Olga’s expression of startled relief emboldened Miriam to take a step forward.
“Miriam—”
Then the woman beside Olga looked up. “Miriam?” And her heart fluttered and skipped a beat.
“Mom?”
“Ach, scheisse. You didn’t need to see him like this.”
Iris stared up at her. She looked tired, and apprehensive—guilty, perhaps—and worried. Miriam looked past her at the figure in the bed. “Maybe not, Mom, but let me be the judge of that.” There was an ache in her throat as she looked at Olga. “How is he?”
Olga shook her head. “He is not good,” she said. “Earlier, he could speak, he spoke of you—but not since we moved him. He is barely conscious.”
“Then why did you move—”
Iris cut in. “They were under siege, kid. You know, bad guys with machine guns shooting at them? They wouldn’t have relocated him if staying was an option. You can ask Dr. MacDonald later if you want to know more.” She nodded at Brilliana. “Who are your companions?”
Brill gestured. “They’re mine. Ours.” She put an odd emphasis on the words. “Who’s seen his grace in this condition?”
“Everyone and their dog.” Iris addressed Miriam: “I’m expecting that little shitweasel Julius Arnesen to turn up any minute now. Oliver Hjorth is making himself surprisingly useful, all things considered—I think he finally worked out how unreliable mother-dearest is”—the dowager Hildegarde, who seemed to take Miriam’s mere existence as a personal insult—“and Mors Hjalmar is running interference for me. The silver lining on this particular shit sandwich is that most of the conservative tribal elders attended your betrothal, Miriam. They were in the Summer Palace when Egon staged his little divertissement—we came out much better. Also, they’re on the back foot now because of the troubles at home. But once they get a grip on how ill my half brother is, they’re going to jump us. You can be sure of it.”
“Good!” said Miriam, surprising herself—and, from their reactions, everybody else. “Let them.” She sidestepped around Brill and got her first good look at the duke.
Last time she’d seen him, months ago, Angbard had seemed implacable and unstoppable: a mafia don at the height of his power, self-assured and calculating, a healthy sixty-something executive whose polished exterior masked the ruthless drive and cynical outlook within. Lying half-asleep in a hospital bed, an intravenous drip in his left arm and the cables of an EEG taped to his patchily shaved head, he looked pathetic and broken. His skin was translucent, stretched thin across ancient muscles, the outline of bones showing through at elbows and shoulders; his closed eyes were half-sunk in their sockets. His breathing was shallow and slow.
Iris cleared her throat. “Are you sure you don’t want to reconsider that?”
Miriam looked her mother in the eye. “Can you think of a better time?”
“Ladies—” Heads turned. The Clan security officer who’d brought them here paused. “Perhaps you would like to move to the conference room? He is not well, and the doctor said not to disturb him overly. They will try to feed him in half an hour, and need space. . . .”
“That sounds like a good idea,” said Brilliana. “Will you call us if any other visitors arrive, Carlos?”
“I’ll do that.” He nodded. “This way, please.”
Over peppermint tea and refreshments in the conference room, Miriam eyed Iris warily. “You’re looking healthy.”
Iris nodded. “Over here, treatment is easier to come by.” She was making do with a single cane, moving without any obvious signs of the multiple sclerosis that periodically confined her to a wheelchair. “And certain bottlenecks are . . . no longer present.” Months ago, she’d as good as told Miriam that she was on her own: that Hildegarde—or other members of the conservative faction—had a death grip on the supply of medicines she needed, and if Iris went against their will she’d stay in a wheelchair in the near-medieval conditions of the Gruinmarkt until she rotted.
“How nice.” Miriam managed an acidic smile. “So what happens now?”
Iris looked at her sharply. “That depends on you, kid. Depends on whether you’re willing to play ball.”
“That depends on what rules the ball game is played by.”
Her mother nodded. “Yes, well; the rules are changing.” She glanced at the young people gathered at the other end of the room, chatting over drinks and snacks. “There’s a garden here. Are you up to pushing a wheelchair?”
“I think I can trust them, Mom.” Miriam let a note of exasperation into her voice.
“More fool you, then,” Iris said tartly. “Your uncle trusted me, and look where it got him. . . .” She trailed off thoughtfully, then shrugged. “You may be right about them. I’m not saying you’re not. Just . . . don’t be so certain of people. You can never tell in advance who’s going to betray you. And we need to talk in private, just you and me. So let’s get a wheelchair and go look at the flowers.”
“What’s to talk about that needs so much secrecy?” Miriam asked.
Iris smiled crookedly. “Oh, you’d be surprised, kid. I’ve got a plan. And I figure you’ve got a plan, too. So, let’s walk, and I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.”
“After the last plan you hatched that got me sucked in . . .” Miriam followed Iris slowly into the corridor, shaking her head. “But it got worse. You know what those bastards have done to me?”
“Yes.” A moment’s pause, then: “Mother-dearest told me, right before the betrothal. She was very proud of it.” Miriam quailed at the tone in Iris’s—her own mother’s—voice. A stranger might not have recognized it, but Miriam had grown up knowing what it signified: the unnatural calm before a storm of coldly righteous anger. “I’m appalled, but not surprised. That’s how they play the game, after all. They were raised to only value us for one thing.” They reached the nursing station; an empty wheelchair waited beside it. “If you could push? . . .” Iris asked.
The garden was bright and empty, neatly manicured lawns bordered by magnolia hedges. “You said the rules had changed,” Miriam said quietly. “But I don’t see much sign of them changing.”
“As I said, I’ve been developing a plan. It’s a long-term project—you don’t get an entrenched aristocracy to change how they do things overnight—and it relies on an indirect approach; the first step is to build a coalition and the second is to steer it. So I’ve been cutting deals, finding out what it’ll take to get various parties to sign on. For it to succeed, we’ve got to work together, but everyone I’ve spoken to so far seems to be willing to do that—for their own reasons, if not for mine. Now . . . the one thing the Conservatives will rely on is the sure knowledge that mothers and daughters always work at cross-purposes. They always stab each other in the back, because the way the Clan is set up to encourage arranged first-cousin marriages puts them in conflict. But . . . our rules are different. That’s a big part of why I raised you in the United States, by the way. I wanted a daughter I could trust, a daughter who’d trust me. A daughter I could work with rather than against.”
Miriam stared at the backs of her hands on the handles of the wheelchair. A daughter’s hands. Trusting, maybe too trusting. “What do you want?” she asked.
Iris chuckled quietly. “Well, let me see . . . knowing you, you’re planning something to do with business models and new worlds. Am I right? You’re plotting a business revolution.” Without waiting for Miriam’s assent she continued: “My plan is a bit different. I just want to make sure that no daughter of the families ever goes through what you’ve been put through ever again, for dynastic reasons. Or what I went through. That’s all; nothing huge.”