The Traders' War (Merchant Princes Omnibus 2) (30 page)

‘I assure you, it is very much my business.’ Ven Hjalmar shrugged. ‘And it will be the worse for you if you don’t answer.’

‘Why do you want to know?’ she demanded. Boxer-woman tugged on her left wrist, hard enough to make her wince. ‘What
is
this?’

‘I am attempting to compile a report for the Crown,’ Ven Hjalmar said primly. ‘You are thirty-three years old, I understand? You are in good health and disease-free, and I am
informed already that you are not a virgin, but this is old for a first pregnancy, such as you will be attempting within the next year. I need to know everything about your reproductive history. If
you will not tell me, I will have to examine you intimately, and then guess as to the rest. Which would you prefer?’

‘It won’t be a first pregnancy,’ Miriam admitted through gritted teeth.
Damn, why couldn’t I have gotten my tubes tied?
She knew why: she’d never gotten
around to it. She even knew why she’d never gotten around to it – the sneaking suspicion that one day there might be a right time and a right man to start a family with. The huge irony
being that as a direct result she was now being lined up to start a family with absolutely the wrong man at the wrong time. ‘I was twenty-one.’ She tried to pull away again. ‘Make
her let go of me.’

‘Keep talking,’ said ven Hjalmar.

Miriam tensed, but boxer-woman was developing an evil Nurse Ratched glare. ‘One child. Girl, the father was my ex-husband, I was still studying – a contraceptive accident. I
didn’t want an abortion but we couldn’t afford to bring her up so Mom suggested we adopt out – ’

Scribble scribble
. Ven Hjalmar’s pen was busy. Miriam kept talking, her mind blank; she managed one barefaced lie (that she didn’t know anything about the adopters), but
that was it. Abject surrender. She felt dirty. What business was it of this quack to pick over her sexual history? He wanted to know everything: had she suffered from morning sickness, what
medicines had they prescribed, had she ever had bladder problems –
only when your hired thugs punch me in the gut
– and more. He went on for hours. Miriam made another stab at
resistance when he started asking for names of every man she’d slept with, but at that point he dropped the matter and switched to asking about her hearing. But the interrogation left her
feeling unaccountably dirty, like shop-soiled linen on display for all to see.

Finally, ven Hjalmar muttered something to Nurse Ratched, who let go of Miriam. Miriam took a step back, then sat down on the padded bench. ‘Yes?’ she asked wearily.

‘You have something of an attitude problem, young lady.’

‘No shit.’ Miriam drew her knees up beneath her shift and crossed her arms defensively around them. ‘You’re the one giving me the third degree in front of an
audience.’

‘They won’t say anything.’ Ven Hjalmar smiled and said something to the other servant woman. She made a gabbling noise, incoherent and liquid, and turned to face Miriam.
‘As you can see.’

Miriam looked away the moment she saw the tongueless ruin inside the woman’s mouth. ‘I see,’ she said weakly, trying to recover what was left of her shredded dignity.
‘What did she do to deserve that?’

‘She discussed her mistress’s intimate details.’ Ven Hjalmar shook his head lugubriously. ‘The royal family takes medical confidentiality very seriously.’

Unaccountably, Miriam felt slightly less disheartened.
So even
you
are afraid, huh? We’ll see what we can do with that
. ‘So what happens next?’

‘I think we can skip the virginity test. It isn’t as if you are being considered for the crown prince, after all.’ Ven Hjalmar stood up. ‘I believe you are a perfectly
fit young woman, of sound body, perhaps a little disturbed by your circumstances but that will pass. If you would like something to help your mood, I am sure we can do something about that –
have you considered Prozac? Guaranteed to cure all black humors, so I’m assured by the manufacturer. I shall take my leave now, and your own maidservants will help return you to your usual
peak of feminine beauty.’ He produced the odd, simpering smile once again. ‘Incidentally,’ he added sotto voce, ‘I understand and commiserate with the difficult
circumstances of your marriage. If it’s any consolation, you may not have to lie with the, ah, afflicted one if you do not wish to. A sample can be obtained and a douche prepared, if you
prefer.’

‘What if I don’t want to become pregnant?’

Ven Hjalmar paused with his hand on the door handle. ‘I really don’t think you ought to trouble yourself with such unrealistic fantasies,’ he said.

‘But, what if?’ Miriam called to him. Her fingernails bit into her palms hard enough to draw blood.

‘Prozac,’ said ven Hjalmar, as he opened the door.

*

Three days after Dr. ven Hjalmar’s humiliating interrogation, Miriam was beginning to wish she’d taken him up on the offer of antidepressants when the ferret knocked
on the door.

‘What is it?’ she asked, looking up from her book.

‘You have an invitation,’ he said in Hochsprache. He’d taken to using it almost all the time, except when she was obviously floundering. As ever, her jailer’s expression
was unreadable. ‘The baron says you may accept it if you wish.’ He repeated himself in English, just in case she hadn’t got the message.

‘An invitation.’
Where to?
Her imagination whirled like a hamster on a wheel:
Not the royal court, obviously, or it would be compulsory
. . .

‘From the honorable Duchess Patricia voh Hjorth d’Wu ab Thorold. Your mother. She begs your forgiveness for not writing and invites the Honorable Countess Helge voh Thorold
d’Hjorth to visit with her for lunch tomorrow.’

‘Tell her I’d, I’d –’ Miriam licked her lips. ‘Of course I’ll go.’

‘I shall tell her.’ The ferret began to withdraw. ‘I shall make arrangements. You will be ready to travel by eleven and you will be back here no later than five of the
afternoon.’

‘Wait!’ Miriam stood up. ‘Can I see Olga Thorold Arnesen?’

‘No.’ He began to close the door.

‘Or Lady Brilliana d’Ost?’

The ferret stopped and stared at her. ‘You are in no position to make demands. If you continue to do so I will punish you.’ Then he shut the door.

Miriam paced back and forth across the reception room in a blind panic, stir-crazy from confinement but apprehensive about whatever Iris would say to her.
Of course Henryk will have told
her
, she thought. But blood was thicker than water, and surely Iris wouldn’t side with him against her – or would she?
She’s been so distant and cold since she rejoined
the Clan
. The change in her mood had been like a safety curtain dropping across the stage at the end of a play, locking in the warmth and the light.
Mom’s got her own problems. She
said so
. Like her own mother, the poisonous dowager Hildegarde.
The old women’s plot
. She crossed her arms.
Henryk must have told her, or she wouldn’t have known where
to send the invitation
, she thought.
If I can persuade her to give me a locket I could make a clean break for it –

But a cold, cynical thought still nagged at her.
What if Mom wants me to marry Prince Stupid? She wouldn’t do that . . . would she?

The ruthless reproductive realpolitik within the Clan had made an early victim of Patricia voh Hjorth: her own mother had forced her into marriage to a violent sociopath. The scars had taken a
long time to scab over, even after Patricia had made her run to the other world and settled down to life as Iris Beckstein for nearly a third of a century. Iris wouldn’t have dreamed of
forcing her own daughter into a loveless marriage of convenience. But now she was back in the suffocating bosom of the Clan, which way would Patricia jump – especially if her own skin was at
stake?

*

Back home in Cambridge, Miriam’s mother had never made a big thing about wanting grandchildren. But that was then.

They took Miriam to visit her mother for lunch in a sealed sedan chair carried by two strapping porters. It was a hot day, but there were no windows, just a wooden grille behind her head. It was
impossible to see out of. She protested when she saw it, but the ferret just stared at her. ‘Do you want to attend the duchess, or not?’ he asked. Miriam gave in, willing to accept one
more indignity if it gave her a chance to talk to Iris.
Maybe she’ll be able to get me out of this
, she told herself grimly.

The box swayed like a ship on choppy water. It seemed to take forever to make its way across town. By the time the porters planted it with a bone-jarring thump, Miriam had gone from being off
her appetite to the first green-cheeked anticipation of full-blown nausea: she welcomed the rattle of chains and the opening of the door like a galley slave released from belowdecks, blinking and
gasping. ‘Are we there?’

‘Momentarily.’ The ferret was imperturbable. ‘This way.’ Another closed courtyard with barred windows. Miriam’s spirit fell.
They’re just shuffling me
between prisons
, she realized.
I’m surprised he didn’t handcuff me to the chair
.

Now the nerves took over. ‘Where is – she isn’t under arrest too, is she?’

Unexpectedly, the ferret chuckled. ‘No, not exactly.’

‘Oh.’ Miriam followed him, two paces ahead of the guards he’d brought along. She glanced at the walls to either side, half-wishing she could make a break for freedom. A couple
of gulls squawked raucous abuse from the roofline. She envied them their insolent disdain for terrestrial boundaries.

They came to a solid door in one wall, where a liveried servant exchanged words with the ferret, then produced a key. The door opened on a walled garden. There was a gazebo against the far wall,
glass windows – expensively imported, a hallmark of a Clan property – propped open to allow the breeze in. ‘Go right in,’ said the ferret. ‘I believe you are expected.
I will collect you later.’

‘What? Aren’t you coming in with me? I thought you were supposed to be watching me at all times?’

The ferret snorted. ‘Not here.’ Then he stepped back through the gate and closed it with a solid click.

Wow
. Miriam narrowed her eyes as she looked at the gazebo.
Mom’s got clout, then?
She marched up to the door. ‘Hello?’ she asked.

‘Come right in, dear.’

Her mother watched her from a nest of cushions piled on top of a broad-winged armchair. She looked more frail than ever, wearing a black velvet gown with more ruffles and bows than a lace
factory. ‘Has someone died?’ Miriam asked, stepping into the shadow of the gazebo.

‘Sit down, make yourself comfortable. No one’s died yet, but I’m told it was a close-run thing.’

Miriam sat in the only other chair, next to the circular cast-iron table. Iris watched her: she returned her mother’s gaze nervously. After a while she cleared her throat. ‘How much
has Henryk told you?’

‘Enough.’

Another silence.

‘I know I shouldn’t have done it,’ Miriam said, when she couldn’t take it anymore. ‘But I was being deliberately cut out of my own affairs. And they’ve been
trying to set me up – ’

‘It’s too late for excuses, kid.’ Miriam stared. Her mother didn’t look angry. She didn’t look sad, but she didn’t look pleased to see her, either. The
silence stretched out until finally Iris sighed and shuffled against her cushions, sitting up. ‘I wanted to look at you.’

‘What?’

‘I wanted to look at you again,’ said Iris. ‘One last time. You know they’re going to break you?’

‘I don’t break easily.’ Miriam knew it was false bravado even as the words left her mouth. The great hollow fear congealing inside her gave the lie away. But what else could
she say?

Her mother glanced away evasively. ‘We don’t bend.’ She shook her head. ‘None of us does – not me, not you, not even your grandmother. But sooner or later we break.
Thirty-three years is what it took, kid, but look at me now. One of the old bitches already.’

‘What do you mean?’ Miriam tensed.

‘I mean I’m about to sell you down the river. At least, that’s how it’s going to seem at first. I’m not going to lie to you: I don’t see any alternatives.
We’re stuck playing the long game, kid, and I’m still learning the rules.’

‘Suppose you explain what you just said.’ There was an acid taste in her mouth. Miriam forced herself to unclench her fingers from the arms of her chair. ‘About selling me down
the river.’

Iris coughed, wheezing. Miriam waited her out. Presently her mother regained control. ‘I don’t like this any more than you do. It’s just the way things work around here. I
don’t have any alternatives, I’m locked up here and you managed to get caught breaking the unwritten rules.’ She sighed. ‘I thought you had more sense than to do that
– to get caught, I mean. Anyway, we’re both out of alternatives. If
I
don’t play the game, neither of us is going to live very long.’

‘I don’t need this!’ Miriam finally let go of her tightly controlled frustration. ‘I have been locked up and policed and poked and pried at and subjected to humiliating
medical examinations, and it’s all just some game you’re playing for status points? What did you do, promise the Queen Mother you’d marry me off to her grandson if she beat you at
poker?’

Iris reached out and grabbed her wrist. Startled, Miriam froze. Her mother’s hand felt hot, bony, as weak as a sparrow: ‘No, never that! But if you knew what it was like to grow up
here, fifty years ago . . .’

Miriam surprised herself: ‘Suppose you tell me?’
Go on
,
justify yourself
, she willed. There were butterflies in her stomach. Whatever was coming, it was bound to be
bad.

Her mother nodded thoughtfully. Then her lips quirked in the first sign of a smile Miriam had seen since she’d arrived.

‘You know how the Clan braids its families, one arranged first-cousin marriage after another to keep the bloodline strong.’ Miriam nodded. ‘And you know what this means: the
meddling old grannies.’