did
concentrate his forces to attack the Hjalmar Palace, evidently with treachery in mind, and in doing so he placed his army within reach of the duke’s flying column. Unimpeachable sources tell me that the Pervert’s forces had stolen machine guns, but were inadequately supplied and poorly deployed to resist the attack that Earl Riordan was preparing.”
(Throat clearing.)
“Yes, my lord?”
“Are you then confirming that, that Angbard’s strategy was
sound?
”
(Pause.)
“I would prefer to say that it wasn’t obviously
un
sound, my lord. Clearly, his parsimony in the defense of our estates bled us grievously. But equally clearly, if he
had
committed troops to our defense, he would have been unable to concentrate the forces he needed for a counterattack, and he would have ceded the initiative to the Pervert. It is possible that a more aggressive strategy of engagement would have borne fruit earlier, but one cannot be certain.”
“Oh.” (Disappointed.)
“Indeed.” (Drily.) “I am much more concerned by the unexpected outcome of the events at the fork in the Wergat. There is considerable confusion—the Anglischprache attack on the duke’s forces, the duke’s ictus, the exfiltration through the
other
Anglische realm with the connivance of the traitor family—and lastly, the, the
atomic bomb
. I was hoping my lord Hjorth might shed some light on that latter.”
(Muttering.) “My lords, my lady. If I may speak?”
Her grace: “You may speak until the cows come home, and convince no one.”
“Nevertheless, if I may speak? . . .”
(Conversation dies down.)
“Thank you. Of the duke’s condition, I shall speak later: As your representative on the security committee I believe I may brief you on the subject. But to get back to the matter in hand, my sources tell me that when the traitor Matthias fled to the Anglischprache king-president’s party nine months ago, he clearly gave them much more than anyone anticipated. Previous fugitives have been taken for madmen and incarcerated, or we have been able to hunt them down and deal with them—but Matthias appeared to vanish from the face of the earth. We now know that he flung himself on the mercy of the
Drug Enforcement Agency
, and by their offices, on a dark and sinister conspiracy of spies.”
(Shocked muttering.)
“There is worse. As you know, with the aid of those of our younger generation who have enlisted and served in the American armies, we have gained some knowledge of, and eventually access to, their atomic bombs. The weight and complexity of these devices, and the secrecy that surrounds their activation, transport, and use, defied us for many years, but in the second year of Alexis’s reign we finally infiltrated”—(muttering)—“a master sergeant in the Marine Corps, yes—enlisted and received special training—man-portable devices, designed for smuggling, with which to sabotage the enemies of the Anglischprache empire overseas in time of war—the, ah, Soviet Union. And these devices were stored securely, they thought, but without doppelgangering, as is to be expected of the ignorant. It was a delicate but straightforward task to build a bunker from which a world-walker could enter the storage cells—the hardest part was obtaining a treaty right to the land from the Teppeheuan, and the maintenance schedule for the bombs. From then on, of the twelve weapons, we ensured that six were stored on our side at all times, and rotated back into the Pantex store when they were due to be repaired.
“Then Matthias stole one of them.”
(More shocked muttering.)
“Order! Order, I say!”
“Thank you, my lord. If I may continue?”
(Pause.)
“Matthias ven Holtzbrinck was
trusted
. Nobody suspected him! He was Duke Lofstrom’s keeper of secrets. I must confess that in all fairness
I
thought him a man of the utmost probity. Be that as it may, Matthias ordered the removal of one of the weapons, and then hid it somewhere. We don’t know where because he covered his tracks exceedingly welclass="underline" Perhaps one of the dead could tell us, but . . . anyway. Need I explain what the king-president’s men thought of their ultimate witch-weapon being stolen? I think we can guess. My sources tell me that they began negotiations with the duke with a threat, and that their spies have already been apprehended in the Gruinmarkt. Don’t look so shocked. Did you think our missing soldiers had betrayed us and sought refuge? Captivity and slavery—they have ways of compelling a world-walker”—(muttering)—“We face a determined enemy, and they showed just
how
determined they were at the Hjalmar Palace.”
“Then it was an atomic bomb?”
“Yes.”
(Uproar. Three minutes . . .)
“Order! Order, I say!”
“My lady? You have the floor.”
“This is insupportable! Gentlemen, we have known for many years that one day the Anglischprache would learn of our existence. But we cannot allow them to, to think they can tamper at will in our affairs! Sending, without warning, an atomic bomb, into a castle invested only hours earlier by the pride of our army, is a base and ignoble act. It is dishonorable! To live with this threat hanging over us is intolerable, and I submit that it is unthinkable to negotiate as one ruler to another with a king-president who would deliver such a stab in the back. If negotiations were in hand then they acted with base treachery. We act, now, as the largest faction of the Clan, and as rulers of the kingdom of Gruinmarkt, though the peace is not yet settled. We must secure our kingdom from this threat; if there is one thing I have learned in more than sixty years of politics and thirty years of war, it is that you cannot sleep peacefully unless your neighbor can be relied on to obey the same law as you do. The Americans are now, like it or not, our neighbors. We must therefore compel them to obey the law of kings.”
“My lady. What are you suggesting?”
(Coldly.) “One act of treachery deserves another. Do we not have arms? Do we not have a kingdom to defend? The American king-president—or rather, the power behind his throne—has declared war upon us and through us upon our domain and all those who live in it. We must make it clear that we will not be trifled with. The time for petty affairs of finance and customs is over. We must hurt the Americans, and hurt them so badly that their next king will not meddle lightly in our affairs.
“My lords. We have, in the course of this civil war, already found it necessary to kill one self-proclaimed king: even, one who would have reigned by blessing of the Sky Father. We must not, now, balk at the death of another lord who is an even greater danger to us than the Pervert. We must settle this matter with the Americans before they think to send their atomic bombs into the heart of Niejwein, aye, and every stronghold and palace in the land. And the best way to compel their rulers to negotiate in good faith is to demonstrate our strength with utmost clarity. My lords, you must decapitate the enemy. There is no alternative. . . .”
(Uproar.)
END RECORDING
High Estate
There was a country estate, untouched by war, separated from the clinic in Springfield by about three blocks and two-and-a-half thousand years of divergent history. Brill had picked up a courier from somewhere nearby and driven Miriam round to a safe house on a quiet residential street; whereupon the courier had carried her across, back into the depths of someone else’s history.