would turn out so weird?”
And I called Craig Venter and Larry Ellison robber barons in print, she thought mordantly, keying the “pause” button again.
“Put that way it sounds funny, but it isn’t. First I thought it was the feds who broke in and grabbed me, and that’s pretty damn scary to begin with. FEMA, secret security courts with hearings held in camera. Then, it could have been the mob, if the mob looked like FBI agents. But this could actually be worse. These guys wear business suits, but it’s only skin-deep. They’re like sheikhs from one of the rich Gulf Emirates. They don’t dress up medieval, they think medieval and buy their clothes from Saks or Savile Row in England.”
A thought occurred to her. I hope Paulette’s keeping the video camera safe. And her head down. She had an ugly, frightened feeling that Duke Angbard had seen right through her. He scared her: She’d met his type before, and they played hardball-hard enough to make a Mafia don’s eyes water. She was half-terrified she’d wake up tomorrow and see Paulie’s head impaled on a pike outside her bedroom window. If only Ma hadn’t given me the damned locket-
A tentative knock on the door. “Mistress? Are you ready to come out?”
“Ten minutes,” Miriam called. She clutched her recorder and shook her head. Four servants had shown up an hour ago, and she’d retreated into the bathroom. One of them, called something like Iona, had tried to follow her. Apparently countesses weren’t allowed to use a bathroom without servants in attendance. That was when Miriam had locked the door and braced the linen chest against it.
“Damn,” she muttered and took a deep breath. Then she surrendered to the inevitable.
They were waiting for her when she came out. Four women in severe black dresses and white aprons, their hair covered by blue scarves. They curtseyed before her as she looked around, confused. “I’m Meg, if it please you, your highness. We is to dress you,” the oldest of them said in a soft, vaguely Germanic accent: Middle-aged and motherly, she looked as if she would be more at home in an Amish farm kitchen than a castle.
“Uh, it’s only four o’clock,” Miriam pointed out.
Meg looked slightly shocked. “But you are to be received at seven!” She pointed out. “How’re we to dress you in time?”
“Well.” Miriam looked at the other three: All of them stood with downcast eyes. I don’t like this, she thought. “How about I take something from my wardrobe-yes, they kindly brought all my clothes along-and put it on?”
“M-ma’am,” the second oldest ventured: “I’ve seen your clothes. Begging your pardon, but them’s not court clothes. Them’s not suitable.”
‘Court clothes’? More crazy formal shit. “What would you suggest, then?” Miriam asked exasperatedly.
“Old Ma’am Rosein can fit you up with something to measure,” said the old one, “should I but give her your sizes.” She held up a very modern-looking tape measure. “Your highness?”
“This had better be good,” Miriam said, raising her arms. Why do I never get this kind of service at the Gap? She wondered.
Three hours later Miriam was readied for dinner, and knew exactly why she never got this kind of service in any chain store-and why Angbard had so many servants. She was hungry, and if the bodice they’d squeezed her into allowed her to eat when she got there she might consider forgiving Angbard for his invitation.
The youngest maidservant was still fussing over her hair-and the feathers and string of pearls she had woven into it, while lamenting its shortness-when the door opened. It was, of course, Roland, accompanied now by a younger fellow, and Miriam began to get an inkling of what a formal dinner involved.
“Dear cousin!” Roland saluted her. Miriam carefully met his eyes and inclined her head as far as she could. “May I present you with your nephew twice removed: Vincenze?” The younger man bowed deeply, his red embroidered jacket tightening across broad shoulders. “You look splendid, my dear.”
“Do I?” Miriam shook her head. “I feel like an ornamental flower arrangement,” she said with some feeling.
“Charmed, ma’am,” said Vincenze with the beginning of a stutter.
“If you would like to accompany me?” Roland offered her his arm, and she took it with alacrity.
“Keep the speed down,” she hissed, glancing past him at his younger relative, who appeared to be too young to need to shave regularly.
“By all means, keep the speed down.” Roland nodded.
Miriam stepped forward experimentally. Her maidservants had taken over an hour to install her in this outfit: I feel like I’ve fallen into a medieval costume drama, she thought. Roland’s high linen collar and pantaloons didn’t look too comfortable, either, come to think of it. “What sort of occasion is this outfit customary for?” she asked.
“Oh, any formal event where one of our class might be seen,” Roland observed: “except that in public you would have a head covering and an escort. You would normally have much more jewellery, but your inheritance-” he essayed a shrug. “Is mostly in the treasury in Niejwein.” Miriam fingered the pearl choker around her neck uncomfortably.
“You wore, um, American clothing today,” she reminded him.
“Oh, but so is this, isn’t it? But of another period. It reminds us whence our wealth comes.”
“Right.” She nodded minutely. Business suits are informal dress for medieval aristocrats’! And formal dress that was like something that belonged in a movie about the Renaissance. Everything goes into the exterior, she added to her mental file of notes on family manners.
Roland escorted her up the wide stairs, then at the tall doors at the top a pair of guards in dark suits and dark glasses announced them and ushered them in.
A long oak table awaited them in a surprisingly small dining room that opened off the duke’s reception room. Antique glass globes rising from brass stems in the wall cast a pale light over a table glistening with silver and crystal. A servant in black waited behind each chair. Duke Angbard was already waiting for them, in similarly archaic costume: Miriam recognized a sword hanging at his belt. Do swords go with male formal dress here? she wondered. “My dear niece,” he intoned, “you look marvellous! Welcome to my table.” He waved her to a seat at the right of the head, black wood with a high back and an amazingly intricate design carved into it.
‘The pleasure’s mine,” Miriam summoned up a dry smile, trying to strike the right note. These goons can kill you as soon as look at you, she reminded herself. Medieval squalor waited at the gate, and police cells down in the basement: Maybe this wasn’t so unusual outside the western world, but it was new to her. She picked up her skirts and sat down gingerly as a servant slid a chair in behind her. The delicacy of its carving said nothing about its comfort-the seat was flat and extremely hard.
“Roland, and young Vincenze! You next, by the Sky Father.”
“P-pleased to accept,” Vincenze quavered.
The outer door opened again, sparing him further risk of embarrassment, and a footman called out in a low voice: “The Lady Margit, Chatelaine of Praha, and her Excellency the Baroness Olga Thorold.”
Six women came in, and now Miriam realized that she was probably underdressed, for the two high-born each wore the most voluminous gowns she’d ever seen, with trains that required two maids to carry them and hair so entangled in knots of gold and rubies that they resembled birds’ nests. They looked like divas from a Wagner opera: the fat lady and the slim virgin. Margit of Praha was perhaps forty, her hair beginning to turn white and her cheeks sagging slightly. She looked as if she might be merry under other circumstances, but now her expression was grimly set. Olga Thorold, in contrast, was barely out of adolescence, a coltish young girl with a gown of gold and crimson and a neck swathed in gemstones that sparked fire whenever she moved. Olga looked half-amused by Miriam’s cool assessing glance.
“Please be seated,” said Angbard. Olga smiled demurely and bowed her neck to him. Margit, her chaperone, merely nodded and took a seat. “I believe you have heard tell of the arrival of our returning prodigal,” he commented. “Pitr, fetch wine if you please. The Medoc.”
“I have heard quite a few strangenesses today,” Margit commented in English that bore a strangely cupped accent. “This songbird in your left hand, she is the daughter of your sister, long-lost. Is this true?”
“It is so,” Angbard confirmed. A servant placed a cut-crystal glass of wine in front of Miriam. She began to reach toward it, then stopped, noticing that none of the others made such a gesture. “She has proven her heritage- the family trait-and the blood tests received barely an hour ago affirm her. She is of our bloodstock, and we have information substantiating, sadly, the death of her dam, Patricia Thorold Hjorth. I present to you Helge, also known as Miriam, of Thorold Hjorth, eldest heir surviving.”
