"Oh, Huw." Brill shook her head, still smiling. "Listen, I'm sure it's a good idea! It's just"—she glanced over her shoulder—"we may not be able to resupply at will, and you know how easily computers break."
"These aren't computers; they're programmable calculators. But they might as well be mainframes, by these people's standards." He was burbling, he realized: a combination of postworld-walking sickness and the peculiar relief of finding Brill alive and well in the wake of the previous week's events. "Sorry. Been a stressful time. Is Miriam—"
"She's in bed upstairs. Resting." An unreadable expression flickered across Brill's face. "I'll give you the tour, if you like. Who else . . . ?"
"Me, ma'am." The sergeant reappeared, carrying two more suitcases, wheezing somewhat. "One more to go, sirs, ladies."
"No need to overdo it, Marek, the last cases will wait half an hour if you want to put your feet up." Brill's concern was obvious: "You've already been over today, haven't you?"
"Yes, ma'am, but it needs moving and we're shorthanded—"
"You'll be even more shorthanded if you work yourself into a stroke! Go and sit yourself down in the parlor with a mug of beer and a pill until your head clears. Go on, I'll get Maria to look after you—" Brill dragged the sergeant out of the servants' stairwell, seemingly by main force of will, then returned to lead Huw into the downstairs lounge. "He's right that they're badly undermanned over there, but he insists on trying to do everything," she said apologetically. "There's too much of that around here."
"Too much of it
everywhere!"
Elena said emphatically. "Why, if I hadn't forced Huw to let me drive—but how is her royal highness?" She looked at Huw: "Won't she want to—"
"Yes, how is she?" Huw began, then stopped. Brill's expression was bleak. "Oh. Oh
shit."
"The lady Helge is perfectly all right." Brilliana's voice was emotionless. "But she's very tired and needs time to recover."
"Recover from what?" Yul chipped in before Elena could kick his ankle.
"Her express instructions are that you are to tell no one," Brill continued, looking Huw straight in the eye. "Nobody is going to leave this house who cannot keep his or her mouth shut, at least until it no longer matters."
"Until
what
matters?" Yul asked, head swiveling between Brilliana and Huw with ever-increasing perplexity.
"Was it spontaneous?" Huw demanded.
Brill nodded reluctantly. "The day of the putsch."
"Let me see her?" demanded Elena. "My mother was midwife to the district nobility when I was young and she taught me—"
Yul stood by, crestfallen and lost for words. "Give me your locket," Brill said to Elena. "And you too," she added to Yul. She spared Huw but a brief narrow-eyed glance that seemed to say,
If I can't trust you, then who?
"You're not to tire her out, mind," she added for Elena's benefit. "If she's sleeping, leave her be." Then she turned towards the door to the owner's rooms. "Leave the cases for now, Huw. Let me fill you in on what's been going wrong here. . . ."
* * *
In the end, there was no siege: The house surrendered without a shot being fired, doors and windows flung wide, a white flag running up the pole that rose from the apex of the steeply pitched roof.
That wouldn't have been enough to save the occupants, of course. Riordan was not inclined towards mercy: In the wake of a hard-fought civil war against the old nobility, it was quite obvious to one and all that the Clan divided must fall, and this rebellion could be seen as nothing but the blackest treachery. But by the same token, the families were weak, their numbers perilously low—and acts of gratuitous revenge would only weaken them further, and risk sowing the seeds of blood feud to boot. "Arrest everyone," he'd instructed his captain on the ground, Sir Helmut: "You may hang Oliver Hjorth, Griben yen Hjalmar, or"—a lengthy list of confirmed conspirators—"out of hand, and you may deal as you wish with anyone who resists, but we must avoid the appearance of revenge at all costs. We can afford to spare those who did not raise arms against us, and who are guilty only of following their sworn liege—and their dependents."
Helmut's mustache quivered. "Is this wise, sir?" he asked.
"It may not be wise, but it is
necessary,"
Riordan retorted. "Unless you think we should undertake our enemies' work for them by cutting each other's throats to the last?"
And so: This was the third great holding of a rebel family that Sir Helmut had ridden into in two days. And they were getting the message. At the last, the house of Freyn-Hankl, a minor outer family connected with the Hjorth lineage, the servants had risen up and locked their upstart landowners in the wine cellars, and sued for mercy. Sir Helmut, mindful of his commanding officer's advice, had rewarded them accordingly, then sent them packing to spread the word (before he discreetly executed his prisoners—who had, to be fair, poisoned the entire staff of the local Security post by treachery). Facing the open windows and doors of the summer house at Judtford, with his soldiers going in and coming out at will, he was pleased with the outcome of this tactic. Whether or not it was wise or necessary, it was certainly proving to be effective.
"Sir! If you please, to the drawing room." A startled-looking messenger boy, barely in his teens, darted from the front door. Sir Helmut stared at him. "In whose name?" he demanded.
"Sir! Two duchesses! One of them's the queen's mum, an' the other is hers! What should we do with them, Jan wants to know?"
Sir Helmut stared some more, until the lad's bravado collapsed with a shudder. Then he nodded and glanced over his shoulder. "Sammel, Karl, accompany me," he snapped. The two soldiers nodded and moved in, rifles at the ready. "Lead me to the ladies," he told the messenger. "Let's see what we've got."
The withdrawing room was dark, and cramped with too much overstuffed furniture, and it smelled of face powder and death. Flies buzzed near the ceiling above the occupants, a pair whom Sir Helmut could not help but recognize. One of them was sleeping.
"What happened here?" he demanded.
The younger of the pair—the one who was mother to the queen-widow—looked at him from beneath drooping eyelids. "Was 'fraid you wouldn't get here," she slurred.
"What—"
"Poison. In tha' wine. Sh-she started it." A shaking hand rose slowly, pointed at the mounded fabric, the shriveled, doll-like body within. "Tha' coup. 'S'hers. Did it for Helge, she said."
"But—" Helmut's eyes took in the empty decanter, the lack of motion. "Are you drunk, or—"
"Dying, prob'ly." She wheezed for a second or two; it might have been laughter. "Poisoned the wine with pure heroin. The trade of queens."
"I see." Helmut turned to the wide-eyed messenger lad: "You, run along and fetch a medic,
fast."
To the duchess: "There's an antidote. We'll get you—"
"No." Patricia closed her eyes for a long moment. "Ma, Hilde-Hildegarde. Started this all. Leave her. No trial. As for me . . ." She subsided, slurring. A rattling snort emanated from the other chair and Helmut glanced at the door, before leaning to listen to the old woman's chest.
Helmut rose and, turning on his heel, strode towards the door.
Crone save me,
he subvocalized. The messenger was coming, a corpsman following behind. "I have two heroin overdoses for you," Helmut told him. "Forget triage; save the younger one first if at all possible."