over his majesty’s shoulder and stared at her frankly. “Doesn’t matter much.” The king sniffed. “You won’t fill that man’s shoes, girl. The man you marry might, though. If you both live long enough.”
“I see,” she said. The prince was clearly in his twenties, had long dark hair, an embroidered gold blouse, and a knife at his belt that looked to be a solid mass of gemstones. He regarded her with an expression of slack-jawed vacancy. What is this? Miriam wondered with growing fear. Shit, I knew it! They ‘re trying to set me up!
“There’s one way of seeing to that,” the king added. “I believe you’ve not been introduced to my son Creon?”
“Delighted, absolutely delighted!” Miriam tried to smile at him. Creon nodded back at her happily.
“Creon is long past an age to marry,” the king said thoughtfully. “Of course, whoever he took to wife would be a royal princess, you realize?” He looked down his nose at her. “Of course anyone who would be pledged to a royal household would need a very special dowry-” his glance was dark and full of veiled significance-“but I believe Angbard’s relatives might find the price affordable. And the prince would benefit from the intelligent self-interest of an understanding wife.”
“Uh-huh.” She looked past the king, at Prince Creon. The prince beamed at her, a delighted, friendly expression that was nevertheless undermined by the way he simultaneously drooled on his collar. “I’d be delighted to meet with the prince later, under more appropriate circumstances,” she gushed. “Delighted! Of course!” She beamed, desperately racking her brain for platitudes recovered from a thousand and one annual shareholders’ meetings gone bad. “I’d love to hear from you, really I would, but I am still being introduced to so many fascinating people and I owe you my full attention, it would be awful to devote less than my full energies and attention to your son! I quite appreciate your-”
“Yes, yes, that’s enough.” The king beamed at her. “There’s no need for sycophancy. I have heard so much I am far beyond its reach, and he-” he nodded-“will never be within it.”
Gulp. “I see, your majesty.”
“Yes, he’s an idiot,” King Alexis said genially. “And you’re too old.” Some instinct for self-preservation made Miriam swallow an automatic protest. “But he’s my idiot, and were he to marry his child would be third in line to the throne, at least until Egon’s wife bears issue. I urge you to think on this, young lady: Should you meet anyone suitable, I would be most interested to hear of them. Now begone with you, to these vastly important strangers who fascinate you so conspicuously. I won’t hold it against you.”
“Uh-thank you! Thank you most kindly!” Miriam fled in disarray, outmanoeuvred for the third time this evening. Just what is it with these people? She wondered. The king’s overture was undoubtedly well-meant; just alarming and demoralizing, for it highlighted the depths of her own inadequacy in trying to play power politics with these sharks. The king wants to marry his son into the Clan, and he thinks I’m a useful person to talk to? It was desperately confusing. And why had Angbard named her his heir? That was the real question. Without an answer, nothing else seemed to make sense. What was he trying to achieve? Didn’t it make her some kind of target?
Target.
She stopped, halfway from pillared bay to dancing floor, as if struck in the head by a two-by-four.
“Milady Miriam? What is it?” Brilliana was tugging at her sleeve.
“Shush. I’m thinking.”
Target. Thirty-two years ago someone had pursued and murdered her mother, while she was en route to this very court to pay attendance to the king-probably Alexis’s father. During the civil war between the families, before the Clan peace was installed. Her mother’s marriage had been the peace settlement that cemented one corner of the arrangement.
Since she’d come here, someone had tried to kill her at least twice.
Miriam thought furiously. These people hold long grudges. Are the incidents connected? If so, it could be more than Baron Hjorth’s financial machinations. Or Matthias’s mysterious factions. Or even the dowager grandmother, Duchess Hildegarde Thorold Hjorth.
Someone ignorant of her past. Of course! If they’d known about her before, or on the other side, she’d have been pushed under a subway train or run over by a car or shot in a random drive-by incident long before she’d discovered the way back. How common is it to conceal an heir? She wondered.
“Mistress, you’ve got to come.”
“What is it?” Something about Brilliana’s insistent nudging attracted Miriam’s attention. It’s not me, it’s something to do with who I am, she realized vaguely, groping for the light. I’m so important to these people that they can’t conceive of me not joining in their game. It would be like the vice president refusing to talk to the Senate. Even if I don’t do anything, tell them I want to be left alone, that would be seen as some kind of deep political game. “What’s happening?” She asked distractedly.
“It’s Kara,” Brill insisted. “We’ve got a problem.”
“I’m here,” she said, shaking her head, dazed by her insight. I’ve got to be a politician, whether I like it or not… “What is it now?”
As it happened, Kara was somewhat the worse for wear, not to say steaming drunk. A young Sir Nobody-in- Particular had been plying her with wine, evidently fortified by freezing-her speech was slurred and incoherent and her hair mussed-quite possibly with intent to climb into her clothing with her. He hadn’t got far, perhaps because Kara was more enthusiastic than discreet, but it wasn’t for want of trying. Though Kara protested her innocence, Miriam detected more than a minor note of concern on Brill’s part. “Look, I think there’s a good reason for going home,” Miriam told the two of them. “Can you get into the carriage?” she questioned Kara.
“Course I can,” Kara slurred. “N’body does ‘t better!”
“Right.” Miriam glanced at Brilliana. “Let’s get her home.”
“Do you want to stay, mistress?” Brilliana looked at her doubtfully.
“I want-” Miriam stopped. “What I want doesn’t seem likely to make any difference here,” she said bleakly, feeling the weight of the world descend on her shoulders. Angbard named me his heir because he wanted me to attract whatever faction tried to kill my mother, she thought. Hildegarde takes against me because I can’t bring back, or be, her daughter, and now I’ve got these two ingenues to look out for. Not to mention Roland. Roland, who might be-
“Got a message,” announced Kara as they were halfway to the door.
“A message? How nice,” Miriam said dryly.
“For th’ mistress,” Kara added. Then she focused on Miriam. “Oh!”
From between her breasts, she produced a thin scrap of paper. Miriam stuffed it in her hand-warmer and took Kara by the arm. “Come on home, you,” she insisted.
The carriage was literally freezing. Icicles dangled from the steps as they climbed in, and the leather seats crackled as they sat down. “Home,” Brilliana told the driver. With a shake of the reins, he set the horses to walking, their breath steaming in the frigid air. “That was exciting!” she said. “Shame you spoiled it,” she chided Kara. “What were you arguing about with those gentles?” she asked Miriam timidly. “I’ve never seen anything like it!”
“I was being put in my place by my grandmother, I think,” Miriam muttered. Hands in her warmer, she fumbled for the blister-pack of beta-blocker tablets. She briefly brought a hand out and dry-swallowed one, along with an ibuprofen. She had a feeling she’d be needing them soon. “What do you know about the history of my family, Brill?” she asked.
“What, about your parents? Or your father? Families or braids?”
Miriam shut her eyes. “The civil war,” she murmured. “Who started it?”
“Why-” Brilliana frowned. “The civil war? ’Tis clear enough: Wu and Hjorth formed a compact of trade, east coast to west, at the expense of the Clan; Thorold, Lofstrom, Arnesen, and Hjalmar returned the compliment, sending Andru Arnesen west to represent them in Chang-Shi, and he was murdered on his arrival there by a man who vanished into thin air. Clearly it was an attempt to prevent the Clan of four from competing, so they took equivalent measures against the gang of two. What made it worse was that some hidden members of each braid seemed to want to keep the feud burning. Every time it looked as if the elders were going to settle things up, a new outrage would take place-Duchess Lofstrom abused and murdered, Count Thorold-Arnesen’s steading raided and set alight.”
“That’s-” Miriam’s eyes narrowed. “You’re a Hjahnar, right?”
“Yes?” Brilliana nodded. “Why? What does it mean?”
“Just thinking,” Miriam said. Left-over grudges, a faction that didn’t want the war to stop, to stop eating the Clan’s guts out. She hit a brick wall. It’s as if someone from outside had stepped in, intervened to set cousins
