He’d never been much of a warrior or a scholar, according to Brill. She’d asked for—and, for a miracle, been given—Angbard’s files on the man, and for another miracle they’d been written in English. (Angbard, it seemed, insisted on Clan secrets being written in English when they were to be kept in the Gruinmarkt, and in hochsprache if they were to be used in the United States.)
Oskar Niejwein was a second son, elevated into his deceased brother’s shoes after a boar hunt gone wrong and a lingering death from sepsis. He’d distinguished himself by maintaining and extending the royal estates and by tax farming with a level of enthusiasm and ruthlessness not spoken of in recent memory. It was no wonder that Egon hadn’t sent him into the field as a commander, and no surprise that Riordan’s men had seized him with such ease—Niejwein had all the military acumen of a turkey. But that didn’t make him useless to an ambitious monarch planning a purge: quite the opposite. As the old saying had it, knights studied tactics, barons studied strategy, and dukes studied logistics. Oskar was an Olympic-grade tax farmer. Which meant . . .
“Your majesty plays with me,” said Niejwein. “Have you no decency?”
Miriam kept her face frozen as a ripple of shock spread through her audience. That was not how a vassal should address a monarch, after all. How do I deal with this without looking weak? . . .
(Iris—showing a coldly cynical streak Miriam had seldom seen any sign of back home—had laid it out for her in the privy council meeting the morning after the coronation performance: “There are certain rules you’ve got to obey in public. You can’t afford to look like a patsy, dear. If they give you backchat it either means they’re scared to death or they think you’re weak. The former is acceptable, but if it’s the latter, you must be ruthless. The rot spreads rapidly and the longer you leave it the harder it becomes to fix the damage. Put it another way: Better to flog them on the spot for insubordination than let things slide until you have to have them broken on the wheel for rebellion.”)
“We are not playing games,” Miriam said evenly. “We are simply trying to decide whether you can be of use to us. But if you insist on seeing malice in place of mercy, you will seal your own fate.” She waited while Gerta translated. The color drained slowly from Niejwein’s cheeks as she continued: “We understand that circumstances placed your neck under our brother-in-law’s boot. We are prepared to make allowances—to a degree. A prudent woodsman does not chop down all the trees in his forest when autumn comes; he harvests the old and rotten, and keeps the healthy for another year. Only the rotten need fear the axe in this demesne.”
She’d stiffened up again, sitting on this damnable hard-as-a-board throne. Shifting her thighs, she leaned forward as Gerta worked through to the end of the speech. “Are you a rotten bough?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. “Or would you like a chance to demonstrate how sound you are?”
Abruptly, Niejwein was on his knees; she didn’t need the blow-by-blow translation to grasp the gist of his entreaties. Her hochsprache was still stilted and poor, but she got the sense that he’d only gone along with Egon’s mad usurpation out of terror while unaware of her majesty’s survival, and he was of course loyal to the crown and he’d be her most stalwart vassal forever and a day if, if only, if—
Damn, he could give lessons in crow-eating to the CEO of a Fortune 100 corporation facing a record loss-making quarter. Miriam managed a faint, slightly perplexed smile as Gerta tried to keep up with the storm of entreaties. Right now, with a royal pardon dangling before his eyes, Niejwein would promise her just about anything to keep his head atop his shoulders and his neck unstretched. Which meant that she’d have to take anything he said with a pinch of salt big enough to pickle a sperm whale. Her eyes narrowed as she considered her options. I can’t kill him now, even if he deserves it—not without looking capricious. But in his undignified hurry to ingratiate himself, the duke was impressing her with his unreliability. Why would he misjudge me like that? she wondered. Chalk it up to another of the gaps between Gruinmarkt and American mores: The political over here was very personal indeed, as everybody kept reminding her.
“Enough.” She raised her right hand and he stopped so suddenly he nearly swallowed his tongue. Miriam took a deep breath. “Rise, your grace. We will not hang a man for a single honest mistake.” Two mistakes in a row and I might change my mind. . . . “We would, however, be delighted if you would stay here as our honored guest, while we restore the kingdom to order. Perhaps your wife and eldest son would care to join us as well. We shall take full responsibility for their safety.” In hochsprache, there were no separate words to distinguish safety from security. “And we would be pleased if you would attend us in session with the council of regents to decide in what manner you can assist us in securing the realm.”
There. She waited for Gerta to translate, watching the succession of expressions flit across Oskar ven Niejwein’s face, starting with stark relief, then fading into apprehension as he realized just how onerous his rehabilitation was to be. You, your wife, and your eldest son are to be hostages under the Clan’s control. You will devote precisely as much time and money to cleaning up this mess as the council demands. And if you don’t play along, we’ve got you where we want you.
Well, it beat the usual punishments for high treason, which included the aforementioned peine fort et dure, or just a straightforward impalement-and-burning-at-the-stake, the traditional cutting of the blood eagle being considered too barbaric for this effete and gentle age.
Miriam suppressed a slight shudder as Niejwein bowed deeply, then bowed again, stuttering a mixture of gracious thanks and praise for her mercy, insight, wisdom, deportment, wit, and general brilliance. She merely nodded. “Take him away,” she said, for the benefit of his jailers, “to suitable accommodation for a high noble whose loyalty to the crown is beyond question.” Which was to say, a cell with a view.
It took three more weeks of ceremonial duties, horse-trading with noble descendants of real (but successful) horse thieves, sitting in court sessions and trying to show no sign of discomfort when her judges pronounced bloodcurdling sentences upon the recalcitrant few—not to mention diplomacy, shouting, and some pigheaded sulking—but at last they agreed to book her into a suite in a boutique hotel near Quincy, with an ob-gyn appointment for the following day. The ob-gyn exam was the excuse; the real purpose was to give her a weekend off, lest she explode.
“I think you can take two, or at most three days off before too many questions asked,” Riordan had said. “Then it will be getting close to Hedge-Wife’s Night and you’ll be expected to officiate—”
“Four,” said Brill, just as Iris said: “Two.” They stopped and glared at each other warily, like cats sizing each other up for a fight.
“People.” Miriam rubbed her forehead tiredly. “I’ve had too much of this.” She waved a tired hand, taking in the high ceiling, the ornate tapestries and rugs that did little to soften the wood and plaster of the electricity and aircon-free room, the discreet chamber pots. They were in private, having exiled the servants for the duration of the brief discussion; they’d be back soon enough, like the rats in the walls that kept her awake in the dead of night with their scuttling and fighting. “I need to decompress, just for a couple of days—”