The Hidden Family

and looked at the inside of her right wrist. The same. “Same as the bastard who killed Margit. Exactly the same. While the other bunch of heavies who tried to roll us over at the same time didn’t have any lockets. At all.”

“Thought so,” murmured Olga.

“Listen, they’re after us both,” said Miriam. “Olga?”

“I’m listening,” she said sleepily. “Don’t worry.”

“They’re after us both,” Miriam insisted. “Olga, this is very important. You’re probably going to be stuck here for two or three days, minimum, and it’ll take weeks before you’re well—but as soon as you’re well enough to move, Angbard will want to take you back to his fortress on the other side. It is really important that you don’t go there. I mean, it’s vital. The killers can reach you on the other side, in Fort Lofstrom, even in a doppelgangered room. But they can’t reach you here. Listen, I’ve got a friend here working for me. And Brill’s here, too. You can stay with us, if you like. Or talk to Roland, get Roland to help. I’m pretty sure he’s reliable—for you, at least. If you stay in Angbard’s doppelgangered rooms on this side, the ones he uses to stop family members getting at him in the fort, you’ll be safe from the lost family in world three, and from the other conspirators, but not from the mole. And if you go back to Niejwein, the conspirators will try to kill you.”

“Wait!” Olga struggled visibly to absorb everything. “Lost family? World three? What’s—”

“The assassin who killed Margit.” Miriam tensed. “It’s a long story. I think they’re after you, now, because of me.”

Olga shook her head. “But why? I mean, what purpose could that serve?”

“Because it’ll discredit me, or it’ll restart the civil war, and I’m fairly certain that’s what the bunch from world three, the long-lost relatives, want to achieve. If I die and it can be blamed on one half of the Clan, that starts it up again. If you die and it looks like I’ve schemed with Roland to get you out of the way so I can marry him, it starts up for a different reason. Do you see?”

“Vaguely.” Olga opened her eyes and looked at Miriam. “You’ll have to explain it again later. Do you think they’ll let me stay here?”

“Hmm.” Miriam thought for a moment. “You can stay here to recover. I don’t think even Angbard is stupid enough to move you while you’re ill. You can lean on him to let you stay a bit longer to see what it’s like, too. That might work. If he’s got any sense he’ll work it out from what I told him. But he isn’t safe, Olga.”

Brill turned around. “They abducted—or killed—Miriam’s foster-mother, milady. Yesterday, at the same time they shot you.”

“Oh!” Olga looked pensive. “So. What would you suggest?”

“I think you should stay here for now. When you’re better, I want to—” Miriam caught Brill’s eye—“introduce you to a friend of mine called Paulette. And then we’ll see.” She licked her lips. “I’ve got a business proposition in mind. One that will flush out the bastards who want us both dead, and make everybody involved wealthy beyond belief.” She grinned at Olga. “Interested?”

Agreements

Almost exactly two weeks later, Miriam sat in front of a mirror in the Brighton Hotel, brushing her hair and pulling a face. It’s definitely getting longer, she thought. Damn that hairdresser! She’d drawn the line at a wig, but even shoulder-length hair was considered eccentrically short by Boston polite society, and a reputation for eccentricity was something Miriam didn’t want to cultivate—it would happen anyway, and could only get in her way. But she hadn’t had hair even this long since she was a teenager. Bloody nuisance, she thought affectedly, then snorted with amusement. This place is getting to me. Even the way they talk!

The house purchase was going ahead, the conveyancing papers and legal to-ing and fro-ing well in hand. Erasmus had taken delivery of no less than ten pounds of twenty-three carat gold, an immense amount by any standard—back in Cambridge it would have paid Miriam’s salary at The Weatherman for almost a year—and had warned his shadowy compatriots to expect much larger amounts to start flowing soon, “from a sympathetic source.” His stock had risen. Meanwhile, Miriam had taken pains to quietly slip into at least two meetings of the Friendly Party to keep an eye on where the money was going. When she’d left money on the collecting tray, it had been with a sense that she was doing the right thing.

The Levelers, despite official persecution (and the imprisonment of many of their leading lights for sedition), had a political agenda she thought she understood, one not too alien from her own. High upon it was a bill of rights; the universal franchise (granting women the vote here for the first time); equal rights regardless of age, race, and sex; and separation of Church from state. That the imperial government didn’t take such things for granted gave Miriam one source of comfort; if she was going to get her start here by smuggling contraband gold to fund radicals, at least they were radical democrats. The ironies in the similarity between her activities and the Clan’s own business model didn’t leave her untouched. She consoled herself with two thoughts: Smuggling gold to undermine a despotic monarchy wasn’t in the same moral league as being the main heroin connection for the East Coast, and she intended to switch to a different business model just as soon as she could.

Miriam checked her appearance in the mirror. With earrings and a pearl choker and the right haircut and dress she could just about pass, but she still felt she was walking a knife-edge in maintaining appearances. New Britain seemed to take class consciousness almost as seriously as the feudal nobility of the Gruinmarkt. It was depressing, and the need to dive into the detail work of setting up a business here left her no time to pursue casual friendships. When she had time to think about it, she realized she was lonely. But at least she had the option of going home in a few more days. That was more than Brill had. Or Iris, wherever she was.

As she locked the jewel box, there was a knock at the door. A bellhop bobbed to her outside. “Begging your pardon, ma’am, but you have a visitor.” He offered Miriam a card on a silver tray. Miriam nodded. “Please show Sir Alfred Durant to my table in the dining room. I have been expecting him, and I will join him shortly. I’m also expecting a Mr. Humphrey Bates. If you’d care to see they are offered an aperitif first.”

Miriam left her room and headed downstairs, outwardly calm but inwardly tense. Paradoxically, some things were easier to do over here. The primitive state of the corporate scene made it relatively easy to mount an all-out assault on the captains of industry, for which she was deeply grateful. (An SEC-approved due diligence background check such as she’d have faced at home would have smashed through her public identity as if it was made of wet cardboard.) But other things were harder to fake. People judged your trustworthiness by a whole slew of social indicators, your class background, and the way you spoke and dressed. The equivalent of a dark suit and a PowerPoint presentation would get you precisely nowhere unless you were a member of the right clubs or had been to the correct finishing school. If you were an outsider, you needed a special edge—and you needed to be at least twice as good.

She’d spent most of the day running scenarios for how this meeting could play, ranging from the irredeemably bad to the unexpectedly good. She’d gotten her story prepared, her answers ready, her lawyer in attendance, and just about everything—except her hair—straight. Now all that remained was to see if Sir Durant would bite…or whether he’d turn out to be an inveterate snob, or an overbred twit whose business was run for him by self-effacing middle-class technicians.

She’d reserved the Hanover Room off the back of the carvery downstairs. Most restaurants in this city were associated with hotels, and the Brighton’s was a very expensive, very exclusive one. As she came through the door, two men rose. One of them was the lawyer, Bates, and the other—she smiled at him and dipped her head briefly. “You must be Sir Alfred Durant?” she asked. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.”

“A pleasure, ma’am,” he said, in a hoarse, slightly gravelly voice. Durant was thin and tall, imposing but with a hauteur that spoke more of a weary self-confidence than of arrogance. His eyes were soft, brown, and deceptively tired-looking. “Please, you must call me Alfred. Mr. Bates has been pinning my ears back with stories about you.”

“Indeed.” Miriam’s expression acquired a slightly fixed, glassy overtone as she nodded to her lawyer. “Well, and have you arrived in good health? Has anyone offered you a drink? I say, waiter—”

The waiter hurried over. “Yes, milady?”