"But I am a figurehead!" Miriam protested. "Aren't I? I get the message, this is the council's doing. It's just, I don't approve of the death penalty. And this, executing people just because they did what Egon told them to, out of fear-"
"If they think you're a figurehead, they won't fear you," Iris explained, with visibly fraying patience. "And that'll breed trouble. People hereabouts aren't used to enlightened government. You need to stick some heads on spikes, Helge, to make the others keep a low profile. If you won't do it yourself, the council will have to do it for you. And everybody will whisper that it's because you're a weak woman who is just a figurehead."
"There are a number of earls and barons who we definitely cannot trust," Riordan added. "Not to mention a duke or two. They're mortal enemies-they didn't act solely out of fear of Egon's displeasure-and we can't have a duke sitting in judgment over another duke. If you refuse to read their execution order we'll just have to poison them. It gets messy."
"But if I start out by organizing a massacre, isn't that going to raise the stakes later? I thought we were agreed that reinforcing the rule of law was essential…"
"It's not a massacre if they get a fair trial first. So give them a fair trial and fill a gibbet or two with the worst cases, to make an example," Iris suggested. "Then offer clemency to the rest, on onerous terms. It worked for dad."
"Really?" Miriam gave her mother a very old-fashioned look. "Tell me more…"
Which had been the start of a slippery-slope argument. Miriam had fought a rearguard action, but Helge had ultimately conceded the necessity of applying these medieval standards of justice under the circumstances. Which was why she was sitting stiff as a board on a solid wooden throne, listening to advocates argue over a variety of unfortunate nobles, and trying not to fall asleep.
For a man with every reason to believe his fate was to be subjected to peine fort et dure, the Duke of Niejwein was in remarkably high spirits. Or perhaps the reddening of his cheeks and the twinkle in his eye were signs of agitation and contempt. The resemblance he bore to the Iraqi dictator Ali Hassan, who'd been on all the news channels a few weeks ago when the Marines finally got their hands on him, was striking. Whatever the case, when he raised his fettered hands and spat something fast at Miriam she had no problem interpreting his intent.
"He says he thanks you for your hospitality but it is most unnecessary," murmured Gerta.
"Tell him he's welcome, all the same." Miriam waited while her assistant translated. "And I view his position with sympathy."
"Milady!" Gerta sounded confused. "Are you sure?"
"Yes." Miriam glared at her. I am your queen, damn it. Even if I'm fronting for a committee. "Do it."
"Yes, milady." Gerta addressed the duke; he seemed confused.
"Have another sweet," Miriam offered the Duke of Niejwein by way of her translator.
It was, Olga had explained, the polite way to do business with noble prisoners: Offer them candied peel and a silk rope to sweeten the walk to the scaffold where, if his crimes were deemed minor, he could expect the relative mercy of a swift hanging. But Niejwein, for some reason, seemed not to have much of an appetite today. And after having sentenced two earls to death earlier in this session-in both cases they had massacred some of her distant relatives with more enthusiasm than was called for, and Riordan had been most insistent on the urgent need to hang them-she could see why. The earls and their retainers were hired thugs; but Niejwein, as head bean counter, had expedited Egon's reign of terror in a far deadlier way.
"We wanted to speak with you in private," Miriam added, trying to ignore the small crowd of eavesdroppers. "To discuss your future."
Niejwein's short bark of laughter turned heads; more than one guard's hand hovered close by a weapon. "I have no future," Gerta translated.
"Not necessarily. You have no future without the grace and pardon of the crown, but you should not jump to conclusions about your ultimate fate."
For the first time the Duke of Niejwein looked frightened. And for the first time Miriam, watching him, began to get an edgy feeling that she understood him.
Niejwein was outwardly average: middle-aged, of middling stature, heavy-faced, and tired-looking. He sat on a stone bench before her, arms and legs clanking with wrought iron whenever he moved, wearing a nobleman's household robes, somewhat the worse for wear, ingrained with the grime of whatever cellar they'd warehoused him in for the run-up to her coronation. He'd been there a week ago, Miriam remembered, staring at her with hollowed eyes, among the other prisoners in the guarded block on the floor of the great hall.
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-asa-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?"