The Merchants’ War

Maneuvers

As forms of transport went, horse-drawn carriages tended to lack modern amenities—from cup holders and seat-back TV screens on down to shock absorbers and ventilation nozzles. On the other hand, they came with some fittings that took Mike by surprise. He gestured feebly at the raised seat cushion as he glanced at the geriatric gruppenfuhrer in the mound of rugs on the other side of the compartment: “If you think I’m going to use that—”

“You’ll use it when you need to, boy.” She cackled for a moment. The younger woman, Olga, rolled her eyes and sent him a look that seemed to say, humor her. “We’ll not be stopping for bed and bath for at least a day.”

“Damn,” he said faintly. “What are you going to do?”

Iris said nothing for a moment, while one wheel crunched across a rut in the path with a bone-shaking crash that sent a wave of heat through his leg. She seemed to be considering the question. “We’ll be pausing to change teams in another hour or so. Don’t want to flog the horses; you never know when you’ll need a fresh team. Anyway, you can’t stick your nose outside: you wouldn’t fool anyone. So the story is, you’re unconscious and injured and we need to get you across to a hospital in upstate New York as soon as possible. If they’re still using the old emergency routes—” she looked at Olga, who nodded “—there should be a postal station we can divert to tomorrow evening. If it’s running, we’ll ship you across and you can be home in forty-eight hours. If it’s not running…well, we’ll play it by ear; you’ve been hit on the head and you’re having trouble with language, or something. Until we can get you out of here.”

Mike tried to gather his thoughts. “I don’t understand. What do you expect me to do…?”

Miriam’s mother leaned forward, her expression intent. “I expect you to tell me your home address and zip code.” A small note pad and pencil appeared from somewhere under her blankets. “Yes?”

“But—”

She snorted. “You’re working with spies, boy. Modern spies with lots of gizmos for bugging phone conversations and tapping e-mail. First rule when going up against the NSA: use no communications technology invented in the last half-century. I want to be able to send you mail. If you want to contact me, write a letter, stick it in an envelope, and put it in your trash can on top of the refuse sacks.”

“Aren’t you scared I’ll just pass everything to my superiors? Or they’ll mount a watch on the trash?”

“No.” Eyes twinkled in the darkness. “Because first, you didn’t make a move on my daughter when you had the chance. And second, have you any idea how many warm bodies it takes to mount a twenty-four/seven watch on a trash can? One that’s capable of grabbing a dumpster-diving world-walker without killing them?”

“I’ve got to admit, I hadn’t thought about it.”

Olga cleared her throat. “It takes two watchers per team, minimum. Five teams, each working just under thirty hours a week, in rotation. They’ll need a blind, plus perimeter alarms, plus coordination with the refuse companies so they know when to expect a legitimate collection, and that’s just the watchers. You need at least three spare bodies, too, in case of sickness or accidents. To be able to make a snatch, you need at least four per team. Do you have thirty agents ready to watch your back stoop, mister? Just in case her grace wishes to receive a letter from you, rather than sending a messenger to pay a local wino to pick it up?”

“Jeez, you sound like you’ve done this a lot.”

Mrs. Beckstein rapped a knuckle on the wooden window frame of the carriage: “Fifty years ago there were three times as many world-walkers as there are now, and they didn’t all die out because they forgot how to make babies.”

“Huh?”

Olga glanced down. “Civil war,” she said very quietly. “And now, your government.”

“Civil—” Mike paused. Didn’t Matthias say something about internal feuds? “Hold on. It killed two thirds of you?”

“You wouldn’t believe how lethal a war between world-walkers can be, boy.” Mrs. Beckstein frowned. “You should hope the Clan Council never decides they’re at war with the United States.”

“We’d wipe you out. Eventually.” He realized he was gritting his teeth, from anger as much as from the pain in his leg: he tried to force himself to relax.

She nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, probably. But right now? You think you have a problem with terrorism? You have seen nothing, boy. And we are not religious fanatics, no. We just want to live our lives. But the logic of power—” she stopped.

“What do you want me to do?”

“I want my daughter out of this mess and home safe, Mr. Fleming. She had a sheltered upbringing: she’s in danger and her own ignorance of it is her worst enemy. Second…when she came over she raised a shit storm among our relatives. In particular, she aired some very dirty family linens in public half a year ago. Called for a complete rethink of the Clan’s business model, in fact: she pointed out that the emperor has no clothes, and that basing one’s income on an enemy’s weakness—in this case, the continuing illegality of certain substances, combined with the continuing difficulty your own organization and others face in stopping the trade—is foolish. This made her a lot of enemies at the time, but it set minds a-thinking. The current upheavals are largely a consequence of her upsetting that apple cart. The Clan will change in due course, and switch to a line of work more profitable than smuggling, but as long as she remains among them, her presence will act as a reminder of the source of the change to the conservative faction, and will provoke them, and that will make her a target. So I want her out of the game.”

“Uh, I think I see where you’re leading.” Mike shook his head. “But she’s missing…?”

Iris snorted. “She won’t stay missing for long—unless she’s gotten herself killed.”

“Oh.” He thought for a moment. “That’s not all, is it?”

She stared at him. “No, Mr. Fleming, that is not all, not by a long way. I mentioned a conservative faction. You won’t be surprised to know that there exists a progressive faction, too, and current circumstances—the fighting you may have noticed—is about to tip the scales decisively in their favor. Your interests would be served by promoting the progressives to the detriment of the conservatives, believe me.”

“And you’re a progressive. Right?”

“I prefer to think of myself as a radical.” She leaned against the seat back as the coach hit another rough patch on the dirt track. “Must be all the sixties influences. A real flower child, me.”

“Ah.” Verbal punctuation was easier than trying to hold his own against this intimidating old woman. “Okay, what do the progressives want?”

“You’d best start by trying to understand the conservatives if you want to get a handle on our affairs, boy. The Clan started out as the descendants of an itinerant tinker. They learned to world-walk, learned how to intermarry to preserve the family ability, and got rich. Insanely rich. Think of the de Medicis, or the Saudi royal family. That’s what the Clan represents here, except that ‘here’ is dirt-poor, mired in the sixteenth or seventeenth century—near enough. It’s not the same, never is, but there are enough points of similarity to make the model work. But the most important point is, they got rich by trade in light merchandise, by running a postal service. The postal service ships high-value goods, whatever they are, either reliably—for destinations in your world, without fear of interception—or fast—for destinations in this world, by FedEx across a continent ruled by horseback.”

She pushed herself upright with her walking stick. “Put yourself in their shoes. They want nothing to change, because they feel threatened by change—their status is tenuous. A postal network is a packet-switched network, literally so. If world-walkers drift away from it, the bandwidth drops, and thus, its profitability. New ventures divert vital human capital. They’re against exploration, because they’re scrambling to stay on top of the dung heap.”

“Sounds like—” Mike could think of a number of people it sounded like, uncomfortably close to home—change the subject. “What about the progressives?”

“We want change, simple as that. Miriam observed that we are mired in a business that scales in direct proportion to the number of world-walkers, like a service business. She suggested—and her uncovering another world provided the opportunity—that we switch to what she called a technology-transfer model, trading information between universes.”

“How many are there?” he asked, side-tracked by fascination.

“At least three. We thought two, until a year ago. Now we know there are three, and we suspect there are many more. Yours is the most advanced we know of, but what might be lurking out there? We can trade, Mr. Fleming. We could be very useful to the United States of America. But first we need a…change of management? Yes, a change of management. We originated in a feudal realm, and our ability is hereditary: don’t underestimate the effects of reproductive politics on the Clan’s governance. Before we can change the way we do things, before we can end our unfortunate reliance on illegal trafficking, we need to break the grip of the conservative factions on the council, and to do that we need to entirely overturn our family and tribal foundations.”

“Your family structures?”

“Yes.” Olga pulled a face: Iris either ignored it, or pretended to do so. “You must be aware of the implications of artificial insemination. There’s been a quiet argument going on within the Clan’s council for a generation now, over whether it is our destiny to continue existing as braided matrilineal families in a patriarchal society, or to become…well, not a family organization any more, but one open to anyone born with the ability, whatever their parentage.”

Mike shut his eyes. I think my brain just exploded, he thought. “Who are the progressives?”

“Myself for one, to your very great good fortune. My half-brother for another, although he is as circumspect in public as befits the head of the Clan’s external security organization—a seat of significant power on the council. There are others. You do not need to know who they are. If you’re captured or tortured, what you don’t know you can’t give away.”

“And the conservatives?”

“Miriam’s great-uncle Henryk, if he’s still alive. He was the late king’s spymaster in chief. My mother, Hildegarde, who is also Miriam’s grandmother. Baron Oliver Hjorth, about two thirds of the council…too many to enumerate.”

“Okay. So you want me to set up a covert channel between you—your faction—and, my agency? Or just me?”

“Just you, at first.” Iris’s cheek twitched. “You’re injured. When you are back on your feet I will contact you. You will excuse me, but I am afraid I will require certain actions from you in order to demonstrate that you are trustworthy. Tokens of trust, if you like.”

I don’t like the sound of this. “Such as…?”

“That’s for me to know and you to find out.” She relented slightly: “I can’t do business with you if I can’t trust you. But I won’t ask you to do anything illegal—unlike your superiors.”

Mike shivered. She’s got my number. “What makes you think they’d issue illegal orders?”

“Come now, Mr. Fleming, how stupid do I look? How did you get here? If your superiors could move more than one or two people at a time they’d have sent a division. They sent you because their transport capacity is tiny, probably because they’re using captured—or renegade—world-walkers. Probably the former, knowing this administration; they don’t trust anyone they haven’t bought for cold cash.” Her expression shifted into one of outright distaste. “Honor is a luxury when you reach the top of the dung heap. Everybody wants it, but it’s in short supply. That’s even more true in Washington, D.C. than over on this side, because aristocrats have at least to keep up the appearance of it. Let me give you a tip to pass on to your bosses: if you mistreat your Clan prisoners, their relatives will revenge them. The political is taken very personally, here.”

“That’s—” he swallowed “—it may be true, but that’s not how things work right now. Not since 9/11.”

“Then they’re going to regret it.” Her gaze was level. “You must warn your superiors of this—the political is personal. If the conservatives think your government is mistreating their prisoners, they’ll take revenge, horrible revenge. Timothy McVeigh and Mohamed Atta were rank amateurs compared to these people, and Clan security probably can’t prevent an atrocity from happening if you provoke them. You need to warn your bosses, Mr. Fleming. They’re playing with fire: or would you like to see a suicide bomber invite himself to the next White House reception?”

Whoops. Mike cringed at the images that sprang to mind. “They’re that crazy?”

“They’re not crazy!” Her vehemence startled him. “They just don’t think about things the same way as you people. Your organization is trying to wage war on the Clan: all right, we understand that. But it is a point of honor to avenge blood debts, and that suicide bomber—that’s the least of your worries.” She paused for breath. When she continued, she was much less strident: “That’s one of the things Miriam thought she could change, with her reform program. I tend to agree with her. That’s one of the things we need to change—it’s one of the reasons I reintroduced her to her relatives in the first place. I knew she’d react that way.”

“But she’s your daughter!” It was out before he could stop himself.

“Hah. I told you, but you didn’t listen, did you? We don’t work the way you think we do—and it’s not just all about blood debts and honor. There’s also a perpetual inter-generational conflict going on, mother against daughter, grandmother for grandchild. My mother is a pillar of the conservative faction: by raising Miriam where Hildegarde couldn’t get her claws into her, I temporarily gained the upper hand. And—” she leaned forward again “—I would do anything to keep my granddaughter out of this mess.”

“You don’t have a granddaughter,” Olga commented from the sidelines, “do you?”

Iris glanced sideways. “Miriam has not married a world-walker, so I do not have a granddaughter,” she said coldly. “Is that understood?”

Olga swallowed. “Yes, my lady.”

What was that about? The carriage bounced again, throwing Mike against the side of the seat and jarring his leg painfully. When he could focus again, he realized Iris had been talking for some time.

“—Stopping soon, and we will have to lock you in the carriage overnight. I hope you understand. When we get to the waypoint Olga will carry you across, put you somewhere safe, call for an ambulance, then leave. I hope you understand the need for this? Olga, if you would be so good…”

The Russian princess was holding a syringe. “No!” Mike tried to protest, but in his current state he was too weak to fight her off. And whatever was in the needle was strong enough that it stopped mattering very shortly afterwards.

Miriam had just been through two months under house arrest, preceded by three months in carefully cosseted isolation. Then she’d managed a fraught escape and then been imprisoned yet again, albeit for a matter of days. Walking the streets of New York again—even a strangely low-rise New York wrapped around the imperial palace and inner city of New London—felt like freedom. The sight of aircraft and streetcars and steam-powered automobiles and primitive flickering neon signs left her gaping at the sheer urban beauty of it all. As they moved closer to the center of the city the bustle of the crowds and the bright synthetic colors of the women’s clothing caught her attention more than the gray-faced beggars in the suburbs. I’m in civilization again, she realized, half-dazed. Even if I’m not part of it. Erasmus paused, looking at a news vendor’s stand displaying the stamp of the censor’s office. “Buy me a newspaper, dear?” she asked, touching his arm.

Erasmus jerked slightly, then recovered. “Certainly. A copy of the Register, please.”

“Aye, sorr. An’ here you is.”

He passed her the rolled-up news sheet as they moved up the high street. “What bit you?” he asked quietly.

“I’ve been out of touch for a long time. I just need to—” I need to connect, she thought, but before she could articulate it he nodded, grinning ironically.

“You were out of touch? Did your family have you on a tight leash?”

She shuddered. “I had nothing to read but a grammar book for two months. And that wasn’t the worst of it.” Now that she had company to talk to she could feel a mass of words bubbling up, ideas seeking torrential release.

“You’ll have to tell me about it later. I was told there was a public salon here—ah, that’s it. Your hair, Miriam. You can see to it yourself?”

He’d stopped again, opposite a diamond-paned window. Through it she could just about make out the seats and basins of a hairdresser: some things seemed to evolve towards convergence, however distinct they’d been at the start. “I think I can just about manage that.” She tried to smile, but the knot of tension had gotten a toehold back and wouldn’t let go. “This will probably take a couple of hours. Then I need to buy clothes. Why don’t you just tell me where the hotel is, and I’ll meet you there at six o’clock? How does that sound?”

“That sounds fine.” He nodded, then pulled out a pocket book and scribbled an address in it. “Here. Take care.”

She smiled at him, and he ducked his head briefly, then turned his back. Miriam took a deep breath. A bell rattled on a chain as she pushed the door open; at the desk behind the window, a young woman looked up in surprise from the hardcover she’d been reading. “Can I help you?”

“I hope so.” Miriam forced a smile. “I need a new hairstyle, and I need it now.”

Six hours later, footsore and exhausted from the constant bombardment of strangeness that the city kept hurling at her, Miriam clambered down from the back of a cab outside the Great Northern Hotel, clutching her parcels in both hands. The new shoes pinched at toe and heel, and she was sweating from the summer weather: but she was more presentable than she’d have been in the shabby out-fit they’d passed off on her at Hogarth Villas, and the footman leapt to open the doors for her. “Thank you!” She smiled tightly. “The front desk, I’m meeting my husband—”

“This way, ma’am.”

Miriam was halfway to the desk when a newspaper rattled behind her. She glanced round to see Burgeson unfolding himself from a heavily padded chair. “Miriam! My dear.” He nodded. “Let me help you with those parcels.” He deftly extricated her from the footman, guided her past the front desk towards an elevator, and relieved her of the most troublesome parcel. “I almost didn’t recognize you,” he said quietly. “You’ve done a good job.”

“It feels really strange, being a blonde. People look at you differently. And it’s so heavily lacquered it feels like my head’s embedded in a wicker basket. It’ll probably crack and fall off when I go to bed.”

“Come on inside.” He held the door for her, then dialed the sixth floor. As the door closed, he added: “That’s a nice outfit. Almost too smart to be seen with the likes of me.”

She pursed her lips. “Looking like a million dollars tends to get you treated better by the kind of people those million dollars hire.” She’d ended up in something not unlike a department store, buying a conservatively cut black two-piece outfit. It was a lot less strange than some of the stuff she’d seen in the shops: New London’s fashion, at least for those who still had money to spend, was more experimental than Boston’s. The lift bell chimed. “Where are we staying?”

“This way.” He led her along a corridor like any other hotel corridor back home (except for the flickering tungsten bulbs), then used an old-fashioned key to unlock a bedroom door.

“There’s, uh, only one bed, Erasmus.”

“We’re supposed to be married, Miriam. I’ll take the chaise.”

She blinked at the acrid bite of his words. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“I’m sorry.” He rubbed his forehead. “Blame Margaret’s sense of humor.” He looked at her again, appraisingly: “With hair that color, and curly, and—you’ve been using paints, haven’t you? Yes, looking like that, I don’t think anyone’ll recognize you at first sight.”

“I think it’s ugly. But Mrs. Christobell—she ran the salon—seemed to think it was the height of fashion.” She carefully hung her hat and jacket on the coat-rail then touched her hair gingerly. “That feels really odd. Better keep me away from candle flames for a while.”

“I think I can manage that.” He laid his hat and newspaper on the occasional table. “You did very well at making yourself look completely unlike yourself—it’s going to take some getting used to.”

“That goes for me, too. I’m not sure I like it.” She headed for the table, but before she could reach it he ducked in and pulled a chair out for her. “Thanks, I think.” She sat down, bent forward to get closer to her shoes, and sighed. “I need to get these off for a bit—my feet are killing me.”

“Did you spend everything, or do you have some money left?”

“Not much.” She focused on his expression. “Did you think I can keep up appearances by looting your shop?”

“No, but I—” He rubbed his forehead wearily. “Forget it.”

“I had to do something about my appearance, make myself less recognizable. And I had to get hold of a respectable outfit, if I want to pass for your…spouse. And I had to buy shoes that fit, and a couple of changes of underwear, and some other stuff. It costs money, and takes time, but it’s necessary. Are you still taking your medicine?”

He frowned at her effusion: “Yes, every day, as you said.”

“Good.” She managed to smile. “One less problem to solve.” She crossed her legs. “Now, what have you been up to?”

“Getting the job done.” He looked in her direction, not focusing, and she shivered. Who is he seeing? “I’m supposed to catch the train back to Boston tomorrow, but I wasn’t planning on staying long—I’m needed in Fort Petrograd, out west.” He blinked suddenly, and looked her in the eye. “You don’t have to come with me—you can stay in my apartment if you prefer.”

“And do what, precisely? Sit down, pacing like that is making me itch.”

“I don’t know.” He pulled out the chair opposite and sat down. “I’ve got a job to do, and you turned up right in the middle of it.”

“I could keep the shop open.” She sounded doubtful, even to herself. Do I want to be on my own in Boston? What if Angbard sends someone to look for me? It would be the first place they checked. Best not to wait until they start looking, then.

“That’s not practical.” He frowned. “I trust you to do it—that’s not in question—but there are too many problems. Business is very poor, and I’m already under observation. If I take a wife that’s one thing, but employing a shop assistant while I take off to the wilds of California is something else: the local thief-takers aren’t completely stupefied. I’m supposed to be a pawnbroker, not a well-off store-holder.” He shook his head. “Unless you’ve got any better ideas?”

“I think…well, there’s some stuff I need to pick up in Boston. And then I need to get back in touch with my relatives, but carefully. How about if I went with you? How long will you be gone?”

“At least a week; it’s three days each way by train, and flying would attract the wrong kind of attention.” He smiled lopsidedly. “Frankly, I’d be grateful if you’d accompany me. It’d strengthen my cover on the way out—we could be traveling on our honeymoon—and if we arrived back together I could introduce you to the neighbors as someone from out west. Wife, sister, brother’s widow, whatever. And, to be truthful, the three days out—one gets tired of traveling alone.”

“Oh yes,” she said fervently. “Don’t I know it.” It was traveling alone that got me into this mess, that courier run to Dunedin. That, and boredom, and wondering what Angbard was doing funding a fertility clinic—“Before we skip town, though. There are some things I left in my office, at the works. I really need to get my hands on them. Do you think there’s any way I could retrieve them?”

“You left your relatives running the business, didn’t you? Do you know if it’s still going? Or if you’d be welcome there if it is?”

“No.” She realized she was shaking slightly. “No to both questions. I don’t know anything. I might not be welcome. But it’s important.” She’d left a small notebook PC locked in a drawer in her office, and a portable printer, and a bunch of CD-ROMs with a complete archive of U.S. Patent Office filings going up to the 1960s. In this world, that was worth more than diamonds. But there was something on the computer that was even more valuable to her. In a moment of spare time, she’d scanned her locket using the computer’s web cam, meaning to mess around with it later. If it was still there, if she could get her hands on it, and if it worked—I’m free. She could go anywhere and do anything, and she’d had a lot of time to think about Mike’s offer of help, back in the basement of Hogarth Villas. It wasn’t the only option, but just being able to get back to her own world would be a vast improvement on her current situation. “I need to get my stuff.”

“Would it be—” He licked his lips nervously. “It’s not safe, Miriam. If they’re looking for you, they’ll look there.”

“I know, I just need—” she stopped, balling her hands into fists from frustration. “Sorry. It’s not your fault. You’re right, it’s risky. But it’s also important. If I can get my things, I can also world-walk home. To the United States, that is. I can—”

“Miriam.” He waited almost a minute before continuing, his voice gentle. “Your relatives know where you’d go. They might have established a trap there. Can you think of another way to get what you need?”

“Huh?” She took a deep breath. “Yes. Roger!”

“Roger?”

She leaned across the table and took Burgeson’s hand: “I need to write him a letter. If the business is still running, he’ll be working there. He’s reliable—he’s the one I used to send you messages—I can ask him to take the items whenever it’s safe for him, and have a cousin deliver them to your shop when we get back.” Erasmus pulled back slightly: she realized she was gripping his hand too hard. “Can I do that?”

He smiled ruefully as he shook some life back into his fingers. “Are they small and concealable?”

“About so big—” she indicated “—and about ten pounds in weight. They’re delicate instruments, they need to be kept dry and handled carefully.”

“Then we’ll get you some writing paper and a pen before we board the train.” He nodded thoughtfully. “And you’ll tell him not to take the items for at least a week, and to have his cousin deliver them to somewhere else, a different address I can give you. A sympathizer. In the very worst possible circumstances they will know that you’ve visited Boston, my Boston, in the past week.”

“Thank you.” The knot of anxiety in her chest relaxed.

He stood up, pushing his chair back. “It’s getting on. Would you care to accompany me to dinner? No need to change—the carvery downstairs has no code.”

“Food would be good, once I get my shoes back on,” she said ruefully. “If we’ve got that much travel ahead of us I’m going to have to break them in—what are you going to Fort Petrograd for?”

“I have to see a man about a rare book,” he said flippantly, offering Miriam her jacket. “And then I think I should like to take a stroll along a beach and dip my toes in the Pacific Ocean…”

More wrecked buildings, another foggy morning.

Otto, Baron Neuhalle, had seen these sights twice already in the past week. His majesty had been most explicit: “We desire you to employ no more than a single battalion in any location. The witches have uncanny means of communication, as well as better guns than anything our artificers can make, and if the entire army is concentrated to take a single keep, it will be ambushed. To defeat this pestilence, it will first be necessary to force them to defend their lands. So you will avoid the castles and strong places, and instead fall upon their weaker houses and holdings. You will grant no quarter and take no prisoners of the witches, save that you put out their eyes as soon as you take them into captivity, that they may work no magic. Some of the witches make their peasants grow weeds and herbs in their fields, instead of food. You will fire these fields and slay the witches, but you will not kill their peasants—it is our wish that they be fed from the stores of their former lords and masters. The witches seem to value these crops, so they are as much a target as their owners.”

His horse snorted, pawing the ground nervously at the smells and shouts from the house ahead. Neuhalle glanced at the two hand-men waiting behind him, their heavy horse-pistols resting across their saddles. “Follow,” he ordered, then nudged his mount forward.

Before the first and fourth platoons had arrived, this had been a large village, dominated by the dome of a temple and the steeply pitched roof of a landholder’s house—one of the Hjorth family, a poor rural hanger-on of the tinker clan. Upper Innmarch hadn’t been much by the standards of the aristocracy, but it was still a substantial two-story building, wings extending behind it to form a horseshoe around a cobbled yard, with stables and outbuildings. Now, half of the house lay in ruins and smoke and flames belched from the roof of the other half. Bodies lay in the dirt track that passed for a high street, soldiers moving among them. Shouts and screams from up the lane, and a rhythmic thudding noise: one of his lances was battering on the door of a suspiciously well-maintained cottage, while others moved in and out of the dark openings of round-roofed hovels, like killer hornets buzzing around the entrances of a defeated beehive. More moans and screams split the air.

“Sir! Beg permission to report!”

Neuhalle reined his horse in as he approached the sergeant—distinguished by the red scarf he wore—and leaned towards the man. “Go ahead,” he rasped.

“As ordered, I deployed around the house at dawn and waited for Morgan’s artillery. There was no sign of a guard on duty. The occupants noticed around the time the cannon arrived: we had hot grapeshot waiting, and Morgan put it through the windows yonder. The place caught readily—too readily, like they was waiting for us. Fired a few shots, then nothing. A group of six attempted to flee from the stables on horseback as we approached, but were brought down by Heidlor’s team. The villagers either ran for the forest or barricaded themselves in, Joachim is seeing to them now.” He looked almost disappointed; compared to the first tinker’s nest they’d fired, this one had been a pushover.

“I think you’re right: the important cuckoos had already fled the nest.” Neuhalle scratched at his scrubby beard. “What’s in the fields?”

“Rye and wheat, sir.”

“Right.” Neuhalle straightened his back: “Let the men have their way with the villagers.” These peasants had been given no cause to resent the witches: so let them fear the king instead. “Any prisoners from the house?”

“A couple of serving maids tried to run, sir. And an older woman, possibly a tinker though she didn’t have a witch sign on her.”

“Then give them the special treatment. No, wait. Maids? An older woman? Let the soldiers use them first, then the special treatment.”

His sergeant looked doubtful. “Haven’t found the smithy yet, sir. Might be a while before we have hot irons.”

Neuhalle waved dismissively. “Then hang them instead. Just make sure they’re dead before we move on, that will be sufficient. If you find any unburned bodies in the house, hang them up as well: we have a reputation to build.”

“The peasants, sir?”

“I don’t care, as long as there are survivors to bear witness.”

“Very good, sir.”

“That will be all, Sergeant Shutz.”

Neuhalle nudged his horse forward, around the burning country house. He had a list of a dozen to visit, strung out through the countryside in a broad loop around Niejwein. The four companies under his command were operating semi-independently, his two captains each tackling different targets: it would probably take another week to complete the scourging of the near countryside, even though at the outset his majesty had barely three battalions ready for service. It won’t be a long war, he hoped. It mustn’t be. Just a series of terror raids on the Clan’s properties, to force them to focus on the royal army—and then what? Whatever Egon is planning, Neuhalle supposed. Nobody could accuse the young monarch of being indecisive—he was as sharp as his father, untempered by self-doubt, and deeply committed to this purge. Neuhalle’s hand-men rode past him, guns at the ready: It had better work, he hoped. If Egon loses, Niejwein will belong to the witches forever.

The courtyard at the back of the house stank of manure and blood, and burning timber. A carriage leaned drunkenly outside the empty stable doors, one wheel shattered.

“Sir, if it please you, we should—” The hand-man gestured.

“Go ahead.” Neuhalle smiled faintly, and unholstered the oddly small black pistol he carried on his belt: a present from one of the witch lords, in better times. He racked the slide, chambering a cartridge. “I don’t think they’ll be interested in fighting. Promise them quarter, then hang them as usual once you’ve disarmed them.” Just as his majesty desires. His eyes turned towards the wreckage. “Let’s look this over.”

“Aye, sir.”

They’d cut the horses free and abandoned the carriage, but there was still a strong-box lashed to the roof, and an open door gaping wide. Otto dismounted carefully, keeping his horse between himself and the upper floor windows dribbling smoke—no point not being careful—and walked over to the vehicle. There was nobody inside, of course. Then the roof. The box wasn’t large, but it looked heavy. Neuhalle’s grin widened. “You, fetch four troopers and have them take this down. Place a guard on it.”

“Aye sir!” His hand-man nodded enthusiastically: Neuhalle had promised his retainers a tithe of his spoils.

“There’ll be more just like it tomorrow.” There was a loud crack, and Neuhalle looked round just in time to see the roof line of the west wing collapse with a shower of sparks and a gout of flames. “And tomorrow…”