The Revolution Business: Book Five of the Merchant Princes

by Charles Stross

  The women of the Clan, and their relatives in the outer families—recessive carriers of the gene that activated the world-walking ability—had discovered cosmetics, but not modernism or minimalism. Miriam, who'd never gone in for much more than lip gloss and eyeliner, forced herself to stand still while Gerta and a small army of assistants did their best to turn her into a porcelain doll, using so many layers of powder that she was afraid to smile lest her face crack and fall off. At least they're using imported cosmetics rather than white lead and belladonna, she consoled herself.

  A seeming eternity of primping preparations passed before the door crashed open, startling her considerably. Miriam, unable to simply turn her head, maneuvered to look: "Yes? Oh—"

  "My lady. Are you ready?" It was Brilliana, dressed to the nines and escorted by two young lords with swords and MP5Ks at their waists, and three more overdressed girls (one to hold the train of her gown, the others evidently for decoration).

  Miriam sighed. "Gerta. Am I ready?"

  Gerta squawked and dropped a curtsey before Brill. "My lady! Another half hour, please? Her grace is nearly—"

  Brill looked Miriam up and down with professional speed. "No. Stick a crown on her and she's done," she announced, with something like satisfaction. "How do you feel, Helge?"

  "I feel"—Miriam dropped into halting hochsprache—"I am, am ready. I am like a hot, blanket? No, sheet, urn, no, dress—"

  Brill smiled and nodded—somehow she'd evaded the worst excesses of the cosmetological battalions—and produced a small crystal vial with a silver stopper from a fold in her sleeve, which she offered. "You'll need this," she suggested.

  Miriam took it and held it before her face, where the flickering lamps in the chandelier could illuminate it. "Urn. What is it?"

  "Crystal meth. In case you doze off." Brill winked.

  "But I'm pregnant!" Miriam scolded indignantly.

  "Hist. One or two won't hurt you, you know? I asked a good doctor." (Not, by her emphasis, Dr. yen Hjalmar, who Miriam had publicly speculated about disemboweling—especially if, as Gunnar had implied, he was still alive.) "The damage if this act of theater should go awry is far greater than the risk of a miscarriage."

  "I thought you had an iron rule, don't dabble in the cargo. . . ."

  "This isn't dabbling, it is your doctor's prescription, Helge. You are going to have to sit on that chair looking alert for more than four hours without caffeine or a toilet break, and I am warning you, it is as hard as a board. How else are you going to manage it?"

  Miriam shook one of the tablets into the palm of her hand and swallowed. "Uck. That was vile."

  "Come now, your grace! Klaus"—Brill half-turned, and snapped her fingers—"Menger, attend! You will lead. Jeanne and you, you will follow me. Sabine, you take my train. We will practice our order on the way to the carriage. Her grace will walk ten paces behind you, and you—yes, Gerta—arrange her attendants. When we arrive at the palace, once we enter the hall, you will pass me and proceed to the throne, Helge, and be seated when the Green Staff is struck for the third time and Baron Reinstahl declares the session open. I'll lead you in, you just concentrate on looking as if I'm not there and not tripping on your hem. Then we will play it by ear. . . ."

  They walked along the passageway from the royal receiving room at a slow march. Brill paced ahead of her, wearing an ornate gown dripping with expensive jewelry. The walls were still pocked with the scars of musket balls. The knights Brilliana had brought to her dressing room paced to either side, and behind them came another squad of soldiers—outer family relatives, heavily armed and tense. It was all, Miriam thought, a masque, the principal actors wearing costumes that emphasized their power and wealth. Even the palace was a stage set—after the explosion at the Hjalmar Palace, none of the high Clan nobles would dare spend even a minute longer than absolutely necessary there. But you had to hold a coronation where people could see it. The whole thing, right down to the ending, was as scripted as a Broadway musical. Miriam concentrated on keeping her face fixed in what she hoped was a benevolent half-smile: In truth, her jaw ached and everything shone with a knife-edged crystal clarity that verged on hallucination.

  Before them, a guard detail came to attention. A trumpet blatted, three rising notes; then with a grating squeal, the door to the great hall swung open. The hinges, Miriam thought distantly, they need to oil the hinges. (The thought gnawed at her despite its irrelevance—glued to the surface of her mind by the meth.)

  "Her grace the Princess Royal Helge Thorold-Hjorth, widow of Creon yen Alexis du"—the majordomo's recitation of her name and rank rolled on and on, taxing Miriam's basic hochsprache with its allusions and genealogical connections, asserting an outrageous connection between her and the all-but-expired royal family. She swayed slightly, trying to maintain a dignified and expressionless poise, but was unable to stop her eyes flickering from side to side to take in the assembled audience.

  It looked like half the surviving fathers of the Clan had come, bringing their sons and wives with them—and their bodyguards, for the rows of benches that rose beneath the windows (formerly full of stained glass; now open to the outside air, the glaziers not yet rounded up to repair them) were backed by a row of guards. Here and there she could pick out a familiar face amidst the sea of strangers, and they were all staring at her, as if they expected her to sprout a second head or start speaking in tongues at any moment. Her stomach clenched: Bile flooded into the back of her mouth. For an instant Miriam trembled on the edge of panic, close to bolting.

  Brill began to move forward again. She followed, instinctively putting one foot in front of the other.

  "The throne, milady," the girl behind her hissed, voice pitched for her ear only. "Step to your left, if you please."

  There was another cantonment of benches, dead ahead, walled in with wooden screens—a ladies' screen, Miriam recognized—and within it, a different gaggle of nobles, their wrists weighted with iron fetters. And there was a raised platform, and a chair with a canopy over it, and other, confusing impressions—

  Somehow she found herself on the raised chair, with one of her maids behind each shoulder and the lords Menger and Klaus standing before her. A priest she half recognized (he'd been wearing a pinstriped suit at the last Clan council meeting) was advancing on her, swathed in robes. A subordinate followed him, holding a dazzling lump of metal that might have been a crown in the fevered imaginings of a Gaudi; behind him came another six chanting subordinates and a white calf on a rope which looked at her with confused, long-lashed eyes.

  The chanting stopped and the audience rose to their feet. The calf moaned as two of the acolytes shoved it in front of the dais and a third thrust a golden bowl under its throat. There was a moment of reverential silence as the bishop turned and pulled his gilt sickle through the beast's throat; then the bubbling blood overflowed the basin and splashed across the flagstones to a breaking roar of approval punctuated by stamping feet.

  The bishop raised his sickle, then as the assembled nobles quieted their chant, he began to shout a prayer, his voice hoarse and cracked with hope. What's he saying—Miriam burped again, swallowing acid indigestion—something about sanctification—she was unprepared when he turned to her and, after dipping a hand into the bowl, he stepped towards her and daubed a sticky finger on her forehead. Then the second priest knelt beside him, and the bishop raised the crown above her head.

  "It's the Summer Crown," he told her in English. "Try not to break it, we want it back after the ceremony."

  When he lowered his arms his sleeves dangled in front of her. The hot smell of fresh blood filled her nostrils as the crowd in the bleachers roared their—approval? Amusement? Miriam closed her eyes. I'm not here. I'm not here. You can't make me be here. She wished the earth would open and swallow her; the expectations bearing down on her filled her with a hollow terror. Mom, I am so going to kill you.

  Then the bishop—it's Julius, isn't it? she recalled, dizzily—receded
. She opened her eyes.

  "Milady!" hissed the lady-in-waiting at her left shoulder. "It's time to say your words."

  Words? Miriam blinked fuzzily, the oppressive weight of the metal headgear threatening to unbalance her neck. I'm meant to say something, right? Brill had gone over it with her: She'd practiced with Gerta, she'd practiced with a mirror, she'd practiced until she was sure she'd be able to remember them. . . .

  "I, the Queen-Widow Helge, by virtue of the power vested in me by Sky Father, do declare this royal court open. . . ." her memory began.

  Oh, that, Miriam remembered. She opened her mouth and heard someone begin to recite formal phrases in an alien language. Her voice was steady and authoritative: She sounded like a powerful and dignified ruler. I wonder if they'll introduce me to her after the performance?

  BEGIN TRANSCRIPT (Cockpit voice recorder):

  (Rotor noise in background.)

  "Climbing two five to flight level three zero, ground speed 150. GPS check."

  "GPS check, uh, okay."

  "TCAS clear. Ready to engage INS."

  "INS ready, fifty-mile orbit at three zero."

  "Okay. How's the datalink to that—that—"

  "FLIR/DIMT is mapping fine."

  "Right. INS engaged. Racetrack. You boys ready back there?"

  "ARMBAND is ready."

  "Ready."

  "Coming up on way point yankee one in fifty seconds, boys. On my mark, activate translation black box."

  "Arming translation circuit . . . okay, she's ready on your command."

  "Mark."

  "We have translation."

  "Radar altimeter check, please. What's the state of ARMBAND?"

  "Sir, we've got two translations left, three hours to bingo time—"

  "Tower, mike-mike-papa-four, do you read."

  "Two translations, three hours, check. You gentlemen will doubtless be pleased to know that as we've only got fuel for 140 minutes we'll be going home well before then."

  "Inlet temperature four. External temperature ten and dropping, was fifteen. Cloud cover was six, now four. Holy shit, the ground—it's completely different—"

  "FLIR/DIMT is mapping fine. Uh, INS shows six meter z-axis anomaly. INS red light. INS red light. Looks like he took us with him okay."

  "Tower, mike-mike-papa-four, do you read."

  "INS reset. INS breaker reset. Damn, we're back to dead reckoning. Speed check."

  "Ground speed 146. Altitude three zero nine zero by radar altimeter. Lots of trees down there, whole lotta trees."

  "Okay, let's do an INS restart."

  "Captain, confirmed, tower does not respond."

  "FLIR/DIMT lock on north ridge corresponds to INS map waypoint 195604. Restarting. Restarted. Returning to orbit."

  "Tower on crest of ridge via FLIR. Got battlements!"

  "Fuel, nine thousand. Throttle back on two, eighty percent. Okay, you've got an hour from my mark."

  "Got any candidates on IDAS?"

  "Not a whisper. It's dead down there. Not even cell phone traffic. Why am I getting this itchy feeling between my shoulder blades?"

  "Time check: three hours twenty-nine minutes to dawn. Altitude four one hundred, ground speed 145, visibility zero, six on FLIR. Stop worrying about MANPADs, number two."

  "Roger. Waypoint yankee two coming up, turning on zero two zero."

  "I'm still getting nothing, sir. Trying FM."

  "Use your judgment."

  "Fuel eighty six hundred. Throttle on eighty, inlet temperature three."

  "Quiet as the grave. Hey, some traffic on shortwave. Twenty megahertz band, low power. Voice traffic . . . not English."

  "Waypoint yankee three coming up, turning on zero nine zero. Climb to flight level five zero."

  "Okay, that's enough. We're in class E airspace on the other side, so let's get out of here. ARMBAND?"

  "Ready to roll whenever you call, captain."

  "Okay, we're going home. Prepare to translate on my mark—"

  END TRANSCRIPT (Cockpit voice recorder)

  10

  deceptive practices

  A week had passed since the bizarre coronation ritual, and it had been a busy period. Miriam found herself at the center of a tornado of activity, with every hour accounted for. There were banquets with lord this and baron that, introductions until her cheeks ached from smiling and her right hand was red from scrubbing: Their kisses left her feeling unclean, compromised. The dressmakers had moved in, altering garments borrowed from some remnants of the royal wardrobe and fitting her for gowns and dresses suitable for a dowager queen-widow and a mother-to-be. Brill had found time, for a couple of hours every day, to bring a bottle of wine and sit with her while she explained the finer points of political and personal alliances; and Gerta engaged her in conversational hochsprache, nervous and halting at first, to polish her speech. (Which, with total immersion in a sea of servants, few of whom spoke English, was beginning to improve.)

  Being Helge was becoming easier, she found. Practice had diminished the role to a set of manners and a half-understood language that she could summon up at need, rather than a claustrophobia-inducing caul. Perhaps she was getting used to it, or perhaps her mother's private crusade and promise of mutual support had given her the impulse she needed to make it work. Whatever the cause, the outcome was that whenever she paused to think about her position Miriam was startled by how smoothly her new life had locked in around her, and with how little friction. Perhaps all she'd needed all along was a key to the gilded cage, and the reassurance that people she could trust were minding the door.

  It had not been Miriam's idea to put on the gilded robes of state today, to sit on an unpadded chair in a drafty hall and read aloud a variety of prearranged—bloodcurdling and inevitably fatal—sentences on assorted members of the nobility who had been unlucky enough to back the wrong horse. But it had shown up on her timetable for the week—and Brill, Riordan, and her mother had visited en masse to assure her that it was necessary. They'd even hauled in Julius, to provide a façade of Clannish unity. "You need to sit in on the court and pronounce judgment, without us whispering in your ear all the time," Brill explained, "otherwise people will say you're a figurehead."

  "But I am a figurehead!" Miriam protested. "Aren't I? I get the message, this is the council's doing. It's just, I don't approve of the death penalty. And this, executing people just because they did what Egon told them to, out of fear—"

  "If they think you're a figurehead, they won't fear you," Iris explained, with visibly fraying patience. "And that'll breed trouble. People hereabouts aren't used to enlightened government. You need to stick some heads on spikes, Helge, to make the others keep a low profile. If you won't do it yourself, the council will have to do it for you. And everybody will whisper that it's because you're a weak woman who is just a figurehead."

  "There are a number of earls and barons who we definitely cannot trust," Riordan added. "Not to mention a duke or two. They're mortal enemies—they didn't act solely out of fear of Egon's displeasure—and we can't have a duke sitting in judgment over another duke. If you refuse to read their execution order we'll just have to poison them. It gets messy."

  "But if I start out by organizing a massacre, isn't that going to raise the stakes later? I thought we were agreed that reinforcing the rule of law was essential. . . ."

  "It's not a massacre if they get a fair trial first. So give them a fair trial and fill a gibbet or two with the worst cases, to make an example," Iris suggested. "Then offer clemency to the rest, on onerous terms. It worked for dad."

  "Really?" Miriam gave her mother a very old-fashioned look. "Tell me more. . . ."

  Which had been the start of a slippery-slope argument. Miriam had fought a rearguard action, but Helge had ultimately conceded the necessity of applying these medieval standards of justice under the circumstances. Which was why she was sitting stiff as a board on a solid wooden throne, listening to advocates argue over a variety of unfortunat
e nobles, and trying not to fall asleep.

  For a man with every reason to believe his fate was to be subjected to peine fort et dure, the Duke of Niejwein was in remarkably high spirits. Or perhaps the reddening of his cheeks and the twinkle in his eye were signs of agitation and contempt. The resemblance he bore to the Iraqi dictator Ali Hassan, who'd been on all the news channels a few weeks ago when the Marines finally got their hands on him, was striking. Whatever the case, when he raised his fettered hands and spat something fast at Miriam she had no problem interpreting his intent.

  "He says he thanks you for your hospitality but it is most unnecessary," murmured Gerta.

  "Tell him he's welcome, all the same." Miriam waited while her assistant translated. "And I view his position with sympathy."

  "Milady!" Gerta sounded confused. "Are you sure?"

  "Yes." Miriam glared at her. I am your queen, damn it. Even if I'm fronting for a committee. "Do it."

  "Yes, milady." Gerta addressed the duke; he seemed confused.

  "Have another sweet," Miriam offered the Duke of Niejwein by way of her translator.

  It was, Olga had explained, the polite way to do business with noble prisoners: Offer them candied peel and a silk rope to sweeten the walk to the scaffold where, if his crimes were deemed minor, he could expect the relative mercy of a swift hanging. But Niejwein, for some reason, seemed not to have much of an appetite today. And after having sentenced two earls to death earlier in this session—in both cases they had massacred some of her distant relatives with more enthusiasm than was called for, and Riordan had been most insistent on the urgent need to hang them—she could see why. The earls and their retainers were hired thugs; but Niejwein, as head bean counter, had expedited Egon's reign of terror in a far deadlier way.

  "We wanted to speak with you in private," Miriam added, trying to ignore the small crowd of eavesdroppers. "To discuss your future."

  Niejwein's short bark of laughter turned heads; more than one guard's hand hovered close by a weapon. "I have no future," Gerta translated.