"Starting the doppelganger identities. It's only sensible, you know. He wanted to put as many of us as possible through the right kind of finishing school-Harvard, Yale, the Marine Corps-in case we ever have to evacuate."
"Evacuate." The gears whirred in Miriam's head. "Evacuate the Gruinmarkt?" If that was even on the menu-"Why hasn't it already happened?"
"Would you voluntarily abandon your home? Your world?" Brill looked at her oddly.
"Urn. It's home, right?" The idea resonated with her own experience. "But there are no decent roads, no indoor plumbing, hedge-lords with pigs in their halls, a social setup out of the dark ages-why would you stay?"
"Home is where everyone you know is," said Brill. "That doesn't mean you've got to love it-you know my thoughts, my lady! What you
can't
do is ignore it."
Miriam fell silent for a couple of minutes, thinking. She'd had a taste of living another life in another world-but it had strings attached, and not ones to her liking, in Baron Henryk's captivity. Then she'd escaped during the debacle at the betrothal, and considered making a run for it when she was in New Britain; thought hard about going native, dropping out, leaving everything behind for a false identity. New Britain had big drawbacks, especially compared to home, but at least it was free of reactionary aristocrats who wanted to turn her into a dynastic slave. And if she'd done it, it would have been through her own choice.
But I decided to come back,
she realized.
I've got a family and while I was busy being independent they got their claws into me.
"What do you need a doppelganger identity for, then?" She paused. "I mean, if all it's for is to maintain a toehold identity in this world…"
"Identity is a lever," Huw said gnomically. "The fulcrum is world-walking."
"But what do you want a lever
for?"
Miriam persisted.
"So we can move the world!" Brill straightened her back, looking straight ahead.
Then Elena chirped up again: "Are we nearly there, yet?"
In the end, it took them eighty-five hours to make a journey that would have taken a day if they'd been able to fly direct. Eighty-five hours and two changes of vehicle and three changes of plates, driving licenses, and other ID documents-care of certain arrangements the Clan maintained with local contractors.
With five drivers available they could have shaved a couple of hours off if they hadn't changed vehicles and taken certain other precautions, and a whole eight hours if Miriam hadn't insisted on stopping for the night at a motel outside Syracuse. "I am going to visit the duke tomorrow," she pointed out. "I need to sleep properly, I need a shower, and I need to not look like I've been sleeping in a van for a week, because I don't know
who else
will be visiting the duke. This is politics. Do you have a problem with that?"
"No," Brill agreed meekly-and the morning after the motel stop they lost another two hours in a strip mall, hunting suitable shoes, a business suit, and some spray to keep Miriam's bleached hair from going in all directions.
"How do I look?" asked Miriam.
"Scary," Brill admitted after a pause. "But it'll do."
"You think so?"
"Stop worrying. If any knave denigrates your topiary, I'll shoot him."
Miriam gave her an old-fashioned look as she climbed in the cab of the new van, but Brilliana was obviously in high spirits-probably in anticipation of their arrival.
It's alright for her, she's not the one who has to confront them,
Miriam reminded herself.
She's not the one with the unwanted pregnancy.
Her stomach burned with acid indigestion, product of stress and too much Diet Pepsi. "Let's go," she told Huw (for it was his turn behind the wheel). "I want to get this over with."
Cerebrovascular incidents were a familiar and unpleasant problem for the Clan: World-walking induced abrupt blood-pressure spikes, and far too many of their number died of strokes. But Miriam still had to grapple with her disbelief as Huw pulled up outside a discreet, shrub-fronted clinic in the outskirts of Springfield. "Forty beds?
All
of them?"
"Yes, milady." Huw reached for the parking brake. "It's the price of doing business."
She glanced at him sharply, but his expression was deadly serious. "Nobody knows why, I suppose?"
"Indeed." The engine stopped. "It's on my research list. A way down." He swallowed. "I suppose you're going to say, because I'm young."
"No, it's more like I was thinking, it might tell us something about the family talent," Miriam replied. She dabbed at a stray wisp of hair in the mirror, split ends mocking her. "I knew it was a problem. I didn't realize it was this big a problem, though. There's too much to do, isn't there?"
"I'm working on it," Huw said soberly. "It's just that my to-do list is eight years long."
"I beg your pardon, Miriam." Brill sounded as tense as she felt. "Visitors hours…"
"Alright." Miriam opened her door and carefully climbed down from the van. She pulled a face as she caught her reflection in the mirror: Appearances counted for a lot when dealing with the elders and the formal Clan hierarchy. "I look a mess. Let's get on with this."
Behind her, Yul and Elena were dismounting. "With your permission, I'll take point, my lady." Elena winked at her as she swung a sports bag over her shoulder. "I think you look just fine."
Miriam looked at Brill in mute appeal. "Let her do it, it's what she does best," Brill replied. "Yul, rear guard. Huw? Lock up and let's go." All of them, Miriam realized, were armed-but Elena was the one with the serious firepower in her bag.
What am I doing here?
she asked herself as they crossed the car park towards the doors to reception:
How did I get into this mess?
Unfortunately, that question was easy enough to answer: Mom
dumped me in at the deep end, sink or swim.
Iris had raised her in the United States in ignorance of the Clan families, for her own reasons-reasons that could be viewed as cold-bloodedly calculating rather than compassionate, depending on whether Iris thought of herself as a player or a fugitive. Not that she could hate Iris-or Patricia, to her extended family-either way; her mother had been under enormous pressure at the time.
But I wish she'd prepared me better.
Getting into the small and very exclusive hospital that the Clan maintained for their brainstruck was not a simple matter of walking up to the reception desk and saying, "Hello, I've come to visit Angbard Lofstrom." Even leaving aside the small matter of the DEA's most wanted list and the question of his place on it, Angbard had enemies, many of whom might well consider hospital visiting hours to be the perfect time to even up old scores. So Miriam was unsurprised when her introductory statement of intent, "Hello, I've come to visit Angbard Lofstrom," resulted in the ornamental receptionist staring vacuously up at her as if she'd demanded money with threats. A serious-faced young man whose dark suit was cut to conceal his sidearm bounced out from behind a glass screen off to one side, sized them up, then relaxed momentarily. "Wer' isht?" he demanded.
Brill replied in machine-gun hochsprache, too fast for Miriam to catch. The young man looked surprised, but mildly relieved as he replied. Then he turned to Miriam. "My lady, if you please"-he pointed at a seating area off to one side-"to wait there in?" His English was heavily accented.
"Ja-" Brill replied at length. "Bertil says he needs to check our identities before he can let us in," she explained to Miriam. "He knows who we are."
"Good." Miriam allowed herself to be led to the waiting area. "Any idea how long?…"
"Not long." Brill didn't bother sitting down. "They'll just need time to make sure we didn't bring any unwanted company." Her posture was relaxed, but Miriam couldn't help noticing the way her eyeballs flickered from doors to windows.
A minute passed before another of the dark-suited security guards came in through a door behind the receptionist's desk.
They always look like Mormon missionaries,
Miriam noted,
or Secret Service agents. That's a
weakness,
isn't it?
Angbard's guidelines for looking inconspicuous had evolved decades earlier; after her weeks on the run and the tutorial in escape and evasion she'd received from the Leveler underground, their uniform consistency now struck her as a weakness, like wearing a flashing neon sign advertising
Clan operation here.
"My lady?" The new guy walked straight over to Miriam and half bowed to her. "If you would come this way, please?"
"I'm bringing my companions," she said.
"Ah." His eyes focused on Elena's shoulder bag. "I would like to see that, please."
Elena looked as if she was about to object. Miriam shook her head. "Show him."
Elena opened her bag reluctantly and the guard looked inside. He blinked. "Haim. You may come, but please unload and safe your arm." He shrugged at Miriam apologetically. "I am sorry but it is a matter of policy-no armor-piercing loads are allowed. The rest of you, pistols only? No concealed shotguns?" His lips quirked. "Good. If you would follow me…"
Elena trailed behind them, her hands buried in her bag, from which muffled clicking noises were emerging.
Another hospital corridor leading to another hospital room, like a hotel with oxygen lines and diagnostic machines in place of the Internet hub and minibar.
I'm getting to hate these places,
she realized, as she followed the broad shoulders and buzz cut of her guide. "Have you been here before?" she asked Brill.
"Yes." Brilliana seemed reluctant to say more, so she dropped the topic.
They passed a set of fire doors, then a nursing station, and finally came to a door where a pair of machine-gun missionaries were standing easy. Their guide knocked twice, then opened the door. "More visitors," he said quietly.
The first thing Miriam saw in the small hospital room was a bed with a body in it and people gathered around, their backs turned to her. Then one of them looked round: "Olga!"
Olga's expression of startled relief emboldened Miriam to take a step forward.
"Miriam-"
Then the woman beside Olga looked up. "Miriam?" And her heart fluttered and skipped a beat.
"Mom?"
"Ach,
scheisse.
You didn't need to see him like this."
Iris stared up at her. She looked tired, and apprehensive-guilty, perhaps-and worried. Miriam looked past her at the figure in the bed. "Maybe not, Mom, but let me be the judge of that." There was an ache in her throat as she looked at Olga. "How is he?"
Olga shook her head. "He is not good," she said. "Earlier, he could speak, he spoke of you-but not since we moved him. He is barely conscious."
"Then why
did
you move-"
Iris cut in. "They were under siege, kid. You know, bad guys with machine guns shooting at them? They wouldn't have relocated him if staying was an option. You can ask Dr. MacDonald later if you want to know more." She nodded at Brilliana. "Who are your companions?"
Brill gestured. "They're mine.
Ours."
She put an odd emphasis on the words. "Who's seen his grace in this condition?"
"Everyone and their dog." Iris addressed Miriam: "I'm expecting that little shitweasel Julius Arnesen to turn up any minute now. Oliver Hjorth is making himself surprisingly useful, all things considered-I think he finally worked out how unreliable mother-dearest is"-the dowager Hildegarde, who seemed to take Miriam's mere existence as a personal insult-"and Mors Hjalmar is running interference for me. The silver lining on this particular shit sandwich is that most of the conservative tribal elders attended your betrothal, Miriam. They were in the Summer Palace when Egon staged his little divertissement-we came out much better. Also, they're on the back foot now because of the troubles at home. But once they get a grip on how ill my half brother is, they're going to jump us. You can be sure of it."
"Good!" said Miriam, surprising herself-and, from their reactions, everybody else. "Let them." She sidestepped around Brill and got her first good look at the duke.
Last time she'd seen him, months ago, Angbard had seemed implacable and unstoppable: a mafia don at the height of his power, self-assured and calculating, a healthy sixty-something executive whose polished exterior masked the ruthless drive and cynical outlook within. Lying half-asleep in a hospital bed, an intravenous drip in his left arm and the cables of an EEG taped to his patchily shaved head, he looked pathetic and broken. His skin was translucent, stretched thin across ancient muscles, the outline of bones showing through at elbows and shoulders; his closed eyes were half-sunk in their sockets. His breathing was shallow and slow.
Iris cleared her throat. "Are you sure you don't want to reconsider that?"
Miriam looked her mother in the eye. "Can you think of a better time?"
"Ladies-" Heads turned. The Clan security officer who'd brought them here paused. "Perhaps you would like to move to the conference room? He is not well, and the doctor said not to disturb him overly. They will try to feed him in half an hour, and need space…"
"That sounds like a good idea," said Brilliana. "Will you call us if any other visitors arrive, Carlos?"
"I'll do that." He nodded. "This way, please."
Over peppermint tea and refreshments in the conference room, Miriam eyed Iris warily. "You're looking healthy."
Iris nodded. "Over here, treatment is easier to come by." She was making do with a single cane, moving without any obvious signs of the multiple sclerosis that periodically confined her to a wheelchair. "And certain bottlenecks are… no longer present." Months ago, she'd as good as told Miriam that she was on her own: that Hildegarde-or other members of the conservative faction-had a death grip on the supply of medicines she needed, and if Iris went against their will she'd stay in a wheelchair in the near-medieval conditions of the Gruinmarkt until she rotted.