The Hidden Family

“Sure.” Miriam nodded. “Next. I want a history book.”

“A history book.” He looked at her oddly. “Any particular title?”

She smiled thinly. “One covering the past three hundred years, in detail.”

“Hmm.” Burgeson ducked back into the back of the shop. While he was gone, Miriam located a pair of kidskin gloves and a good topcoat: The hats all looked grotesque to her eye, but in the end she settled on something broad-brimmed and floppy, with not too much fur. He returned and dumped a hardbound volume on the glass display case. “You could do worse than start with this. Alfred’s Annals of the New British.”

“I could.” She stared at it. “Anything else?”

“Or.” He pulled another book up—bound in brown paper, utterly anonymous, thinner and lighter. “This.” He turned it to face her, open at the fly-leaf.

“The Hanoverian Exodus Reconsidered”—she bit her lip when she saw the author. “Karl Marx. Hmm. Keep this on the bottom shelf, do you?”

“It’s only prudent,” he said, apologetically closing it and sliding it under the first book. “I’d strongly recommend it, though,” he added. “Marx pulls no punches.”

“Right. How much for both of them?”

“Six shillings for the Alfred, a pound for the Marx—you do realize that simply being caught with a copy of it can land you a flogging, if not five years exile in Canadia?”

“I didn’t.” She smiled, suppressing a shudder. “I’ll take them both. And the hat, gloves, and coat.”

“It’s been a pleasure doing business with you, madam,” he said fervently. “When shall I see you again?”

“Hnnn.” She narrowed her eyes. “No need for the money tomorrow. I will not be back for at least five days. But if you want another of those pieces—”

“How many can you supply?” he asked, slipping the question in almost casually.

“As many as you need,” she replied. “But on the next visit, no more than two.”

“Well then.” He chewed his lower lip. “For two, assuming this one tests out correctly and the next do likewise, I will pay the sum of two hundred pounds.” He glanced over his shoulder. “But not all at once. It’s too dangerous.”

“Can you pay in services other than money?” she asked.

“It depends.” He raised an eyebrow. “I don’t deal in spying, sedition, or popery.”

“I’m not in any of those businesses,” she said. “But I’m really, truly, from a long way away. I need to establish a toehold here that allows me to set up an import/export business. That will mean…hmm. Do you need identity papers to move about? Passports? Or to open a bank account, create a company, hire a lawyer to represent me?”

He shook his head. “From too far away,” he muttered. “God help me, yes to all of those.”

“Well, then.” She looked at him. “I’ll need papers. Good papers, preferably real ones from real people who don’t need them anymore—not killed, just the usual, a birth certificate from a babe who died before their first birthday,” she added hastily.

“You warm the cockles of my heart.” He nodded slowly. “I’m glad to see you appear to have scruples. Are you sure you don’t want to tell me where you come from?”

She raised a finger to her lips. “Not yet. Maybe when I trust you.”

“Ah, well.” He bowed. “Before you leave, may I offer you a glass of port? Just a little drink to our future business relationship.”

“Indeed you may.” She smiled, surreptitiously pushing back her glove to check her watch. “I believe I have half an hour to spare before I must depart. My carriage turns back into a pumpkin at midnight.”

Part 2

Point Of Divergence

History Lesson

You are telling me that you don’t know where she is?”

The man standing by the glass display case radiated disbelief, from his tensed shoulders to his drawn expression.

Normally the contents of the case—precious relics of the Clan, valuable beyond belief—would have fascinated him, but right now his attention was focused on the bearer of bad news.

“I told you she’d be difficult.” The duke’s secretary was unapologetic. He didn’t sneer, but his expression was one of thinly veiled impatience. “You are dealing with a woman who was born and raised on the other side; she was clearly going to be a handful right from the start. I told you that the best way to deal with her would be to coopt her and move her in a direction she was already going in, but you wouldn’t listen. And after that business with the hired killer—”

“That hired killer was my own blood, I’ll thank you to remember.” Esau’s tone of voice was ominously low.

“I don’t care whether he was the prince-magistrate of Xian-Ju province, it was dumb! Now you’ve told Angbard’s men that someone outside the Clan is trying to kill her, and you’ve driven her underground, and you’ve ruined her usefulness to me. I had it all taken care of until you attacked her. And then, to go after her but kill the wrong woman by mistake when I had everything in hand…!”

“You didn’t tell us she was traveling in company. Or hiding in the lady Olga’s rooms. Nor did we expect Olga’s lady-in-waiting to get nosy and take someone else’s bait. We’re not the only ones to have problems. You said you had her as good as under control?” Esau turned to stare at Matthias. Today the secretary wore the riding-out garb of a minor nobleman of the barbarian east: brocade jacket over long woolen leggings, a hat with a plume of peacock feathers, and riding boots. “You think forging the old man’s will takes care of anything at all? Are you losing your grip?”

“No.” Matthias rested his hand idly on his sword’s hilt. “Has it occurred to you that as Angbard’s heir she would have been more open to suggestions, rather than less? Wealth doesn’t necessarily translate into safety, you know, and she was clearly aware of her own isolation. I was trying to get her under control, or at least frightened into cooperating, by lining up the lesser families against her and positioning myself as her protector. You spooked her instead, before I could complete the groundwork. You exposed her to too much too soon, and the result is our shared loss. All the more so, since someone—whoever—tried to rub her out with Lady Olga.”

“And whose fault is it that she got away?” Esau snarled quietly.

“Whose little tripwire failed?”

“Mine, I’ll admit.” Matthias shrugged again. “But I’m not the one around here who’s blundering around in the dark. I really wanted to enlist her in our cause. Willingly or unwillingly, it doesn’t matter. With a recognized heir in our pocket, we could have enough votes that when we get rid of Angbard…well. If that failed, we’d be no worse off with her dead, but it was hardly a desirable goal. It’s a good thing for you that I’ve got some contingency plans in hand.”

“If the balance of power in the Clan tips too far toward the Lofstrom-Thorold-Hjorth axis, we risk losing what leverage we’ve got,” warned Esau.