Charles Stross - MP 6 -The Trade of Queens

"Yes. But Josh and Mark are waiting down in the shop and his men won't get past them silently—"

"Reynolds has the Lee family working for him: or some of them." She held up a hand, then stood still, listening.

"What are you—"

She walked across to the window casement and looked out along the alley, keeping her body in the shadows. "Do you hear a steamer?" she asked quietly.

"No. Why?"

"Because we

should

be hearing one by now." She grimaced. "Emil and Klaus were just round the corner. Do you have some way of calling your bodyguards?"

"The shop bell-pull in the hall—it works both ways. What are you thinking?" He pitched his voice low.

"That we're very isolated right now. 1 may be jumping at shadows, but if Reynolds is raiding my house, why isn't he here?"

"Oh dear." Erasmus returned to the sideboard. "In that case, we'd better go." A muffled click, and he turned around, holding a small pepperpot pistol. A barely glimpsed gesture made it vanish into a sleeve or a pocket. "For once, I'm not going to let you go first."

"I don't think"—they collided in front of the doorway—"so?"

"My apologies." Looking her in the eye, Erasmus added, "It would be best if my bodyguards saw me first."

"Maybe." Miriam stepped aside reluctantly. He crossed the hall and turned the key, then pulled the front door open as she followed him.

"Stop or I shoot!" Erasmus froze in the doorway. The teenager on the landing kept his pistol in Burgeson's face, but went wide-eyed as he looked past the older man and saw Miriam. "What are

you

doing here?"

Heart in mouth, she looked the youth in the eye: "Point the gun at someone else, Lin, or I will be

very angry

with you."

"I'm not supposed to do that." His voice was shaky. "I'm supposed to kill everyone in this apartment."

"Who told you to do that?" Miriam asked quietly.

"The man Elder Huan told me to obey without question." Erasmus stood stock-still as Lin stepped back a pace and lowered his pistol to waist level. "I didn't know you'd be here," he added, almost petulantly.

Pulse hammering, Miriam took a step forward and placed a hand on Erasmus's shoulder. "Everything is going to be all right," she said quietly. "Lin, I want you to meet Mr. Burgeson. He's a, a friend of mine." She could feel his shoulder through the cloth of his jacket, solid and real and seeming to her as delicate as a fine bone-china teacup caught in midfall; she felt faint, this was so close to Roland's end. "I will never forgive you if you kill him."

Lin nodded. "I am dishonored either way. But I won't shoot him. For your sake." His elders had once sent Lin to kill Miriam. She, capturing him, had not only spared him, she'd sent him back to them with a truce offer.

"Did the man who sent you here wear a black coat, by any chance? A party commissioner called Reynolds?"

Lin shook his head. "Oh no," he said earnestly. "The doctor sent me." His nostrils flared with evident disdain: "Dr. ven Hjalmar."

"Would someone," Erasmus said quietly but forcefully, "explain to me what exactly is happening?"

"I think I can put it together," said Miriam. "Lin, Dr. ven Hjalmar is working with Commissioner Reynolds, isn't he? No need to confirm or deny anything—your brother and I had a conversation."

Lin nodded. "I was sent to remove a, a party radical who was opposed to our ends, in the doctor's words." He stared at Erasmus. "What will you do now?"

"Have you met Stephen Reynolds?" Erasmus asked quietly. "He isn't one for whom loyalty is a two-way street."

"I've discussed this with James," said Miriam. "Lin, I've been negotiating a, a deal with Mr. Burgeson here. It's similar to the arrangement your elders came to with the security commissioner."

"The difference is, I don't send death squads to murder my rivals," Erasmus added.

Miriam looked straight at Lin: "That's why I've been dealing with him. The arrangement can be extended to include your relatives. But not if you shoot him, or hand us over to the Internal Security directorate. Or Dr. ven Hjalmar."

Lin looked straight back at her. "You say this man is a friend of yours," he said. "Do you mean that? Are you claiming privilege of kinship? Or is it just a business arrangement to which no honor attaches?"

Miriam blinked. She tightened her grip on Erasmus's shoulder as she felt him breathe in, preparing to say something potentially disastrous—"Erasmus is a personal friend of mine, Lin. This isn't just business." Which was true, she realized as she said it; not that they had gotten up to anything, not that there was substance to the cover story Burgeson's bodyguards and enemies believed, but she could conceive of it, at some future time. "So yes, I claim privilege of kinship, and if you touch one hair on his head I'll claim blood feud on you and yours. Is that what you want?"

Lin looked away, then shook his head.

"Good. We understand each other, I hope? Do you and yours claim Dr. yen Hjalmar?"

Lin's eyes widened. "Not yet. Nan was talking about finding him a wife, but—"

"Then you have no claim if I declare him outlaw and anathema and deal with him accordingly?"

He began to smile. "If your arrangement for the security of your clan can stretch to some more bodies—none whatsoever. What do you have in mind?"

"First, I think we need to deliver Mr. Burgeson safely to South Station, where a train is waiting for him." She felt Erasmus preparing to speak again. "And then I, and my sworn retainers, have an appointment with Dr. yen Hjalmar, and possibly with Commissioner Reynolds. Would you like to come along?"

"It will be my pleasure," Lin said gravely. He looked directly at Erasmus. "If you'd both care to come downstairs, my cousins and I have a wagon waiting on the other side of the wall of worlds. We were to use it to dispose of the evidence, but I think it will work just as well with living passengers." He returned his pistol to a pocket holster, then raised an eyebrow. "Which platform do you want?"

The miracles of modern communication technology: With two-way radios, the survivors of Reynolds's simultaneous raids called in and made contact within an hour. Miriam, her head pounding, hugged Erasmus briefly. "Try to take care," she murmured in his ear.

"My dear, I have every intention of doing so." He grinned lopsidedly.

"What are you going to do?"

"Get to my train on time, with the help of these fine fellows."Behind her, Lin was filling two of his fellows in on the turn events had taken. "Then I shall first signal Sir Adam. Stephen's gone too far this time—setting up a parallel arrangement with these cousins of yours and trying to frame me for subversion. I have my own supporters within the Freedom Guard; if necessary we can take it to the street." He looked worried. "But that has its own price. What do you intend?"

"I'm going to find my people," she told him. "And then we're going to take out the trash. Stay away from the old Polis headquarters building for a couple of hours, Erasmus. You might want to turn up later—around six, maybe—to take charge of the cleanup operation and to assemble a cover story." She bit her lip. "It's not going to be pretty. Reynolds is a problem, but the doctor is a worse one: a sociopath with the background and intellect to raise his own version of the Clan, given half a chance."

"You think your doctor is more important than Reynolds?"

"I know it." She looked him in the eye. "You and your boss can deal with Reynolds; he's an attack dog, but if you put a chain on his collar you can keep him under control. But yen Hjalmar doesn't wear a collar in the first place."

"Then you should take care," he said gravely. "I should be going. But . . . take care. I would very much like to see you again."