The Bloodline Feud (Merchant Princes Omnibus 1) (12 page)

‘I’m not in a cell,’ she told herself, ‘but I could be. They showed me that much. So they’re playing head games. They want to play the stick-and-carrot game. That
means I’ve got some kind of leverage, doesn’t it?’
Find out what they want, then get out of here fast,
she decided.

Half an hour later she was ready. She’d chosen a blouse the color of fresh blood, her black interview suit, lip gloss to match, and heels. Miriam didn’t normally hold with makeup,
but this time she went the whole hog. She didn’t normally hold with power dressing either, but something about Roland and this setup suggested that his people were much more obsessed with
appearances than the dot-com entrepreneurs and Kendall Square startup monkeys she usually dealt with. Any edge she could get . . .

A bell chimed discreetly. She straightened up and turned to look at the door as it opened.
Here it comes
, she thought nervously.

It was Roland, who’d brought her up here from the cell. Now that she saw him in the daylight from the windows with a clear head, her confusion deepened. He looks like a secret service
agent, she thought. Something about that indefinably military posture and the short hair suggested he’d been ordered into that suit in place of combat fatigues.

‘Ah. You’ve found the facilities.’ He nodded. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘Better,’ she said. ‘I see you ransacked my house.’

‘You will find that everything has been accounted for,’ he said, slightly defensively. ‘Would you rather we’d given you a prison uniform? No?’ He sized her up with
a glance. ‘Well, there’s someone I have to take you to see now.’

‘Oh, goody.’ It slipped out before she could clamp down on the sarcasm. ‘The chief of secret police, I assume?’

His eyes widened slightly. ‘Don’t joke about it,’ he muttered.

‘Oh.’ Miriam dry-swallowed. ‘Right, well, we wouldn’t want to keep him waiting, would we?’

‘Absolutely not,’ Roland said seriously. He held the door open, then paused for a moment. ‘By the way, I really wouldn’t want you to embarrass yourself trying to escape.
This is a secure facility.’

‘I see,’ said Miriam, who didn’t – but had made her mind up already that it would be a mistake to simply cut and run. These people had snatched her from her own bed. That
suggested a frightening level of competence.

She approached the door warily, keeping as far away from Roland as she could.

‘Which way?’

‘Along the passage.’

He headed off at a brisk march and she followed him, heels sinking into the sound-deadening carpet. She had to hurry to keep up.

‘Wait one moment, please.’

She found herself fetched up behind Roland’s broad back, before a pair of double doors that were exquisitely paneled and polished.
Odd
, she wondered.
Where is everybody?
She glanced over her shoulder, and spotted a discreet video camera watching her back. They’d come around two corners, as if the corridor followed a rectangle: They’d passed a broad
staircase leading down, and the elevator – there ought to be more people about, surely?

‘Who am I – ’

Roland turned around. ‘Look, just wait,’ he said. ‘Security calls.’ She noticed for the first time that he had the inside of his wrist pressed against an unobtrusive box
in the wall.

‘Security?’

‘Biometrics, I think it’s called,’ he said. There was a click from the door and he opened it slowly. ‘Matthias? Ish hafe gefauft des’usher des Angbard.’

Miriam blinked – she didn’t recognize the language. It sounded a bit like German, but not enough to make anything out; and her high school German was rusty, anyway.

‘Innen gekomm’, denn.’

The door opened and Roland caught her right arm, tugged her into the room after him, and let the door close. She pulled her arm back and rubbed the sore spot as she glanced around.

‘Nice place you’ve got here,’ she said. Thick draped curtains surrounded the window. The walls were paneled richly in dark wood: The main piece of furniture was a desk beside
an inner office door. A broad-shouldered man in a black suit, white shirt, and red tie waited behind the desk. The only thing to distinguish the scene from a high-class legal practice was the
submachine gun resting by his right hand.

‘Spresh’she de Hoh’sprashe?’

‘No,’ said Roland. ‘Use English, please.’

‘Okay,’ said the man with the gun. He looked at Miriam, and she had the disquieting sense that he was photographing her, storing her face in his memory.

He had frizzy black hair, swept back from high temples, combined with a nose like a hatchet and a glare like a caged hawk. ‘I am Matthias. I am the Boss’s secretary, which is, his
keeper of secrets. That is his office door. You go in there without permission over my dead body. This is not an, um, how would you say it?’ He glanced at Roland.

‘Metaphor,’ Roland offered.

‘Metaphor.’ Matthias looked at her again. He wasn’t smiling. ‘The Boss is expecting you. You may enter now.’

Miriam looked sidelong at him as Roland marched over to the door and opened it, then waved her forward. Matthias kept his eyes on her – and one hand close to the gun. She found herself
involuntarily giving him a wide berth, as she would a rattlesnake. Not that he looked particularly venomous – a polite, clean-shaven man in a pinstriped suit – but there was something
about his manner . . . she’d seen it before, in a young DEA agent she had dated for a couple of months before learning better. Mike Fleming had been quietly, calmly, crazy, in a way that made
her cut and run before she got dragged too far in with him. He’d been quite prepared to give his life for the cause he believed in – or to make any other sacrifice for that matter: He
was utterly unable to see the walls of the box he’d locked himself in. The kind of guy who’d arrest a cripple with multiple sclerosis for smoking a joint to deaden the pain. She
suppressed a shudder as she entered the inner office.

The inner office was as excessive as the suite they’d given her, the Mafia special with the locked door and the auction house’s ransom in antiques. The floor was tiled in
hand-polished hardwood, partially covered by a carpet that was probably worth as much as her house. The walls were paneled in wood blackened with age. There were a couple of discreet oil paintings
of big red-faced men in medieval-looking armor or classical robes posed before a castle, and a pair of swords rested on pegs in the wall above the desk. There was a huge walnut desk positioned
beside the window bay and two chairs were drawn up before it, positioned so that the owner of the office would be all but invisible from the window.

Roland stopped before the desk, drew himself up to attention, and saluted. ‘My lord, I have the pleasure of presenting to you . . . Miriam Beckstein.’

The presence in the chair inclined his head in acknowledgment. ‘That is not her real name, but her presence is sufficient. You may be at ease.’ Miriam squinted, trying to make out
his features against the glare. He must have taken her expression for hostility, for he waved a hand: ‘Please be seated, the both of you. I have no argument with you, ah, Miriam, if that is
the name you wish to be known by.’

Roland surprised her by pulling a chair out and offering it to her. She startled herself in turn by sitting down, albeit nervously, knees clenched together and back stiffly erect ‘Who are
you people?’ she whispered.

Her eyes were becoming accustomed to the light: She could see the man in the high-backed chair smile faintly. He was in late middle age, possibly as old as Morris Beckstein would have been, had
he lived. His suit was sober – these people dressed like a company of undertakers – but so well cut that it had to be hand-tailored. His hair was graying, and his face was
undistinguished, except for a long scar running up his left cheek.

‘I might ask the same question,’ he murmured. ‘Roland, be seated, I say!’ His tone of voice said he was used to being obeyed. ‘I am the High Duke Angbard of House
Lofstrom, third of that name, trustee of the crown of guilds, defender of the king’s honor, freeman of the city of Niejwein, head of security of the Clan Reunified, prince of
merchant-princes, owner of this demesne, and holder of many more titles than that – but those are the principal ones.’ His eyes were the color of lead, a blue so pale she found them
hard to see, even when they were focused directly on her. ‘Also, if I am not very much mistaken, I am your uncle.’

Miriam recoiled in shock. ‘What?’ Another voice echoed her. She glanced sideways to see Roland staring at her in astonishment. His cool exterior began to crack.

‘My father would never – ’ Roland began.

‘Shut up,’ said Angbard, cold steel in his voice. ‘I was not referring to your father, young man, but to your aunt once removed: Patricia.’

‘Would you mind explaining just what you’re talking about?’ Miriam demanded, anger finally getting the better of her. She leaned forward. ‘Your people have abducted me,
ransacked my house, and kidnapped me, just because you think I’m some kind of long-lost relative?’

Angbard nodded thoughtfully. ‘No. We are
absolutely certain
you’re a long-lost relative.’ He glanced at his nephew. ‘There is solid evidence.’

Roland leaned back in his chair, whistled tunelessly, all military pretense fled. He stared at her out of wide eyes, as if he was seeing a ghost.

‘What have you got to whistle about?’ she demanded.

‘You asked for an explanation,’ Angbard reminded her. ‘The arrival of an unknown world-walker is always grounds for concern. Since the civil war . . . suffice to say, your
appearance would have been treated drastically in those days. When you stumbled across the old coast trail a week ago, and the patrol shot at you, they had no way of knowing who you were. That
became evident only later – I believe you left a pair of pink house-shoes behind? – and triggered an extensive manhunt. However, you are clearly not connected to a traitorous faction,
and closer research revealed some interesting facts about you. I believe you were adopted?’

‘That’s right.’ Miriam’s heart was fluttering in her ribs, shock and unpleasant realization merging. ‘Are you saying you’re my long-lost relatives?’

‘Yes.’ Angbard waited a moment, then slid open one of the drawers in his desk. ‘This is yours, I believe.’

Miriam reached out and picked up the locket. Tarnished with age, slightly battered – an island of familiarity. ‘Yes.’

‘But not this.’ Angbard palmed something else, then pushed it across the desk toward her.

‘Oh my.’ Miriam was lost for words. It was the identical twin to her locket, only brightly shining and lacking some scratches. She took it and sprang the catch –

‘Ouch!’ She glared at Roland, who had knocked it out of her hand. But he was bending down, and after a moment she realized that he was picking it up, very carefully, keeping the open
halves facedown until it was upon the duke’s blotter.

‘We will have to teach you how to handle these things safely,’ Angbard said mildly. ‘In the meantime, my sister’s is yours to keep.’

‘Your sister’s,’ she echoed stupidly, wrapping her fingers around the locket.

‘My sister went missing thirty-two years ago,’ Angbard said with careful lack of emphasis. ‘Her caravan was attacked, her husband slain, and her guard massacred, but her body
was never found. Nor was that of her six-week-old daughter. She was on her way to pay attendance to the court of the high king, taking her turn as one of her family’s hostages. The wilds
around Chesapeake Bay, as it is called on your side, are not heavily populated in this world. We searched for months, but obviously to little effect.’

‘You found the box of documents,’ Miriam said. The effort of speaking was vast: She could hear her heart pounding in her ears.

‘Yes. They provide impressive supporting evidence – circumstantial but significant. While you were unconscious, blood samples were taken for, ah, DNA profiling. The results will be
back tomorrow, but I am in no doubt. You have the family face and the family talent – or did you think world-walking was commonplace? – and your age and the documentary evidence fits
perfectly. You are the daughter Helge, born to my elder sister, Patricia Thorold Hjorth, by her husband the western magistrate-prince, Alfredo Wu, and word of your survival is going to set the fox
among the Clan chickens when it emerges.’

He smiled thinly. ‘Which is why I took the precaution of sending away the junior members of the distaff side, and almost all the servants, before bidding you welcome. It would not have
done for the younger members of the Clan to find out about your existence before I looked to your safety. Some of them will be feeling quite anxious about the disruption of the braid succession,
your highness.’

‘Highness? What are you talking about?’ Miriam could hear her voice rising, out of control. ‘What are you on about? Look, I’m a business journalist covering the
pharmaceutical sector in Massachusetts, not some kind of Disney princess! I don’t know about any of this stuff!’ She was on her feet in front of the desk. ‘What’s
world-walking, and what does it have to do – ’

‘Your highness,’ Angbard said firmly, ‘you
were
a business journalist, on the other side of the wall of worlds. But world-walking is how you came here. It is the
defining talent of our Clan, of the families who constitute the Clan. It is in the blood, and you are one of us, whether you will it or no. Over here, you are the eldest heir to a countess and a
magistrate-prince of the outer kingdom, both senior members of their families, and however much you might wish to walk away from that fact, it will follow you around. Even if you go back over
there
.’

He turned to Roland, ignoring her stunned silence. ‘Earl Roland, you will please escort your first cousin to her chambers. I charge you with her safety and protection until further notice.
Your highness, we will dine in my chambers this evening, with one or two trustworthy guests, and I will have more words for you then. Roland will assign servants to see to your comfort and
wardrobe. I expect him to deal with your questions. In the meantime, you are both dismissed.’