The Trade of Queens

or something. They’re more like partners, were more like partners, the past couple of years. Partners in crime— politics, not the Clan. KINGPIN is going to be just like WARBUCKS, only without the personal history.”

Mike nodded. “You had a handle on WARBUCKS. KINGPIN is the same—only you’ve lost your handle.”

“Oh.” Olga sat motionless for a few seconds. “This fact needs to be reported.”

“What are you going to do?” Mike asked.

“I’m going to tell certain people.” Olga flashed him a bright, brittle smile. “I’m going to see if I can get you those papers—if you still want them. Then those of us with even half an ounce of self-preservation are going to run away very fast.…”

Never Coming Back

The row of big town houses, set back behind high walls or hedges, had seen better days. Every other building showed boarded-up windows to the street, the blank-eyed, gape-doored stare of ruination and downfall. Some of them—some very few—had been squatted, but for the most part the Freedom Riders had kept the dusty workless poor out of the houses of the bourgeoisie, for this was not solely a revolution of the working class.

The big steamer huffed and bumped across last winter’s potholes, then slowed as Yul wrestled with the wooden steering wheel, swearing at it as he worked the brake handle and tried to lever the beast between stone gateposts. Miriam sat up in the back, trying to see over his shoulders for a first glimpse of the house she’d bought in this city using smuggled Clan bullion, a little over a year ago. “Is it—” She swallowed her words as the front of the building came into view.

“It seems intact.” Brilliana, next to her, nodded. “Let us examine it, my lady.”

The boarded-up windows were still sealed, the front door barred and padlocked as one of her armsmen held the car’s door open for Miriam. “By your leave, my lady?” Alasdair slid round in his jump seat. “I should go first.”

Miriam bit back an irritated response. “Yes,” she agreed. “Thank you.” Sir Alasdair unfolded his legs and stood, interposing his not-inconsiderable frame between Miriam and the facade of the building.

“Wait,” Alasdair rumbled without looking round as he moved forward. “Schraeder, left and rear. Yul, you stay with the car. Brunner, with me.…” They spread out around the house purposefully, their long coats still closed despite the summer humidity. It looked empty, but appearances could be deceptive and Sir Alasdair was not inclined to take risks with Helge’s life, figurehead though her queen-widowship might be: He’d sworn an oath to protect her, and his people took such things seriously.

Miriam stared at the front door as Alasdair approached it, slowing on the steps, then bending close to peer at the door handle. Beside her, Brill shifted on the bench seat, one hand going to the earpiece tucked discreetly under her hat. “Clear behind,” she said suddenly. “Schraeder’s in.”

I bought that house, Miriam told herself. Right now it looked as unfamiliar as her father—her adoptive father—had looked in the funeral parlor. Houses took as much of their character from the people who filled them as racks of meat on bone took from their animating personality. It had once been her home; but for the miscarriage she might now be looking to raise a child in it. But for now it was just a big neglected building, a cumbersomely inanimate corpse—

Alasdair interrupted her morbid stream of consciousness by straightening up. He unlocked the door, opened it slowly, and stepped inside.

“All clear,” said Brill, tapping Miriam on the shoulder. “Let’s go inside.”

The house was much as Miriam had last seen it, only dusty and boarded-up, the furniture looming beneath dust sheets. “Who organized this?” she asked, pausing at the foot of the stairs.

“I did,” said Brill. “When Baron Henryk assigned the business operation to Morgan I assumed they’d want you back sooner or later. Morgan didn’t like it here, he preferred to spend as much time at home as he could.”

“Right. This way.” Miriam headed upstairs in the dark, a flashlight guiding her feet. Opposite the top of the stairs was the door to the main bedroom. She pushed it open, saw daylight: The upper windows at least were not boarded up. “I need a hand with this.”

“With what—”

Miriam was already kneeling near the skirting board beside the bed. Stale dust and a faint smell of mouse piss wrinkled her nose. “In here. Here, hold this.” She passed Brill the loose piece of woodwork. Behind it, the brickwork was visible. “Pass me your knife.…” It took a little work, but between them they levered the two half- bricks out of their niche. Then Miriam reached inside and grabbed. “Got it.”

The black cloth bag was about the size of a boot, but much heavier. Miriam grunted and lifted it onto the bed.

“How much is it?” asked Brilliana.

“I’m surprised it’s still here.” Miriam untied the knotted drawstring then thrust her hand inside. “Yep, it’s the real thing.” The gold brick glinted in the afternoon light; she returned it to the bag hastily. “About six kilos of twenty-three-carat. It was worth a hell of a lot a year ago—God only knows what it’s worth right now.” Stuck in a deflationary cycle and a liquidity crash with a revolution on top, gold—with or without seigniorage—was enormously more valuable than it had been when it was merely what the coin of the realm was made of. The national treasury had been stripped bare to pay for the war: That was what had started the crisis.

She straighted up and dusted herself down. “Job number one for Alasdair is to get someone who knows what they’re doing to hide this properly. We lucked out once, but sooner or later one of Erasmus’s rival ministries will probably try and shake us down to see where the leverage is coming from. They won’t believe the truth, and if they find this here we’ll be for the chop. Revolutionary governments hate hoarders; it’s a law of nature.”

“I’ll see to it, my lady—”

“That’s another thing.” Miriam glanced at the windows. “It’s not ‘my lady’ anymore—I mean it. Drop the honorific, and tell everyone else: It’s Miriam, or ma’am, but not ‘my lady.’”

Brill’s dismay was palpable. “But you are my lady! You are my liege, and I owe you an acknowledgment of that fact! This isn’t the United States, this is—”

“This is a continent in the grip of revolution.” Miriam walked towards the wardrobe and lifted one corner of its dusty shroud. “What do you know about revolutionary governments?”

“Not much; we hang rebels, my lady.” Brill lifted back the top of the dust sheet from the bed, wrinkling her nose.

“Well, I’ve been doing some reading this week. Remember the books?” Miriam had given Brill a list of titles to order from Amazon. “There’s a general pattern. First there’s a crisis—usually fiscal, often military. The old government is discredited and a coalition of interests move in and toss the bums out. Then they start trying to govern as a coalition, and it goes to hell quickly because just changing the government doesn’t solve the underlying crisis unless it was a crisis of legitimacy.” Brill looked perturbed, as Miriam continued: “This means that the new government gets to try and fix the crisis at its weakest, and in conditions where it’s very easy to replace them. Most postrevolutionary regimes are overthrown by their own hard-line radicals, the ones with the most blinkered ideological outlook—precisely because they’re also the ones most willing to murder anyone who stands between them and a solution to the crisis.”

She tugged the dust sheet down from the wardrobe and stepped aside.

“The revolution here was against the autocratic monarchy, but there’s also a fiscal crisis and a war. They hit the trifecta—crisis of currency, conflict, and legitimacy in one go. The aristocracy, such as it is, gets its own legitimacy from the Crown—for centuries, John Frederick and his family have sold titles as a way of raising revenue—so anyone with a noble title is going to be automatically suspect to the hard-liners in the new government. And unless Sir Adam can end the war with France and fix the economy in, oh, about six months, the hard-liners are going to get restive.” She turned worried eyes on Brilliana. “That’s why I want everyone to stop using titles immediately. If I’m wrong, they’ll get over it. But if I’m right…”

“I understand,” Brill said tiredly. “There’s no need to repeat yourself. Miriam. Ma’am.” She peeled back the blankets and sheets that had stayed on the bed, exposing them to air for the first time in months. “What else is going to happen here?”