The Merchants’ War

extraordinary pressure?”

“No pressure. At least, nothing but her own isolation.”

Erasmus came to a decision. “She’s been a major asset in the past, and I am sure that she isn’t a government sympathizer. If we take her in, I’m certain we can make use of her special talents.” He put his teacup down. “Killing her would be a—” tragic “—waste.”

Lady Bishop stared at him for a few seconds, her expression still. Then she nodded yet again, thoughtfully. “I concur,” she said briskly.

“Well, I confess I am relieved.” He scratched his head, staring at the picture she still held.

“I value your opinions, Erasmus, you must know that. I needed a second on this matter; my first leaning was to find a use for her, but you know her best and if you had turned your thumb down—” she paused. “Is there a personal interest I should know about?”

He looked up. “Not really. I consider her a friend, and I find her company refreshing, but there’s nothing more.” Nothing more, he echoed ironically in the safety of his own head. “I incline towards leniency for all those who are not agents of the state—I think it unchristian and indecent to mete out such punishment as I have been on the receiving end of—but if I thought for an instant that she was a threat to the movement I’d do the deed myself.” And that was the bald unvarnished truth—a successful spy would condemn dozens, even hundreds, to the gallows and labor camps. But it was not the entire truth, for it would be a harsh act to live with afterwards: conceivably an impossible one.

Lady Bishop sipped her tea again. “Then I think you’ll be the best man for the job.”

“What job?”

“Finding a use for her, of course. In your copious spare time, when you’re not off being Sir Adam’s errand boy.”

Erasmus blinked. “Excuse me?”

“I’d have thought it obvious.” She put her teacup down. “We can’t keep her here. Her inexperience would render her dangerous, her strange ideas and ways would be hazardous and hard to conceal in the front of the house, and, bluntly, I think she’d draw unwelcome attention to herself. If we’re not to send her to the Miller, it’s essential to put her somewhere safe. You’re the only person she knows or trusts here, so you drew the short straw. Moreover, I suspect you know more about how to make use of her unique ability than I do. So, unless you protest, I’m going to assign her to you as an additional responsibility, after you see to Adam’s travel arrangements. Take her in and establish how we can use her. What do you say?”

“I say—um.” His head was spinning: Erasmus blinked again. “That is to say, that makes sense, but—”

Lady Bishop clapped her hands together before he could muster a coherent objection. “Excellent!” She smiled. “I’ll have Edward sort out documents and some suitable clothing for her, and you can take her back to Boston as soon as possible. What do you say?”

“But—” The servant’s room is full of furniture in hock, the second bedroom doesn’t have room to swing a cat for all the old clothing and books I’ve got stored in it, and the old biddies up the street will wag their tongues so fast their jaws explode—“I think the word Miss Beckstein would use is ‘okay.’” He sighed. “This is going to be interesting.”

His Majesty King Egon the Third had convened his special assizes in the grand hall of the Thorold Palace—still smoking, and somewhat battered by his soldiers in their enthusiasm to drive out the enemy—precisely thirty-six hours after the explosion and subsequent attack on his father. “By parties of great treachery in league with the Tinker tribe,” as the gebanes dispatched by royal messenger to all his vassal lords put it: “Let all know that by decree of this court in accordance with the doctrine of outlawry the afore-named families are declared outwith the law, and their chattels and holdings hereby escheat to the Crown.” The writs were flying by courier to all quarters of the kingdom; now his majesty was dictating a codicil.

“This ague at the heart of our kingdom pains us grievously, but we are young and healthy enough that it shall soon be overcome and the canker cut out,” his majesty said. “To this end, an half of all real properties and chattels recovered from the outlaw band is hereby granted to whosoever shall yield those properties to the Crown.” He frowned: “is that clear enough do you suppose, Innsford?”

“Absolutely clear, my lord.” His excellency the duke of Innsford bobbed his head like a hungry duck plowing a mill pond. “As clear as temple glass!” Whether it is wise is another matter, he thought, but held his counsel. Egon might be eager to rid himself of the tinker clan, and declaring them outlaw and promising half their estates to whoever killed them was a good way to go about the job, but in the long run it might come back to haunt him: other kings had been overthrown by ambitious dukes, with coffers filled and estates bloated by the spoils of a civil war fought by proxy. Innsford harbored no such ambitions—his old man’s plans did not call for a desperate all-or-nothing gamble to take the throne—but others might think differently. Meanwhile, the scribe seated at the table behind him scratched on, his pen bobbing between ink pot and paper as he committed the King’s speech to paper.

His majesty glanced up at the huge, clear windows overhead, frames occupied by flawless sheets of plate imported from the shadowlands by the tinkers. “May Sky Father adorn his tree with them.” In the wan morning light his expression was almost hungry. Innsford nodded again. The king—a golden youth only a handful of years ago, now come into his full power as a young man, handsome as an eagle and strong as an ox—was not someone anyone would disagree with openly. He was fast to laugh, but his cruel streak was rarely far below the surface and his mind was both deceptively sharp and coldly untrusting. He kept his openness for a small coterie of friends, their loyalty honed beyond question by bleak years of complicity during the decade when his father had held him at arm’s reach, suspicious of the brain rot inflicted on his younger brother Creon during a sly assassination attempt. The other courtiers (of whom there were no small number, Duke Innsford among them) would have a long wait until they earned his confidence.

And as Egon had demonstrated already, losing the royal confidence could be a fatal blunder.

Egon glanced at the scribe: “That’s enough for now.” He stood up, shifting his weight from foot to foot to restore the circulation that the hard wooden chair had slowed. “My lord Innsford, attend us, please. And you, my lord Carlsen, and you, Sir Markus.”

The middle-aged duke rose to his feet and half-bowed, then followed as the young monarch walked towards the inner doors. Four bodyguards paced ahead of him, and two to the rear—the latter spending more time looking over their shoulders than observing their royal charge—with the courtiers Carlsen and Markus, and their attendant bodyguards, and Innsford’s own retainers and guards taking up the tail end of the party. His majesty affected a scandalous disregard for propriety, dressing in exactly the same livery and chain mail jerkin as his escorts, distinguishable only by his chain of office—and even that was draped around his neck, almost completely hidden by his tunic. It was almost as if, the duke mused, his majesty was afraid of demonic assassins who might spring out of the thin air at any moment. As if. And now that the duke noticed it, even Egon’s courtiers wore some variation on the royal livery…

“Markus, Carl, we go outside. I believe there is an orangery?”

“Certainly, sire.” Carlsen—another overmuscled blond hopeful—looked slightly alarmed. “But snipers—”

“That’s what our guards are for,” Egon said dismissively. “The ones you don’t see are more important than the ones you do. We are at greater risk in this ghastly haunted pile—from tinker witches sneaking back in from the shadowlands to slip a knife in my ribs—than in any garden. The less they know of our royal whereabouts, the happier I’ll be.”

“The land of shadows?” Innsford bit his tongue immediately, but surprise had caught him unawares: does he really believe they come from the domain of the damned? How much does he know?

The king glanced round and grinned at him lopsidedly, catching him unawares. It was a frighteningly intimate expression. “Where did you think they came from? They’re the spawn of air and darkness. I’ve seen it myself: one moment they’re there, the next…” He snapped his fingers. “They walk between worlds and return to this one loaded with eldritch treasure, weapons beyond the ken of our royal artificers and alchemists: they buy influence and insidiously but instinctively pollute the purity of our noble bloodlines with their changeling get!” His grin turned to a glare. “I learned of this from my grandmother, the old witch—luckily I did not inherit her bloodline, but my brother was another matter. Had Creon not been poisoned in his infancy there is no doubt that once he reached his majority I should shortly have met with an accident.”

He paused for a minute while his guards opened the thick oak side door and checked the garden for threats.