The Trade of Queens

was trying to mousetrap you, I can’t think of a better way to do it than scaring you into running for a compromised rendezvous.”

Riordan looked thoughtful. Miriam noticed Sir Alasdair’s shoulders tense. Brilliana chirped up from the back row of seats: “She’s right, you know.”

“Yes,” Riordan said grudgingly. “But we need to evacuate—”

“It can be booby-trapped here, or in the Gruinmarkt,” Olga pointed out, her voice icy cold. “If here, we can deal with it. Over there—we shall just have to reconnoiter, no?”

“Sounds like a plan,” said Sir Alasdair. “Who are we expecting here, my lord?”

“This site is meant to be held by Sir Helmut’s second lance.” Riordan sounded thoughtful as he stared at the screen of the tablet PC in his lap. “Two over here, six over there with two active and four in recovery or ready for transfer. The site on the other side is a farmhouse, burned out during the campaign, I’m afraid, but defensible.”

“Can you identify them?” asked Brilliana.

“By sight, yes, most probably. Outer-family aspirants, a couple of young bloods—I can show you their personnel files, with photographs. Why?”

“Because if I see the wrong faces on duty I want to be sure before I shoot them.”

The Explorer was slowing. Now Sir Alasdair took a sharp left onto a dirt trail barely any wider than the SUV. “We’re about two hundred yards out,” he warned. “Where do you want me to stop?”

“Right here.” Riordan glanced at Brilliana. “Are you ready, my lady?”

Brill nodded, reaching into her shoulder bag to pull out a black, stubby gun with a melted-looking grip just below the muzzle and a box magazine stretching along the upper surface of the barrel. “Sir Alasdair—”

“I’m coming too,” rumbled Miriam’s head bodyguard. He pulled the parking brake. “My lord, would you care to take the wheel? If a quick withdrawal is required—”

“I can drive,” Miriam heard herself saying. “You don’t need me for anything else, and I’m sure you need your hands?”

Riordan glanced at her, worried, then nodded. “Here’s the contact sheet.” He passed the tablet PC back to Brill, who peered at it for a few seconds.

“Okay, I am ready,” she announced, and opened her door.

For Miriam, the next few minutes passed nightmarishly slowly. As Alasdair and Brill disappeared up the track and into the trees alongside it, she took Sir Alasdair’s place behind the wheel, adjusting the seat and lap belt to fit. She kept the engine running at a low idle, although what she’d do if it turned out to be an ambush wasn’t obvious —backing up down a dirt trail while under fire from hostiles didn’t seem likely to have a happy outcome. She sighed, keeping her eyes on the road ahead, waiting.

“They know what they’re doing,” Olga said, unexpectedly.

“Huh?” Miriam swallowed an unhappy chuckle.

“She’s right,” added Riordan. “I would not have let them go if I thought them likely to walk into an ambush.”

“But if they—”

Someone was jogging down the track, waving. Miriam focused, swallowing bile. It was Brill. She didn’t look happy.

“Wait here.” Olga’s door opened; before Miriam could say anything, she was heading towards Brill. After a brief exchange, Brill turned and headed back up the path. Olga returned to the Explorer. “She says it’s safe to proceed to the shack, but there’s a problem.” Her lips were drawn tight with worry.

“You’d better go,” Riordan added. “We’re on a timetable here.”

“We’re—” Oh. Miriam put the SUV in gear and began to crawl forward. It’s an evacuation plan; they’ve got to figure on hostiles blowing it sooner or later, so … She’d seen enough of the Clan’s security machinations in action to guess how it went. Wherever they were evacuating through, the safe house—shack?—would be anything but safe to someone arriving after the cutoff time.

The track curved around a stand of trees, then down an embankment and around another clump to terminate in a clearing. At one side of the clearing stood a windowless shack, its wooden slats bleached silvery gray by the weather. Brilliana stood in front of the padlocked door, white-faced, her P90 at the ready in clenched hands. “Park here,” said Olga, opening her door again.

Miriam parked, then climbed down from the cab. “Where’s Alasdair?” she asked, approaching Brill.

Brill shook slightly. “Milady, he’s gone across already. Please don’t go there—” But Miriam had already seen what was round the side of the shack.

“What happened?” she demanded. “Who are they?” Riordan had also seen; he knelt by the nearer of the two bodies, examining it. Lying facedown, dressed in hunting camouflage jacket and trousers, they might have been asleep. Miriam stared at Riordan, then back at Brill. “What happened?” she repeated.

“They were waiting for us.” Brill’s voice was robotic, unnaturally controlled. “They were not the guards we expected to see. That one”—Riordan was straightening up—“I recognized him. He worked for Henryk.”

Riordan was holding something at arm’s length. As he came closer, Miriam recognized it. “Silenced,” Riordan told her, his voice overcontrolled as he ejected the magazine and worked the slide to remove the chambered round. “An assassin’s weapon.”

Brill nodded, her face frozen; but something in the set of her shoulders unwound, slumping infinitesimally.

“Oh my god.” Miriam felt her knees going weak. “What’s Sir Alasdair walking into?”

“I don’t know.” Brill took a deep breath. “I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes. Don’t worry, my lady, he’ll try to save one of them for questioning.”

Miriam shivered. Her sense of dread intensified: not for herself, but for Alasdair. The man-mountain had already saved her life at least once; deceptively big and slow, he could move like an avalanche when needs must. “What are they doing here?”

“If I had to guess, I’d say the conservatives think they’re inside our OODA loop.” Olga looked extremely unhappy. “This has to have been planned well in advance. My lady, I beg your indulgence, but would you mind waiting in the truck? It has been modified—there is some lightweight armor—it would set my mind at ease.”

“Really?” Miriam fought back the urge to scream with frustration.

“Lady Olga, allow me.” Brill touched Miriam’s arm. “Walk with me.”

Brill led Miriam back up the track, just beyond the bend.

“What’s going to—”

Brill cut across her, her voice thick with tension. “Listen, my lady. In a couple of minutes, two of us—I would guess the earl and myself—will have to cross over, piggyback. If the map is truthful, if Sir Alasdair has been successful at his task, I will return. Then Lady Olga will have to carry you across, while the returnee recovers their wits. If I don’t come back you should assume that we are both dead and that before we died we betrayed your presence here to your enemies. In which case you and Lady Olga must drive like hell then go to ground and lose yourselves as thoroughly as you can imagine. Because if Earl-Major Riordan is dead or captured, our enemies will have accomplished their end, and all they need you for is to bring the heir to term and then … they won’t need you anymore. Do you understand? Do you understand?”

Brill’s grip on her wrist was painful. Miriam nodded, jerkily. “How long?” she managed.

“About … hmm. No more than five minutes.” Brilliana’s lips quirked. “If Sir Alasdair ran into trouble and we can’t fix it, we’ll come back. No false heroics. So you see? If I don’t come back soon, it’s because I can’t.”

“You could be walking into an ambush.” Her heart was going too fast, Miriam realized distantly.

“We could but we won’t.” Brill nodded her head at the uphill slope. “What do you think that is?”

“That’s a—” Miriam stopped. “Oh. Clever.”

“Yes.” The ground level in the Gruinmarkt didn’t always match the level in this world. World-walking tended not to go too well if the world-walker arrived several meters above ground level; and it didn’t work at all if they tried to cross over inside a solid object. “The shack is the primary location, but there’s a secret secondary. At the crest of the ramp, step off the track to the left, about six feet, then cross over. There’s an outhouse, and you come out at roof level with a clear field of fire.” Brill hefted her gun. “Listen, go back to the truck and wait with Lady Olga.” She