“Mmmph.” Miriam blinked slowly. Handsome. She had a sudden hot flashover to the night before, Roland’s hands gently teasing her legs apart during a long-drawn-out game that ended with them both spent, damp, and woozy-then she took in Olga’s innocent, happy face and felt abruptly downhearted, as if she’d stolen a child’s toy. This wasn’t part of the plan, she thought dispiritedly. “They’re guards,” she said tiredly. “Seen one set of guards, seen ’em all. I just wish I could get at my suitcase.” She’d stashed her pistol in it last night, along with her notebook computer and the rest of her escape kit.
“Why is that?” asked Olga.
“Well.” Miriam paused. How to put it diplomatically? “What if they wanted to take advantage of us?” she asked, fumbling for an alternative to suggesting that Angbard’s guards might not be effective.
“Oh, that’s all right,” Olga said brightly. She fumbled with something under her blanket, then showed it to Miriam, who blinked again, several times.
“Be careful where you wave that,” she suggested.
“Oh, I’ll be all right! I’ve been training with guns since I was this high,” she said, lowering the machine pistol. “Don’t you do it over there?”
“Ah.” Miriam looked at her faintly. “No, but I suppose conditions are different there.”
“Oh.” Olga looked slightly puzzled. “Aren’t you allowed to defend yourselves?”
“We’ve got this thing called a government,” Miriam said dryly. “It does the defending for us. At least in theory.”
“Hah. There was nobody to do that for our grandmothers when the civil war began. Many of them died before… well, even Daddy said I needed to learn to shoot, and he’s a terrible backwoodsman! There aren’t enough of us with the talent, you know, we all have to muck in like commoners these days. I may even have to join the family trade after I marry, can you believe it?”
“The, ah, thought hadn’t occurred to me.” Miriam tried to sound noncommittal; the idea of Olga running around Cambridge with a machine pistol, a platinum credit card, and a suitcase full of cocaine would have been funny if it hadn’t been so frightening.
“I really hope it happens,” Olga said, slightly more thoughtfully. “I’d like to see… over there.” She sat up. “But you asked about bandits! We are unlikely to meet any unless we travel in the spring thaw. They know too well what will happen if they try the Clan’s post, but after a harsh winter some of them may no longer care.”
“I see.” Miriam tried not to show any outward sign of being disturbed, but for a moment she felt a chill of absolute fear at this naive, enthusiastic, emotional-but not stupid-child. She shuffled her legs together, trying to pinch out the draft. It would be a long day, without any distractions. “Tell me about the Church again…”
Two extremely uncomfortable days passed in chilly boredom. They stopped at a coaching house the first night and Miriam insisted on unloading a suitcase and trunk. The next day she scandalized Margit by wearing jeans, fleece, and hiking boots, and Olga by spending the afternoon engrossed in a book. “You’d best not wear that tomorrow,” Margit said disapprovingly when they stopped that evening at another post house. “It is for us to make a smart entrance, to pay our respects at court as soon as we arrive, do you see? Did you bring anything suitable?”
“Oh hell,” replied Miriam, confusing her somewhat (for Hel was a province administered by Olga’s father). “If you could help me find something?”
Expensive western formal costume-Armani suits, Givenchy dresses, and their equivalents-appeared to be de rigueur among the Clan in private. But in public in the Gruinmarkt, they wore the finery of high nobility. Their peculiarities were kept behind closed doors.
The duke’s resident seamstress had packed one of Miriam’s trunks with gowns fitted to her measurements, and at dawn on the third day Margit shoehorned her into one deemed suitable for a court debut. It was even more elaborate than the gown they’d fitted her for dinner with the duke; it had hooped underskirts, profusions of lace exploding at wrist and throat, and slashed sleeves layered over skin-tight inner layers. Miriam hated everything it said about the status of women in this society. But Olga wore something similar, even more excessively wasp- waisted, with an exaggerated pink bustle behind that suggested to Miriam nothing so much as a female baboon in heat. Margit declared Miriam’s presentation satisfactory. “That’s most fittingly elegant!” she pronounced. “Let no time be lost, now, lest we be undone by our lateness.”
“Mmph,” said Miriam, holding her skirts out of the courtyard dampness and trying to avoid tripping over them on her way over to the coach. Really, she thought. This is crazy! I should have just crossed over and caught the train. But Angbard had insisted-and she could second-guess his reasoning. “Avoid transport bottlenecks where somebody might intercept her-also, see if she breaks.’ After three days on the road she was feeling ripe, long overdue for a shower. The last thing she needed was a new dress, let alone one as intricately excessive as this. Only a grim determination not to play her hand too early made her put up with it. She settled into her accustomed corner in a rustling heap of bottle-green velvet and tried to get comfortable, but her back was stiff, the dress vast and uncontrollable, and parts of her were sweating while other bits froze. Plus, Olga was looking at her triumphantly.
“You look marvellous,” Olga assured her, leaning forward and resting a hand in the vicinity of Miriam’s knee. “I’m sure you’ll make a great entry at court! You’ll be surrounded by suitors before you’ve been there a moment- despite your age!”
“I’m sure,” Miriam said weakly. Give me patience, she prayed to the goddess of suffering in the name of beauty and/or social conformity. Otherwise I swear I’ll strangle someone…
Before they moved off, Margit insisted on dropping the blinds. It reduced the draft, but in the closeness of the carriage Miriam began to feel claustrophobic. Olga insisted on painting Miriam’s cheeks and eyebrows and lips, redoing the procedure while the carriage swayed and bumped along an increasingly well-maintained stone-cobbled street. Other carriages and traffic rattled past, and presently they heard people calling greetings and warnings. “The gates,” Olga said, breathlessly. “The gates!”
Miriam sneaked a peek through the blinds before Margit noticed and scolded her. The gate house was made of stone, perhaps four stories high. She’d seen similar on a vacation in England many years ago. The walls themselves were of stone, but banked with masses of rammed earth in front and huge mounds of mud beyond the ditch. Isn’t that something to do with artillery? she thought, puzzled by memories of an old History Channel documentary.
“Put that down at once, I say!” Margit insisted. “Do you want everyone to see you?”
Miriam dropped the window blind. “Shouldn’t they?” she asked.
“Absolutely not!” Margit looked scandalized. “Why, it would be the talk of society for months!”
“Ah,” Miriam said neutrally. Olga winked at her. So this is how it works, she realized. Enforcement through peer pressure. If they get the idea that I’m not going to conform, I ‘m never going to hear the end of it, she realized. Olga, far from being her biggest problem, was beginning to look like a potential ally.
Their first call was at the Thorold Palace, a huge rambling stone pile at the end of the Avenue of Rome, a broad stone street fronted by mansions. The carriage drew right up to the front entrance, their escort of guards strung out behind it as servants emerged with a mounting box, which they shoved into place before holding the door open. Margit was the first to leave, followed by Olga, who squeezed through the door with a shake of her behind; Miriam emerged last, blinking in the daylight like a prisoner released from some oubliette.
A butler in some sort of intricate house uniform-a tunic over knee breeches and floppy boots-read from a letter in a loud voice to the assembled gaggle of onlookers. “His Excellency the high Duke Angbard of house Lofstrom is pleased to consign to your care the Lady Margit, Chatelaine of Praha, her Excellency the Baroness Olga Thorold, and her Excellency the Countess Helga Thorold Hjorth, daughter of Patricia of that braid.” He bowed deeply, then gave way to a man standing behind him. “Your Excellency.”
“I bid you welcome to the house in my custody, and urge you to accept my hospitality,” said the man.
“Earl Oliver Hjorth,” Olga stage-whispered at Miriam. Miriam managed a fixed, glassy-eyed smile then followed Olga’s lead by picking up her skirts and dipping. “I thank you, my lord,” Olga replied loudly and clearly, “and accept your protection.”
Miriam echoed him. English, it seemed, was still the general language of nobility here. Her hoh’sprashe was still restricted to a couple of polite nothings.
“Delighted, my beaux,” said the earl, not cracking a smile. He was tall and thin, almost cadaverous, his most striking feature a pair of striking black-rimmed spectacles that he wore balanced on the tip of his bony nose; dusty black trousers and a flared red coat worn over a lace-throated shirt completed his outfit. There was something threadbare about him, and Miriam noticed that he didn’t wear a sword. “If you will allow Bortis to show you to your
