“Wer ish?” His voice crackled tinnily: a loose wire somewhere.
“It’s Miriam—Helge. I believe the duke wanted to talk to me,” she replied to the speaker.
“Enter.” The lock clicked discreetly and Miriam pushed the door inward. It was astonishingly heavy, as if lined with steel, and it drifted shut behind her.
Matthias, the frightening secretary, was waiting behind the big desk in shirtsleeves, his jacket slung over the back of his chair. This time she noted the pile of papers in front of him. Some of them looked like FedEx waybills, and some of them looked like letters.
“Helge. Miriam.” Matthias nodded to her, almost friendly.
“Yes.”
Why does he make me so nervous?
she wondered. Was it just the shoulder holster he wore so conspicuously? Or the way he avoided eye contact but scanned across and around her all the while?
“You have an appointment,” he said. “But you should call first, before setting out. So that we can send an escort for you.”
“ ‘An escort’ ?” She asked. “Why would I want an escort?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Why wouldn’t you? You are a lady of status, you deserve an escort. To be seen without one is a slight to your honour. Besides, someone might seek to take advantage of the deficiency in order to approach you.”
“Uh-huh. I’ll think about it.” She nodded at the inner door. “Is he ready?”
“One moment.” Matthias stood, then knocked on the door. A muttered exchange followed. Matthias pulled the door ajar, then held it for her. “You may enter,” he said, his expression unreadable. As she passed his desk, he moved to place his body in front of the papers there.
Miriam pretended not to notice as she entered the lion’s den. As before, Duke Angbard was seated at his writing desk, back to the window, so that she had to squint into the light to see him. But this time there was nobody else present, and he rose to welcome her into his study.
“Ah, Miriam, my dear niece. Please come in.”
He was trying for the kindly uncle role, she decided, so she smiled warmly in return as she approached the desk. “Uncle. Uh, I’m unfamiliar with the proper form of address. I hope you don’t mind if I call you Angbard?”
“Not in private.” He smiled benevolently down at her. “In public, it would be best to call me ‘your Excellency’ or ‘uncle,’ depending on context—official or familial. Please have a seat.”
“Thanks.” She sat down opposite him, and he sat down in turn. He was wearing another exquisitely tailored suit of conservative cut with, she couldn’t help noticing, a sword. It was curved: a sabre, perhaps, but she couldn’t be sure—the blades with which she was most familiar were scalpels. “Is there anything in particular you wanted to talk to me about?”
“Oh, many things.” His broad wave took in half the world. “It isn’t customary here to introduce conversations with business, but I gather you are accustomed to a life conducted at a brisker pace.” He leaned back in his chair, face shadowed. “Roland tells me you opened the second case,” he said briskly. “What have you to say for yourself?”
Ah, the moment of truth.
Miriam leaned back, consciously mirroring his posture. “Well, I’d have to say that only an idiot lets themselves be sucked into any business arrangement without a full awareness of what it involves,” she said slowly. “And nobody had ordered me
not
to peek. You should also note that I’m here to discuss it with you, and the only other person who knows about it is Roland. What do you think?”
“I think that shows a necessary level of discretion,” he replied after a moment. “Now. What is your opinion of the business? And of your own relationship to it?”
“It makes a lot of sense for a group of families in the position that ours so clearly occupies,” she said, carefully trying to avoid giving the wrong impression. “I can see why you might want to test a new, ah, family member. As businesses go it is neatly orchestrated and appears to be efficiently ran.” She shrugged, biting back the urge to add:
for an eighteenth-century family concern. As business organizations go, it’s still in the dark ages…
“And it’s hardly appropriate for me to comment on where that platinum credit card came from, is it?”
“Indeed not,” he said acerbically. “But you seem to be clear on your position.” A sudden tightening of the skin around his eyes. “Are you a drug user?” he asked.
“Me?” She laughed, mentally crossing her fingers. “No! Never.”
At least, not heroin or crack. Please don’t let him ask about anything else.
Like many students, she’d acquired a passing familiarity with marijuana, but had mostly given it up some time ago. And she didn’t think he was the type to count coffee, cigars, or whiskey as drugs.
“That’s good,” he said seriously. “Most users are indiscreet. Can’t keep secrets. Bad for business.”
“Sobriety is next to godliness,” she agreed, nodding enthusiastically, then wondered if she’d overdone it when he fixed her with a slightly jaundiced stare.
Oops, five glasses of wine,
she remembered—and shrugged self-deprecatingly. His glare slowly faded.
“You have your mother’s sly tongue,” he commented. “But I didn’t call you here to ask you questions about your opinion of our business. I gather that Roland has been filling in a few of the gaps in your education—some of them, like a working knowledge of high tongue, will take a long time to remedy—but I dare say he has not been forthcoming in full with the details of your position in the Clan. Is that the case?”
Miriam could feel her forehead wrinkle. “He said I was rich and of very high position. But he didn’t explain in detail, no. Why?”
“Well, then,” said the duke, “perhaps I had better hasten to explain. You see, you are in a unique position—two unique positions.”
“Really? What kind?” she asked brightly.
Missionary or…
“You know that there are five families in the Clan,” Angbard began. “These are Lofstrom—the senior family—Thorold, Hjorth, Wu, Arnesen, and Hjalmar. Yes, I know that’s six. The familial name does not necessarily correspond to a lineage. Our families are the descendants of the children of the founder, Angmar Lofstrom. He had many children, but the blood ran thin—only when their children married and the great-grandchildren showed the family trait were we able to come together to form the Clan.”
He cleared his throat. “Wu is not the name of one of our original ancestors; it is a name that the second son of line Arnesen took upon emigrating to the Outer Kingdom, two thousand miles to the west, perhaps a hundred and twenty years ago. The idea was that family Wu would become our western arm, trading with us by way of the Union Pacific Railroad, to mutual benefit. That wasn’t the first attempt, by the way. Angmar the elder’s youngest son, Marc, tried to cross the wilderness far earlier, but the attempt came to nothing and Marc was lost. So, we have branches on both sides of the Continental Divide. And a history of other families. Once there were seven lineages—but I digress.”
“But how does it all work?” Miriam asked. “How does the Clan come out of all this?”
“The Clan is not what you’d call a limited liability company—it is a partnership. A family firm, if you like. You see, we hold our lands and riches and titles in common trust for the Clan, which operates in concert and receives the profits from all our ventures. The Clan makes use of all who have the world-walking talent—the members of the inner families—and arranges or authorizes marriages that braid the families together across generations, avoiding both out-breeding and too many close kin marriages. It also controls the outer family—those who lack the talent, but whose children might possess it if they marry like with like—and finds jobs for them over here. For example, Matthias cannot ever visit Boston on his own—but he has a talent for security, and makes a most excellent mailed fist. We number almost five hundred world-walkers now, and with two thousand in the outer families the pickings at the lower ranks are slim.”
He coughed. “One iron rule is that family members are required to marry into another family lineage—otherwise the blood runs thin within a generation. The only exceptions are by prior dispensation of the council, to permit an alliance outside the Clan, such as adoption into the nobility. The second iron rule is that inheritance follows Clan shareholdings, not lineage or family. If you die, your children inherit whatever the Clan allocates to them—you hold your estates from the Clan, they don’t belong to you because without the Clan you would be nothing. The system is supposed to encourage cooperation and it usually succeeds, but there are exceptions. Sixty years ago, a war broke out within the Clan, between families—Wu and Hjorth on one side, Thorold, Lofstrom, Arnesen, and Hjalmar on the other. Nobody is certain what started it any more—those who knew died early on—but my personal supposition is that the Wu family, in their ambition to climb into the eternal palace itself, exposed themselves to court intrigue and were turned into a weapon against us by the palace of the Outer Kingdom, which considered the Wu lineage to be a threat. In any event, it was a bloody period in our history. During the war years, our numbers fell from perhaps a thousand of the true blood to fewer than two hundred. The war ended thirty-five years ago with a treaty, solemnized by the marriage of Patricia Lofstrom Thorold to Alfredo Wu. Patricia was my half-sister, and I inherited custody of the Lofstrom estates.”
He paused to clear his throat. “Your mother’s death is now confirmed, although neither her nor Alfredo’s body was recovered. Since then, there has been no pretender to the estates of the Thorold-Hjorth shareholding, which were therefore administered as a trusteeship under the order of the high crown.”
“ ‘The high crown?’”
“Yes, the royal family,” he said irritably. “You don’t have one, I know. We have to put up with them, and they can be a blithering nuisance!”
“Ah, I think I begin to see.” She crossed her ankles. “So. There’s a big shareholding in the Clan enterprise, under the control of an external party who knows who and what you are. Then I come along and offer you a lever to take it back under the family’s control. Is that right?”
“Yes. As long as nobody kills you first,” he said.
“Now, wait a minute!” She leaned forward. “Who would do that? And why?”
“Oh, several parties,” Angbard said with what Miriam found a distinctly unnerving tone of relish. “The crown, to maintain their grip on almost a tenth of our properties and revenues without forcing an outright war with their most powerful nobles. Whoever killed Patricia, for the same reason. Any of the younger generations of lineages Hjorth and Thorold, who must be hoping that the shares will escheat to them in due course should no pretender emerge and should those families re-create the braid of inheritance. And finally, the Drug Enforcement Agency.”
“What are
they
doing here?”
“They aren’t, I merely name them as another party who would take an instant dislike to you were they to become appraised of your existence.” He smiled humourlessly. “Think of it as a test, if you like.”
“Ri-i-ight,” she drawled.
I already figured that much out for myself, thanks.
“I believe I see where you’re coming from, Uncle. One question?”
“Ask away, by all means.”
“Roland. Does
he
have a motive?”
Angbard startled her by laughing loudly. “Roland the dreaming runaway?” He leaned back in his chair. “Roland, who tried to convince us all to sign away our lands to the peasantry and set up a banking system to loan them money? Roland the
rebel
? He’s squandered all the credibility he might have built by refusing to play the game over here. I think Roland Lofstrom will make a suitable husband for Olga Thorold. And she should make him an excellent wife—she’ll slow him down and that’s necessary, he has disruptive tendencies. Once he’s yoked to the Clan, it might be time to revisit some of his ideas, but as things stand the council can’t afford to be seen taking him seriously—by rebelling in his youth he has automatically tainted any valid reformist ideas he may present. Which is a shame. Meanwhile, you are my direct niece. Patricia, your mother, was the daughter of my father’s first wife. Roland, in contrast, is the son of my half-brother, by my father’s third wife. He’s not a blood relative of yours—at least, not within four generations. Three wives, three children, three scandals! My father lent our affairs much complexity …
“Anyway, Roland will create another Thorold-Lofstrom braid, which will be of considerable use to my successor, whoever he is. But he’s not important and he has no stake in your disarray. In fact, that is why it was safe for him to know of your existence so early.”
Miriam shook her head. The family intricacies confused her, and she was left with nothing but a vague impression of plaited families and arranged marriages. “Have you asked Olga’s opinion about this?” she asked.
“Why would I? She’ll do as she’s told for the good of the Clan. She’s a sweet child.”
“Oh, that’s all right then,” Miriam said, nodding slightly and biting her cheek to keep a straight face.
“Which brings me to you, again,” Angbard nodded. “Obviously, you are
not
a sweet child. You’re an experienced dowager, I would say, and sharp as a razor. I approve of that. But I hope I have made it clear to you that your future is inextricably tied to the Clan. You can’t possibly go back into obscurity on the other side—your enemies would seek you out, whether you will it or no. Nor can you afford not to take sides and find a protector.”
“I see,” she stated, biting the words out sharply.
“I think it would be best for you to see something of the other families before we discuss this further,” Angbard continued, ignoring her coolness. “As it happens, Olga is summoned to pay attendance upon the person of the king for the next three months, who as it also happens is not one of us—it would be a good thing at this juncture for you to make your debut before the royal court and that part of the Clan that is in residence in the capital in her company. Your presence should lure certain lice out of the bedding in, ah, a controlled manner. Meanwhile you will not entirely be at a loose end, or without support, when you make the rounds of the eligible nobility before the annual grand meeting at Beltaigne, seven months hence. Olga can advise you on bloodlines and shareholdings and etiquette, and begin language lessons. I place no obligation upon you to make a hasty alliance, just so long as you understand your situation.”