Charles Stross - The Hidden Family

“Indeed you may.” She smiled, surreptitiously pushing back her glove to check her watch. “I believe I have half an hour to spare before I must depart. My carriage turns back into a pumpkin at midnight.”

“You are telling me that you don’t know where she is?” The man standing by the glass display case radiated disbelief, from his tensed shoulders to his drawn expression.

Normally the contents of the case—precious relics of the Clan, valuable beyond belief—would have fascinated him, but right now his attention was focused on the bearer of bad news.

“I told you she’d be difficult.” The duke’s secretary was unapologetic. He didn’t sneer, but his expression was one of thinly veiled impatience. “You are dealing with a woman who was born and raised on the other side; she was clearly going to be a handful right from the start. I told you that the best way to deal with her would be to co-opt her and move her in a direction she was already going in, but you wouldn’t listen. And after that business with the hired killer—”

“That hired killer was my own blood, I’ll thank you to remember.” Esau’s tone of voice was ominously low.

“I don’t care whether he was the prince-magistrate of Xian-Ju province, it was dumb! Now you’ve told Angbard’s men that someone outside the Clan is trying to kill her, and you’ve driven her underground, and you’ve ruined her usefulness to me. I had it all taken care of until you attacked her. And then, to go after her but kill the wrong woman by mistake when I had everything in hand … !”

“You didn’t tell us she was traveling in company. Or hiding in the lady Olga’s rooms. Nor did we expect Olga’s lady-in-waiting to get nosy and take someone else’s bait. We’re not the only ones to have problems. You said you had her as good as under control?” Esau turned to stare at Matthias. Today the secretary wore the riding-out garb of a minor nobleman of the barbarian east: brocade jacket over long woolen leggings, a hat with a plume of peacock feathers, and riding boots. “You think forging the old man’s will takes care of anything at all? Are you losing your grip?”

“No.” Matthias rested his hand idly on his sword’s hilt. “Has it occurred to you that as Angbard’s heir she would have been more open to suggestions, rather than less? Wealth doesn’t necessarily translate into safety, you know, and she was clearly aware of her own isolation. I was trying to get her under control, or at least frightened into cooperating, by lining up the lesser families against her and positioning myself as her protector. You spooked her instead, before I could complete the groundwork. You exposed her to too much too soon, and the result is our shared loss. All the more so, since someone —whoever—tried to rub her out with Lady Olga.”

“And whose fault is it that she got away?” Esau snarled quietly. “Whose little tripwire failed?”

“Mine, I’ll admit.” Matthias shrugged again. “But I’m not the one around here who’s blundering around in the dark. I really wanted to enlist her in our cause. Willingly or unwillingly, it doesn’t matter. With a recognized heir in our pocket, we could have enough votes that when we get rid of Angbard … well. If that failed, we’d be no worse off with her dead, but it was hardly a desirable goal. It’s a good thing for you that I’ve got some contingency plans in hand.”

“If the balance of power in the Clan tips too far toward the Lofstrom-Thorold-Hjorth axis, we risk losing what leverage we’ve got,” warned Esau. “Never mind the old bat’s power play. What did she think she was up to, anyway? If the council suspected …” He shook his head. “You have to get this back under control. Find her and neutralize her, or we likely lose all the ground we have made in the past two years.”

“I risk losing a lot more than that,” Matthias reminded him pointedly. “Why did your people try to kill her? She was a natural dissident. More use to us alive than dead.”

“It’s not for the likes of you to question our goals,” Esau glared.

Matthias tightened his grip on his sword and turned slowly aside, keeping his eyes on Esau the whole time. “Retract that,” he said flatly.

“I—” Esau caught his eye. A momentary nod. “Apologize.”

“We are partners in this,” Matthias said quietly, “to the extent that both our necks are forfeit if our venture comes to light. That being the case, it is essential that I know not only what your organization’s intended actions are, but why you act as you do—so that I can anticipate future conflicts of interest and avoid them. Do you understand?”

Esau nodded again. “I told you there might be preexisting orders. There was indeed such an order,” he said reluctantly. “It took time to come to light, that’s all.”

“What? You mean the order for—gods below, you’re still trying to kill the mother and her infant ? After what, a third of a century?”

It was Esau’s turn to shrug. “Our sanctified elder never rescinded the command, and it is not for us to question his word. Once they learned of the child’s continued existence, my cousins were honor-bound to attempt to carry out the orders.”

“That’s as stupid as anything I’ve ever heard from the Clan council,” Matthias commented dryly. “Times change, you know.”

“ I know! But where would we be without loyalty to our forefathers?” Esau looked frustrated for a moment. Then he pointed to the glass display case. “Continuity. Without it, what would the Clan be? Or the hidden families?”

“Without—that?” Matthias squinted, as against a bright light. A leather belt with a curiously worked brass buckle, a knife, a suit of clothes, a leatherbound book. “That’s not the Clan, whatever you think. That’s just where the Clan began.”

“My ancestor, too, you know.”

Matthias shook his head. “It wasn’t clever, meeting here,” he murmured.

“We’re safe enough.” Esau turned his back on the Founder’s relics. “The question is, what are we to do now?”

“If you can get your relatives to stop trying to kill her, we can try to pin the blame on someone else,” Matthias pointed out. “A couple of candidates suggest themselves, mostly because they have been trying to kill her. If we do that then we can go back to plan A, which you’ll agree is the most profitable outcome of this situation.”

“Not possible.” Esau draw a finger across his throat. “The elders spoke, thirty-three years ago.”

Matthias sighed. “Well, if you insist, we can play it your way. But it’s going to be a lot harder, now. I suppose if I can get my hands on her foster-mother that will probably serve as a lure, but it’s going to cost you—”

“I believe I can arrange a gratuity if you’d take care of this loose end for us. Maybe not on the same scale as owning your own puppet countess, but sufficient recognition of your actions.”

“Well, that would be capital. I’ll set the signs and alert my agents. At least here’s something we can agree on.”

“Indeed.”

Matthias opened the door into the outer receiving room of the cramped old merchant’s house. “Come on.”

Esau followed Matthias out of the small storeroom and down a narrow staircase that led out into the courtyard of the house. “So what do you propose to do once she’s dead?”

“Do?” Matthias stopped and stared at the messenger, his expression unreadable. “I’m going to see if I can salvage the situation and go right on as I was before. What did you expect?”