Angbard rapped his gavel on the wooden block in front of him for attention. “The chair thanks Countess Helge,” he said formally. “Are there any more questions from the floor?”
A new speaker stood up: a smooth-looking managerial type who smiled at Miriam in a friendly manner from the bench behind her grandmother. “I’d like to congratulate my cousin on her successful start-up,” he began. “It’s a remarkable achievement to come into a new world and set up a business, from scratch, with no background.” Oh shit, Miriam thought uneasily. Who is this guy, and when’s he going to drop the hammer? “And I agree completely with everything she says. But clearly, her efforts could be aided by an infusion of support and experience. If we accept her motion to transfer the new business to the Clan as a subsidiary enterprise, it can clearly benefit from sound management—”
“Which it already has,” Miriam snapped, finally getting his drift. “If you would like to discuss employment opportunities—” and a pound of flesh in return for keeping out of my way, you carpetbagger “—that’s all very well—but this is not the time and place for it. We have an immediate problem, which is relations with the sixth family. I’ll repeat my proposal; that the new business venture be recognized as a Clan business, that membership in it be open to the Clan, and that handling the lost family be considered the responsibility of this business. Can we put this to a vote?”
Oliver Hjorth made to interrupt, but Angbard caught his hand and whispered something in his ear. His eyes narrowed and he shut up.
“I don’t see why we can’t settle it now,” muttered Julius. “Show of hands! Ayes! Count them, damn your eyes. Nays!” He brought his own hammer down briskly. “The Ayes have it,” he announced. He turned to Miriam. “It’s yours.”
Is that it? Miriam wondered dumbly, feeling as if something vast and elusive had passed her by in an eyeblink while her attention was elsewhere.
“Next motion,” said Angbard. “Some of you have been misinformed that I announced that I was designating Helge as my heir. I wish to clarify the issue: I did not do so. However, I do intend to change my designated successor—to Patricia Thorold-Hjorth, my half-sister. Can anyone dispute my right to do so?” He looked around the room furiously. “No?” He nudged Julius. “See it minuted so.”
Miriam felt as if a great weight had lifted from her shoulders—but not for long. “A new motion,” said Oliver Hjorth. He frowned at Miriam. “The behavior of this long-lost niece gives me some cause for concern,” he began. “I am aware that she has been raised in strange and barbarous lands, and allowances must be made; but I fear she may do herself an injury if allowed to wander around at random. As her recent history of narrow scrapes shows, she’s clearly accident-prone and erratic. I therefore move that she be declared incompetent to sit as a member of the Clan, and that a suitable guardian be appointed—Baroness Hildegarde—”
“Objection!” Miriam turned to see Olga standing up. “Baron Hjorth, through negligence, failed to see to the subject’s security during her residence here, notionally under his protection. He is not fit to make determinations bearing on her safety.”
Oliver rounded on her in fury. “You little minx! I’ll have you thrown out on the street for—”
Bang! The gavel again. “Objection sustained,” Julius quavered.
Oliver glared at him. “Your time will come,” he growled, and subsided into grim silence.
“I am an adult,” Miriam said quietly. “I am divorced, I have created and managed a Clan subsidiary, and I am not prepared to surrender responsibility for my own security.” She looked around the hall. “If you try to railroad me out of the New London operation, you’ll find some nasty surprises in the title deeds.” She stared at Oliver: “or you can sit back and wait for the profits to roll in. It’s your choice.”
“I withdraw my motion,” Oliver growled quietly. Only his eyes told Miriam that he resented every word of it. There’d be a reckoning, they seemed to say.
“Check your gun.”
“I don’t need to.”
“I said, check it. Listen. I told Poul to go for help. Think he’ll have made it?”
“I don’t see why not.” Sullivan looked dubious, but he ejected the magazine and worked the slide on his gun, then reloaded and safed it.
“Matthias believes in belt and braces.” For a moment, Roland looked ill. “I think he’ll have left a surprise or two for us.”
“So?” Sullivan nodded. “You ready?”
“Ready?” Roland winced, then flipped his locket open. “Yes. Come on. On my back—Sky Father, you’re heavy! Now—”
Roland’s vision dimmed and his head hammered like a drum. His knees began to give way and he fell forward, feet slipping on the damp floor. Sullivan rolled off him with a shout of dismay. “What’s—”
Roland fell flat, whimpering slightly as one knee cracked hard on the concrete. Red, everything seemed to be red with bits of white embedded in it, like an explosion in an abattoir. He rolled over, sliding slightly, smelling something revolting and sweet as the noise of Sullivan being violently sick reached his ears.
The pounding headache subsided. Roland sat up, dismayed, staring at the wall behind him. It was chipped and battered, stained as if someone had thrown a tin of blackish paint at it. The smell. Roland leaned forward and squeezed his eyes shut. The blackness stayed with him, behind his eyelids. “Belt and braces.”
Sullivan stopped heaving. The stench refused to clear. Roland opened his eyes again. The post room in the basement of Fort Lofstrom had been painted with blood and bits of flesh and bone, as if a live pig or sheep had been fed through a wood chipper. There were small gobbets of stuff everywhere. On his hands, sticking to his trousers where he’d fallen down. He pulled a hunk of something red with hairs sprouting from it off the back of his hand. The furniture was shredded, and the door hung from its hinges as if an angry bull had kicked it.
“Belt and braces,” Roland repeated hoarsely. “Shit.”
Sullivan straightened up. “You sent Poul into this,” he said flatly. He wiped his mouth with the back of one hand.
“Shit.” Roland shook his head. A pair of legs, still wearing trousers, still attached at the hips, had rolled under the big oak table in the middle of the room. A horrified sense of realization settled over him. “Why hasn’t someone—”
“Because they are all fucking dead,” Sullivan hissed, moving to the side of the door and bringing his gun up. “Shut up!”
Silence. The stink of blocked sewers and slaughterhouse blood and recent vomit filled Roland’s nostrils. His skull pounded, bright diamond-flashes of light flickering in his left eye as the edges of his visual field threatened to collapse. He’d walked too soon after taking the beta blocker, and now he was going to pay the price. “Matthias planted a claymore mine on a wire at least once before,” he said quietly. “Well, someone did—and my guess is Matthias. Sloppy work, using the same trick over. Think there’ll be another one, or will he have used something else?”