The Traders' War (Merchant Princes Omnibus 2) (68 page)
Read The Traders' War (Merchant Princes Omnibus 2) Online
Authors: Charles Stross
Otto relaxed slightly. ‘I would be happy to receive them.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Jorg, fetch a tankard of ale for Eorl Geraunt, if you please.’ Jorg nodded and headed
for the ale cart, his hand leaving his sword hilt as he turned, and the other hand-man, Hein, took a step back. ‘Have you had a difficult time finding us?’
‘Not too difficult, sir.’ Geraunt bobbed his head: ‘I had but to follow the trail of wise trees.’ Behind Otto, the wailing prayers were choked off abruptly as his men
raised further tribute to Sky Father. ‘His majesty is less than a day’s hard ride away.’
Otto glanced at Geraunt’s horse. He could take a hint. ‘Henryk, if you could find someone to see to the eorl’s horse . . .’ He turned back to Geraunt as his other
hand-man strode off. ‘How fares his majesty?’
Sir Geraunt grinned excitedly. ‘He does great deeds!’ A nod at the tree: ‘Not to belittle your own, my lord, but he sweeps through the countryside like the scythe of his
grandsire, reaping the fields of disorder and uprooting weeds!’ He reached into the leather purse dangling from his belt and pulled out a parchment envelope, sealed with wax along its edges.
‘His word, as I stand before you, my lord.’
‘Thank you.’ Otto accepted the letter, glanced at the seal, then slit it open with his small knife. Within, he found the crabbed handwriting of one of Egon’s scribes.
‘Hmm.’ The message was short and to the point. He glanced round, as Jorg returned with Geraunt’s beer and Heidlor walked over.
‘Sergeant, how long until you are finished with the prisoners?’
Heidlor shrugged. ‘Before sundown, I would say, sir. Perhaps in as little as one bell.’
Otto frowned. This was taking too long. ‘We have orders to march. Much as it pains me to deprive Sky Father of his own, I think we’d better speed things up. So once the men have
finished decorating that branch –’ he pointed: there was barely room for another three hanging bodies ‘– hmm, how many are we left with? Two score?’ This particular
house had been full of refugees, and the village with collaborators. ‘Strip them naked, whip them into the woods, and fire the buildings with their clothes and chattels inside. We’ll
have to rely on winter to do the rest of our work here.’
Sir Geraunt blanched. ‘Isn’t that a bit harsh?’ he asked.
‘His majesty was most specific.’ Otto tapped his finger on the letter. ‘I don’t have time to gently send them to their one-eyed father – you say his majesty is a
day’s ride away? We have to meet with him by this time tomorrow. With my men.’
‘Oh, I see. If I may be permitted to ask, did he issue orders for my disposition, my lord? I am anxious to return – ’
‘You may ride with us.’ He turned and walked away, towards his tent. ‘I’m sure there’ll be enough wise trees for everyone if he’s right about this,’ he
muttered to himself, for the summons was unequivocal:
It is time to seek a concentration of fluxes,
his majesty had ordained. To draw the tinker-witches into a real battle, by threatening
a target they couldn’t afford to lose with force they couldn’t ignore. It would mean attacking a real target, not just another of these tedious manor estates. It would probably be
either Fort Lofstrom or Castle Hjorth, and Otto would be willing to bet good money on the latter.
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
‘Good evening, your grace!’
‘Indeed it is, indeed it is, Eorl Riordan. A lovely evening. And how
are you?’
‘I am well, sir. As well as can be expected.’
‘For a fellow who is well, your face is uncommonly glum. Here, sit down. A glass of the Cabernet, perhaps?’
‘Thank you, sir. What can I do for you?’ ‘Hmm, direct and to the point. Let me ask you a leading question, then. You may answer as indiscreetly as you care
– it will go no farther than this room. How do you rate our performance?’
‘Tactical or strategic? Or logistic and economic?’
‘Whichever you deem most important. I want to know, in confidence, what you think we’re doing wrong and what you think we’re doing right.’
‘Doing
right
?’ (
Brief laughter
.) ‘Nothing.’
‘That’s –’ (
Pause
.) ‘– a provocative statement. Would you elaborate?’
‘Yes, your grace. May I start with a summary?’
‘Be my guest.’
‘We are engaged in a war on two fronts. I shall ignore the first hostility for now, and concentrate on the second, because that’s the one you assigned me to deal
with. Hostilities started when the former crown prince usurped the throne. It is evident from the speed and nature of his actions that he had been planning to do so for some time, and that he
had already assured himself of the support of a sufficiently broad base of the nobility, before he moved, to have some hope of success. However, his move may well have been reactive – a
response to the imminent marriage of his younger brother. So to start with, we are fighting an opponent who has studied his enemies and who has prepared extensively for this conflict, but whose
execution was rushed.’
‘Hmm. How do you evaluate his preparations?’
‘They were confoundedly good, your grace. His control over the Royal Life Guards, for one thing – that was a nasty surprise. His ability to install explosives in the
palace – his possession of them – speaks of a level of planning that has given me sleepless nights. The Pervert may be many things but he isn’t stupid. Despite his well-known
antipathy for our number, he has studied us closely. It is impossible to now ask his grand-dame how much lore she may have passed on to him, but we should take it as read that when he refers to
us as ‘witches’ he knows exactly what we are capable of. For example, rather than holding Niejwein and the castles surrounding it, he immediately departed for the field, where I am
told he sleeps among his troops, never in the same tent twice. Sir, he clearly knows how the civil war was fought: he knows exactly what tactics we would first think to use against an enemy
noble, and his defenses are as good as anything we could muster for one of our own.’
‘You’ve considered the usual routes, I take it? An assassination team from the other side?’
‘Yes, your grace. It would be suicidal. For one thing, as I said, he sleeps among his men, in the field, always moving – for another, he has body doubles. We have
identified at least two of them on different occasions, and they’re good actors: there is a good chance we would be striking at a puppet rather than their master. Finally, he has
bodyguards. And I fear we have been too liberal with our gifts over the past decades: either that, or they’ve captured some hedge-lord’s private cabinet of arms, because I have
confirmation that his majesty’s hand-men carry MP5s.’
(
Pause
.) ‘All right, so the Pervert’s a hard target. Now. The strategic picture?’
‘Certainly, your grace. The enemy has divided his forces into battalion-strength raiding units. They’re in the field and they’re hurting us. It’s a
– this is embarrassing – a classic insurgency. The royal battalions fall on our outlying villages, hit them hard, massacre and destroy everything they can get their hands on, then
disappear into the forest again. It’s absolutely not how you’d expect an eastern monarch to fight, it’s downright dishonorable – but it’s how the Pervert is
fighting. He’s serious, sir, he’s trying to force us to divide our strength. And he’s succeeded. We’ve had to move as many dependents as possible over to the other side,
and keep couriers on standby everywhere. And even that’s not enough. We’ve used helicopters to rush armed detachments into position on the other side a couple of times, and it
worked on that bastard Lemke – he won’t be burning any more villages – but the more we do it, the greater the risk that the Americans will notice. He’s got us on the
defensive, and each time he hits us we either lose a village or we lose men we can’t afford to – and he gains honor. This week I’ve lost eleven dead and fourteen injured badly
enough they won’t be fighting again for months. That’s not including the outer family members, dependents, servants, peasants and the like. I think we’ve accounted for a good
couple of hundred of the foe, but they’re not stupid: usually the first warning of an attack we have is when a cannonball comes through a manor house door. There’s a limit to what a
lance with M16s and a SAW can do against a battalion of dragoons and a cavalry squadron – some of whom have Glocks.’
‘Ah, yes. I thought you’d bring that up. Be glad you don’t have to explain it to the council, Eorl Riordan. They know it’s wrong, but they still
can’t help but petition for protection, which is why three-quarters of our number are guarding strategic hamlets or sitting in helicopter hangars on the other side. It’s what we
exist for, and we’re being nibbled to death by mice. What would you do, were you in charge?’
‘I’d set up a mousetrap, your grace. We can’t afford to suffer the death of a thousand cuts – Clan Security has, what? Two hundred inner family? Nearly a
thousand armed and trained retainers? And up to six hundred world-walkers to call in for the corvée, if we need logistic support. The usurper outnumbers us five to one, but we’ve
got SAWs and two-way radio while they’re limited to roundshot, grapeshot, and horseback couriers. We should be able to massacre those raiding parties, if we can just once anticipate not
only their next target, but their path of advance.’
‘Hmm. Suppose I were to tell you exactly where the enemy is planning to mass for a major strike, next Tuesday. Not just one of their battalions, but three of them, a
goodly chunk of the royal army. Would that enable you to prepare a suitable reception for him?’
‘Would – your grace! Please say it’s true!’
(
Pause
.) ‘The source is . . . troubling. I would not completely discount all risk of it being a deliberate leak, intended to lure us into a trap. Still. Be that
as it may, I am informed – by one who stands to profit from that information – that there is a high probability of an attack on Castle Hjorth within the next two weeks. Which
strikes me as suicidal, given the location and defenses of the castle, so I advise you to bear in mind the possibility that even if my source is telling the truth, they are not telling us
everything. But, having said that, I want you to work out what we’re going to do about it. Because if it is true, my informer tells me that the Pervert himself will lead the attack. And
this might be our best opportunity to kill him and end the war.’
END TRANSCRIPT
As it happened, Mike didn’t get to go home that day – or the next. ‘You live on your own in a second-floor apartment, and you’ve got a lovely spiral
fracture plus soft-tissue injuries and a damaged Achilles tendon, Mr. Fleming. Listen, I’ll happily sign you out – if you fill in a criminal negligence waiver for me, first. But I
really think it’s a bad idea right now. Maybe tomorrow, when we’ve got you a nice fiberglass box and a set of crutches, after we set you up with an appointment with physio. But if you
check out today, you’ll wish you hadn’t.’
The time passed slowly, with the inane babble of daytime TV as a laugh track, interrupted occasionally by nursing orderlies and interns checking up on him. Smith hadn’t left him any
reading matter, classified or otherwise, and he was close to climbing the walls by the morning of the second day after Smith’s visit, when he had a surprise visitor: Judith Herz, the FBI
agent who’d been sucked into Family Trade at the same time at Mike.
‘Smith sent me. You’re checking out,’ she said crisply, and dropped an overnight bag on the chair. ‘Here’s your stuff, I’ll be back in ten.’
She shut the door briskly, leaving Mike shaking his head.
What got her so pissed?
He opened the bag and pulled out the clothing. It was the stuff he’d been wearing over a week
ago, before the CLEANSWEEP mission ran off the rails. He shook it out and managed to get the trouser leg over his cast without too much trouble. By the time Herz opened the door again, he was
buttoning his jacket. ‘Yes?’ he asked.
‘I’m your lift.’ She waved a key fob at him. ‘You going to be okay walking, or do you need a wheelchair?’
‘I’ll walk. Give me time, I’m not used to these things.’ He eased his weight onto the crutches and took an experimental step forward. ‘Let’s go.’
She said nothing more all the way to the parking lot. As they neared a black sedan Mike’s impatience got the better of him. ‘You’re not in the taxi business. What’s the
big problem?’
‘I wanted to talk to you without eavesdroppers.’ She squeezed the key fob: lights flashed and doors unlocked.
‘Okay, talk.’ Mike’s stomach twisted.
Last time someone said that to me, he ended up dead.
She opened the passenger door. ‘Here, give me those, I’ll put them in the trunk.’ A minute later she slid behind the wheel and moved off. ‘Your house is under
surveillance.’
‘Yeah, I know.’
She gave him a look. ‘Like that, is it? Care to explain why?’
‘Because –’ he stopped in mid-sentence ‘– what business of yours is it?’
She braked to a stop, near the end of the exit ramp, looking for a gap in the traffic. ‘It’d be kind of nice to know that I’ve been taken off hunting for a ticking bomb and
told to stake out a colleague’s house for a good reason.’ Her voice crackled with quiet anger.
Mike swallowed.
Good cop,
he realized.
What to say . . . ?
‘It’s not me you’re staking out. I’m expecting a visitor.’
‘Okay.’ She hit the gas hard, pushing out into a too-small gap in the traffic: a horn blared behind them for a moment, then they were clear. ‘But they’d better be worth
it.’
‘Listen. You know the spooks are calling the shots. I got dragged off into fairyland, but you don’t have to follow me down the rabbit hole.’
‘Too late. I’m in charge of the team that’s watching you. I just found out about it yesterday. If it’s not you, who am I meant to be keeping an eye open for?’
‘Someone who may be able to tell us whether he was bluffing or if there really
is
a bomb – and if so, where he might have planted it.’