“Huh. Other kingdoms? Where did they come from, anyway? It’s, I’d have said medieval-”
“Nearly.” Roland nodded. “I did some digging into it. You are aware that in your world the feudal order of western Europe emerged from the wreckage of the Roman Empire, imposed largely by Norse-Viking-settlers who had assimilated many of the local ways? I am not sure, but I believe much the same origin explains our situation here. On this coast, there are several kingdoms up and down the seaboard. Successive waves of emigration from the old countries of the Holy Empire conquered earlier kingdoms up and down the coast, forced into a militarized hierarchy to defend themselves against the indigenous tribes. Vikings, but Vikings who had assimilated the Roman church-the worship of the divine company of gods-and such learning as the broken wreckage of Europe had to offer. We sent agents across the Atlantic to explore the Rome of this world thirty years or so ago: It lies unquiet beneath the spurs of the Great Khan, but the churches still make burned offerings before the gods. Maybe when there are more of us we will open up trade routes in Europe… but not yet.”
“Um. Okay.” Miriam nodded, reduced to silence by a sudden sense of cultural indigestion. This is so alien! “So what about you? The Clan, I mean. Where do you-we-fit into the picture?”
“The Clan families are mostly based in Gruinmarkt, which is roughly where Massachusetts and New York and Maine are over here. But we, the Clan families, were ennobled only in the past six generations or so-the old landholders won’t ever let you forget it. The Clan council voted to make children of any royal union full members- that way, the third generation will be royalty, or at least nobility, and have the talent. But nobody’s married into one of the royal families yet-either in the Gruinmarkt, or north or south for that matter.
“In the Outer Kingdom, to the west, things are different again-there are civil service exams. Again, we’ve got an edge there. We have schools over here and ways to cheat. But I was talking about the population trap, wasn’t I? The council has a long arm. They won’t let you go. And it’ll take more than just one person on the inside, pushing, to make them change. I’ve tried. I got a whole huge reform program mapped out that’d break their dependency, begin developing the Gruinmarkt-but the council tore it up and threw it out without even reading it. Only Duke Angbard kept them from going further and declaring me a traitor.”
“Let me get this straight,” Miriam said, leaning forward. “You lived with Janice until she couldn’t put up with you not telling her what you were doing for two hours a day, couldn’t put up with not knowing about your background, and until your elders began leaning on you to get married. Right?”
“Wrong,” he said. “I told Uncle Angbard where he could shove his ultimatum.” He hunched over, a picture of misery. “But she moved out, anyway. She’d managed to convince herself that I was some kind of gangster, drug smuggler, whatever, up to my ears in no good. I was trying, trying, to get permission to go over for good, to try to make it up to her, to make everything all right. But she was killed by a car. A hit-and-run accident, the police said.”
He fell silent, story run down.
Well, she thought. Words failed her for a minute. “Were the two things connected? Causally, that is?”
“You mean, did the council have her killed?” he asked harshly. “I don’t know. I’ve refused to investigate the possibility. Thousands of pedestrians are killed by hit-and-run drivers every year. She’d walked out on me, and we might never have got back together. And if I did discover that one of my relatives was responsible, I’d have to kill them, wouldn’t I? You didn’t live through the war. Trust me, you don’t want to go there, to having assassins stepping out of thin air behind people and garrotting them. Far better to let it lie.”
“That doesn’t sound like the same man speaking,” she speculated.
“Oh, but it does.” He smiled lopsidedly. “The half of me that is a cold-blooded import/export consultant, not the half of me that’s a misguided romantic reformer who thinks the Gruinmarkt could industrialize and develop in less than half a century if the Clan threw its weight behind the project. I’m hoping the duke is listening…”
“Well, he has you where he can keep an eye on you.” Miriam paused. “For your own good, to his way of thinking.”
“Politics.” Roland made it sound like a curse. “I don’t care about who gets the credit as long as the job gets done!” He shook his head distractedly. “That’s the problem. Too many vested interests, too many frightened little people who think any progress that breaks the pattern of Clan business activities is a personal attack on them. And that’s before we even get started talking about the old aristocracy, the ones who aren’t part of us.”
“He’s keeping you under his thumb until he can figure out a way to get a hold on you,” Miriam suggested. “Some way of tying you down, maybe?”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.” He looked around, trying to catch the waiter’s eye. “I figured you’d understand,” he said.
“Yes, I guess I do,” she said regretfully. “And if that’s what he’s got in mind for you, what about me?”
They drove back to the house in the suburbs in companionable silence. From the outside, the doppelgangered mansion looked like a sedate business unit, possibly a software company or an accounting firm. As they rolled onto the down ramp, Roland cued the door remote, and the barrier rolled up into the ceiling. For the first time Miriam realized how thick it was. “That’s bombproof, isn’t it?”
“Yup.” He drove down the ramp without stopping and the shutters were already descending behind them. “We don’t have the luxury of a beaten fire zone on this side.”
“Oh.” She felt a chill. “The threats. It’s all real.”
“What were you expecting, lies?” He slid them nose-first into a parking spot next to the Jaguar, killed the engine, then systematically looked around before opening the door.
“I don’t know.” She got out and stretched, looking around. ‘The garage door. That’s what brought it home.”
“The only home for the likes of us is a fortress,” he said, not without bitterness. “Remember the Lindbergh baby? We’ve got it a hundred times worse. Never forget. Never relax. Never be normal.”
“I don’t-” she took a deep breath. “I don’t think I can learn to live like that.”
“Helge-Miriam-” he stopped and looked at her closely, concerned. “It’s not as bad as it sounds.”
She shook her head wordlessly.
“Really.” He walked around the car to her. “Because you’re not alone. You’re not the only one going through this.”
“It’s-” She paused. “Claustrophobic.” He was standing close to her. She stepped close to him and he opened his arms and embraced her stiffly.
“I’ll help, any way I can,” he murmured. “Any way you want. Just ask, whatever you need.” She could feel his back muscles tense.
She hugged him. Wordless thoughts bubbled and seethed in her mind, seeking expression. “Thank you,” she whispered, “I needed that.” Letting go.
Roland stepped back promptly and turned to the car’s trunk as if nothing had happened. “It’ll all work out; we’ll make sure of it.” He opened the car’s trunk. “Meanwhile, can you help me with these? My, you’ve been busy.”
“I assume we can get it all back?”
“Whatever you can carry,” he said. “Even if it’s just for a minute.”
“Whatever,” she said, bending to take the strain of another of the ubiquitous silvery aluminium wheeled suitcases and her own big case stuffed with shopping.
“Downstairs and across?” he asked.
“Hmm.” She shrugged. “Does the duke expect us to dine with him tonight?”
“Not that I’ve heard.”
Well, okay, she mused. “Then we don’t need to go back immediately.”
“Mm.” He opened the lift gates. “I’m afraid we do; we’ve got to keep the post moving, you see. Two trips a day, five days on and five days off. It’s the rules.” He waved her into the lift and they stood together as it began to descend.
“Oh, well.” She nodded. “I suppose…”
“Would you mind very much if I invited you to dine with me?” he asked in a sudden rush. “Not a formal affair, not at all. If you want someone else around, I’m sure Vincenze is at a loose end…”
She smiled at him uncertainly, surprised at her own reaction. She bit her lip, trying not to seem overeager. “I’d love to dine with you,” she said. “But tonight I’m working. Tomorrow?”
“Okay. If you say so.”
At the bottom of the shaft he led her into the post room. “What’s here?” she asked.
“Well.” He pointed to a yellow square marked on the floor, about three feet by three feet. “Stand there, facing
