useful something comes up to divert me. From my own company! The one I set up in New Britain that's showing a higher rate of profit growth than anything else the Clan's seen in thirty years!'
'Profit growth from a very low baseline,' Olga pointed out, a little tactlessly.
'That's not the point!' Miriam managed to keep her temper under control. 'While they're keeping me on the shelf under glass I can't actually meet people and make deals and keep things moving! I'm isolated. I don't know what's going on. Hell, do you know what's going on? Is Roger messing around with epoxides again or is he working on the process quality issue? Did Jeremiah sort out the delivery schedules? Who's handling payroll? If it's that man of Bates's it's costing us an arm and a leg. Well? Who's minding the shop?'
Olga shook her head. 'I'm sure Morgan was taking care of all that,' she said slowly, not meeting Miriam's eyes. 'Things are very busy.'
'Well, you're actually going on-site,' Miriam pointed out. 'If you don't know what to look for, how should Morgan know? I'm the only person in the Clan who really knows what the company is good for or where everything goes, and if they're keeping me away from it, there's a good chance that-' She stopped.
Olga busied herself looking around the lower branches of the trees for the mockingbird that had been serenading them only a minute before.
'Why am I being frozen out?' asked Miriam.
'I couldn't possibly comment,' Olga sang, almost tonelessly, an odd affectation she sometimes used when forced to deliver bad news, 'because were I to repeat anything I heard from his excellency in the Security Directorate that would be an act of petty treason, not to say a betrayal of his trust in me-but has anything else happened to you lately?'
'Oh, lots.' Miriam's voice sharpened. 'Deportment lessons. Dancing lessons. A daily dossier of relatives and their family trees to memorize. How to ride a horse sidesaddle. How to address a prince, a pauper, or a priest of Sky Father. The use of reflexive verbs in hochsprache. More clothing than I've ever needed before, all in styles I wouldn't have been seen dead in-or expected to see outside a museum or a movie theater. I've been getting a crash course.' She grimaced, then glanced sidelong at Olga. 'I went to see Ma-Iris, I mean, her grace the duchess Patricia-this afternoon. She's turned almost as stone-faced and Machiavellian as that dear grandmother of mine.'
'Really?' Olga chirped, just a little too brightly. 'Did she have anything interesting to say?'
'Yes, as a matter of fact she did.' Miriam tapped one foot impatiently. 'She asked me what I thought about marriage, Olga. She knows damn well what I think about marriage; she was there when I married Ben, and she was still there when the divorce came through, and that was over ten years ago. She knows about Roland.' Her voice wobbled slightly as she named him, and for a moment Miriam looked a decade older than her thirty-three years. 'Ma's frightening me, Olga, it's as if something's broken inside her and she's decided it was all a mistake, running away, and she needs to conform to expectations.'
'Well, maybe-' Olga paused. She glanced around. 'Look, Miriam. I think it's safe to tell you this, all right? But don't talk about it in front of anybody else.' She took a deep breath. 'You are being kept away from your operation in New Britain. It's a security thing, but not, not Matthias. I think her grace was finding out what you think about marriage because that's the fastest way to clear things up. If you were-unambiguously-part of the Clan, there'd be fewer grounds to worry about you.'
'About me?' Miriam managed to control her voice. 'What do you think-'
'Hush, it's not what I think that's the problem!'
Miriam paused. 'I'm sorry.'
'I accept your apology, dear friend. No, it's-the problem is, you've been too successful too fast. On your own. Think about Roland, think about what he tried to do years ago. Bluntly, they're afraid that a lot of young tearaways will look at your example and think, 'I could do that,' and, well, copy everything except the way you came home to face a council hearing and explain what you were doing.'
Miriam looked blank for a moment. 'You mean, they're afraid youngsters would use me as an object lesson and strike out on their own. Defect. Leave the Clan.'
'Yes, Helge. I think that's what they're afraid of. You've handed them a huge opportunity on a plate, but it's also a threat to their survival as an institution. And there's already a crisis in train for them to worry about. Frightened people act harshly… your mother has every reason to be scared witless, on your behalf. Do you see?'
'That's hard to believe.' Eyes downcast, Helge slowly began to walk back along the path. 'Bastards,' she muttered quietly under her breath. 'Lying bastards.'
Olga trotted to catch up. 'Come along to the garden party tonight,' she suggested. 'Try to enjoy it? You'll meet lots of eligible gentles there, I'm sure.' A quiet giggle: 'If they're not overawed by your reputation!'
'Enjoy it?' Helge stopped dead, a pained expression on her face. 'Last time I attended one of those events Matthias tried to blackmail me, his majesty insisted on introducing me to his idiot younger son, and two different factions tried to assassinate me! I'm just hoping that his majesty's too drunk to recognize me, otherwise-'
'This time will be different,' Olga said confidently, offering her hand. 'You'll see!'
Translated transcript begins
'A most excellent evening, your grace.'
'Any evening at court is a most excellent one, Otto. Blessed by the presence of our royal sun, as it were. Ah, you-a glass for the baron, here!'
(Pause.)
'That's very fine, the, ah, Sudten new grape? This year's, fresh from the cask?'
'Absolutely. His majesty's vintners are conscientious as always. I understand we can expect this crop to arrive in our own cellars presently, in perhaps a few weeks-as the ships work their way into port, weather permitting.'
'As the-oh. How do they do it?'
'Witchcraft of some description, no doubt, though the how of it hardly matters as much as the why, Otto.' (Pause.) 'Are you still having problems with your new neighbor?'
'Why that-one-legged whore's son of a bloated tick! I'm sorry, your grace. Sky Father rot his eyes in his head, yes! It continues. As the circuit assizes will attest this high summer. And he's got the sworn men to compurge his case before the justiciars, claiming with their lying hands on the altar that every inch of the forest he's cleared has been in his family since time immemorial. Which it has not, on account of his family being jumped-up peddlers-'
'Not so loudly if you please, Otto. Another glass?'
'My-discreetly! Discreetly does it indeed, sir, I must apologize; it is just that the subject causes me no little inflammation of the senses. My grief is not at the ennoblement of the line, which it must be admitted happened in my grandfather's day, but his attitude is insufferable! To raze the choicest forest is bad enough, but to sow it with weeds, and then to erect fences and bar his fields to the hunt in breach of ancient right is a personal affront. And his claim to be under the instruction of his liege is…'
'Quite true, Otto.'
'I most humbly beg your pardon, your grace, but I find that hard to credit.'
(Pause.)
'It is entirely true, Otto. The merchants own considerable estates, and fully a tenth of them were turned over to this crop last spring. With considerable hardship to their tenants, I might add; an unseemly lack of care will see many of them starving. Evidently red and purple flowers mean more to them than the health of their peasants, unless by some more of their magic they can transform poppies into bread by midwinter's eve.'
'Idiots.' (Inarticulate muttering.) 'It wouldn't be the first idiocy they've been guilty of, of course, but to damage the yeomanry adds an insult to the blow.'
'Exactly his thought.'
'He-' (Pause.) 'The rising sun is of this thought?'
'Indeed. Even while our father sips his new wine, imported by tinker trickery, and raises them in his esteem without questioning their custody of the lands he's granted them, our future king asks hard questions. He's a born leader, and we are lucky to have his like.'
'I'll drink to that. Long live the king!'
