He paused. A messenger boy was tiptoeing towards them, eyes wide. "Citizen Burgeson?" he piped quietly.
"Yes, lad?"
"Electrogram from the Westminster Halls!" He held the message slip out, stiff-armed.
"Hmm." Burgeson took the message and read it as fast as he could in the backstage twilight. Then he pocketed it and rose. "It has been good to talk to you, citizen Smith, but I'm needed elsewhere." He smiled faintly. "Do keep me informed as to the substance of citizen MacDougal's bakery, will you?" Then he turned to the messenger boy: "Go tell the postmaster to signal that I'm on my way."
Burgeson emerged blinking from the basement of the commandeered theater where the party caucus was in full swing. Two militiamen in the gray and green uniform of the Freedom Riders challenged him. "Citizen Burgeson. Please tell Citizen Supervisor Philips that I am ready to leave on urgent business and require transport."
"Sir!" One of the guards hurried off; the other stood by. Erasmus pointedly ignored the solecism: Ex-soldiers generally made the best militiamen, even when their political awareness wasn't up to scratch, and with the opposition boasting of two redshirts for every Freedom Rider the Party could muster, only a fool would make an issue of a slip of the tongue.
Presently the guard returned with Supervisor Philips following behind him. Philips, tall, stoop-shouldered, and quavery of voice, wouldn't normally have been Erasmus's idea of a military commander: He reminded him of a praying mantis. (But these weren't normal times, and Philips was, if nothing else, politically sound.) "Ah, citizen Burgeson. What can I do for you?"
Erasmus suppressed a twitch. Drawing himself up to his full height, he said: "I am summoned to the Westminster Halls by Sir Adam."
"Interesting." He could almost see the gears meshing in Philips's mind. "We'll have to avoid the Central Canal and Three Mile Lane, the redshirts are smashing up shop windows and working themselves up." The gears spun to a conclusive stop: "Citizen, please follow me. Meng, go tell Stevens to send the armored car round to the front steps. He's to follow with the motorcycle detachment. Gray, stand guard until I send someone to relieve you." Erasmus fell in behind Philips. "I should like you to ride in the car for your own safety, citizen. Unless you feel the need to arrange a provocation?"
"No provocations today." Erasmus smiled humorlessly, mentally reviewing the message that had dragged him away from the interminable speeches of the party faithfuclass="underline" COME AT ONCE TO DISCUSS PATRIOTS WITHDRAWL FROM ASS BREAK NEED TO RESPOND BREAK. "But there'll be plenty of provocations tomorrow."
Miriam was still vibrating from Olga's arrival two hours later, when the Lady Brilliana d'Ost arrived with all the ceremony due to a lord's daughter, and a small army of servants, stewards, armed guards, and other retainers besides. They can't mean it, Miriam kept telling herself: I'm no queen! She'd met His Majesty King Alexis a number of times, and his mother the dowager queen, but there'd been an empty space in that family tree for some years before Egon pulled his hostile takeover bid. She'd acquired from King Alexis a vague sense of what it was to be a monarch: much like being the CEO of a sprawling, huge, corporation with an activist and frequently hostile board. And the angle that if you screwed up, being fired took on a whole new and alarming meaning.
Olga had dragged her on a tour of the house and its grounds-sucking two bodyguards along in her wake, and using her walkie-talkie to warn other outer guards of their progress-and had tried explaining a huge inchoate bundle of protocol to her, in between showing her round an orchard patrolled by peacocks and a huge selection of outbuildings that evidently made this site suitable for a temporary royal presence-but most of it went right past her head. Too much, too fast: Miriam was still trying to come to terms with her mother's sudden reemergence at the center of a web of diplomacy, and the huge imposition of being pregnant, much less with the whole question of her status here, to grapple with anything else.
In the end, she'd just raised a hand. "Olga. Stop. This is too much for me, right now."
"Too much." Olga paused. "Helge. You need to know this. What is-"
"Back to the house. Please?"
Olga peered at her. "You're not feeling too good?"
"I am way overloaded," she admitted. "I'm not ready for this, for any of it. Mom's plan. You're part of it, right?"
"Back to the house," Olga said firmly, taking her in hand. "Yes," she confirmed as they walked, "I have the honor of conspiring with her, as do you. But we are relying on you for so much. If you are overloaded, let me help?"
Miriam sighed. "I'm not sure I can. Being pregnant? That wasn't in my plans. Mom's conspiracy? Ditto. Now you want me to be a queen, which is way outside my comfort zone: It's the kind of job that drives people to an early grave. And then there's the other stuff."
"Other stuff?"
"Don't bullshit me, Olga. Angbard didn't pick you just because of your bright smile and fashion sense. You must have gotten my report through Brill. I did meet Mike Fleming in the palace! And he told me-"
"Yes, we know." Olga paused while one of their silent escorts opened the orchard gate for her. "It is a very bad situation, Helge, and I would be lying if I said it was entirely under control. You have been told what happened to Egon's men?"
"Yes." Miriam followed Olga through the gate. "Which means it's only a matter of time. It could all explode in our faces tomorrow, or next month."
"Absolutely. Your uncle-while he lay sick, he told me we needed to put your business plan into action, that it was the only way. But my word carries little weight with the likes of Julius or your grandam. If your mother's conspiracy works, we'll see. But we are riding on a tumbrel with a broken wheel-time is scarce, so we must pursue all our options at once lest we find ourselves treading on air. You as the mother to the heir-that helps. If not with the old aristocracy, then with our own conservatives-they recognize the heir, it was their own scheme! And there are other materials that his grace told me to entrust to you, when I can recover them-they are another. We might be able to hold the Gruinmarkt yet, should the American scientists fail to unravel our talent. It could take them years, not months. And we will still need to defeat them in covert battle and recover our hostages from them."
"But it's going to end sooner or later, and probably sooner than we think-"
"Yes, but every month it buys us is a month longer to find a way out of the trap. And we have plans. If the worst should fail to arrive, there is your mother's scheme. And if the worst does arrive, we have evacuation plans. We can flee by way of Canada, and then to other nations. We have sent spies to Europe. Your friend in New Britain might supply another option-better, if the Americans announce our existence at large. We've got many alternatives. Too many, in fact." The shady garden path approached the courtyard at the rear of the house, the door leading back inside. "Your confusion is our confusion. Brilliana told me you were working on a new plan of business. Work hard; I think we may need it very soon."
Which was all very well, and brought Miriam back to herself, lending her the strength for another try at being Helge. Just in time to open the door onto chaos.