a neatly itemized bill, but if I want to keep on receiving them I have to pay. And the first rule of business around here is, don’t piss off the blackmailers.”

  Miriam’s reluctant nod seemed to satisfy her, because she nodded: “Remember, a lady never unintentionally gives offense—especially to people she depends on to keep her alive. If you can hang onto just one rule to help you survive in the Clan, make it that one. But I’m losing the plot. How are you doing? Have there been any after-effects?”

  “After-effects?” Miriam caught her hand at her chin and forced herself to stop. She flushed, pulse jerking with an adrenalin-surge of remembered fear and anger. “I—” She lowered her hand. “Oh, nothing physical,” she said bitterly. “Nothing…”

  “I’ve been thinking about him a lot lately, Miriam. He wouldn’t have been good for you, you know.”

  “I know.” The younger woman—youth being relative, she wouldn’t be seeing thirty again—dropped her gaze. “The political entanglements made it a messy prospect at best,” she said bitterly. “Even if you discounted his weaknesses.” The duchess didn’t reply. Eventually Miriam looked up, her eyes burning with emotions she’d experienced only since learning to be Helge. “I haven’t forgiven him, you know.”

  “Forgiven Roland?” The duchess’s tone sharpened.

  “No. Your goddamn half-brother. He’s meant to be in charge of security! But he—” her voice began to break.

  “Yes, yes, I know. And do you think he has been sleeping well lately? I’m led to believe he’s frantically busy right now. Losing Roland was the least of our problems, if you’ll permit me to be blunt, and Angbard has a major crisis to deal with. Your affair with him can be ignored, if it comes to it, by the Council. It’s not as if you’re a teenage virgin to be despoiled, damaging some aristocratic alliance by losing your honor—and you’d better think about
that some more in future, because honor is the currency in the circles you move in, a currency that once spent is very hard to regain—but the deeper damage to the Clan that Matthias inflicted—”

  “Tell me about it,” Miriam said bitterly. “As soon as I was back on my feet they told me I could only run courier assignments to and from a safe house. And I’m not allowed to go home!”

  “Matthias knows you,” her mother pointed out. “If he mentioned you to his new employers—”

  “I understand.” Miriam subsided in a sullen silence, arms crossed before her and back set defensively. After a moment she started tapping her toes.

  “Stop that!” Moderating her tone, the duchess added: “if you do that in public it sends entirely the wrong message. Appearances are everything, you’ve got to learn that.”

  “Yes, mother.”

  After a couple of minutes, the duchess spoke. “You’re not happy.”

  “No.”

  “And it’s not just—him.”

  “Correct.” Her hem twitched once more before Helge managed to control the urge to tap.

  The duchess sighed. “Do I have to drag it out of you?”

  “No, Iris.”

  “You shouldn’t call me that here. Bad habits of thought and behavior, you know.”

  “Bad? Or just inappropriate? Liable to send the wrong message?”

  The duchess chuckled. “I should know better than to argue with you, dear!” She looked serious. “The wrong message in a nutshell. Miriam can’t go home, Helge. Not now, maybe not ever. Thanks to that scum-sucking rat-bastard defector the entire Clan network in Massachusetts is blown wide open and if you even think about going—”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know, there’ll be an FBI SWAT team staking out my back yard and I’ll vanish into a supermax prison so fast my feet don’t touch the ground. If I’m lucky,” she added bitterly. “So everything’s locked down like a code red terrorist alert, the only way I’m allowed to go back to our world is on a closely supervised courier run to an underground railway station buried so deep I don’t even see daylight, if I want anything—even a box of tampons—I have to requisition it and someone in the Security Directorate has to fill out a risk assessment to see if it’s safe to obtain, and, and…” Her shoulders heaved with indignation.