Charles Stross - The Family Trade

“Hah. ‘A work of art!’ And here I was, thinking I was a plain old journalist.” Miriam nodded to herself. All face, she thought. All the wealth goes on the outside to show how rich you are. That’s how they think. If you don’t display it, you ain’t got it. Remember that. This outfit seemed marginally less overblown than the last: Maybe she was getting used to local styles. “Is there,” she asked doubtfully, “anywhere that I can put a few small items?”

“I can assign a maid to carry them, if it pleases you-” Brilliana caught her expression. “Oh that kind of item,”

“Yes.” Miriam nodded, afraid that smiling would crack her makeup.

“She could use a muff, for her hands?” suggested Kara.

“A ‘muff’?” asked Miriam.

“This.” Kara produced a cylindrical fur hand-warmer from somewhere. “Will it do?”

“I think so.” Miriam tried stuffing her hands in it. It had room to spare-and a small pocket. She smiled in spite of herself. “Yes, this will do,” she said. She walked over to her day sack and fished around in it. “Dammit, this is ridiculous-got it!” She stood up triumphantly clutching the bag and pulled out a number of small items that she proceeded to stuff into the muffler.

“Milady?” Kara looked puzzled.

“Never go out without a spare tampon,” Miriam told her. “You know, tampons?” She blinked in surprise. “Well, maybe you don’t. And a few other things.” Like a strip of beta-blocker tablets, a small bottle of painkillers, a tarnished silver locket, a credit card wallet, and a mobile phone. That should cover most eventualities, she told herself.

“Milady-” Kara looked even more puzzled.

“Yes, yes,” Miriam said briskly. “We can go now-or as soon as you’re ready, right? Only,” she held up a finger, “it occurs to me that it would be a good idea to keep our carriage ready to return at a moment’s notice. Do you understand? Against the possibility that my mystery admirer turns up again.”

“I’ll see to it,” said Brilliana. She looked slightly worried.

“Do so.” Miriam took a deep breath. “Shall we leave now?”

Travelling by carriage seemed to involve as much preparation as a flight in a light plane and was even less comfortable. A twenty-minute slog in a freezing cold carriage, sandwiched between Kara and Brilliana, didn’t do anything good to Miriam’s sense of tolerance and goodwill. The subsequent hour of walking across the king’s brilliantly polished parquet supporting a fixed, gracious grin and a straight back wouldn’t normally have done anything to help, either-but Miriam had done trade shows before, and she found that if she treated this whole junket as a fancy-dress industry event, she actually felt at home in it. Normally she’d use a dictaphone to record her notes-a lady-in-waiting in a red gown would have been rather obtrusive at a trade show-but the principle was the same, she decided, getting into the spirit of things. “Is that so?” she cooed, listening attentively to Lord Ragnr and Styl hold forth on the subject of the lobster fishermen under his aegis. “And do they have many boats?” she asked. “What kind do they prefer, and how many men crew them?”

“Many!” Lord Ragnr and Styl puffed up his chest until it almost overshadowed his belly, which was proud and taut beneath a layer of sashes and diadems. “At last census, there were two hundred fishing crofts in my isles! And all of them but the most miserable with boats of their own.”

“Yes, but what type are they?” Miriam persisted, forcing a smile.

“I’m sure they’re perfectly adequate fishing boats; I shouldn’t worry on their behalf, my lady. You should come and visit one summer. I am sure you would find the fresh sea air much to your favour after the summer vapours of the city, and besides-” he huffed-“didn’t I hear you say you were interested in the whales?”

“Indeed.” Miriam dipped her head, chalking up another dead loss-yet another feudal drone who didn’t know or wouldn’t talk about the source of his own wealth, being more interested in breeding war horses and feuding with the king’s neighbours. “May I have the pleasure of your conversation later?” she asked. “For I see an old friend passing, and it would be rude not to say hello-”

She ducked away from Ragnr and Styl, and headed toward the next nobleman and his son-she was beginning to learn how to spot such things-and wife. “Ambergris, Brill, may be available from Ragnr and Styl. Make a note of that, please, I want to follow it up later. Who’s this fellow, then?”

“This is Eorl Euan of Castlerock. His wife is Susan and the son is, um, I forget his name. Rural aristocracy, they farm and, uh, they’re clients of the Lords Arran. How do you spell Ambergris?”

Miriam advanced on Eorl Euan with a gracious smile. “My lord!” She said. “I am sorry, but I have not been gifted with the privilege of your acquaintance before. May I intrude upon your patience for a few minutes?”

It was, she had discovered, a surprisingly effective tactic. The manners were different, the glitz distracting, and the products and press releases took a radically dissimilar form-but the structure was the same. At a trade show she was used to stalking up to a stand where some bored men and women were waiting to fall upon such as she and tell her their business plans and their life stories. She’d had no idea what happened at a royal court event, but evidently a lot of provincial nobility turned up in hope of impressing all and sundry and carving out a niche as providers of this or that-and they were as much in search of an audience with a bright smile and a notepad as any marketing executive, did they but know it.

“What are you doing, mistress?” Brilliana asked during one gap in the proceedings.

“I’m learning, Brill. Observe and take notes!”

She was nodding periodically and looking seriously, as Lord Something of This told her about Earl Other of That’s infringement upon his historically recognized deer forest in pursuit of coal in the Netherwold Mountains down the coast, when she became aware of a growing silence around her. As Lord Something ran down, she turned her head-and saw a posse advancing on her, led by a dowager of fearsomely haughty aspect, perhaps eighty years old but as dry as a mummy, with curiously drooping eyelids, two noble ladies to either side, and a train borne by no less than three pages astern. “Ah,” said the dowager. “And this is the Countess Thorold Hjorth I have heard so much about?” she asked the younger of her two companions, who nodded, avoiding Miriam’s eyes.

Miriam turned and smiled pleasantly. “Whom do I have the honour of addressing?” she asked. Where’s Brill? She wondered. Dammit, why did she have to wander off right now? The dowager was exuding the kind of chill Miriam associated with cryogenic refrigerants. Or maybe her venom glands were acting up. Miriam smiled wider, trying to look innocent and friendly.

“This is the grand dowager Duchess Hildegarde Thorold Hjorth, first of the Thorold line, last of the Thorold Hjorth braid,” announced the one who’d spoken to the dowager.

Oh. Miriam dipped as she’d been taught: “I’m honoured to meet you,” she said.

“So you should be.” Miriam nearly let her smile slip at that, the first words the duchess had spoken to her. “Without my approval, you wouldn’t be here.”

“Oh, really?” Her smile was becoming painful. “Well, then I am duly grateful to you.” Brilliana! Why now? Who is this dragon?

“Of course.” The dowager’s expression finally relaxed, from an expression of intense disapproval into full-on contempt. “I felt the need to inspect the pretender for myself.”

‘Pretender’? “Explain yourself,” Miriam demanded, tensing. There must have been something frightening about her expression: One of the ladies-in-waiting took a step backward and the other raised a hand to her mouth. “Pretender to what?”