“Oh.” Miriam felt deflated, frightened. What happens to business life when there’s no limit to liability and the only people you can work with are your blood relatives? Instinctively she changed the subject. “What did your uncle mean about tonight? And servants, I mean, servants?”
“Ah, that.” Roland slipped down into the seat at last, relaxing a little. “We are invited to dine with the head of one of the families in private. The most powerful family in the Clan, at that. It’s a formal affair. As for the servants, you’re entitled to half a dozen or so ladies-in-waiting, your own guard of honour, and various others. My uncle the duke sent the minor family members away, but in the meantime there are maids from below stairs who will see to you. Really I would have sent them earlier, when I brought you up here, but he stressed the urgent need for secrecy and I thought—” He paused. “You really did grow up over there, didn’t you? In the middle classes.”
She nodded, unsure just how to deal with his sudden attack of snobbery. Some of the time he seemed open and friendly, then she hit a blind spot and he was Sir Medieval Aristocrat writ large and charmless. “I don’t do upper class,” she said. “Well, business class, maybe.”
“Well, you aren’t in America any more. You’ll have get used to the way we do things here eventually.” He paused. “Did I say something wrong?”
He had, but she didn’t know how to explain. Which was why a couple of hours later she was sitting naked in the bathroom, talking to her dictaphone, trying to make sense of the insanity outside—without succumbing to hysteria—by treating it as a work assignment and reporting on it.
“Now I know how Alice felt in looking-glass land,” she muttered, holding her dictaphone close to her lips. “They’re mad. I don’t mean schizophrenic or psychotic or anything like that. They’re just not in the same universe as anyone else I know.” The same universe was a slip: She could feel the hysterical laughter bubbling up inside her. She bit her lower lip, painfully hard. “They’re nuts. And they insist I join in and play their game by their rules.”
There was some bumping and thumping going on in the main room of the suite. That would be the maidservants moving stuff around. Miriam paused the tape for a moment, considering her next words. “Dear Diary. Forty-eight hours ago I was hanging out in the forest, happy as a clam with my photographs of a peasant village that looked like something out of the middle ages. I was exploring, discovering something new, and it was great, I had this puzzle-box reality to crack open, a whole new story. Now I discover that I own that village, and a hundred more like it, and I literally have the power of life and death over its inhabitants. I can order soldiers to go in and kill every last one of them, on a whim. Once the Clans recognize me officially, at an annual session, that is. And assuming—as Roland says—nobody assassinates me. Princess Beckstein, signing off for The Weatherman, or maybe Business 2.0. Jesus, who’d have thought I’d end up starring in some kind of twisted remake of Cinderella? Or that it would turn out so weird?”
And I called Craig Venter and Larry Ellison robber barons in print, she thought mordantly, keying the “pause” button again.
“Put that way it sounds funny, but it isn’t. First I thought it was the feds who broke in and grabbed me, and that’s pretty damn scary to begin with. FEMA, secret security courts with hearings held in camera. Then, it could have been the mob, if the mob looked like FBI agents. But this could actually be worse. These guys wear business suits, but it’s only skin-deep. They’re like sheikhs from one of the rich Gulf Emirates. They don’t dress up medieval, they think medieval and buy their clothes from Saks or Savile Row in England.”
A thought occurred to her. I hope Paulette’s keeping the video camera safe. And her head down. She had an ugly, frightened feeling that Duke Angbard had seen right through her. He scared her: She’d met his type before, and they played hardball—hard enough to make a Mafia don’s eyes water. She was half-terrified she’d wake up tomorrow and see Paulie’s head impaled on a pike outside her bedroom window. If only Ma hadn’t given me the damned locket—
A tentative knock on the door. “Mistress? Are you ready to come out?”
“Ten minutes,” Miriam called. She clutched her recorder and shook her head. Four servants had shown up an hour ago, and she’d retreated into the bathroom. One of them, called something like Iona, had tried to follow her. Apparently countesses weren’t allowed to use a bathroom without servants in attendance. That was when Miriam had locked the door and braced the linen chest against it.
“Damn,” she muttered and took a deep breath. Then she surrendered to the inevitable.
They were waiting for her when she came out. Four women in severe black dresses and white aprons, their hair covered by blue scarves. They curtseyed before her as she looked around, confused. “I’m Meg, if it please you, your highness. We is to dress you,” the oldest of them said in a soft, vaguely Germanic accent: Middle-aged and motherly, she looked as if she would be more at home in an Amish farm kitchen than a castle.
“Uh, it’s only four o’clock,” Miriam pointed out.
Meg looked slightly shocked. “But you are to be received at seven!” She pointed out. “How’re we to dress you in time?”
“Well.” Miriam looked at the other three: All of them stood with downcast eyes. I don’t like this, she thought. “How about I take something from my wardrobe—yes, they kindly brought all my clothes along—and put it on?”
“M-ma’am,” the second oldest ventured: “I’ve seen your clothes. Begging your pardon, but them’s not court clothes. Them’s not suitable.”
‘Court clothes’? More crazy formal shit. “What would you suggest, then?” Miriam asked exasperatedly.
“Old Ma’am Rosein can fit you up with something to measure,” said the old one, “should I but give her your sizes.” She held up a very modern-looking tape measure. “Your highness?”
“This had better be good,” Miriam said, raising her arms. Why do I never get this kind of service at the Gap? she wondered.
Three hours later Miriam was readied for dinner, and knew exactly why she never got this kind of service in any chain store—and why Angbard had so many servants. She was hungry, and if the bodice they’d squeezed her into allowed her to eat when she got there she might consider forgiving Angbard for his invitation.
The youngest maidservant was still fussing over her hair—and the feathers and string of pearls she had woven into it, while lamenting its shortness—when the door opened. It was, of course, Roland, accompanied now by a younger fellow, and Miriam began to get an inkling of what a formal dinner involved.
“Dear cousin!” Roland saluted her. Miriam carefully met his eyes and inclined her head as far as she could. “May I present you with your nephew twice removed: Vincenze?” The younger man bowed deeply, his red embroidered jacket tightening across broad shoulders. “You look splendid, my dear.”
“Do I?” Miriam shook her head. “I feel like an ornamental flower arrangement,” she said with some feeling.
“Charmed, ma’am,” said Vincenze with the beginning of a stutter.
“If you would like to accompany me?” Roland offered her his arm, and she took it with alacrity.
“Keep the speed down,” she hissed, glancing past him at his younger relative, who appeared to be too young to need to shave regularly.
“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: I feel like I’ve fallen into 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.