The Merchants’ War

“Two coves. Ah, you mean why? I’m not sure. They didn’t look like Polis to me, as I said. I think they may be your friends.”

“In which case—” She briefly considered a direct approach, but rejected it as too risky: if they weren’t Clan Security, or if ClanSec had gotten the wrong idea about her, she could be sticking her head in a noose. “—we can just nip in and out without them seeing us. But what if there’s someone in your apartment, waiting?”

“There’d better not be.” They were at the foot of the steps now.

“I’m getting sick of this.” She pushed the door open. “Follow me.”

She duckwalked into a cellar, past a damp-stained mattress, then through a tangle of old and decrepit wooden furniture that blocked off the back wall. Erasmus followed her. There was a hole in the brickwork, and he bent down to retrieve a small electric lantern from the floor just inside it. As he stood up, he began to cough.

“You can’t go in like that, they’ll hear you.” Miriam stared at him in the gloom. “Give me the lamp. I’ll check out the shop.”

“But if you—”

She rested a hand lightly on his shoulder. “I’ll be right back. Remember, I’m not the one with the cough.” And besides, I’m sick of just waiting for shit to happen to me. At least this made it feel as if she was back in control of her destiny.

Erasmus nodded. He handed over the lantern without a word. She took it carefully and shone it along the tunnel. She’d been this way before, six months ago. Is this entirely sensible? She asked herself, and nearly burst into hysterical laughter: nothing in her life had been entirely sensible for about a year, now, since her mother had suggested she retrieve a shoe box full of memories from the attic of the old family house.

The smuggler’s corridor zigzagged underground, new brick and plasterwork on one side showing where neighboring tenement cellars had been encroached on to create the rat run. A sweet-sick stink of black water told its own story of burst sewerage pipes. Miriam paused at a T-junction, then tiptoed to her left, where the corridor narrowed before coming to an end behind a ceiling-high rack of pigeonholes full of dusty bundles of rags. She reached out and grabbed one side of the rack. It slid sideways silently, on well-greased metal runners. The cellar of Erasmus’s store was dusty and hot, the air undisturbed for days. Flicking the lamp off, Miriam tiptoed towards the central passage that led to the stairs up to the shop. Something rustled in the darkness and she froze, heart in mouth: but it was only a rat, and after a minute’s breathless wait she pressed on.

At the top of the stairs, she paused and listened. It’s empty, she told herself. Isn’t it? It’s empty and all I have to do is take two more steps and I can prove it. Visions paraded through her mind’s eye, the last time she’d ventured into a seemingly unoccupied residence, a horror-filled flashback that nailed her to the spot. She swallowed convulsively, her hand tightening on the rough handrail nailed to the wall. She’d gone into Fort Lofstrom, ahead of the others, and Roland had died—This is crazy. Nothing’s going to happen, is it?

She took a step forward, across inches that felt like miles: then another step, easier this time. The short passage at the top of the stairs ended in the back room. She crept round the door: everything was as empty as it should be. The archway leading to the main room—there was an observation mirror, tarnished and flyspecked. Relaxing, she stepped up to the archway and peered sidelong into the shop itself.

It was a bright day, and sunbeams slanted diagonally across the dusty window display shelves and the wooden floor boards. The shop was empty, but for a few letters and circulars piling up under the mail slot in the door. If it had been dark, she wouldn’t have noticed anything out of the ordinary, and if she’d been coming in through the front door she wouldn’t have seen it until it was too late. But coming out of the dimness of the shop… her breath caught as she saw the coppery gleam of the wire fastened to the door handle. The sense of deja vu was a choking imposition on her fragile self-confidence. She’d seen too many trip wires in the past year: Matt had made a bad habit of them, damn him, wherever he was. She turned and retraced her steps, gripping the banister rail tightly to keep her hands from shaking.

“The shop is empty, but someone’s been inside it. There’s a wire on the door handle.” She shuddered, but Erasmus just smiled.

“This I must see for myself.”

“It’s too dangerous!”

“Obviously not,” he replied mildly. “You’re still alive, aren’t you?”

“But I—” she stopped, unable to explain the dread that gripped her.

“You saw it in time. It won’t be a petard, Miriam, not if it’s the Polis, probably not if it’s your relatives. Your bete noir, the mad bomber, is unlikely, isn’t he? We’ll take care not to trip over any other wires. I’ll wager you it turns out to be a bell, wired to wake up a watcher next door. Someone wants to know when I return, that’s all.”

“That’s all?” She wanted to stamp her feet in frustration. “They broke into your shop and installed a trip wire and you say that’s all? Come on, let’s go—you can buy new clothes—”

“I need the book.” He was adamant.

She took a deep breath. “I don’t like it.”

“Neither do I, but…” He shrugged.

Paradoxically, Miriam felt herself begin to relax once they returned to the back room. Trip wires and claymore mines were Matthias’s stock in trade, a nasty trick from the days of the Clan-on-Clan civil war. But Matthias wasn’t a world-walker, and he couldn’t be over here, could he? He’d gone missing in the United States six months earlier, a week before the first series of targeted raids had shut down the Clan’s postal service. While she waited patiently, Erasmus sniffed around his shelves, the writing desk and dusty ledgers, the battered sink with the tin teapot and oil burner beside it, the cracked frosted-glass window pane with the bars on the outside. “Nobody’s touched these,” he said after a few minutes. “I’m going to look in the shop.”

“But it’s under observation! And there’s the wire—”

“I don’t think anyone outside will be able to see in, not while the sun’s out. And I want to fetch some stuff. Come help me?”

Miriam tensed, then nodded.

Erasmus slowly walked into the front of the shop, staying well back from the windows. He paused between two rails of secondhand clothing. “That’s interesting,” he said quietly.

“What is it?”

He pointed at the door handle. “Look.” The copper wire ran to the door frame, then round a nail and down to the floor where it disappeared into a small gray box, unobtrusively fastened to the skirting board. “What’s that?”

Miriam peered at the box. It was in shadow, and it took her a few seconds to make sense of what she was seeing. “That’s not a claymore—” She swallowed again.

“What is it?” he asked.

It was gray, with rounded edges—as alien to this world as a wooden automobile would be in her own. And the stubby antenna poking out of its top told another story. “I think it’s a rad—a, uh, an electrograph.” And it sure as hell wasn’t manufactured over here. “It might be something else.”

“How very interesting,” Erasmus murmured, stooping further to retrieve the letters. “You were right, earlier,” he added, glancing her way: “if this was planted by the men who followed us in New London, they’re not looking for me. They’re looking for you.”

And they’re not the same as the men staking out the front door, damn it. She nodded. “Let’s get your stuff and hit the road. I don’t like this one little bit.”

They hanged the servants beneath the warmth of the early afternoon sun, as Neuhalle’s minstrel played a sprightly air on the hurdy-gurdy. It was hard work, and the men were drinking heavily during their frequent breaks. “It takes half the fun out of it, having to do all the heavy lifting yourself,” Heidlor grumbled quietly as he filled his looted silver tankard from the cask of ale sitting on the cart.

Neuhalle nodded absently as another half-naked maid swung among the branches, bug-eyed and kicking. The bough groaned and swayed beneath its unprecedented crop, much of which was still twitching. “You don’t have to,” he pointed out. “Your men seem to be enjoying themselves.”

“Maybe, but it’s best to set a good example. Besides, they’ll change their minds when they run out of