The Clan Corporate: Book Three of The Merchant Princes

by Charles Stross

  The king sighed. “We cannot afford to ignore this affront. Our credibility will be deeply weakened if we are seen to ignore such a clear challenge by an agency of the French crown. And the insult of using our former territory as a test range”—his voice crackled with indignation—“cannot be other than intentional.” John Frederick straightened up in his chair. “Lord Douglass. This matter must be addressed by the Imperial Security Council. A new policy is required to deal with the affront. And a public position, lest panic ensure when the Frogs announce their new capability.” He drummed the fingers of his left hand on the intricately lacquered desktop. “Well. What else to keep us from our workshop?”

  Farnsworth focused on the prime minister. Douglass might be old and withered, but there was still a sharp mind behind the wispy white hair and liver-spotted wattles. Moreover, to the extent Farnsworth could claim to know the prime minister at all, he struck the equerry as looking shifty—and Sir Roderick was visibly sweating. This is going to be very bad indeed, Farnsworth realized. They’re using the French corpuscular test to soften him up. What on God’s earth could be worse than Louis XXII with corpuscular weapons?

  “Sire.” It was Douglass. Farnsworth focused on him. “This, ah, led me to question the diligence with which the Ministry for Special Affairs has been discharging its duties abroad. And indeed, Sir Roderick has instigated certain investigations without prompting, investigations which are revealing a very frightening deficit in our understanding of continental machinations against the security of your domain.”

  “We . . . see.” The king sounded perplexed and mildly irritated. “Would you get to the point, please? If the situation is as bad as you say, it would be expedient to draw no attention to our knowledge of it, and to reassure those who know something of it but not the substance—therefore one should depart to dress for the opening as one’s progression dictates on time and without sign of turmoil, at least until after the next scheduled ISC meeting. So what exactly are you talking about?”

  “Sir Roderick,” Douglass prompted.

  Sir Roderick looked like a man about to be hanged. “Sire, it pains me to lay this before you, but in the wake of the disturbances in Boston three weeks ago I instigated certain investigations. To draw a long story short, it appears that certain of our paid agents at large have been in actual fact accepting the coin of a second paymaster, whose livres and francs have added color to their reportage—to say nothing of delaying vital intelligence. We are now trying to ascertain the extent of the damage, but it appears that there has been for some time a French spy ring operating in our very halls, and this ring has suborned at least one network of our agents overseas. My men are now trying to isolate the spies, and discover how far the rot has spread.

  “I believe that in addition to perverting the course of incoming intelligence—which they were unable to do with the petard, it would seem, because weather ballonets with scintillation tubes accept no bribes—these enemy agents have been arranging for numerous shipments of gold to arrive in this country. Certainly more gold than usual has been seized on the black market in the past six months, and it appears that certain troublemakers and rabble-rousers have been living high on the hog.”

  “The usual?” John Frederick asked coldly.

  “Levelers and Ranters,” Douglass said quietly. He looked sad. “They never learn, although this treason is, I think, unprecedented in recent years. If true.”

  The king stood up. “We do not tolerate slander and libel and anarchism, much less as a front for that bastard pretender’s machinations!” His cheeks shone; for a moment Farnsworth half-expected him to burst into a denunciation, but after a while the monarch regained control. “Bring forward the next ISC meeting, as soon as possible,” he ordered. “Sir Roderick. We expect a daily briefing on the fruits of your investigation. We realize you have had barely nine months to get to grips with your office, but we must insist on holding you responsible for the progress of the ministry. Should you succeed in leeching it back to health you will find us a forgiving ruler, and we appreciate your candor in bringing the disease to our notice—but if this pot boils over, it will not be the Crown who is scalded.” He glanced round. “Farnsworth, attend to our wardrobe. Lord Douglass, thank you for bringing the situation to our attention. We shall now proceed to appear our regal best for the state opening tonight. If you should care to seek audience with us after the recession of parliament, we would value your advice.”

  “I am at your majesty’s service, as always,” murmured the prime minister. He stood, slowly. The minister of Special Affairs rose too, as Farnsworth moved smoothly to ensure the king’s progress back to his dressing room.

  That evening, after the state opening and the royal progress from Brunswick Palace to the Houses of Parliament at the far end of Manhattan island, Farnsworth pulled on a heavy overcoat and slipped out through a side door of the palace, to visit an old acquaintance in a public house just off Gloriana Street.

  Wooden paneling and a brown, stained ceiling testified to the Dutch origins of the Arend’s Nest: the pub’s front windows looked out toward the high-rise tenements crowding the inner wall of the bastion that had protected New York from continental aggression as far back as the late eighteenth century. Now a favorite haunt by day of city stock merchants and the upper crust of businessmen who filled the new office blocks behind the administrative complex, by night the Nest was mostly empty. Farnsworth slipped past the bar and stood next to a booth at the back with his coat collar turned up against the chill from the sea and his hat pulled down close to his ears. “You won’t fool nayone like that,” said a familiar voice. “You look like you’re trying to hide and they’ll pay attendance on ye when the police come asking. And now what time have you?”

  Farnsworth shook himself. “I’m sorry, but my pocket oyster’s broken,” he said in a robotic tone of voice.

  “Then ye’ll just have to tell me what time it says?”

  He hauled out his watch and flipped it open. “Ten to nine.”

  “Jolly good.” With a sigh and a rustle his welcomer moved aside to let him into the cubicle. Farnsworth sat down gratefully. “I’ve taken the liberty of ordering your pint already.” He was a plump, slightly shabby man whom Farnsworth knew only as Jack. Farnsworth had studiously suppressed any instinct to dig deeper. Jack wore a dark suit, shiny at the elbows, and a red silk cravat that although clean was clearly in need of ironing. Beside him sat another fellow, unknown to Farnsworth: a long-faced man in early middle age, but with a consumptive pallor about him and a face that seemed to chronicle more insults than any one life should bear. Farnsworth removed his hat and scarf and placed them fastidiously on one of the hooks screwed to the upper rail of the booth. “Have you anything to report?”

  “For whose ears?” Farnsworth picked up his glass. A full one sat untouched before Mr. Long-Face, which seemed an unconscionable waste of a good pint of porter to him. “No offense.”

  “This is, um, Rudolf,” said Jack. “He’s from Head Office. You remember what we spoke about earlier.”

  “Ah, yes.” Farnsworth shuffled uneasily in his seat. Head Office covered a multitude of sins, most of them capital offenses in the eyes of the Homeland Security Bureau. Far more subversive than any bomb-throwing wild-eyed democrat or fly-by-night unlicensed desktop publisher spreading lies and slanders about her royal highness’s enthusiasm for tight-breeched household cavalry officers . . . but the exchange of passwords had gone smoothly. Jack hadn’t used the bail out challenge. Which meant this was official.

  “Nothing new. His majesty is trying to keep a placid face but is mightily exercised over the continental despotism. They’ve exploded a corpuscular weapon months ahead of what our spies said was possible. Sir Roderick is dusting under chairs and tables in search of a mouse hole, as if his head depends upon it—and indeed it might, if Douglass is of a mind to hold him responsible. There is the usual ongoing crisis over precedence in the royal bedchamber, and My Lady Frazier is vexed to
speak of creating a new post of—well, perhaps this is of no interest? In any case, Douglass is exercised, too. He seems much gloomier than normal, and muttered something about fearing war was making virtue of necessity, and we must ensure the French use of the new weapons—corpses, he calls them, a vile contraction—is subjected to prior restraint by a mutual terror of annihilation.” With this, Farnsworth reached into an inner pocket of his jacket and produced a small envelope. He slid it across the table. “Usual drill.”

  Jack passed it to the stranger. It vanished immediately, and at once Farnsworth felt a load off his shoulders. He sighed and drained half his pint. Jack smiled sardonically. “Pass the noose is what we called this game in Camp Frederick.”

  The stranger, Rudolf, blinked his rheumy eyes, expressionless. “We require more detailed economic information,” he said, in an unexpectedly educated accent. “The V1 and V2 treasury indicators, any information you can obtain about the prevalence of adulterants in the royal mint’s stock, confiscations of bullion, the rate of default of debt secured against closed bodies corporate, the proposed repayment terms on the next issue of war bonds, and everything you can discover about the next budget.”

  Farnsworth leaned back. “That’s the Exchequer,” he said slowly. “I don’t work there or know anything. Or know anyone who does.”

  Rudolf nodded. “We understand. And we don’t expect miracles. All we ask is that you be aware of our needs. Douglass is a not infrequent visitor to the palace, and should he by mistake leave his brief unattended for a few minutes—well.” The hint of a smile came to Rudolf’s face. “Have you ever seen one of these before?” He slid a device barely larger than a box of matches onto the table.

  Farnsworth stared at it. “What is it?”

  “It’s a camera.”

  “Don’t be silly”—Farnsworth bent over it—“nobody could build a camera that small! Could they? And what’s it made of, lacquered cardboard?”

  “No.” Rudolf pushed it toward him. “It’s made of a material like foramin or cellulate, or a phenolic resin—even the lens. It’s waterproof and small enough to conceal in a boot heel. It will take eight pictures, then you must return it to us so that we can remove the sketchplate and downlo—ah, develop it. You aim it with this viewfinder, like so, and take a picture by pressing this button—thus. Yes, it will work without daylight—this is adequate for it. Keep it—no, not that one, this one”—he produced a second camera and handed it to Farnsworth—“about your person where it will not be found easily but where you can reach it in an instant. Inside your hat ribbon in circumstances like this, perhaps, or in your periwig when paying attendance upon his majesty.”

  “I—” Farnsworth looked at the tiny machine as if it were a live scorpion. “Did this come from the Frogs?” he heard himself asking as if from a great distance. “Because if so—”

  “No.” Rudolf flushed, and for the first time showed emotion. Anger. “We aren’t pawns of the Bourbon tyranny, sir. We are free democrats all, patriotic Englishmen fighting in the vanguard of the worldwide struggle for the rights of man, for freedom and equality before the law—and we’ll liberate France and her dominions as well, when the time comes to join in one great brotherhood of humanity and set the east afire! But we have allies you are unaware of, and hopefully will remain unaware of for some time to come, lest you jeopardize the cause.” He fixed Farnsworth with a gimlet stare. “Do you understand?”

  Farnsworth nodded. “I—yes.” He pocketed the tiny device hastily, then finished his beer. “Another pint?” he asked Jack. “In the interests of looking authentic . . .”

  “By all means.” Jack stood. “I’ll just go to the bar.”

  “And I must make haste to the jakes,” said Rudolf, nodding affably at Farnsworth. “We won’t meet again, I trust. Remember: eight, then to Jack. He will give you a replacement. Good night.” He took his hat and slipped away, leaving Farnsworth to sit alone, lonely and frightened until Jack returned with a fresh glass and a grin of conviviality, to chat about the dog racing and shore up his cover by helping him spend another evening drinking beer with his friend of convenience. Jack the Lad, Jack be Nimble, Jack the Leveler . . .

  The man Farnsworth knew as Rudolf was in no particular hurry. First he took his ease in the toilet. It was a cold night for the time of year, and he was old enough to have learned what a chill could do to his bladder. As he buttoned his coat and shuffled out the back door, through the yard with the wooden casks stacked shoulder high, he stifled a rattling cough. Something was moving in his chest again, foreshadowing what fate held in store for him. “All the more reason to get this over with sooner rather than later, my son,” he mumbled to himself as he unlocked the gate and slid unenthusiastically into the brick-walled alleyway.

  The alley was heaped with trash and hemmed in by the tumbledown sheds at the back of the buildings that presented such a fine stone front to the highway. Rudolf picked his way past a rusting fire escape and leaned on a wooden doorway next to a patch of wall streaked with dank slime from a leaky down-pipe. The door opened silently. He ducked inside, then closed and bolted it. The darkness in the cellar was broken only by a faint skylight. Now moving faster, Rudolf crossed over to another door and rapped on it thrice. A second later the inner door opened. “Ah, it’s you.”

  “It’s me,” Rudolf agreed. The sullen-faced man put away his pistol, looking relieved. “Coat,” Rudolf snapped, shedding his outer garment. “Hat.” The new garments were of much better cut than those that he’d removed, suitable for an operagoer of modest means—a ministry clerk, perhaps, or a legal secretary—and as he pulled them on “Rudolf” forced himself to straighten up, put a spring in his step and a spark in his eye. “Time to be off, I think. See you later.”

  He left by way of a staircase and a dim hallway, an electrical night-light guiding his footsteps. Finally, “Rudolf” let himself out through the front door, which was itself unlocked. The coat and hat he’d arrived in would be vanishing into the belly of the furnace that heated the law firm’s offices by day. In a few minutes there’d be nothing to connect him to the man from the royal household other than a tenuous chain of hearsay—not that it would stop the Homeland Security Bureau’s hounds, but with every broken link the chain would become harder to follow.

  The main road out front was brightly lit by fizzing gas stands; cabs rumbled up and down it, boilers hissing as their drivers trawled for trade among the late-night crowds who dotted the sidewalk outside cafes and fashionable eating houses. The music hall along the street was emptying out, and knots of men and women stood around chattering raucously or singing the latest ditties from memory—with varying degrees of success, for the bars were awash with genever and scrumpy, and the entertainment was not noted for genteel restraint. Overhead, the neon lights blinked like the promise of a new century, bright blandishments of commerce and a ticker of news running around the outside of the theater’s awning. “Rudolf” stepped off the curb, avoided a cab, and made his way across to the far side of the street. The rumble of an airship’s engines echoed off the roadstone paving from overhead, a reminder of the royal presence a few miles away. “Rudolf” forced himself to focus as he walked purposefully along the sidewalk, avoiding the merrymakers and occasional vagrant. Dear friends, he thought; the faces of multitudes. He glanced around, a frisson of fear running up his spine. I hope we’re in time.

  Passing a penny to a red-cheeked lad yelling the lead from tomorrow’s early edition, “Rudolf” took a copy of The Times and scanned the headlines as he walked. Nader Reasserts Afghan Claim. Nothing good could ever come from that part of the world, he reflected; especially Shah Nader’s thirst for black gold he could sell to the king’s navy via the oiling base at Jask. Saboteurs Apprehended in Breasil. All part and parcel of the big picture. Crown Prince James Visits Santa Cruz made it sound like a grand tour of the nation rather than a desperate hope that the Pacific warmth would do something to ease the child’s ailment. “Rudolf” turned a corner i
nto a narrower street. Prussian Ambassador Slights French Envoy at Gala Opening: now that didn’t sound very clever, did it? As the joke put it, when the French diplomat said “Frog” the Germanys all croaked in chorus. Murdock Suit: Malcolm Denies Slur. All the best barristers arguing the big libel case on a pro bono basis—a faint smile came to the thin man’s face as he read the leading paragraph, squinting under the thin glare of the lamps. Then he folded the paper beneath his arm, palming something between the pages, and strode on toward the intersection with New Street. The crowds were thicker here, and as he stepped onto the pavement at the far side a fellow ran straight into him.

  “I say, sir, are you all right?” the man asked, dusting himself off. “You dropped your paper.” He bent and handed a folded broadsheet to “Rudolf.”

  “If you’d been looking where you were going, I wouldn’t have.” “Rudolf” snorted, jammed the paper beneath his arm, and hurried off determinedly. Only when he’d passed the outrageously expensive plate glass windows of the Store Romanova did he slow, cough once or twice into his handkerchief, and verify with a sidelong glance that the paper clenched in his left hand was a copy of The Clarion.

  Queen’s Counselor Denies Everything, Threatens Libel Suit! screamed the headline. “Rudolf” smiled to himself. And so he should, he thought, and so he should. If Farnsworth said there was no substance to the rumors then he was almost certainly telling the truth—not that his loyalty was above and beyond question, for nobody was beyond question, but his dislike for her majesty was such that if there had been any substance to the rumors, the dispatches he sent via Jack would almost certainly have confirmed them. “Rudolf” took a deep, slow, breath, trying not to irritate his chest, and forced himself to relax, slowing to an old man’s ambling pace. Every second that passed now meant that the incriminating letter was that much further from its origin and that much closer to the intelligence cell that would analyze it before making their conclusions known to the Continental Congress.