The Bloodline Feud (Merchant Princes Omnibus 1) (43 page)

‘Yes. That’s the only explanation I can come up with.’

‘To another world, where everything will of course be completely different.’ Iris shook her head. ‘As if two worlds wasn’t already one too many.’

‘And mystery assassins. Don’t forget the mystery assassins.’

‘I’m not,’ said her mother. ‘From what you’ve been telling me . . .’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘Don’t trust
any
of them. Not the Clan, not
even the one you took to bed. They’re all – they sound like – a bunch of vipers. They’ll screw you as soon as you think you’re safe.’

‘Ma.’ Miriam began to blush. ‘Oh, I don’t
trust
them. At least, not to do anything with my best interests at heart.’

‘Then you’re smarter than I was at your age.’ Iris pulled on her gloves. ‘Give an old lady a lift home? Or at least, back to the woods? It’s a cold and scary night.
Mind you, I may have forgotten to bring your red cloak, but any wolves who try to lay hands on this old granny will come off worse.’

PAWNBROKER

‘It’s no good,’ said Miriam, rubbing her forehead. ‘All I get is crossed eyes, blurred vision, and a headache. It doesn’t
work
.’
She snapped the assassin’s locket closed in frustration.

‘Maybe it doesn’t work here,’ Brill suggested. ‘If it’s a different design?’

‘Maybe. Or then again, it’s a different design and it came through on the other side. How do I know where I’d end up if I
did
get it to work here?’ She paused,
then looked at the locket. ‘Maybe it wasn’t real clever of me to try that here,’ she said slowly. ‘I really ought to cross over before I try it again. If there’s
really a third world out there, how do we know there isn’t a fourth? Or more? How do we know that using it twice in succession brings you back to the place you departed from – that
travel using it is commutative? It raises more questions than it answers, doesn’t it?’

‘Yes – ’ Brill fell silent.

‘Do you know anything about this?’ Miriam asked.

‘No.’ She shook her head slowly. ‘I don’t – they never spoke about the possibility. Why should they? It was as much as anyone could do to travel between this world
and the other, without invoking phantoms. Would testing a new sigil not be dangerous? If it by some chance carried you to another world where wild animals or storms waited . . .’

‘Someone must have tried it, mustn’t they?’

‘You would have to ask the elders. All I can tell is what I was told.’

‘Well, anyway,’ Miriam rubbed her forehead again, ‘if it works, it’ll be one hell of a lever to use with Angbard. I’ll just have to take this one and cross over to
the other side before I try to go wherever its original owner came from. Then try from there.’

‘Can you do that?’ Brill asked.

‘Yes. But just one crossing gives me a cracking headache if I don’t take my pills. I figure I can make two an hour apart. But if I run into something nasty on the far side –
wherever this one takes me – I’ll be in deep trouble if I need to get away from it in a hurry.’

Malignant hypertension wasn’t a term she could use with Brill, but she’d seen what it could do to people. In particular she’d seen a middle-aged man who’d not bothered to
take his antihypertensives. She’d been in the emergency room when the ambulance brought him in, eyes open and nobody home after the massive stroke. She’d been there when they turned the
ventilator off and filled out the death certificate. She shook her head. ‘It’ll take careful planning.’

Miriam glanced at the window. Snow drifted down from a sky the color of shattered dreams. It was bitterly cold outside. ‘What I
should
do is go across, hole up somewhere and catch
some sleep, then try to cross over the next day so I can run away if anything goes wrong. Trouble is, it’s going to be just as cold on the other side as it is here. And if I have to run away,
I get to spend two nights camping in the woods, in winter, with a splitting headache. I don’t think that’s a really great idea. And I’m limited to what I can carry.’

When’s Paulie due back?
she wondered.
She’ll be able to help.

‘What about a coaching house?’ Brill asked, practical-minded as ever.

‘A coaching – ’ Miriam stopped dead. ‘But I can’t – ’

‘There’s one about two miles down the road from Fort Lofstrom.’ Brill looked thoughtful. ‘We dress you as a, an oracle’s wife, summoned to a village down the coast
to join your husband in his new parish. Your trap broke a wheel and – ’ She ran down. ‘Oh. You don’t speak Hoh’sprashe.’

‘Yup.’ Miriam nodded. ‘Doesn’t work well, does it?’

‘No.’ Brill wrinkled her nose. ‘What a nuisance! We could go together,’ she added tentatively.

‘I think we’ll have to do that,’ said Miriam. ‘Probably I play the deaf-mute mother and you play the daughter – I try to look older, you to look younger. Think it
would work?’

From Brilliana’s slow nod she realized that Brill did – and wasn’t enthusiastic about it. ‘It might.’

‘It would also leave you stranded in the back of beyond up near, where was it, Hasleholm, if I don’t come back, wouldn’t it?’ Miriam pointed out. ‘On the other
hand, you’d be in the right place. You could make your way to Fort Lofstrom and tell Angbard what happened. He’d take care of you,’ she added. ‘Just tell him I ordered you
to come along with me. He’ll swallow that.’

‘I don’t want to go back,’ Brilliana said evenly. ‘Not until I’ve seen more of this wonderful world.’

‘Me too, kid. So we’re not going to plan on me not coming back, are we? Instead, we’re going to plan on us both going over, spending the night at a coaching house, and then
walking down the road to the next one. They’re only about twenty miles apart – it’s a fair hike, but not impossible. Along the way, I disappear, and catch up with you later. We
spend the night there, then we turn back – and cross back here. How does that sound?’

‘Three days? And you’ll bring me back here?’

‘Of course.’ Miriam brooded for a moment. ‘I think I want some more tea,’ she decided. ‘Want some?’

‘Oh yes!’ Brilliana sat up eagerly. ‘Is there any of Earl Grey’s own blend?’

‘I’ll just check.’ Miriam wandered into Paulette’s kitchen, her mind spinning gears like a car in neutral. She filled the kettle, set it on the hob to boil, began
searching for tea.
There’s got to be a way to make this work better,
she thought. The real problem was mobility. If she could just arrange how to meet up with Brill fifteen miles
down the road without having to walk the distance herself – ‘Oh,’ she said, as the kettle began to boil.

‘What is it?’ asked Brill, behind her.

‘It’s so obvious!’ Miriam said as she picked the kettle up. ‘I should have figured it out before.’

‘Figured? What ails you?’

She poured boiling water into the teapot. ‘A form of speech. I meant, I’ve worked out what I need to do.’ She put the lid on the pot, moved it onto a tray, and carried it back
into the living room. ‘It’s quite simple. I’ve been worrying about having to camp in the woods in winter, or make myself understood, or keep up appearances with you. That’s
wrong. What I should have been thinking about is how I can move
myself
about, over there, to somewhere where there’s shelter, without involving anyone else. Right?’

‘That makes sense. But how are you going to do that, unless you walk? You couldn’t take a horse through. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen any horses here – ’

Miriam took a deep breath. ‘Brill, when Paulie gets back I think we’re going to go shopping. For an all-terrain bicycle, a pair of night-vision goggles, a sewing machine, and some
fabric . . .’

*

The devil was in the details. In the end it took Miriam two days to buy her bicycle. She spent the first day holed up with cycle magazines, spokehead websites, and the TV
blaring extreme sports at her. The second day consisted of being patronized in successive shops by men in skintight neon Lycra bodysuits, to Brill’s quietly scandalized amusement. In the end,
the vehicle of Miriam’s desire turned out to be a Dahon folding mountain bike, built out of chromed aluminum tubes. It wasn’t very light, but at thirty pounds – including carrying
case and toolset – she could carry it across easily enough, and it wasn’t a toy. It was a real mountain bike that folded down into something she could haul in a backpack and, more
importantly, something that could carry herself and a full load over dirt trails as fast as a horse.

‘What
is
that thing?’ Brill asked, when she finished unfolding it on a spread of newspapers on Paulette’s living room carpet. ‘It looks like something you
torture people with.’

‘That’s a fair assessment.’ Miriam grimaced as she worked the alien keys on the saddle post, trying to get it locked at a comfortable height. ‘I haven’t ridden a
bike in years. Hope I haven’t forgotten how.’

‘When you sit on that thing, you can’t possibly be modest.’

‘Well, no,’ Miriam admitted. ‘I plan to only use it out of sight of other people.’ She finished on the saddle and began hunting for an attachment place for the toolkit.
‘The Swiss army used to have a regiment of soldiers who rode these things, as mounted infantry – not cavalry. They could cover two hundred miles a day on roads, seventy a day in the
mountains. I’m no soldier, but I figure this will get me around faster than my feet.’

‘You’ll still need clothing,’ Brill pointed out. ‘And so will I. What I came across in isn’t suitable for stamping around in the forest in winter! And we
couldn’t possibly be seen wearing your camping gear if we expect to stay in a coaching inn.’

‘Yup. Which is where this machine comes in.’ Miriam pointed to the other big box, occupying a large chunk of the floor. ‘I take it there’s no chance that you already know
how to use an overlocker?’

The overlocker took them most of the rest of the day to figure out, and it nearly drove Paulette to distraction when she came home from the errand she’d been running to find Miriam oiling
a bicycle in the hall and Brill puzzling out the manual for an industrial sewing machine and a bunch of costume patterns Miriam had bought. ‘You’re turning my house into an
asylum!’ she accused Miriam, after kicking her shoes off.

‘Yeah, I am. How’s the office hunt going?’

‘Badly,’ snapped Paulette. Her voice changed: ‘Offices, oy, have we got offices! You should see our offices, such wonderful offices you have never imagined! By the way, how
long have you been in business? There’ll be a deposit if it’s less than two years.’

‘Uh-huh.’ Miriam nodded. ‘How big a deposit?’

‘Six months’ rent. For two thousand square feet with a loading bay and a thousand feet of office above it, that comes to about thirty thousand bucks. Plus municipal tax, sewer,
electric, and gas. And the broadband you want.’

‘Hmm.’ Miriam nodded to herself, then hit the quick-release bolts. The bike folded in on itself like an intricate origami sculpture and she locked it down in its most compact
position, then eased the carrying case over it.

‘Hey, that’s real neat,’ Paulette said admiringly. ‘You turning into a fitness freak in your old age?’

‘Don’t change the subject.’ Miriam grunted, then upended the case and zipped it shut. Folded, the bike was a beast. She could get the thing comfortably on her back but would be
hard put to carry anything else.
Hmm.
‘Back in a minute.’ She shouldered the bike pack and marched to the back door that opened on Paulette’s yard. ‘Here goes
nothing,’ she muttered, and pulled out her locket.

Half an hour later she was back without the bike, staggering slightly, shivering with cold, and rubbing her sore forehead. ‘Oh, I really don’t need to do that so fast,’ she
groaned.

‘If you
will
do that with no preparation – ’

‘No, no. I took my pills, boss, honest. It’s just
really
cold over there.’

‘Where did you stash it?’ Paulie asked practically.

‘Where your back wall is, over on the other side, where there’s nothing but forest.
Brrr.
Up against a tree, I cut a gash in the bark.’ She brandished her knife.
‘Won’t be hard to find if we go over from here: Main thing will be walking to the road, the nearest one is about half a mile away. Better go in the morning.’

‘Right,’ Paulette said skeptically. ‘About the rent.’

‘Yeah. Look, give me fifteen minutes to recover and I’ll get my coat. Then we can go look at the building, and if it’s right we’ll go straight to the bank and move
another whack of cash so you can wave a deposit under their nose.’ She straightened up. ‘We’ll take Brill. There’s a theatrical costume shop we need to check out; it might
speed things up a bit.’ Her expression hardened. ‘I’m tired of waiting, and the longer this drags on the harder it’ll be to explain it to Angbard. If I don’t get in
touch soon, I figure he’ll cut off my credit until I surface. So it’s time to hit the road.’

*

Two days later, a frigid morning found Miriam dozing fitfully on a lumpy, misshapen mattress with a quietly snoring lump to her left. She opened her eyes.
Where am I?
she wondered for a moment, then memory rescued the day.
Oh.
A pile of canvas bags before her nose formed a hump up against the rough, unpainted planks of the wall. The snoring lump
twitched, pushing her closer to the edge. The light streamed in through a small window, its triangular tiles of glass uneven and bubbled. She’d slept fully dressed except for her boots and
cloak, and she felt filthy. To make matters worse, something had bitten her in the night, found her to its taste, and invited its family and friends along for Thanksgiving dinner.

‘Aargh.’ She sat up and swung her feet out, onto the floor. Even through her wool stockings the boards felt cold as ice. The thunder-mug under the bed was freezing cold too, she
discovered as she squatted over it to piss. In fact, the air was so chilly it leached all the heat out of any part of her anatomy she exposed to it. She finished her business fast and shoved the
pot back under the bed to freeze.

‘Wake up,’ she called softly to Brilliana. ‘Rise and shine! We’ve got a good day ahead!’