The Traders' War (Merchant Princes Omnibus 2)

by Charles Stross

  ‘Do you know who I am?’ asked Miriam.

  One of the hounds glanced at the ferret for approval: receiving it, he stepped forward and punched her in the solar plexus. She writhed on the bed, trying to suck in enough air to scream, while the ferret watched her. ‘We know who you are,’ he said after a minute, so quietly that she nearly missed his words beneath the noise of her own racking gasps. ‘Boys, get her into the chair. She’ll be easy now – won’t you?’

  There was a wheelchair waiting in the corridor and they got her into it in short order, transferring the handcuff and discreetly tucking it under her robe. Miriam didn’t pay much attention to the ride. Her chest was on fire, she’d lost bladder control when the guard punched her, and she felt too frightened and humiliated to risk meeting anyone’s eyes.

  They wheeled her to an elevator, then along another hallway, and she caught a brief glimpse of daylight before they pushed her up a ramp into the back of an ambulance, all stainless-steel fittings and emergency kits strapped to the walls. Ferret clambered in with her, and after they secured the chair to the floor both hounds climbed out. They shut the doors, and a short time later the ambulance moved off. Miriam stared at the ferret and licked her lips. ‘Can I talk now?’

  ‘No.’ She flinched in anticipation but he didn’t hit her. The ambulance turned a corner and accelerated, then the driver goosed the siren.

  Ferret caught her looking at him. ‘Always talking,’ he said tiredly. ‘Do you want anything?’

  Miriam stared. ‘Do I want anything?’ She shook her head. ‘Got a towel?’

  He reached out and grabbed a handful of tissues from a box, dumping them in her lap with an expression of mild distaste. ‘When we get where we’re going I’m going to wheel you out in that chair and take you to a transfer station. You will use the sigil there to follow me across. You won’t speak to anyone, under any circumstances. You will be given clothes, then you will follow me to a room where somebody important will give you orders. You will do exactly what they tell you to do. If you do not obey their orders I will hurt you or kill you as they direct me, because that’s my job. Do you understand?’

  The siren cut in again. Miriam stared at him some more: then she nodded, frightened into speechlessness. This quiet, middle-aged man terrified her. Something about him suggested that if he thought he should kill her he wouldn’t hesitate for a second – and he’d sleep soundly in his bed afterward.

  The ferret looked satisfied. He shook his head, then leaned back. His suit coat fell open far enough that Miriam could see his handgun. She licked her lips: if she’d been a comic-book heroine, she supposed she would lean forward and make a grab for it. But she wasn’t a superhero. Comic-book Miriam lived in the land of make-believe, and it was real-world Miriam who’d somehow have to get out of this mess intact. Comic-book Miriam wouldn’t let herself get trapped, beaten, and cowed in the back of an ambulance with a fifty-something hit man, on her way to an appointment with someone who had the power to have her killed. She wouldn’t have pissed herself the first time one of the hounds punched her, or ignored Paulie and Erasmus, or gone in to see Dr. Darling without backup, or tried to get to see Baron Henryk without preparation . . . I’m a fuckup, she thought miserably. I’m not safe to be allowed out on my own.

  The ambulance braked hard, turned, and slowed to a stop. ‘Remember what I said. And no yakking.’ The doors opened, revealing an underground car park and both hounds – this time one of them cradled a short-barreled Steyr AUG. Definitely Clan Security, Miriam registered, her knees going weak with dread. They’ve got me dead to rights, except that as far as Security were concerned, nobody had any rights: the Clan had been in a state of perpetual warfare since long before she was born, and even before that they’d taken a very medieval approach to dealing with dissent.

  The garage was pretty clearly part of a Clan transshipment station, just like the others she’d seen: carefully designed to look like corporate offices from the outside, but equipped as a trans-dimensional fortress/post office once you got past the discreetly armored doors. The Clan had an almost Roman approach to standardizing the design of their bases. As the ferret directed her toward the stairs at the back of the vehicle park Miriam looked around, sickly certain that she wouldn’t be seeing its like again – not for a long, long time. They’d taken her locket, emphasizing the point by scrubbing her temporary tattoo. Escape was not an option they had in mind for her.

  As it turned out, they weren’t going to leave her any options at all. The ferret and his helpers rolled her out of the ambulance, still in the chair, and wheeled her over to an elevator at the back of the garage. She glanced over her shoulder: from the inside, the garage doors looked huge and intimidating, reinforced against the risk of a police raid. They rode in silence down to a sub-basement level, then the guards wheeled her down a short dusty passage to a room walled in pigeonholes. The room was dominated by an open area marked out with yellow tape on the floor, in front of what looked like a window bay covered by a green baize curtain. ‘When the curtain opens, use the sigil,’ said the ferret, wheeling her into position. ‘I’ll be right behind you.’

  ‘But I’m in a chair –’ Miriam began to rise, but a hand pushed down on her shoulder.

  ‘You’re electrically insulated. Rubber tires.’

  Miriam sat down again. Electrically insulated? she wondered. Her office chair, the one she’d first world-walked in while sitting at home, had plastic castors for feet –

  The curtain opened on stomach-churning disorder. Miriam glanced round. The hound was waiting. She looked back and let her mind go blank. A moment later she was facing a closed red curtain, her head pounding as if someone were hammering a railroad spike through it. Her already-sore guts knotted in pain. She glanced round again.

  ‘Don’t even think it,’ the ferret murmured as he wheeled her out of the transfer zone. ‘Remember what I told you.’

  Another corridor rolled past, this time featuring a tiled floor and wooden panels on the walls. It was narrow and gloomy, illuminated by weak electric bulbs. A great Clan house, but which one? She shifted in the wheelchair, wincing against the headache that was clogging her thoughts. Whoever they were, just maintaining an electrical system was a sign of wealth and influence. And they were somewhere near New York, near the capital city Niejwein, in other words. Her guts were close to cramping with dread. Clan Security had its own infrastructure, separate from the Clan Trade Committee’s postal service. Whoever she was being taken to see, they weren’t low down the pecking order. Baron Henryk, perhaps – or possibly the duke himself. Or –

  The ferret stopped beside a door and knocked twice. Someone unseen opened it from the inside. ‘Consignment delivered,’ the ferret told the worried-looking maidservant in the entrance, as he unlocked the handcuff securing her to the wheelchair with a flourish of a key ring she hadn’t even noticed him holding. ‘Stand up,’ he told Miriam. To the servant: ‘You’ve got ten minutes. Then I want her back, ready or not.’

  Miriam pushed herself upright, wincing as she was assailed by various aches and pains. She took a stumbling step forward and the maid caught her arm. ‘This way, please you,’ she said haltingly, her accent thick enough to cut with a knife. Miriam nodded as the ferret disappeared and another servant closed the door behind her. ‘We are, please you, to disrobe – ’

  They had clothing waiting for her, a bodice and shift. Day wear for Niejwein. Miriam let them lace her up without speaking. Her hair was a mess, but they had a plain linen cap to cover it up. If they were just going to kill me out of hand they wouldn’t bother with this, Miriam told herself, and desperately tried to believe it.

  *

  Ten minutes later there was another rap on the door. One of the maids went to answer it. There was a whispered exchange of Hochsprache, then the ferret stepped inside and looked her up and down. ‘She’ll do,’ he said tersely. ‘You. This way.’

  The ferret led her up the corridor to a narrow servants’ staircase, then
along a landing to a thick oak door. It opened without a knock. ‘Go through,’ said the ferret. ‘He’s waiting for you.’ He gave her a light shove in the small of the back; unbalanced, Miriam lurched forward into the light.

  The room was large, high-ceilinged, and cold in the way that only a room in a palace heated by open fires can be cold. High windows drizzled sunlight across about an acre of handwoven, richly embroidered carpet. There was no furniture except for a writing desk and a chair against one wall, situated directly beneath a dusty oil painting of a man in a leather coat standing beside a heavily laden pony.

  Miriam took a couple of steps toward the middle of the room before she realized who was sitting behind the desk, poring over a note. She stopped dead, her heart flip-flopping in panic. ‘Great-uncle, I – ’

  ‘Shut up.’ It was Baron Henryk, the head of the royal secret police, not kindly, casual Uncle Henryk, who faced Miriam from behind the desk. Uncle Henryk was amusing and friendly. Baron Henryk looked anything but friendly. ‘Do you know what this is?’ He brandished the sheet of paper at her.

  Miriam shook her head.

  ‘It’s an execution warrant,’ said Henryk, pushing a pair of reading glasses up his nose. ‘Stand over here, where I can see you.’ He jotted something on the sheet of paper, then folded it once and moved it to an out-tray. ‘Not the full-dress public variety, more what the Americans’ CIA would call a termination expedient order. Your uncle runs them past me as partly a courtesy to the Crown – as a duke he has the right of high justice, should he choose to use it – but also as a measure of prudence.’ Reflectively: ‘It’s a little hard to undo afterward if it turns out you switched someone off by mistake.’

  ‘You, you approve execution warrants for the Clan?’

  ‘Don’t you tell me you didn’t suspect something of the kind.’ Henryk stared at her for a moment, then looked at the next note on his in-tray and frowned. ‘Hmm.’ He picked up a different pen and scrawled a red slash across the page, folded it, and put it in the out-tray. ‘I don’t think so.’ He put the pen down as carefully as if it were a loaded gun, then looked back at Miriam. ‘I’m not ready to give up on you yet.’

  Miriam took a deep breath. ‘What – who – was that?’

  ‘It could have been you.’ His lips quirked. ‘We can’t protect you forever, you know.’ He carefully drew a black velvet cloth across the papers and turned round to face her. ‘Especially if you keep putting your head through every snare you come across.’

  ‘Why am I here?’ She wanted to ask, How much do you think I know? But right now that might be a very bad idea indeed. Possibly she knew more than Henryk realized, and if that was the case, admitting it could be a fatal mistake.

  ‘You’re here because you stuck your nose where it didn’t belong. I’m here because I’m trying to control the damage.’ He took his reading glasses off and folded them carefully, then placed them on top of the black cloth. ‘Let’s get this straight. We know you learned about something you aren’t supposed to know about. That’s . . . not good. Then you compounded it by getting involved – and getting involved personally! You could have been identified. The next step might have been full public disclosure, with who knows what consequences. Helge, that is not acceptable. Before, before all this started, you came to me complaining that you were being treated as if you were under arrest. This time, make no mistake, you are under arrest.’

  She tried to stay silent, but it was too hard. ‘What are you going to do with me?’

  Baron Henryk didn’t reply at first. Instead, he looked up at the windows for a while, as if inspecting the quality of the plasterwork of the surrounds. ‘Interfering with the Clan post is a capital offense,’ he said, pushing back his chair. He stood up heavily and crossed the carpet to the far side of the room, limping slightly. Miriam stood as if rooted to the spot. ‘Just so that you understand how serious the situation is, I was not exaggerating when I said that execution warrant might be yours.’ Henryk turned and squinted at her across the room from between fingers held in a frame, like a cinematographer assessing a camera angle. ‘Hmm.’

  Miriam shivered involuntarily and took a step toward him. ‘Then why – ’

  ‘Because you are still useful to us,’ Henryk said calmly. ‘Stop, stand still.’ He walked across to the other corner of the room, looked at her from between crossed fingers. ‘That’s good. As I was saying, you made a habit of sticking your nose into affairs where it has no business. Luckily this time we found out before it became common knowledge – otherwise I would have had to approve a great deal more death warrants in order to cover up your misbehavior, and your mother would never forgive me.’ He made the rectangle again.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I’m thinking of taking your portrait; be still.’ He squinted and shifted a little. ‘It’s a hobby of mine, plate-glass daguerreotyping.’ He lowered his hands and limped back toward his desk. ‘The Queen Mother approves of you.’

  Miriam took another deep breath, distressed. ‘What’s that got to do with things?’

  ‘It suggests a way out of the dilemma.’ Henryk stopped, just out of arm’s reach, and watched her. ‘Interfering with the post, Helge, isn’t the only capital offense. Making the head of Clan Security look like an idiot – that is a capital offense, albeit a more subtle one for which the punishment is never made public. As for jeopardizing relations between the Clan and the Crown, that is really serious. Lèse-majesté, possibly treason. Not that you’re guilty of the latter two, not yet, but I wouldn’t put it past you, given how you’ve got the crown prince’s nose out of joint already. We can’t afford to give you any more rope to play with, Helge, or you will succeed in hanging yourself, and possibly a number of unfortunates alongside you. I’m afraid this is where the buck stops.’ He walked back to his desk and unfolded the black cloth, swearing mildly as he spilled his spectacles. ‘‘‘Deferred pending overriding necessity”, Helge, that’s all the slack I can buy you.’ He held up the folded paper. ‘So here’s what is going to happen:

  ‘You will speak to nobody about reading the post, without my permission, or that of the duke your uncle. The, ah, loose ends who might have deduced your activity have been tied off neatly. If you do not speak of it, and we do not speak of it, it did not happen. This paper will remain on file for a few years, until we feel we can trust you. But.’ He paced back toward the other side of the room. ‘You will have nothing more to do with the Clan postal service ever again, Helge, ever again. This is the immediate consequence of your actions. You are to be permanently removed from the corvée, and temporarily deprived of the ability to walk between worlds.’ He grimaced. ‘Don’t force us to make it permanent, there are ways and means short of execution that would achieve that end’ – he picked up a pen-sized cylinder and held it for her to see, then put it down again – ‘do you see?’

  Miriam swallowed. That’s a laser! He’s talking about blinding me! The idea of spending the rest of her life unable to see horrified her. ‘I understand,’ she managed to croak.

  ‘Good.’ Baron Henryk nodded. ‘I’m sure you appreciate that your position is somewhat fraught. But the Queen Mother approves of you.’ Pace, pace, pace: he was off again, as if he didn’t want to face her. ‘She has requested your attendance upon her and her youngest surviving grandson at your convenience, Helge. I trust you know what this is about.’

  Miriam felt the blood draining from her face. ‘What?’ she asked nervously.

  ‘Face facts.’ Henryk could sound as fussily pedantic as any schoolteacher when he was upset. ‘You are a Clan lady of high birth, single, still of childbearing age. If you can’t serve the commerce committee, how else may you serve us? There’s not a lot else for you to do,’ he said, almost apologetically. ‘So you’re going to go back to your residence and wait there, and work on your, what you think of as, your cover identity. Countess Helge voh Thorold d’Hjorth. You’re not going to be allowed to be Miriam Beckstein again until we’re sure we can tru
st you. We know about your dissociative tendencies, this unfortunate proclivity toward imposter syndrome. It’s time we gave you some help in breaking the habit. Think of it as an enforced vacation from the pressures of modern life, hein? Practice your Hochsprache and persist with the gentle arts, and try not to overexert yourself too much. One way or the other, you’re going to make yourself of use, even if only by way of giving us another generation of world-walkers or a royal heir. It will go easier for you if you cooperate of your own free choice.’

  ‘You want to marry me off to the Idiot,’ she heard herself saying. ‘You want me to bear world-walking children who are in line for the throne. If Egon were to die – ’

  ‘That would be treason,’ Henryk said sharply, staring at her. ‘The Clan would never, ever, countenance treason.’

  The blood was roaring in Miriam’s ears: You wouldn’t dabble, but you might play at it in earnest, she thought. Get me out of here! A monstrous sense of claustrophobia pressed down on her, and her stomach twisted. ‘I feel sick,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, I hope not.’ Henryk looked alarmed. ‘It’s much too soon for that.’

  FORCED ACCULTURATION

  The ferret was waiting outside with two men-at-arms. They handcuffed her wrists behind her back, then marched her down the narrow staircase and out to a walled courtyard at the rear of the building where a carriage was waiting. The windows were shuttered, screens secured with padlocks. Miriam didn’t resist as they loaded her in and bolted the door. What would be the point? Henryk was right about one thing – she’d screwed up completely, and before she tried to dig her way out of this mess it would be a good idea to think the consequences of her actions through very carefully indeed.