An ephemeral flash of hope lit up the world around him. If FTO had been watching Miriam's house before, they might well have pulled out already—and yesterday's events would have shaken things up even more.
But what if they're wrong?
He remembered Matthias's advice, from months ago:
They think like a government. And Miriam's
important
to them. She's an insider—otherwise she wouldn't have been able to warn me. Would we put a watch on a cabinet official's house if we knew enemies had it under surveillance? Even if we were under attack?
Trying to work through that line of thought threatened to give him a headache, but it seemed to be worth checking out. Best case, there'd be a Clan security post discreetly watching her place, and nobody else. Worst case, an FTO surveillance team—but knowing how FTO worked in the field, he'd have a good chance of spotting them.
Find Miriam. Try to cut a deaclass="underline" Warn her faction about the spy, about WARB UCKS's plans—in return, try to get them to hand over the murderers. Maybe find some way to cut a deal.
I just hope I'm not too late.
Leaking everywhere
In a stately house four miles outside Niejwein, two noble ladies sat beside an unlit hearth, awkwardly eyeing each other. Between their angled chairs an occasional table stood like a frontier fence, surmounted by the border tower of a fortified wine decanter. The afternoon sun slanting through the lattice window stained the wood-paneled walls with a deep golden warmth; a pair of fat flies buzzed in erratic circles below the ceiling, swooping and tracing out the lines of their confinement.
"Have you been keeping well?" asked the older of the pair, her age-spotted eyelids drooping as she watched her sixty-two-year-old visitor. "Do you have any complaints?" She spoke abruptly, her tone brusque.
The younger one snorted. "Only the obvious, Mother." The last word came out with an odd emphasis, falling just short of making an insult of it. "Your hospitality is impeccable but, I hope you'll excuse me for putting it so crudely, oppressive. I would ask, though, is my maid Mhara unharmed?"
The dowager frowned, her crow's-feet wrinkles deepening. "I do not know." She extended a shaky hand and tugged on a braided bell cord. A discreet servants' door opened behind her. "My daughter inquires of her maid."
"Yes, my lady." The attendant bowed his head.
"Was she taken? If so, is she well?"
"She, ah, escaped, my lady. After she shot one of the dragoons in the, ah, thigh."
"Well then." The dowager gave her daughter a wintry smile. "Satisfied?"
Her daughter stared back at her for a long moment, then nodded fractionally. "Satisfied."
"Go away," the dowager announced to the air. The servants' door opened and closed again, restoring the illusion of privacy. "Such a show of compassion," she added, her tone of voice dripping with irony.
"There's no show about it,
Mother."
Patricia Thorold-Hjorth, herself dowager duchess and mother to the queen-widow, stared back at her own dam, the duchess Hildegarde. "We've bled ourselves white in your lifetime. Every one of us of the true blood who dies, especially the women, is a score fewer grandchildren to support our successors. If you don't feel that—"
She stopped, as Hildegarde's palm rattled the crystal on the table. "Of
course
I feel that!" the duchess exploded. "I've known that since long before I whelped you, you ungrateful child. I've known that ever since my sister—" She stopped, and reached for a glass of wine. "Damn you,
you're
old enough to know better, too."
Hildegarde stopped. They sat in silence for a minute, eyeing each other sidelong. Finally Patricia spoke. "I assume you didn't bring me here for a friendly mother-daughter chat."
"I brought you here to save your life, girl," Hildegarde said harshly.
Patricia blinked. "You did?"
"If you were elsewhere, I could not insure that certain of the more enthusiastic members of the conservative club would leave you be," the dowager pointed out. "And I feel some residual family loyalty to this day, whatever you may think of me."
"Eh. Well, if you say so. Do you expect that will make Helge think better of you?"
"No." The dowager stared at her daughter. "But it will be one less thing for me to take to my grave." For a moment her eyes unfocussed, staring vaguely into some interior landscape. "You corrupted her most thoroughly. My congratulations would be in order, were the ultimate effect not so damaging."
Patricia reached slowly for the other wineglass. "Why should I thank you for saving my life?" she asked. "Are your faction planning a return to the bad old days? Cousin killers?"
"No. Not really." Hildegarde took a sip from her glass. "But it was necessary to break the back of your half-brother's organization, to buy time while we deal with the harvest he was about to bring in from the field. Test-tube babies, what an idea. I gather I should thank you for helping deal with it—Dr. yen Hjalmar was quite effusive in his praise for your assistance. But in any case: The program is secure, as is our future. We shall make sure that the infants are raised by trustworthy families, to know their place within the Clan—better than your wildcat, anyway—and in the next generation our numbers will increase fivefold."
Patricia nodded guardedly. "Where is the doctor?" she asked.
"Oh, who cares?" Hildegarde waved a shaky hand: "He doesn't matter now that the program records are destroyed."
"Really?" Patricia shook her head. Hildegarde's grasp of computers was theoretical at best, shaky at worst. "He's not tried to blackmail you?"
"No." Hildegarde's grin was not reassuring. "I think he might be afraid to show his face. Something to do with your hoyden."
"So you took action against Security?" Patricia nudged.
"Yes. I had to, to preserve the balance. I know you harbor Anglischprache ideas about 'equality' and 'freedom,' but you must understand, we are
not
a meritocracy—we live or die by our bloodlines. Certainly Angbard had the right idea thirty years ago, to clamp a lid on the feuding, but his solution has become a monster. There are young people who pledge their loyalty to the Security directorate, would you believe it? If he was allowed to bring the, the changelings into his organization, within a generation we'd be done for. This way is better: With the Security organization cut back to its original status, and other threats dealt with, we can resume our traditional—" Patricia was wheyfaced. "What is it?"
"Other
threats.
What
other threats?"
"Oh, nothing important." Hildegarde waved the back of her hand dismissively, prompting a fly to dodge. "We sent a message to the Anglischprache leadership, one that they won't ignore. Once we've got them out of our hair—"
"A message the Anglischprache won't ignore? What kind of message?"
"Oh, we used those bombs Oliver had lying about." Hildegarde sniffed. "How else do you deal with a hostile king? They'll make the point quite welclass="underline" Once the new Anglischprache president-emperor ascends the throne, he won't be under any illusions about the consequences of threatening us. We'll talk to him, I'm sure. We've done it before: This will just set negotiations off on the right foot."
"Sky Father . . ."
Patricia stared at her mother, aghast, then raised her wineglass and knocked it back in a single swallow. "Those were atomic weapons," she said slowly. "Where were they set?"
"Oh, some white palace, I gather," Hildegarde said dismissively. "In a town named after a famous soldier."