The Merchants' War: Book Four of the Merchant Princes

by Charles Stross

  He inched carefully out from behind the broken wall. The stench of burnt gunpowder and charred wood lent an acrid taste to the nighttime air. About four meters from the wall, the indistinct shapes of a row of trees loomed out of the darkness. He turned his head, looking around cautiously.

  That nameless village on a forested mountainside in Colombia: he’d been there as part of a DEA training team, working with the Colombian army to weed out cocaine plantations in the hilly back country. What he hadn’t realized at first was that the cocaine plantations belonged to the other government—the Maoist guerrillas working to overthrow the authorities controlled vast swathes of territory, had battalions of expressionless men in green with machine guns and rifles. It wasn’t a police raid, it was more like an army spearhead advancing into hostile territory. And then the shooting started…

  He twitched back into focus, scanning the area for threats. The palace behind him was burning merrily, flames reaching through holes in the steeply pitched roof. Doors and windows had been blown out: some were half-blocked by improvised barricades where the defenders were trying to hold out. It was full dark, and they were trying to fight a battle against attackers who were shooting from outside the circle of light. The noises were getting louder, Mike noted. More banging of muskets, the hollow shotgun-like thump of a blunderbuss, then yells and a distant drumming of hooves, the sound of many horses running. He turned to face the darkness, closed his eyes for ten long seconds to let them adjust, then rose to a crouch and dashed towards the tree line, zigzagging madly and praying he’d make it without putting a foot in a rabbit hole or catching a tree root.

  At least I got Miriam out of there. He dived past a tree, ducked under a low branch, and crouched down again to scan for watchers. Wonder if she’ll call. It was just too weird: he’d known she’d be here, hell, that was the whole reason they’d inserted him, to see if he could make contact—but actually seeing her in the midst of all this weird medieval squalor, dolled up like an extra from a historical drama, brought it all home to him. She was part of the Clan: she was a world-walker, one of the narcoterrorist dynasty that was running drugs up and down the eastern seaboard. And she wanted out!

  But he’d blown it. You’re going to make her an offer she can’t refuse, said the colonel, and instead he’d come out with the truth, limp-dicked and apologetic, and as good as told her to go to ground. Phone me in a week or so, he’d told her. Yeah, right. And all because he’d seen it coming, like a slow-motion train wreck: Miriam was about as unlikely to cooperate with Smith as anyone he could imagine. And he couldn’t stomach the idea of them turning her into a mule, like the guy in the cellar with the collar-bomb and the handcuffs, terrified that Mike was going to execute him.

  Something moved in the brush behind him. Mike spun round, gun raised.

  “Sir!” The hissed voice was familiar: Mike lowered his pistol immediately.

  “That you, Hastert?”

  The shadow in front of him nodded. “O’Neil’s twenty yards that way. Go to him now.” Bulky night-vision goggles half-covered Hastert’s face, in surreal contrast to his baggy trousers and chain mail vest. He’d acquired a gun from somewhere, some kind of machine pistol with a bulky silencer attached.

  “Okay, I’m going, I’m going.” Mike scuttled away, his pulse hammering with the adrenaline aftershock. Hastert and O’Neil were part of the forward support team in Zone Blue, specialists yanked out of Delta Force to handle the sharp end of the Family Trade Organization’s intel operation on the ground in the parallel universe the criminals came from. Dangerous men, but it was their job to get him out of this alive. I could have told her to come with me, he told himself. Could have lied, offered her witness protection. Hell, she asked for it! We could have gotten her out.

  But Miriam’s potential value to Colonel Smith lay in her connection to the Clan hierarchy; and everything had gone to pieces. “They’ve got my mom,” she’d said conversationally, right after he’d shot the soldier who was trying to murder her. And the royal they’d been trying to marry her off to against her wishes was dead—what the hell was going on? “O’Neil?” he whispered.

  “Over here, sir. Keep down.”

  O’Neil was crouched behind a deadfall. “What’s going on?”

  “Looks like they’re making whoopee.” His grin was a ghostly crescent in the darkness. “Don’t you worry, we’ll get you out of here.”

  A moment of rustling and crunching, and Sergeant Hastert appeared. “Sitrep, Pete.”

  “Sam’s on point.” O’Neil gestured farther into the trees, where the ground fell away from the low hill on which the palace had stood. “He’s seen no sign of anybody in the woods. Bad news is, the aggressor faction have got sentries out and they’re covering the approaches from the road. There’s maybe thirty of them and they’ve got riders—we’re cut off.”

  “Get him back here, then.”

  O’Neil vanished into the darkness. “How bad is it?” asked Mike.

  “Could be worse: nobody’s shooting at us.” Hastert turned to look at him. “But we’d better be out of here by dawn. Did you get what you wanted?”

  “Yes and no.” Mike hunkered down. “Everything we thought we knew about what was going on here is out of date. I got to talk to my contact, but she’s in deep shit herself—didn’t have much time, they were trying to kill her—”

  A noise like a door the size of a mountain slamming shut a hundred meters away rocked Mike back on his heels.

  “Down!” Hastert lurched against him, shoving Mike’s face down on a matted bed of branches. Moments later, debris thudded off the branches above their heads, spattering down on the summer-dry soil. “Get moving, we’re too close.”

  The next hour passed in a nightmarish crawl through the dark forest, heading always away from the boom and crash of gunfire and the shouts of the combatants. The royal palace, although nominally within the city of Niejwein, was surrounded by a walled garden the size of a large park—large enough that the palace itself was out of easy gunshot range of its neighbors. But in the chaos of the apparent coup, the shooters seemed to be inside the compound. Stray shots periodically came tearing through the treetops, so that Mike needed no urging to keep his head close to the dirt.

  After an interminable crawl, Hastert tapped him on he shoulder. “Stop here, wait till I get back.” He vanished into the darkness as silently as a ghost. Mike shivered violently. Trouble? he wondered. There was nothing he could do; on this part of the mission he was baggage, as much as Miriam would have been if he’d tried to extract her from whatever the hell that weird scene back at the palace had been about. I can’t believe I shot that guy without warning.

  Mike reran the scene in his mind’s eye; the perp—even now, he couldn’t drop the law enforcement outlook—with the knife, trying to stab the woman in the black gown, the stink of burning wood, snarling fear, taking the time to aim carefully, waiting for a clear shot as the woman shoved back hard against her assailant…then the shock of recognition. It’s her! Despite the longer, intricately coiled hair, the drawn expression, the bruise on her cheek, and the rich Victorian widow’s weeds, it was like nothing had changed since that ambiguous last dinner at Wang’s, just off Kendall Square. The shock of recognition was still with him: the realization that, all along, the world he moved in was smaller than he’d realized, that during the whole fruitless search for the east coast phantom network he’d been dating a woman who could have—if she herself had known what she was—put him right on top of it. If. Getting involved hadn’t been good for her. They’ve got Mom. And something about an arranged marriage. The smell of raw sewage running through the gutters in the middle of the unpaved road—

  “Wake up.” A hand touched his shoulder.

  “I’m awake.” Mike looked round. Hastert crouched beside him.

  “There’s an open area about fifty yards wide before the wall, which is eight feet high. Just the other side of the wall there’s a road. O’Neil’s setting up a distraction.
We have”—Hastert glanced at his watch—“six minutes to get to the edge of the apron and wait. Then we have thirty seconds to get over the wall and across the road. Take the second alley on the left, proceed down it for twenty yards then take the right turn, fourth door on the left is transit house gamma. You ready?”

  Mike nodded. “Guess so.”

  “Then let’s get going.”

  Translated Transcript Begins:

  “Shit. He didn’t.”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  (Sigh.) “That means we’re down by what, two? Three? Seats on the council. And the king. This is an absolute disaster. Who else have we lost?”

  (Pause.) “Of our party, most of them. The dowager Hildegarde is yammering her head off, but she survived, as did her daughter. James Lee, we rescued. He’s concussed but will live—”

  “Small mercies. Damn her for—damn her!”

  “It’s not your fault, your grace, or hers, that this had to happen at the worst time.”

  (Sigh.) “Continue.”

  “We lost Wilem, Maris, Erik, three juniors of Hjorth-Arnesen’s cadet branch, and four others of middling rank. We lost her majesty the queen mother, and the cadet branch of the royal family in the person of Prince Creon. He’s a confirmed kill, by the way. About thirty retainers and outer family members, but that’s by the by. The main losses are the royal family—except for the crown prince—and Henryk, Wilem, Maris, Erik, and others.”

  (Long pause.)

  “Shit.”

  “We’ve taken worse—”

  “No, it’s not that. It’s the little shit. The Pervert. What’s he up to?”

  “Holed up with Niejwein on the back lawn, scheming about something. Everyone with half a clue is rushing over to offer their firstborn to him.”

  “Has he sent up any smoke signals yet?”

  “No.”

  “Damn. That confirms it, he’s got what he wants and we’re going to get the blame. He’s hated us all along, since he learned about Creon’s latency, and if he’s listening to that snake Niejwein…”

  “Your grace?”

  (Sigh.) “I know, I’m rambling. What’s your analysis?”

  “I think we’re in the shit, sir. I think—” (pause)—he’s going to try to roll us over. All of us. Niejwein and Sudtmann and that crowd have been feeling their oats and they will take this opportunity once and for all to put us in our place. And the Pervert will use us as a lever to consolidate his power over them. He doesn’t trust anyone, sir, and the rumors—”

  “I don’t care if he shags goats or rapes virgins, what I care about is us. Sky Father, this is a fifty-year setback!” (Inaudible muttering.) “Yes, yes, I already thought of that. Oliver, I know we see eye to eye over very little—”

  “Your grace is overstating matters—”

  “Permit an old man his moment of humor in the chaos: if you please? Good. I believe we do see eye to eye on the fundamentals. This is a war to the knife. We have a rogue king on the throne and even after we remove him from it we shall have civil war for the next decade—not family against family, but Clan against all. Do you agree?”

  (Pause.) “Damn you.”

  “Indeed: I am damned.”

  (Pause.) “What do you propose to do?”

  “Whatever I can. First, we must take our own to safety—then we must prepare to defend our possessions. Identify our allies, I should add. But if we can no longer count on being able to run our caravans up the coast in safety we must look for alternatives.”

  “The upstart bitch’s plan.”

  “Be careful what you call my late niece, sir.”

  “I—” (Pause.) “—Please accept my apologies, your grace. You did not inform me of your bereavement. I had assumed she was rescued.”

  “She was not. She’s not among those confirmed to be dead, but after the palace burned…” (Pause.) “I had high hopes for her.”

  “But her plan! Come now. You can’t really believe it will work?”

  (Sigh.) “No. I don’t believe it will work. But I believe we should try it, in any event, with whatever energy we can divert from our defenses. Because if our ability to traffic in this realm is disrupted for any length of time, what other options do we have?”

  (END TRANSLATION TRANSCRIPT)

  2

  First Light

  A narrow spiral staircase wormed upwards through the guts of a building, its grimy windowpanes opening onto a space that might once have been an alleyway but was now enclosed on all four sides by building extensions, so that it formed a wholly enclosed shaft at the bottom of which a pile of noisome debris had accumulated over the years. Other windows also opened onto the tiny courtyard; windows that provided ventilation and light to rooms that could not be seen from any street, or reached other than by the twisting staircase, which was concealed at ground level by a false partition in the back of a scullery closet. Almost a quarter of the rooms in the building were concealed in this fashion from the outside world. And in a garret at the top of the secret stairwell, a middle-aged woman sat working at a desk.

  Bent over her wooden writing box, she systematically read her way through a thick stack of papers. Periodically she reached over to one side to pick up a pen and scrawl cryptic marginalia upon them. Less frequently, her brow furrowing, she would pick up a clean sheet of writing paper and dash off a sharp inquiry to one of her correspondents. Somewhat less frequently, she would consign a report—too hot to handle—to the glowing coals in the fireplace. The underground postal service that moved this mail was slow and expensive and prone to disruption: it might strike an ignorant observer as odd that Margaret, Lady Bishop would treat its fruits so casually. But to be caught in possession of much of this material would guarantee the holder a date with the hangman. Every use of the Movement’s post was a gamble with a postman’s life: and so she took pains to file the most important matters only in her memory, where they would not—if she had any say on the matter—be exposed to the enemy.

  The darkness outside the window was complete and the stack of files before her was visibly shrinking when there came a knock at the door. “Come in,” she called sharply: there was no possibility of a surprise police raid here, not without gunshots and explosions to telegraph their arrival.

  The door opened and the rough-looking fellow outside cleared his throat. “Got a problem downstairs. Woman at the door, asking for you by name. Says Burgeson sent her.”

  “Was she followed?” Lady Bishop asked sharply.

  “She said not, and I had a couple of the lads go ’ave a word with the hack what brought her. Nothing to fear on that account.”

  “Good.” Lady Bishop breathed slightly easier. “Who is she? What does she want?”

  “Figured we’d best leave that for you. She’s not one such as I’d recognize, and she’s dressed odd, like: Mal took her for a madwoman at first, but when she used your name and mentioned Burgeson I figured she was too dangerous to let go. So we stashed her in the cellar while we made arrangements.”

  “Right. Right.” Lady Bishop nodded to herself, her face grim. “Is the Miller prepared?”

  “Oh, aye.”

  “Then I suppose you’d better bring her up here and we can get to the bottom of this, Ed. I shall start with an interview—to give the poor woman a chance to excuse herself. But when you come, bring Mal. In case we have to send her down.”

  She spent the minutes before Ed’s return with the prisoner methodically prioritizing her remaining correspondence. Then she carefully moved the manila paper folders to a desk drawer, closed and locked her writing case, and tried to compose herself. In truth, Lady Bishop hated interrogations. However necessary it might be for the pursuit of the declaration, the process invariably left her feeling soiled.

  The rap at the door, when it came, was loud and confident. “Enter,” she called. Edmund opened the door; behind him waited a woman, and behind her, the shadow of Mal the doorman. “Come in,” she added, and pointed to a rough stool on
the opposite side of her desk: “and sit down.”

  The woman was indeed oddly dressed. Is she an actress? Margaret wondered. It seemed unlikely. And her outfit, while outlandish, was in any case both too well tailored and too dirty for a stage costume. Then Lady Bishop took a good look at the woman’s face, and paused. The bruise on her cheek told a story: and so, when the woman opened her mouth, did the startling perfection of her dentistry.

  “Are you Lady Bishop?”

  Margaret, Lady Bishop stared at the woman for a moment, then nodded. “I am.” She had the most peculiar feeling that the woman on the stool opposite her was studying her right back, showing a degree of self-assurance she’d have expected from a judge, not a prisoner. Titled? Or a lord’s by-blow?

  “I’m Miriam Beckstein,” said the woman. “I believe Erasmus has told you something about me.” She swallowed. “I don’t know how much he’s told you, but there’s been a change in the situation.”

  Lady Bishop froze, surprise stabbing at her. You’re the Beckstein woman? She turned to look at her assistants: “Ed, Mal, wait outside.”

  Ed looked perturbed. “Are you sure, ma’am?”

  She gave him a hard stare: “you don’t need to hear this.” Why in Christ’s name didn’t you say it was her in the first place? She wanted to add, but not at risk of tipping off the prisoner about her place in the scheme of things.

  Ed backed out of the room hastily and pulled the door shut. Margaret turned back to her unexpected visitor. “I’m sorry; we weren’t expecting you, so nobody told them to be on the lookout. Do you know who struck you?”