The Bloodline Feud (Merchant Princes Omnibus 1) (14 page)

‘By all means, keep the speed down.’ Roland nodded.

Miriam stepped forward experimentally. Her maidservants had taken over an hour to install her in this outfit: it was like something out of a medieval costume drama, she thought. Roland’s
high linen collar and pantaloons didn’t look too comfortable, either, come to think of it. ‘What sort of occasion is this outfit customary for?’ she asked.

‘Oh, any formal event where one of our class might be seen,’ Roland observed, ‘except that in public you would have a head covering and an escort. You would normally have much
more jewelry, but your inheritance – ’ he essayed a shrug. ‘Is mostly in the treasury in Niejwein.’ Miriam fingered the pearl choker around her neck uncomfortably.

‘You wore, um, American clothing today,’ she reminded him.

‘Oh, but so is this, isn’t it? But of another period. It reminds us whence our wealth comes.’

‘Right.’ She nodded minutely. Business suits as informal dress for medieval aristocrats, and formal dress that was like something that belonged in a movie about the Renaissance.
Everything goes into the exterior
, she added to her mental file of notes on family manners.

Roland escorted her up the wide stairs, then at the tall doors at the top a pair of guards in dark suits and dark glasses announced them and ushered them in.

A long oak table awaited them in a surprisingly small dining room that opened off the duke’s reception room. Antique glass globes rising from brass stems in the wall cast a pale light over
a table glistening with silver and crystal. A servant in black waited behind each chair. Duke Angbard was already waiting for them, in similarly archaic costume: Miriam recognized a sword hanging
at his belt.
Do swords go with male formal dress here?
she wondered. ‘My dear niece,’ he intoned, ‘you look marvelous! Welcome to my table.’ He waved her to a seat
at the right of the head, black wood with a high back and an amazingly intricate design carved into it.

‘The pleasure’s mine,’ Miriam forced herself to smile, trying to strike the right note.
These goons can kill you as soon as look at you,
she reminded herself. Medieval
squalor waited at the gate, and police cells down in the basement: Maybe this wasn’t so unusual outside the western world, but it was new to her. She picked up her skirts and sat down
gingerly as a servant slid a chair in behind her. The delicacy of its carving said nothing about its comfort – the seat was flat and extremely hard.

‘Roland, and young Vincenze! You next, by the Sky Father.’

‘P-pleased to accept,’ Vincenze quavered.

The outer door opened again, sparing him further risk of embarrassment, and a footman called out in a low voice: ‘The Lady Margit, Châtelaine of Praha, and Her Excellency the
Baroness Olga Thorold.’

Six women came in, and now Miriam realized that she was probably underdressed, for the two high-born each wore the most voluminous gowns she’d ever seen, with trains that required two
maids to carry them and hair so entangled in knots of gold and rubies that they resembled birds’ nests. They looked like divas from a Wagner opera: the fat lady and the slim virgin. Margit of
Praha was perhaps forty, her hair beginning to turn white and her cheeks sagging slightly. She looked as if she might be merry under other circumstances, but now her expression was grimly set. Olga
Thorold, in contrast, was barely out of adolescence, a coltish young girl with a gown of gold and crimson and a neck swathed in gemstones that sparked fire whenever she moved. Olga looked
half-amused by Miriam’s cool assessing glance.

‘Please be seated,’ said Angbard. Olga smiled demurely and bowed her neck to him. Margit, her chaperone, merely nodded and took a seat. ‘I believe you have heard tell of the
arrival of our returning prodigal,’ he commented. ‘Pitr, fetch wine if you please. The Medoc.’

‘I have heard quite a few strangenesses today,’ Margit commented in English that bore a strangely clipped accent. ‘This songbird in your left hand, she is the daughter of your
sister, long-lost. Is this true?’

‘It is so,’ Angbard confirmed. A servant placed a cut-crystal glass of wine in front of Miriam. She began to reach toward it, then stopped, noticing that none of the others made such
a gesture. ‘She has proven her heritage – the family trait – and the blood tests received barely an hour ago affirm her. She is of our bloodstock, and we have information
substantiating, sadly, the death of her dam, Patricia Thorold Hjorth. I present to you Helge, also known as Miriam, of Thorold Hjorth, eldest heir surviving.’

‘So charmed!’ Olga simpered at Miriam, who managed a wordless nod in reply.

Plates garnished with a starter materialized in front of everybody – roasted fowl of some kind, tiny enough to fit in Miriam’s gloved hand. Nobody moved, but Angbard raised his
hands. ‘In the name of the Sky Father – ’

Miriam froze, so utterly startled that she missed the murmured continuation of his prayer, the flick of wine from glass across the tabletop, the answering murmur from Roland and Olga and Margit,
and the stuttered response from Vincenze.

He said this wasn’t a Christian country,
she reminded herself, in time to move her lips as if saying something – anything, any response – just to fit in.

Completing his brief prayer, Angbard raised his glass. ‘Eat, drink, and be safe under my roof,’ he told them, then took a mouthful of wine. After which it appeared to be open
season.

Miriam’s stomach grumbled. She picked up knife and fork and attacked her plate discreetly.

‘One hears the strangest stories, dear.’ Miriam froze and glanced across the table: Margit was smiling at her sympathetically. ‘You were lost for so long, it must have been
terrible!’

‘Probably.’ Miriam nodded absentmindedly and put her fork down. ‘And then again, maybe not.’ She thought for a moment. ‘What have you heard?’

‘Lots,’ Olga began breathlessly. ‘You were orphaned by savages and raised in a workhouse as a scrub, isn’t that so, nana? Forced to sleep in the fireplace ashes at night!
Then Cousin Roland found you and – ’

‘That’s enough, dear,’ Margit said indulgently, raising a gloved hand. ‘It’s her story, to tell in her own way.’ She raised an eyebrow at Miriam. Miriam
blinked in return, more in surprise at the girl’s artlessness than her chaperone’s bluntness.

‘I would not mind hearing for myself how your upbringing proceeded,’ Angbard rumbled.

‘Oh. Indeed.’ Miriam glanced down, realizing that her appetizer had been replaced by a bowl of soup – some kind of broth, anyway – while they spoke. ‘Well. I
wouldn’t want to disappoint you – ’ she nodded at Olga – ‘but I had a perfectly normal upbringing. You know my birth-mother disappeared? When she was found in, uh, on
the other side, I was taken to a hospital and subsequently adopted by a young childless couple.’ Of student radicals who grew up to be academics, she didn’t say. Olga was hanging on her
every word, as if she was describing some kind of adventure with pirates and exploits in far-off lands. Either the girl was an idiot or she was so sheltered that all of this sounded exotic to her.
Probably the latter.

‘A university professor and his wife, a critic and reviewer. I think there was some issue with my – with Patricia’s murder, so the adoption agency gave my adoptive parents her
personal effects to pass on, but blocked inquiries about me from anywhere else, it being a matter for the police: unsolved murder, unidentified victim, and so on.’

‘There’s only so much you can do to prevent a suicide bomber,’ Angbard said with deceptive mildness. ‘But we’re not at immediate risk here,’ he added, smiling
at Miriam, an expression clearly intended to reassure her. ‘I’ve taken special measures to ensure our safety.’

‘Your schooling,’ Olga said. ‘Did you have a personal tutor?’

Miriam frowned, wondering just what she meant. ‘No, I went to college, like everybody else,’ she said. ‘Premed and history of economics, then med school. Then, well, instead of
continuing with med school, I went back to college again to study something else. Medicine didn’t get on with me.’

‘You double-majored?’ Roland interrupted.

‘Yes, sort of.’ Miriam put her spoon down. She couldn’t eat any more, her stomach felt too full and her back ached. She leaned her shoulders against the chair but
couldn’t relax. ‘I switched to journalism. Did an MA in it.’ Her gloved hands felt hot and damp. They reminded her of a long shift on a geriatric ward, a different type of glove
she’d ended up wearing for hours on end, cleaning up blockages. ‘I began on the biotech sector beat but found the IT industry shysters more interesting.’ She paused. Olga’s
expression was one of polite incomprehension, as if she’d suddenly begun speaking fluent Japanese.

‘Yourself?’

‘Oh,
I
had a personal tutor!’ Olga enthused. ‘But Daddy didn’t want to send me away to school on the other side. We were having a spot of bother and he thought
I’d need too many bodyguards.’

Angbard smiled again, in a manner that Miriam found disquietingly avuncular.

‘There has been a threat of rebellion in Hel these past two years,’ he explained with a nod in Miriam’s direction. ‘Your father needed the troops. Perhaps next year we
can send you to Switzer-Land?’

‘Oh, yes!’ Olga clapped her hands together discreetly. ‘I’d like that.’

‘What would you like to study?’ Miriam asked politely.

‘Oh, everything! Deportment, and etiquette, and management of domestic events – balls and banquets. It’s so important to get the little things right, and how are you to
supervise everything if you don’t know what your steward is doing?’

She gave a little squeal. ‘I do hope they’ll let me continue with the violin, though.’

Miriam forced herself to keep a straight face. ‘I guess you’re going to make a very good marriage,’ she said, voice neutral. It made a horribly consistent picture: the older
woman as chaperone, the total eagerness for the description of her own upbringing and education, the wistfulness for a place at an expensive finishing school.
This could be a problem
, she
thought tiredly.
If they expect me to behave like this, someone is going to be very disappointed. And it won’t be me
. . .

‘I’m sure she’ll marry well,’ said Margit, venturing an opinion for the first time. Vincenze whispered something to Roland, who forced a knowing chuckle.

‘She’s of the right age.’ Margit looked at Miriam dubiously. ‘I expect you’ll – ’ she trailed off.

‘Discussions of Countess Helge’s eventual disposition are premature,’ Angbard said coolly. ‘Doubtless she will want to make a strong alliance to protect herself.
I’m sure she has a solid head on her shoulders, and will want to keep it there.’ He smiled: a thin, humourless expression.

Miriam swallowed.
You old bastard! You’re threatening me!
Servants removed her plate and refilled her wine glass. Growing anger threatened to overwhelm her. She took an overhasty
mouthful to conceal her expression, leaving a bleeding ring of lip gloss on the crystal. Her heart was pounding and she couldn’t seem to get enough air.

‘To set your mind at ease, my dear, you are quite safe for the time being,’ said Angbard. ‘This is a doppelgängered house, with a secured installation on the other side,
as strongly defended there as here – but if you were to venture outside of it, you would be in danger. I am concerned about your other relatives, such as the family Hjorth, and your late
father’s heirs of family Wu, in the far west. A strong alliance would go a long way toward protecting you.’

‘An alliance,’ she said thickly. It seemed to be hot in the dining room. She finished her glass, to buy some time. ‘Y’know, it seems to me that you’re taking a lot
for granted. That I’ll fit in and adapt to your ways.’

‘Isn’t that how it always works?’ asked Olga, sounding confused. A dessert appeared, individual plates of chocolate truffles drizzled in syrup, but Miriam had no room for food.
Her meal sat heavily on the top of her stomach.

‘Not always, no,’ Miriam said tightly. She picked up her full wineglass, then frowned, remembering two – three? – refills before it, and put it down again, a little
harder than she’d intended. Roland smiled at her indulgently. They all seemed to be smiling at her too much this evening, she noticed. As if they expected her to break down in tears and thank
them for rescuing her from a life of drudgery. She forced herself to straighten her shoulders, sipped sparingly from her glass, and tried to ignore the growing pains in the small of her back. If
she could just get through the remainder of the meal she’d be all right. ‘But we’ll worry about that when we get to it, won’t we?’ She mustered a pained smile and
everyone pretended she hadn’t said anything.
The strange cousin’s faux pas
, she thought, as Vincenze asked Roland something about cavalry maneuvers.

A few minutes later, Angbard rapped a silver dessert spoon on his glass. ‘If you have finished eating, by all means let the after-dinner entertainment commence,’ he said.

Servants wheeled a tall trolley in and Miriam blinked in surprise. A huge thirty-inch Sony flat-panel television faced them, glassy-eyed, blocking the doorway. A black video recorder sat on a
shelf below it, trailing cables. A white-gloved footman handed the remote to the duke on a silver plate. He bowed himself out as Angbard picked it up and pointed it at the set.

It was all Miriam could do to keep her jaw from dropping when a familiar signature tune came welling out of concealed speakers around the dining chamber. A helicopter descended onto a rooftop
pad outside a penthouse suite: The famous Stetson-wearing villain stepped out into a sea of family intrigue. Miriam gulped down her wine without choking and reached for the inevitable –
invisible – refill, barely tasting it. Her nose was going numb, a warning sign that she normally ignored at her peril, but this was just too bizarre to take while remaining sober.
Dallas!
she thought, making it a curse.

As a choice of after-dinner videos, it fitted the evening perfectly. But she’d been wrong about the ordeal being nearly over: The meal was only the beginning.