“Ah.” Miriam nodded, very slightly. So Mom was telling the truth. A tension in her chest began to unclench.
“Why do you ask?” Brill repeated.
Miriam took a deep breath. “You—you, and Huw, and my mother, and the tooth fairy, for all I know—say you want me to trust you. Well, right now I find I’m very short on trust. I’ve been locked up, beaten, I’ve been impregnated”—she paused to breathe again—“then suddenly a couple of weeks later it’s all ‘trust us, we want you to lead us’! And—factional differences or not—I’m having a hard time buying it. So. Second question. Why did Angbard sic you onto me?”
Brill closed her eyes, startling Miriam. “Crone give me patience”—she opened her eyes again—“Helge, he’s your uncle. He married but his wife died years ago and they produced no offspring—don’t you get it?”
“But surely—”
“Surely nothing! Have you no idea how violent the civil war was? His line were targets! Your mother was targeted, her husband killed! The whole reason for Clan Security is to prevent anything like that happening ever again! Meanwhile, you, you—” Brill’s shoulders were shaking. “Please!”
“Please, what?” Miriam stared, bewildered. “It’s this social thing again, isn’t it? What am I doing wrong this time?”
With a visible effort, Brilliana collected herself. “You’re your mother’s heir,” she said quietly. “How hard is it to see that you’re also your uncle’s heir? Or at least his closest surviving descendant by distaff—you’re a woman, so you won’t inherit everything, but you’re attached to the title to a whole damned duchy. God-on-a-stick, Helge, don’t you get it? Henryk wanted you under his thumb because it gave him a weapon against his grace! And it shut you up, but they’ve always had a casual way with their women,” she added with offhand venom. Then she looked back at Miriam. “I am a sworn vassal of your uncle, Helge. Sworn to protect his interests. You are his next of kin. Need I to draw you a diagram?”
“Uh.” Oh boy. Miriam turned it all over in her mind. Damn, I’m really going to have to work on figuring out how these extended family links work! “But your direct loyalty is to him, not to me. Right?”
“That’s the picture,” Brilliana said sharply. “I love you like a sister, but you can be so slow at times!”
“Well, then.” Miriam glanced at the window. “Maybe it’s because I’ve been playing the wrong card game all along,” she said slowly. Then she looked back at Brill. “I’ve been here a year and I haven’t so much as sworn a swineherd to my service. Right?”
Brill’s eyes widened. “You can’t. I’m sworn to his grace, unto the death—his or mine.”
Miriam nodded, satisfied. Thanks, Mom. “I understand. But his grace is clearly ill—possibly on his deathbed?”
Brill nodded jerkily.
“Well, then. I believe there is a thing called an oath contingent, yes?”
“Who told you about that?”
“Look.” Miriam leaned forward. “What are you going to do if—when—my uncle dies?”
“But that’s different!” It came out almost as a wail.
“Not according to my mother.” Miriam pinned her in place with a stare. “In the old days, oaths contingent were quite common—to ensure a secure succession in event of an assassination. The contingent liege’s orders are overridden by those of the first lord living. Yes?”
“I suppose so. But—”
“Brill.” Miriam paused. “This is my third question. Did his grace give you any orders that would bring you into a conflict of loyalty if you were sworn to me by an oath contingent?”
The younger woman looked at her, wide-eyed as a doe in the headlights of a truck. “Yes,” she whispered.
“Uh-oh.” Miriam flopped back on the sofa. She rubbed her forehead. “Well, there goes that good—”
“Wait.” Brill raised a hand. “You would not have raised the oath contingent unless you planned to live among us, would you?”
Miriam steeled herself. “I need sworn vassals to defend me if I’m going to live in the Gruinmarkt. I was hoping—”
“Well.” Brill took a deep breath. “Then the conflict of interests does not arise.” She grimaced. “His grace directed me—while you were in New Britain—to bring you back, alive or dead. Preferably alive, but—”
“Whoa.” Miriam stared at her. “Do I want to hear this?”
Brill shuffled, uncomfortable. “You are not planning to offer your services to the American government. Are you?”
“I—” Miriam flashed back to what Mike had told her in the walls of a smoldering palace. “No. No way.”
“Well.” Brill held out her hands across the coffee table. “In that case, I can swear to you. If”—she made eye contact—“you still want me?”
Miriam swallowed. (“It’s a bit like a marriage,” Iris had told her. “A big, rowdy, polygamous one, arguments and all. Minus the sex.”) “This means you’re going to be part of my household and responsibilities for life, doesn’t it?”
“Once his grace dies or otherwise discharges me.” Brill ducked her head.
“Then”—Miriam reached out and caught her hands—”I accept. Your oath of loyalty, contingent on the word of your first liege.” She stood, slowly, pulling Brill with her. “We can swear to each other in front of witnesses later, can’t we?”
“Whenever you ask, milady.” Brilliana bowed low and kissed the backs of both her hands. “There, that is the minimal form. It is done.” Then she smiled happily.
“Tell me,” said Miriam. “I was a real idiot not to do this when I first arrived, wasn’t I? There are other people I should be swearing, aren’t there?”
“Yes, milady.” Brill straightened up, her eyes glistening. Then she leaned forward and, surprising Miriam, kissed her on the mouth. Before Miriam could recoil or respond she took a step away. “It’s going to be so much fun working for you! I can tell.”
Barely a week had passed, but the atmosphere in this meeting was darker by far than its predecessor. The venue was the same—an air-conditioned conference room in a Sheraton hotel adjoining a conference center in the middle of downtown Boston, with heavily padded leather chairs arranged around a boardroom table. And now as then, the attendees were dressed as conservatively as a party of merchant bankers. But there were fewer of them today, barely a round dozen; some of the faces had changed, and two of the newcomers were women. It was, however, none of his business, decided the hotel facilities manager who was seeing to their needs; they were good customers—quiet, serious, utterly unlikely to start shooting each other or snorting crank in the rest room.
Which just went to show how misleading appearances could be.
There were thirteen seats at the table today, but one of them—at its head—was vacant. The broad-shouldered man sitting to its left nodded to a younger fellow at the far end. “Rudi, please shut the door. If you would pay attention, please?”
The quiet conversation ebbed as Rudi sat down again, the door securely locked behind him. “I think we’ll begin with a situation report,” Riordan said quietly. “Lady Thorold, if you wouldn’t mind?”
“Of course.” Olga opened the leather conference folder she’d brought to the meeting; in a severe black suit, with her long blond hair tied back, she resembled a trial lawyer rather than an intelligence officer. “The duke’s medical condition is stable. That’s the good news.”