The Traders' War (Merchant Princes Omnibus 2)

by Charles Stross

  ‘Profit growth from a very low baseline,’ Olga pointed out.

  ‘That’s not the point!’ Miriam managed to keep her temper under control. ‘While they’re keeping me on the shelf under glass I can’t actually meet people and make deals and keep things moving! I’m isolated. I don’t know what’s going on. Hell, do you know what’s going on? Is Roger messing around with epoxides again or is he working on the process quality issue? Did Jeremiah sort out the delivery schedules? Who’s handling payroll? If it’s that man of Bates’s it’s costing us an arm and a leg. Well? Who’s minding the shop?’

  Olga shook her head. ‘I’m sure Morgan was taking care of all that,’ she said slowly, not meeting Miriam’s eyes. ‘Things are very busy.’

  ‘Well, you’re actually going on-site,’ Miriam pointed out. ‘If you don’t know what to look for, how should Morgan know? I’m the only person in the Clan who really knows what the company is good for or where everything goes, and if they’re keeping me away from it, there’s a good chance that –’ She stopped.

  Olga busied herself looking around the lower branches of the trees for the mockingbird that had been serenading them only a minute before.

  ‘Why am I being frozen out?’ asked Miriam.

  ‘I couldn’t possibly comment,’ Olga sang, almost tonelessly, an odd affectation she sometimes used when forced to deliver bad news, ‘because were I to repeat anything I heard from his excellency in the Security Directorate that would be an act of petty treason, not to say a betrayal of his trust in me – but has anything else happened to you lately?’

  ‘Oh, lots.’ Miriam’s voice sharpened. ‘Deportment lessons. Dancing lessons. A daily dossier of relatives and their family trees to memorize. How to ride a horse sidesaddle. How to address a prince, a pauper, or a priest of Sky Father. The use of reflexive verbs in Hochsprache. More clothing than I’ve ever needed before, all in styles I wouldn’t have been seen dead in–or expected to see outside a museum or a movie theater. I’ve been getting a crash course.’ She grimaced, then glanced sidelong at Olga. ‘I went to see Ma – Iris, I mean, Her Grace the Duchess Patricia – this afternoon. She’s turned almost as stone-faced and Machiavellian as my dear old grandmother.’

  ‘Really?’ Olga chirped, just a little too brightly. ‘Did she have anything interesting to say?’

  ‘Yes, as a matter of fact she did.’ Miriam tapped one foot impatiently. ‘She asked me what I thought about marriage, Olga. She knows damn well what I think about marriage; she was there when I married Ben, and she was still there when the divorce came through, and that was over ten years ago. She knows about Roland.’ Her voice wobbled slightly as she named him, and for a moment she looked a decade older than her thirty-three years. ‘Ma’s frightening me, Olga, it’s as if something’s broken inside her and she’s decided it was all a mistake, running away, and she needs to conform to expectations.’

  ‘Well, maybe –’ Olga paused. She glanced around. ‘Look, Miriam. I think it’s safe to tell you this, all right? But don’t talk about it in front of anybody else.’ She took a deep breath. ‘You are being kept away from your operation in New Britain. It’s a security thing, but not, not Matthias. I think her grace was finding out what you think about marriage because that’s the fastest way to clear things up. If you were – unambiguously – part of the Clan, there’d be fewer grounds to worry about you.’

  ‘About me? What do you think – ’

  ‘Hush, it’s not what I think that’s the problem!’

  Miriam paused. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘I accept your apology, dear friend. No, it’s – the problem is, you’ve been too successful too fast. On your own. Think about Roland, think about what he tried to do years ago. They’re afraid that a lot of young tearaways will look at your example and think, “I could do that,”’ and, well, copy everything except the way you came home to face a council hearing and explain what you were doing.’

  Miriam looked blank for a moment. ‘You mean, they’re afraid youngsters would use me as an object lesson and strike out on their own. Defect. Leave the Clan.’

  ‘Yes, Helge. I think that’s what they’re afraid of. You’ve handed them a huge opportunity on a plate, but it’s also a threat to their very survival as an institution. And there’s already a crisis in train for them to worry about. Frightened people act harshly . . . your mother has every reason to be scared witless, on your behalf. Do you see?’

  ‘That’s hard to believe.’ Eyes downcast, Helge slowly began to walk back along the path. ‘Bastards,’ she muttered quietly under her breath. ‘Lying bastards.’

  Olga trotted to catch up. ‘Come along to the garden party tonight,’ she suggested. ‘Try to enjoy it? You’ll meet lots of eligible gentles there, I’m sure.’ A quiet giggle: ‘If they’re not overawed by your reputation!’

  ‘Enjoy it?’ Helge stopped dead. ‘Last time I attended one of those events Matthias tried to blackmail me, his majesty insisted on introducing me to his idiot younger son, and two different factions tried to assassinate me! I’m just hoping that his majesty’s too drunk to recognize me, otherwise – ’

  ‘This time will be different,’ Olga said, offering her hand. ‘You’ll see!’

  TRANSLATED TRANSCRIPT BEGINS

  ‘A most excellent evening, your grace.’

  ‘Any evening at court is a most excellent one, Otto. Blessed by the presence of our royal sun, as it were. Ah, you – a glass for the baron, here!’

  (Pause.)

  ‘That’s very fine, the, ah, Sudten new grape? This year’s, fresh from the cask?’

  ‘Absolutely. His majesty’s vintners are conscientious as always. I understand we can expect this crop to arrive in our own cellars presently, in perhaps a few weeks – as the ships work their way into port, weather permitting.’

  ‘As the – oh. How do they do it?’

  ‘Witchcraft of some description, no doubt, though the how of it hardly matters as much as the why, Otto.’ (Pause.) ‘Are you still having problems with your new neighbor?’

  ‘Why that – one-legged whore’s son of a bloated tick! I’m sorry, your grace. Sky Father rot his eyes in his head, yes! It continues. As the circuit assizes will attest this high summer. And he’s got the sworn men to compurge his case before the justiciars, claiming with their lying hands on the altar that every inch of the forest he’s cleared has been in his family since time immemorial.

  Which it has not, on account of his family being jumped-up peddlers – ’

  ‘Not so loudly if you please, Otto. Another glass?’

  ‘My – discreetly! Discreetly does it indeed, sir, I must apologize; it is just that the subject causes me no little inflammation of the senses. My grief is not at the ennoblement of the line, which it must be admitted happened in my grandfather’s day, but his attitude is insufferable! To raze the choicest forest is bad enough, but to sow it with weeds, and then to erect fences and bar his fields to the hunt in breach of ancient right is a personal affront. And his claim to be under the instruction of his liege is . . .’

  ‘Quite true, Otto.’

  ‘I most humbly beg your pardon, your grace, but I find that hard to credit.’

  (Pause.)

  ‘It is entirely true, Otto. The merchants own considerable estates, and fully a tenth of them were turned over to this crop last spring. With considerable hardship to their tenants, I might add; an unseemly lack of care will see many of them starving. Evidently red and purple flowers mean more to them than the health of their peasants, unless by some more of their magic they can transform poppies into bread by midwinter’s eve.’

  ‘Idiots.’ (Inarticulate muttering.) ‘It wouldn’t be the first idiocy they’ve been guilty of, of course, but to damage the yeomanry adds an insult to the blow.’

  ‘Exactly his thought.’

  ‘He –’ (Pause.) ‘The rising sun is of this thought?’

  ‘Indeed. Even while his father sips his new wine, imported by tinker trickery, and
raises them in his esteem without questioning their custody of the lands he’s granted them, our future king asks hard questions. He’s a born leader, and we are lucky to have his like.’

  ‘I’ll drink to that. Long live the king!’

  ‘Long live . . . and long live the prince!’

  ‘Indeed, long live the prince!’

  ‘And may we live to see the day when he succeeds his father to the throne.’

  ‘May we –’(Coughing.) (Pause.) ‘Indeed, my lord. Absolutely, unquestionably. Neither too early nor too late nor – ahem. Yes, I shall treasure your confidence.’

  ‘These are dangerous times, Otto.’

  ‘You can – count on me. Sir. Should it come to that – ’

  ‘I hope that it will not. We all hope that it will not, do you

  understand? But youth grows impatient with corruption, as dusk grows impatient with dawn and as you grow impatient with your jumped-up peddler of a neighbor. There have been vile rumors about the succession, even as to the disposition of the young prince, and the suitability of the lion of the nation for the role of shepherd . . .’

  (Spluttering.) ‘Insupportable!’

  ‘Yes. I merely mention it to you so that you understand how the land lies. As one of my most trusted clients . . . Well, Otto, I must be moving on. People to see, favors to bestow. But if I may leave you with one observation, it is that it might be to your advantage and my pleasure for you to present yourself to his grace of Innsford before the evening is old. In his capacity as secretary to the prince, you understand, he is most interested in collecting accounts of insults presented to the old blood by the new. Against the reckoning of future years, gods willing.’

  ‘Why, thank you, your grace! Gods willing.’

  ‘My pleasure.’

  TRANSCRIPT ENDS

  RUMORS OF WAR

  Meanwhile, a transfinite distance and a split second away, the king-emperor of New Britain was having a bad day.

  ‘Damn your eyes, Farnsworth.’ He hunched over his work-glass, tweezers in hand, one intricate gear wheel clasped delicately between its jaws. ‘Didn’t I tell you not to disturb me at the bench?’

  The unfortunate Farnsworth cleared his throat apologetically. A skinny fellow in the first graying of middle age, clad in the knee breeches and tailcoat of a royal equerry, his position as companion of the king’s bedchamber made him the first point of contact for anyone who wanted some of the king’s time – and also the lightning conductor for his majesty’s occasional pique. ‘Indeed you did, your majesty.’ He stood on the threshold of the royal workshop, flanked on either side by the two soldiers of the Horse Guards who held the door, his attention focused on the royal watchmaker. King John the Fourth of New Britain was clearly annoyed, his plump cheeks florid and his blond curls damp with perspiration from hours of focus directed toward the tiny mechanism clamped to his workbench.

  ‘Then what have you got to say for yourself?’ demanded the monarch, moderating his tone very slightly. Farnsworth suppressed a sigh of relief: John Frederick was not his father, blessed with decisiveness but cursed with a whim of steel. Still, he wasn’t out of the woods yet. ‘I see it is’ – the king’s eyes swiveled toward a mantel covered from edge to edge in whirring clocks, every one of which he had built with his own hands – ‘another thirty-seven minutes before I must withdraw to the Green Room and prepare for the grand opening.’

  ‘I deeply regret the necessity of encroaching upon your majesty’s precious time, but’ – Farnsworth took a deep breath – ‘it’s the Ministry for Special Affairs. They’ve hatched some sort of alarm or excursion, and Sir Roderick says it cannot possibly wait, and the prime minister himself heard Sir Roderick out in private and sent me straight to you forthwith. He apologizes for intruding upon your majesty’s business, but says he agrees the news is extremely grave and requests your most urgent attention in your capacity as commander in chief.’

  ‘News?’ The king snorted. ‘Urgent? It’s probably just some jumped-up border fort commander complaining that Milton’s been squeezing their bully and biscuit again.’ But he carefully lowered the tiny camshaft assembly, placing it back on the velvet cloth beside the rectangular gear mill he was building, and lowered a second cloth atop the work in progress. ‘Where’s he waiting?’

  ‘In the Gold Office, your Majesty.’

  Two footmen of the royal household scurried forward to secure the items on the royal workbench. A third servant bowed deeply, then bent to untie the royal apron, while a fourth approached bearing the king’s topcoat. The clockmaker king slid down off his high stool and stretched. At thirty-six years old he was in good health, although his waistline showed the effect of too many state banquets, and his complexion betrayed the choleric blood pressure that so worried his physiopaths and apothecaries. He extended his arms for the coat, of conservative black broadcloth embroidered with gold frogging in the style of the earlier century. ‘Take me to Sir Roderick and the prime minister. Let us hear this news that is important enough to drag the royal gearsman away from his analytical engine.’

  Farnsworth glanced over his shoulder. ‘Make it so,’ he snapped. And it was done. The King of New Britain, Emperor of Terra Australis, by grace of God Protector-Regent of the Chrysanthemum Throne, pretender to the Throne of England, and Presider of the Grand Assembly of American States, could go nowhere without an escort of Horse Guards to protect the royal person, majors-domo to announce his presence in advance lest some hapless courtier fail to be alerted and take their cue to pay their respects, household servants to open the doors before him and close them behind him and brush the carpets before his feet fell upon them . . . but John Frederick the man had scant patience when kept waiting, and Farnsworth took considerable pride in ensuring that his lord and master’s progress was as frictionless as one of the royal artificer’s own jeweled gear trains.

  The royal procession paced smoothly through the west wing of the Brunswick Palace, traversing wood-paneled corridors illuminated by the cold, clear brilliance of the electrical illuminants the technocrat-emperor favored. Courtiers and servants scattered before his progress as Farnsworth marched, stony-faced, ahead of the king, aware of the royal eyes drilling speculatively into the back of his high-collared coat. He turned into the North Hall, then through the Hall of Monsters (walled with display cabinets by the king’s grandfather, who had taken his antediluvian cryptozoological studies as seriously as the present incumbent took his watchmaker’s bench), and then into the New Hall. From there he turned left and paused in a small vestibule before the polished oak doors of the Gold Office.

  ‘Open all and rise for his majesty!’ called one of the guards. An answering announcement, muffled by the thickness of wood, reached Farnsworth. He nodded at the nearest footman, who moved smartly to one side and opened the door. Farnsworth stepped forward.

  ‘His Majesty the King bids you good afternoon, and graces you with his presence to enquire of the running of his domains,’ he announced. Then he took two steps back, to stand beside the door, as invisible to the powerful occupants as the tape-telegraph on its pillar to one side of the enormous desk or the gigantic map of the world that covered the wall opposite the door.

  John Frederick stepped inside, then glanced over his shoulder. ‘Shut it. Everyone who isn’t cleared, get out,’ he said. Two men, one tall and cadaverous in his black suit, the other wizened and stooped with age, waited beside his desk as he strode forward and threw himself down in the wide-armed chair behind it with a grunt of irritation. The stooped man watched impassively, but the tall fellow looked slightly apprehensive, like an errant pupil called into the principal’s office. ‘Sir Roderick, Lord Douglass. We assume you would not have lightly called us away from our one private hour of the day without good reason. So if you would be good enough to be seated, perhaps you could explain to us what that reason was? You, fetch chairs for my guests.’

  Servants cleared for the highest discussions brought chairs for the two ministers. Lord Dou
glass sat first, creakily lowering himself into his seat. ‘Roderick, I believe this is your story,’ he said in a thin voice that betrayed no weakness of mind, merely the frailty of extreme old age.

  ‘Yes, your lordship. Majesty. I have the grave duty to report to you that our intelligence confirms that two days ago the Farmers General detonated a corpuscular dissociation petard on their military test range in Northumbria.’

  ‘Shit.’ John Frederick closed his eyes and rubbed them with the back of one regal wrist. ‘And which of our agents have reported this? Roderick, they were at least six months away from that last week, what-what?’

  Sir Roderick cleared his throat. ‘I am afraid our intelligence estimates were incorrect, your majesty.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Our initial information comes from a communicant in Lancaster who has heard eyewitness reports of the flash and a toadstool-shaped cloud from villagers in the Lake District, southwest of the test range. Subsequently a weather ballonet over Iceland detected a radiant plume of corpuscular fragments indicative of a petard of the gun type, using enriched light-kernel cronosium. We’ve had detailed reports of the progress of the Farmers’ jenny-works in Bohemia, which has been taking in shipments of pitchblende from the Cape. If they’ve got enough highly enriched cronosium to hoist a petard, and if they’ve also commissioned the crucible complex that was building near Kiev, then according to the revised estimates that my department has prepared we can expect the Frogs to have as many as twelve corpses in service by the end of the year, and production running at two per month through next year, rising to ten per month thereafter.’

  The king sighed. ‘We cannot afford to ignore this affront. Our credibility will be deeply weakened if we are seen to ignore such a clear challenge by an agency of the French crown. And the insult of using our former territory as a test range’ – his voice crackled with indignation – ‘cannot be other than intentional.’ John Frederick straightened up in his chair. ‘Lord Douglass. This matter must be addressed by the Imperial Security Council. A new policy is required to deal with the affront. And a public position, lest panic ensue when the Frogs announce their new capability.’ He drummed the fingers of his left hand on the intricately lacquered desktop. ‘Well. What else to keep us from our workshop?’