Charles Stross - MP 6 -The Trade of Queens

"That's a

good

idea," Elena said admiringly.

Three big supermarket trolleys waited for them, loaded up with bags. "The regular couriers will bring them back once you unload them," said the sergeant. He picked up his clipboard. "In view of the current troubles we have no postmaster, but I'm keeping score. For later."

"All right." Huw set his hands to one of the trolleys and pushed it up the ramp. "What's the other side like?"

"It's in a cellar." The sergeant looked disapproving. "Good thing too. You don't want to be seen coming and going over there—it's a real zoo. But you'll be safe enough here." He caught Huw's raised eyebrow and nodded. "I'll go first, see if I don't." He climbed onto the platform and waited while Yulius and Elena pushed their laden trolleys up the ramp. "Here, you let me take that one, young miss. Why don't you ride for once?" Laying one hand on the trolley's metal frame, he reached up and tugged a cord leading to a blind on the opposite wall. The blind rose—

The basement was brick-walled, and the ceiling low, but the Clan's surveyors had done their job well and the raised floor was a perfectly level match for the platform in the barn. As Huw hauled the first of his suitcases out of the trolley, trying to ignore the nausea and migrainelike headache, he heard voices from the top of the staircase: Elena, and someone else, someone familiar and welcome.

"My lady Brilliana," he said. He deposited his case beside the top step—the cellar stairs surfaced in what seemed to be a servants' pantry—and bowed. "I'm glad to see you."

"Sir Huw! How wonderful to see you, too." She smiled slightly more warmly than was proper: Huw held himself in check, ignoring the impulse to hug her to him. He'd been worried about her for the past week; to find her here, her hair in blond curls, dressed after last year's New London mode, lifted a huge weight from his heart. Brilliana was an officer of the duke's intelligence directorate and the queen-widow's chief of staff—and something more to Huw. She held out her hand, and, somewhat daringly, he bent to kiss it. "Have you had a troublesome time?" she asked, gripping his fingers.

"Not as bad as some." Huw straightened up, then gestured at the bags: "I bought the books Miriam wanted. And a few more besides. Yul is"—footsteps creaked on the stairs and he stepped aside as his brother hauled two more suitcases over the threshold—"here, too."

"And all these damned bits of paper," his brother complained, shoving the cases forward. "Lightning Child damn them for a waste of weight—" He stepped forward, out of the path of the sergeant from the other side of the transit post, who heaved another two bags towards Huw.

"Trig tables," Huw added. "Have you any idea how hard it is to find five-digit trigonometry tables in good condition? Nobody's printed them for years. I also threw in a couple of calculators—I found a store with old stock HP-48GXs and a thermal printer, so I bought the lot. They take rechargeable batteries so the only scarce resource is the thermal paper," he added defensively. "I'm still running the one I bought for my freshman year—they run forever."

"Oh, Huw." Brill shook her head, still smiling. "Listen, I'm sure it's a good idea! It's just"—she glanced over her shoulder—"we may not be able to resupply at will, and you know how easily computers break."

"These aren't computers; they're programmable calculators. But they might as well be mainframes, by these people's standards." He was burbling, he realized: a combination of postworld-walking sickness and the peculiar relief of finding Brill alive and well in the wake of the previous week's events. "Sorry. Been a stressful time. Is Miriam—"

"She's in bed upstairs. Resting." An unreadable expression flickered across Brill's face. "I'll give you the tour, if you like. Who else . . . ?"

"Me, ma'am." The sergeant reappeared, carrying two more suitcases, wheezing somewhat. "One more to go, sirs, ladies."

"No need to overdo it, Marek, the last cases will wait half an hour if you want to put your feet up." Brill's concern was obvious: "You've already been over today, haven't you?"

"Yes, ma'am, but it needs moving and we're shorthanded—"

"You'll be even more shorthanded if you work yourself into a stroke! Go and sit yourself down in the parlor with a mug of beer and a pill until your head clears. Go on, I'll get Maria to look after you—" Brill dragged the sergeant out of the servants' stairwell, seemingly by main force of will, then returned to lead Huw into the downstairs lounge. "He's right that they're badly undermanned over there, but he insists on trying to do everything," she said apologetically. "There's too much of that around here."

"Too much of it

everywhere!"

Elena said emphatically. "Why, if I hadn't forced Huw to let me drive—but how is her royal highness?" She looked at Huw: "Won't she want to—"

"Yes, how is she?" Huw began, then stopped. Brill's expression was bleak. "Oh. Oh

shit."

"The lady Helge is perfectly all right." Brilliana's voice was emotionless. "But she's very tired and needs time to recover."

"Recover from what?" Yul chipped in before Elena could kick his ankle.

"Her express instructions are that you are to tell no one," Brill continued, looking Huw straight in the eye. "Nobody is going to leave this house who cannot keep his or her mouth shut, at least until it no longer matters."

"Until

what

matters?" Yul asked, head swiveling between Brilliana and Huw with ever-increasing perplexity.

"Was it spontaneous?" Huw demanded.

Brill nodded reluctantly. "The day of the putsch."

"Let me see her?" demanded Elena. "My mother was midwife to the district nobility when I was young and she taught me—"

Yul stood by, crestfallen and lost for words. "Give me your locket," Brill said to Elena. "And you too," she added to Yul. She spared Huw but a brief narrow-eyed glance that seemed to say,

If I can't trust you, then who?

"You're not to tire her out, mind," she added for Elena's benefit. "If she's sleeping, leave her be." Then she turned towards the door to the owner's rooms. "Leave the cases for now, Huw. Let me fill you in on what's been going wrong here. . . ."

* * *

In the end, there was no siege: The house surrendered without a shot being fired, doors and windows flung wide, a white flag running up the pole that rose from the apex of the steeply pitched roof.

That wouldn't have been enough to save the occupants, of course. Riordan was not inclined towards mercy: In the wake of a hard-fought civil war against the old nobility, it was quite obvious to one and all that the Clan divided must fall, and this rebellion could be seen as nothing but the blackest treachery. But by the same token, the families were weak, their numbers perilously low—and acts of gratuitous revenge would only weaken them further, and risk sowing the seeds of blood feud to boot. "Arrest everyone," he'd instructed his captain on the ground, Sir Helmut: "You may hang Oliver Hjorth, Griben yen Hjalmar, or"—a lengthy list of confirmed conspirators—"out of hand, and you may deal as you wish with anyone who resists, but we must avoid the appearance of revenge at all costs. We can afford to spare those who did not raise arms against us, and who are guilty only of following their sworn liege—and their dependents."

Helmut's mustache quivered. "Is this wise, sir?" he asked.

"It may not be wise, but it is

necessary,"

Riordan retorted. "Unless you think we should undertake our enemies' work for them by cutting each other's throats to the last?"

And so: This was the third great holding of a rebel family that Sir Helmut had ridden into in two days. And they were getting the message. At the last, the house of Freyn-Hankl, a minor outer family connected with the Hjorth lineage, the servants had risen up and locked their upstart landowners in the wine cellars, and sued for mercy. Sir Helmut, mindful of his commanding officer's advice, had rewarded them accordingly, then sent them packing to spread the word (before he discreetly executed his prisoners—who had, to be fair, poisoned the entire staff of the local Security post by treachery). Facing the open windows and doors of the summer house at Judtford, with his soldiers going in and coming out at will, he was pleased with the outcome of this tactic. Whether or not it was wise or necessary, it was certainly proving to be effective.