The Revolution Business tmp-5

by Charles Stross

  Huw was staring at her as if she’d grown a second head. Poor kid, she thought. Still at the mooning after girlfriends stage, not sure what he wants—why did I dump all that on him? Now she knew what to look for—now she knew the pressure that had broken Roland—she could see what was looming in his future, the inevitable collision between youthful optimism and brutal realpolitik. Did I really just say all that?

  While she was trying to work it out, Huw reached across the breakfast bar and laid a finger on the back of her hand. “You’ve been bottling that up for a long time, haven’t you?”

  “How old are you?” she asked.

  “I’m twenty-seven,” he said calmly, taking her by surprise: He had five years on her estimate. “And I hear what you’re not saying. You’re what, thirty? Thirty-one? And—”

  “Thirty-four,” she heard herself saying.

  “—Thirty-four is a hard age to be finding out about the Clan for the first time, and even harder if you’re a woman. It’s a shame you’re not ten or fifteen years older,” he continued, tilting his head to one side as he stared at her, “because they understand old maids; they wouldn’t bother trying to marry you off.” He shook his head abruptly. “I’m sorry, I’m treating your life like a puzzle, but it’s . . .”

  “No, that’s okay.”

  “Ah, thank you.” He paused for a few seconds. “I shall forget whatever you wish me to, of course.”

  “Um?” Miriam blinked.

  “I assume you don’t want your confidences written up and mailed to every gossip and scandalmonger in the Gruinmarkt?” He raised a wicked eyebrow.

  “Of course not!” Catching the gleam in his eye: “You wouldn’t. Right?”

  “I’m not suicidal.” He calmly reached out and took the final wedge of her pizza. “I bribe easily.”

  “Here’s to wine and pizza!” She raised her glass, trying to cover her rattled nerves with a veneer of flippancy. Damn, he’s not that unsophisticated at all. Why do I keep getting these people wrong?

  “Wine and pizza.” Huw let her off the hook gracefully.

  “You wanted to know what my life’s ambitions were,” she said slowly. “May I ask why?”

  Huw stopped chewing, then swallowed. “I’d like to know what motivates the leader I’m betting my life on.” He looked at her quizzically. “That heavy enough for you?”

  “Whoa!” She put her glass down slightly too hard. “I’m not leading anyone!” But Brill’s words, earlier, returned to her memory. Your mother intends to put you on the throne; and we intend to make sure you’re not just there for show. “I’m—” She stopped, at a loss for words.

  “You’re going to end up leading us whether you like it or not,” Huw said mildly. “I’m not going to shove you into it, or anything like that. You’re just in the right position at the right time, and if you don’t, we’ll all hang. Or worse.”

  “What do you mean?” She leaned forward.

  Huw turned his head and looked at the window, his expression shuttered. “The duke has been holding the Clan together, through ClanSec, for a generation. He’s, he’s a modernizer, in his own way. But there aren’t enough of us, and he’s aging. He’s also a fascist.” Huw held up a finger: “I say that in the strict technical sense of the word—he’s what you get when you take the principle of aristocratic exceptionalism and push it down a level onto the bourgeoisie, and throw in a big dose of the subordination of the will of the individual to the needs of the collective. Ahem.”

  He took a sip of wine. “Sorry, Political Econ 301, back before I ended up in MIT. The Clan—we’re only five generations removed from folks who remember being itinerant tinkers. We are the nearest thing that the Gruinmarkt has thrown up to a middle class, and it’s the lack of any effective alternative that had our great-grandparents buying titles of nobility and living it up. Anyway, the duke has taken a bunch of warring, feuding extended families and given them a security organization that guards them all. He’s kicked butt and taken names, and secured a truce, and virtually everyone now agrees it’s a good thing. But he’s a single point of failure. When he goes, who’s going to be the next generalissimo? Your trouble is that you’re his niece, by his red-headed wildcat stepsister. More importantly, you’re the only surviving one in the direct line of succession—the attrition rate forty years ago was fearsome. So if you decide not to play your cards you’d better be ready to run like hell. Whichever of the conservative hard-liners comes out on top will figure you’re a mortal threat.”

  “Hang on, whichever? Conservatives? Aren’t you jumping the gun—”

  “No, because we’re not ready. Give us another few years and maybe Earl Riordan could do it. Or Olga, Baroness Thorold, although she’s even younger. There are others: Kennard Heilbrunner ven Arnesen, Albericht Hjalmar-Hjorth. But they’re not in position. You’re in an unusual spot: You’re young but not too young, you’ve got different experience, you demonstrated a remarkable ability to innovate under pressure, and—the icing on the cake—assuming you’re pregnant, you’re carrying a legitimate heir to the throne. Or at least one who everyone who survived the betrothal will swear is legitimate, and that’s what counts. And they’ll swear to it because, while the old nobility wouldn’t know a DNA paternity test from a hole in the ground, the Clan nobility have heard of it, and even the old folks have a near-superstitious respect for the products of science.”

  “But I’m not”—Miriam stopped. She picked up her glass again, rolling it between her palms. “Did Brill tell you the details of Dr. ven Hjalmar’s creepy plan?” Huw nodded. “Good. But you know something? I’m old, and not all pregnancies come to term, and I am really not fucking happy about being turned into a brood mare. And I completed enough of pre-med that if—that’s an if—I decide to lose it, you—that’s a collective you—are going to have to keep me in a straitjacket for the next nine months if you want your precious heir. Assuming it exists and it’s a boy. And I haven’t made my mind up yet. And as for what ven Hjalmar’s got coming, if he isn’t dead, if I ever see him again . . .”

  Silence. Then Huw spoke, in a low voice, as if talking to himself: “Miriam, if you are pregnant and you decide you don’t want to go through with it, I would consider it a matter of my personal honor to help you end it. Just as long as you keep it quiet . . . the old folks, they wouldn’t understand. But I won’t be party to keeping you in a straitjacket.”

  “Uh. I. Er.” Miriam drained her wineglass, trying to cover her confusion. “What you just offered. You know what you just said?”

  “Yes.” Huw nodded. “I will either get you the appropriate medication, or, if it’s too late for that, help you get to an abortion clinic.” He paused. “It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve helped a girl out that way.”

  “Uh.” Miriam stared at him. Just when I think I’m getting to understand them . . . “No offense, but you made it sound like organizing a shopping trip. . . .”

  “I may be an MIT graduate student, but I’m from the Gruinmarkt.” Huw visibly searched for words. “We don’t place much stock in a babe ‘til it’s born, usually. Which is perhaps a good thing. You wouldn’t want it to be born if it would trigger a blood feud that would claim its own—and its parents’—lives, would you?”

  “But—you said it was leverage—”

  “Yes, I did.” He looked back at her. “But it’s not the only lever you’ve got. The duke’s accident elevates your rank in the game. You might still have a chance, even if you throw it away.” He slid off his bar stool and picked up the dirty plates. “Just try to give the rest of us some warning when you make your mind up, huh?”

  “I know what this looks like.” She was still gripping the wineglass tightly, she realized, tightly enough to stop her hands shaking. “I am not going to flip. I’ve been here before, a long time ago.”

  “But”—Huw peered at her—”you’re doing fine, so far.”

  “It’s a control thing.” Miriam forced herself to let go of the glass. “You never kno
w, I might not be pregnant. I need a test kit. And then I need some space to think, to get my head around this.” She paused. “Were you serious about that offer?”

  Huw hesitated for a few seconds before answering. “All the plans anyone’s making—they all rely on your active participation. We need you to trust us. Therefore”—he shrugged uncomfortably—“having made that offer I’m bound by it; if I forswear myself you’ll never trust me, or any of us, ever again. And we, my faction, need you to show us what to do. That’s more important than any crazy plan Henryk hatched to manipulate the succession. We need your trust. And that’s something that can only be bought with our own.”

  Three o’clock in the morning.

  The occasional crack of heavy-caliber gunfire, punctuated by the boom of a black-powder cannon, split the nighttime quiet outside the castle walls. Nobody was getting much sleep, least of all the guards who hunkered down in the courtyard around the central keep, night-vision goggles active, waiting for a sign.

  The sign, when it came, was a mere flickering in the shadows near the dynamited well house. Two of the guards spotted it at once, lowered their guns, and darted out across the open ground towards it. Their target bent over, emptying his stomach on the hard-packed cobblestones. “This way, sir! We need to get under cover.”

  The traveler nodded weakly, straightening up. “Take. This.” He held out a shoulder bag. “I’ll mark the spot. It’s crowded around there.” His clothing was unfamiliar, but not his face; the sergeant nodded and took his bag.

  “You sit down and wait, then. We’ll be along presently.” He glanced at the sky: So far the enemy forces hadn’t tried lobbing shells into the courtyard at random, but it was only a matter of time before they got bored with sniping at window casements. “Try to stay close to the wall.”

  He dashed back towards the keep, not bothering to jink—they held the walls so far, Lightning Child be praised—going flat-out with the shoulder bag clenched in both hands.

  Carl was waiting in the grand hall with his staff. By lamplight, his face was heavily lined. He seemed, to the sergeant’s eye, to have aged a decade in the past two days. “Let’s see that,” he suggested.

  “Sir.”

  The guard up-ended the bag’s contents in the middle of the table with a thin clatter of plastic. Carl picked one of the cards up and carefully angled it for a glance. He drew breath sharply. “What do you think?”

  Oliver Hjorth took the card and squinted at it. “Yes, this looks like the right thing.” He glanced at the guard. “You recognized the courier.”

  “It’s Morgan du Hjalmar, somewhat the worse for wear.”

  The baron thought for a moment. “He’ll be wanting a ride back over, won’t he.”

  Carl nodded. “See to it,” he told the sergeant, then glanced sideways at Helmut Anders, his lieutenant. “Get everyone moving out. The recon lance first, as planned, then if the insertion is cold the, the casualty and his party”—he couldn’t bring himself to refer to the duke by name—“followed by everyone else. My lord Hjorth, if you’d care to accompany my headquarters staff . . . Let’s get a move on, people!”

  The crowd gathered around the table scattered, except for the core of officers and Helmut, who carefully removed his helmet and scooped the laminated plastic cards into it, being careful to avert his eyes. He moved to stand by the door, waiting for the clatter and clump of boots as the recon lance descended the grand staircase, weapons ready.

  “Take a card, move on out, Morgan over by the well house will show you the transit spot,” he told them, holding the helmet before him. “You know what to do.”

  “Secure the area!” Erik grinned at Helmut, his enthusiasm evidently barely dampened by the disaster on the rooftop two days ago.

  “They’re supposed to be friendly,” Helmut chided him. “So use your discretion.”

  “Aye!” Erik took a card and stepped forward. “Come on, you guys. Party’s this way.”

  Olga watched from the back of the hall as the recon lance marched towards the well house and an appointment with an uncertain world. Better them than me, she told herself. There were any number of things that could go wrong. They might have the wrong knotwork, a subtle flaw in the design, and go . . . somewhere. Or the long-lost cousins of the hidden family might decide to use this opportunity to settle their old score against the eastern families. Any number of nasty little possibilities lay in that particular direction. Morgan’s appearance suggested otherwise, but Olga had no great faith in his abilities, especially after what Helge—Miriam—had told her about the way he’d run her works in New Britain into the ground. Whatever can go wrong, probably has already gone wrong, and there’s no point worrying about it. She tried the thought for size and decided it was an ill-fit for her anxiety. There’s nothing to be done but wait and see. . . .

  Minutes passed, then there was another flicker in the shadows, out in the courtyard. A brief pause, then a figure trotted back towards the great hall.

  “Sir! The area was as described, and Cornet du Thorold sends word that he has secured the perimeter.” The soldier looked slightly pale, but otherwise in good shape—he’d made his first transit on a comrade’s back, specifically so he’d be able to make a quick return dash. “To my eye it’s looking good. There are four covered trucks waiting, and eight men, not obviously armed, with your cousin Leonhard.”

  “Good.” Captain Wu nodded. Then he glanced Olga’s way. “Your cue, milady.”

  “Indeed.” Olga turned back to the side chamber where her small team was waiting. They’d brought the duke downstairs earlier. Now he lay on a stretcher, eyes closed, breathing so slowly that she had to watch him closely to be sure he was still alive. “Come on,” she told Irma, Gerd, Martyn, and the four soldiers she’d roped in. “Let’s get him to safety.”

  The slow march out to the moonlit well house, matching her pace to the stretcher beside her, the smooth touch of the laminated card between her fingers: Olga felt herself winding tight as a watch spring. The gun slung across her shoulder was a familiar presence, but for once it was oppressive: If she found herself using it in the next few minutes, then the duke’s life—and by extension, the stable governance of the Clan—would be in mortal jeopardy. This has to work. Because if it doesn’t . . .

  Seconds spun down into focused moments. Olga found herself crouching astride a heavily built trooper. “Are we ready?” she asked, as the soldiers raised their cards and shone pocket flashlights on them. “Because—”

  The world lurched—

  “Oh,” she said, and slid down her porter’s back as he staggered.

  There were floodlights. And walls of wood, and between the walls, four large trucks of unfamiliar design, and soldiers. Familiar soldiers, thank Sky Father, in defensive positions near the gates to the compound. “What is this place?” she demanded.

  “Lumberyard,” said Leonhard Wu, beside her shoulder.

  Olga suppressed an unladylike urge to punch him. Leonhard always left her feeling slightly dirty: something about the way his gaze always lingered for just a few seconds too long. “Nice to see you, too,” she replied. Whose lumberyard, she left unasked. The security implications were likely to prove disquieting, and right now she had a single task to focus on—

  “How is he?” she asked Gerd, who crouched beside the duke, holding his wrist.

  “As good as can—”

  “—Is that the duke?” Leonhard’s voice cracked into a squawk.

  “Hsst.” Olga leaned towards him. “This is not Angbard Lofstrom, he wasn’t here, and you haven’t seen him. Not now, not here, not in this state. Do you understand?” She smiled coldly.

  “No need for that!” He nearly collapsed in his haste to back away. “Ah, no, I haven’t seen anything. But, uh, don’t you think you ought to get your nothing-to-see-here out of sight, Olga? Before the cousins—”

  “That’s the idea.” She nodded at the trucks. “Which of them is designated for officers?”

  “Tha
t one—”

  “Good. You can help Gerd here carry John Doe over to the load bed and make him comfortable. Hmm. Irma, why don’t you go with Leonhard here and make sure everyone works together splendidly? I have another job to do before we leave.”

  She left Leonhard looking over his shoulder at her in fear and strode towards the gate, where Erik, the cornet in charge of the recon lance, stood with a couple of unfamiliar men in strange, drab clothing.

  “Cornet, gentlemen.” She nodded. “I believe you have a tactical plan.”

  One of the men looked vaguely familiar. “Lady, ah, Thorold-Hjorth? You are a friend of, of Helge?”

  She blinked. “Yes. You are . . . ah, Sir James.” She bobbed her head. “I see you made it back home.”

  “Indeed.” He smiled faintly. “And how may I serve you?”

  “Let’s walk.”

  “Certainly.”

  James Lee had been dangerously smooth, she remembered, so smooth you could almost forget that his uncle and ancestors had waged a quiet war of assassination against her parents and grandparents, almost as soon as they’d concluded—erroneously—that their patriarch had been abandoned by his eastern brothers. James was friendly, affable, polished, and a much better diplomat than anyone had expected when, as part of the settlement between the families, he’d been sent to stay in Niejwein as a guest—or hostage. Which makes him dangerous, she reminded herself. “I have a little problem,” she said quietly.