The Traders' War (Merchant Princes Omnibus 2)

by Charles Stross

  ‘I shouldn’t worry.’ The room spun around her. ‘In answer to your question, we don’t know. Nobody knows. The elders forbade further experiments when they failed to return.’

  ‘Oh.’ She leaned her weight against him, feeling deflated, the elephantine weight of depression returning to her shoulders. For a moment she’d been able to smell the fresh air drifting through the bars of her cell – and then it turned out to be prison air-conditioning. The music spiraled to an end, leaving her washed up on the floor by the doorway. The ferret was waiting, looking bored. ‘I think this is my cue to say good-bye,’ she told Lee.

  ‘I’m sure we’ll meet again,’ he said, smiling a lazy grin of intrigue.

  *

  As several days turned into a week and the evenings grew long and humid, Miriam grew resigned to her confinement. As prisons went, it was luxurious – multiple rooms, anxious servants, no shortage of basic amenities, even a walled courtyard she could go and walk in by prior arrangement – but it lacked two essentials that she’d taken for granted her entire life: freedom and the social contact of her equals.

  After Kara’s marriage, she was left with only the carefully vetted maids and the ferret for company. The servants didn’t have a word of English between them, and the ferret had a very low tolerance for chitchat. After a while Miriam gritted her teeth and tried to speak Hochsprache exclusively. While a couple of the servants regarded her as crack-brained, an imbecile to be humored, a couple of the younger maids responded, albeit cautiously. A noblewoman’s wrath was subject to few constraints: they would clam up rather than risk provoking her. And it didn’t take long for Miriam to discover another unwelcome truth: her servants had been chosen, it seemed, on the basis of their ignorance and tractability. They were all terrified of the ferret, frightened of her, and strangers to the city (or overgrown town) of Niejwein. They’d been brought in from villages and towns outside, knew nobody here outside the great house, and weren’t even able to go outside on their own.

  About a week into the confinement, the boredom reached an excruciating peak. ‘I need something to read, or something to write,’ she told the ferret. ‘I’ll go out of my head with boredom if I don’t have something to do!’

  ‘Go practice your tapestry stitch, then.’

  Miriam put her foot down. ‘I’m crap at sewing. I want a notepad and mechanical pencil. Why can’t I have a notepad? Are you afraid I’ll keep a diary, or something?’

  The ferret looked at her. He’d been cleaning his fingernails with a wickedly sharp knife. ‘You can’t have a notepad,’ he said calmly. ‘Stop pestering me or I’ll beat you.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Something in her expression gave him pause for thought: ‘You might try to draw an escape knot from memory,’ he said.

  ‘Ri-ight.’ She scowled furiously. ‘And how likely do you think that is? Isn’t this place doppelgängered in New York?’

  ‘You might get the knot wrong,’ he pointed out.

  ‘And kill myself by accident.’ She shook her head. ‘Listen, do you really want me depressed to the point of suicide? Because this, this –’ The phrase sensory deprivation sprung to mind, but that wasn’t quite right. ‘This emptiness is driving me crazy. I don’t know whose idea keeping me here was, but I’m not used to inactivity. And I’m rubbish at tapestry or needlepoint. And the staff aren’t exactly good for practicing conversational Hochsprache.’

  He stood up. ‘I will see what I can do,’ he said. ‘Now go away.’ And she did.

  *

  Two days later a leather-bound notebook and a pen materialized on her dresser. There was a note in the book: Remember you are thirty feet up, it said. The ferret insisted on holding it whenever she went downstairs to walk in the garden. But at least it was progress. Miriam drew a viciously complicated three-loop Möbius strip on the first page, just to deter the ferret from snooping inside, then found herself blocked, unable to write anything. I should have studied shorthand, she thought bitterly. Privacy, it seemed, was a phenomenon dependent on trust – and if there was one thing she didn’t have these days, it was the confidence of her relatives.

  One foggy morning, almost two weeks after Kara’s arranged wedding, there was a knock at the door to her reception room. Miriam looked up: this usually meant the ferret wanted to see her. Today, though, the ferret tiptoed in and stood to one side as two tough-looking men in business suits and dark glasses – Secret Service chic – entered and rapidly searched the apartment. ‘What’s going on?’ she asked, but the ferret ignored her.

  One of the guards stepped outside. A moment later, the door opened again. It was Henryk, leaning heavily on a walking stick. The ferret scurried to fetch a padded stool for the baron, positioning it in front of Miriam’s seat in the window bay. Miriam stared at Henryk. Her heart pounded and she felt slightly sick, but she stayed seated. I’m not going to beg, she told herself uncertainly. What does the old bastard want?

  ‘Good morning, my dear Helge. I hope you are keeping well?’ He spoke in Hochsprache, but the phrases were stock.

  ‘I am well. I thank you,’ she said haltingly, frowning. I’m not going to let him show me up –

  ‘Good.’ He turned to the ferret: ‘Clear the room. Now.’

  Thirty seconds later they were alone. ‘What require – do you want?’ she asked.

  ‘Hmm.’ He tilted his head thoughtfully. ‘Your accent is atrocious.’ She must have looked blank: he repeated himself in English. ‘We can continue in this tongue if you’d rather.’

  ‘Okay.’ She nodded reluctantly.

  ‘Tonight there will be a private family reception at the summer palace,’ Henryk said without preamble. ‘A dinner, to be followed by dancing. Let me explain your role in it. Your mother will be there, as will her half-brother, the duke. His majesty, and the Queen Mother, and his youngest son, will also be there. There will be a number of other notables present as guests, but you are being given a signal honor as a personal guest of his majesty. You will be seated with them at the high table, and you will behave with the utmost circumspection. This means, basically, think before you open your mouth.’ He paused. ‘And don’t talk out of turn.’

  ‘Huh.’ Miriam frowned. ‘What about the crown prince? Is he going to be there?’

  ‘Egon?’ Henryk looked bemused. ‘No, why should he be? He’s off on a hunting trip somewhere, I think.’

  ‘Oh.’ One less thing to worry about, Miriam thought. ‘Is that all?’

  ‘Not quite.’ Henryk paused again, as if uncertain how to continue. ‘You know what our plans for you are,’ he said slowly. ‘There are some facts you need to understand. The younger prince – you have met him.’ Miriam nodded, suppressing a shudder. The prince belonged in a hospital ward with nursing attendants and a special restricted diet. Brain damage. ‘He’s a little slow, but he is not a vegetable, Helge. You should respect him. If he had not been poisoned –’ A shadow crossed his face.

  ‘What do you expect me to do?’

  ‘I expect you to marry him and bear his children.’ Henryk looked pained at being made to spell it out. ‘Nothing more and nothing less, and it is not just what I expect of you – the Clan proposes and the Clan disposes. But you can do this the easy way, if you like. Go through the ceremony, then Dr. ven Hjalmar will sort you out. You don’t need to worry about bedding the imbecile, if that thought upsets you: the doctor can arrange for artificial insemination. You’ll be pregnant, but you’ll have the best antenatal care we can provide, and a private maternity clinic on the other side for the delivery. The well-being of your child will be a matter of state security. Once you are mother to a male child in the line of succession, a certain piece of paper can be discreetly buried. Two or more children would be better, but I shall leave that as a matter for you and your doctor to decide upon – your age, after all, is an issue.’

  ‘Um.’ Miriam swallowed her distaste. Spitting would send entirely the wrong message, she thought, her head spinning. And besides, she’d been
angry about this for weeks already, to the point where the indignation and fury had lost their immediate edge. It wasn’t simply the thought of pregnancy – although she hadn’t enjoyed her one and only experience of it more than ten years ago – but the idea of compulsion. The idea that you could be compelled to bear a child was deeply repugnant. She’d never been one for getting too exercised over the abortion debate, but Henryk’s bald-faced orders brought it into tight focus. You will be pregnant. Huh. And how would you like it if I told you that you were going to be anally probed by aliens, baron? ‘And what’s your position on this?’ she asked.

  ‘My position?’ Henryk seemed puzzled. ‘I don’t have a position, my dear. I just want you to have a happy and fruitful marriage to the second heir to the throne – and to keep out of trouble. Which, thankfully, won’t be a problem for a while once you’re pregnant, and afterwards . . .’ He looked at her penetratingly. ‘I think you’d make a very good mother, once you come to terms with your situation.’

  Not if you and everybody blackmail me into it, she thought. ‘Is that the only option you see for me?’

  ‘Truthfully, yes. It’s that or, well, we’re not unreasonable. You’d just go to sleep one night in your bed and not wake up in the morning. Case completed.’

  Miriam stared at him. Everything was gray for a while; finally some atavistic reflex buried deep in her spine remembered she needed to breathe, and she inhaled explosively. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘I just want to make sure that I’ve got it straight. I go through with this – marry the imbecile, get pregnant, bear at least one child. Or I tell you to fuck off, and you kill me. Is that the whole picture?’

  ‘No.’ Henryk regarded her thoughtfully for a while. ‘I wish it were. Unfortunately, your history suggests that you don’t take well to being coerced. So additional pressure is needed. If you refuse to go through with this, we will withdraw your mother’s medication. I repeat: If you don’t cooperate, you will be responsible for her death, as well as your own. Because we need an heir to the royal blood who is one of us much more badly than we need you, or her, or indeed anyone else. Do you understand?’

  Miriam was halfway out of her chair before she knew it, and Henryk’s hands were raised protectively across his face. She managed to regain her control a split second short of striking him. That would be a mistake, she realized coldly, through a haze of outrage. She wanted to hurt him, so badly that it was almost a physical need. ‘You fucking bastard,’ she spat in Hochsprache. Henryk turned white. Olga had taught her those words: bastard was worse than cunt in English, much worse.

  ‘If you were a man I’d demand satisfaction for that.’ Henryk backhanded her across the face. Miriam staggered backward until she fell across the window seat. Henryk leaned over her: ‘You are an adult – it’s time you behaved like one, not a spoiled brat,’ he spat at her, quivering with rage. She licked her lips, tasting blood. ‘You have a family. You have responsibilities! This foolish pursuit of independence will hurt them – worse, it may kill them – if you continue to indulge it. You disgust me!’

  He was breathing deeply, his hands twisted around the head of his cane. Miriam felt sticky dampness on her lip: her nose was bleeding. After a moment Henryk took a step back, breathing heavily.

  ‘I hate you,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m not going to forget this.’

  ‘I don’t expect you to.’ He straightened up, adjusting his short cape. ‘I’d be disappointed in you if you did. But I’m doing this for everyone’s good. Once the Queen Mother placed her youngest grandson in play . . . well, one day you’ll know enough to understand I was right, although I don’t ever expect you to thank me for it, or even admit it.’ He glanced at the window. ‘You have enough time to get ready. A coach will be waiting for you at nine. It’s up to you whether you go willingly, or in leg-irons.’

  ‘Did Angbard approve this scheme?’ Would he really sacrifice Mom? His half-sister?

  Henryk nodded. His cheek twitched. ‘It wasn’t his idea, and he doesn’t like it, but he believes it is essential to bring you to heel. And he agreed that this was the one threat that you would take seriously. Good day.’ He turned and strode toward the door, leaving her to gape after him, slack-jawed with helpless fury.

  TRANSLATED TRANSCRIPT BEGINS

  CONSPIRATOR #1: ‘I am most unhappy about this latest development, Sudtmann.’

  CONSPIRATOR #2: ‘As am I, your royal highness, as am I.’

  (Metallic clink.)

  CONSPIRATOR #3: (Unintelligible.) ‘– deeply worrying?’

  CONSPIRATOR #1: ‘Not really. More wine, now.’ (Pause.) ‘That’s better.’

  (Pause.)

  CONSPIRATOR #2: ‘Your highness?’

  CONSPIRATOR #1: (Sighs.) ‘It may be better to be feared than to be loved, but there is a price attached to maintaining a bloody reputation. And it seems the bill must still be honored whether the debtor be prince or pauper.’

  CONSPIRATOR #3: ‘Sir? I don’t, do not – ’

  CONSPIRATOR #1: ‘He’s weak. To be backed into the stocks like a goat! This is the plan of the tinkers, mark my word: the poison she-snake in our bosom intends to get an heir to the throne in her grasp soon enough. And he cannot gainsay her!’

  CONSPIRATOR #2: ‘Sir? Your brother, surely he is unsuitable – ’

  CONSPIRATOR #1: ‘Yes, but any whelp of his would be another matter! And the libels continue apace.’

  CONSPIRATOR #4: ‘The libels play into our hands, sire. For the bloodier they be, the more feared you become. And fear is currency to the wise prince.’

  CONSPIRATOR #1: ‘Yes, but it wins me nothing should my accession not meet with the approval of the court of landholders. And the court of landholders is increasingly in the grip of the tinkers. A tithe of their rent would repay a quarter of the promissory notes my father and his father before him took from the west, but does he – ’

  (Pause.)

  (Noises.)

  (Unintelligible.) ‘– regularity of bowels.’

  CONSPIRATOR #2: ‘I’ll see to it, sir.’

  CONSPIRATOR #3: ‘A pessary of rowan. There are other subtleties to consider.’

  CONSPIRATOR #4: ‘It will be suspicious. And remember, two may keep a secret – if one of them is dead.’

  CONSPIRATOR #1: ‘Enough skulking!’

  CONSPIRATOR #2: ‘Sir?’

  CONSPIRATOR #1: ‘It is clearly treasonable intent that we confront in this instance. They’ve addled whatever is left of my father’s wits, turned him against me, and once they are sure of a succession I’ll doubtless meet with a convenient hunting accident. I cannot – will not – permit this. But once it becomes clear that the witch-tinkers are not the force they once were, I’ll be seen as the savior of the realm. And feared without scruple of libel: honestly, as a prince should be.’

  CONSPIRATOR #4: ‘There is a reinforced company of the Life Guards stationed across the river. We shall have to move fast.’

  CONSPIRATOR #1: ‘On the contrary, they will do as I tell them – whose life did you think they were supposed to guard? Hah! But I am concerned about your alchemists and their expensive mud pie. Have they succeeded in killing themselves yet?’

  CONSPIRATOR #4: ‘On the contrary. And they have enough fine powder stockpiled to blow down the wolf’s lair. Not much use for the artillery, but . . .’

  CONSPIRATOR #1: ‘We have a use for it on the stage. Arrange to have a roundup of plotters, marked for execution afterward – I’m sure you can arrange some witnesses, Sudtmann, guards who will swear to our instructions at the question? More in sorrow than in anger, I shall dispatch the traitors in the name of the Crown. And the kingdom will be secure against the blasted witches for another generation, at least.’

  CONSPIRATOR #3: ‘But your father – ’

  CONSPIRATOR #1: ‘He’ll fall in with me of necessity.’ (Metallic noise.) ‘He may be weak, but he’s not stupid. Once the witches realize the dice are cast, they will declare blood feud against the Crown. He’ll have to do
it. I stress, this is not a coup against the Crown, it is a coup for the Crown, to defend it from the enemies within.’

  CONSPIRATOR #3: ‘And none shall call it by any other name.’

  CONSPIRATOR #2: ‘And if the blast should fail to live up to expectations?’

  CONSPIRATOR #1: ‘Then I shall lead the guards in a heroic attempt to rescue the palace from the rebels who appear to have seized it. Long live the king!’

  CONSPIRATOR #4: ‘I should give the alchemists their final reward then, sir.’

  CONSPIRATOR #1: ‘Make it so, and may Sky Father have mercy on them in the afterlife, for their services to the Crown.’

  TRANSCRIPT ENDS

  GOING IN

  Recovery from fentanyl poisoning was relatively rapid: the pain came later. They kept asking questions, even when he was on a drip and hallucinating. ‘What happened? What did he say?’ All Mike could do was shake his head and mutter incoherently. Later, he made a full statement. And another. A whole goddamn committee camped by his hospital bed for an afternoon, trying to come up with an agreed timeline for the fuckup. Mike was expecting to be suspended pending investigation, but from the noises they were making it sounded like they wanted to sweep everything under the rug, pretend Matt had never existed. Maybe that was how the DOD dealt with unwelcome problems; or maybe they just didn’t want to admit that they’d destabilized a willing defector. Later another committee came by to grill him about Matt’s nuclear threat, but when he asked what action they were taking on it they told him he had no need to know – from which he deduced that they were taking it very seriously indeed.

  It didn’t matter to Mike. He was out of the loop, officially injured in the line of duty. He lay in bed for two days, numb with apathy and guilt, mind constantly circling back to worry at the same unwelcome realization. I fucked up. On the second day a card arrived from Nikki, an invitation to Pete’s funeral. And then, just as he was graduating from depression to self-loathing, Smith dropped in.