Kara nodded again, but her entire posture was one of mute denial and her eyes were wide. Shit, I’m not getting through to her, Miriam thought to herself. She sighed. “Okay. Breakfast first.” The toast was getting cold. “Is Brill going to the party?”
“Yes, mistress.” Kara seemed to have found her tongue again, but she sounded a bit shaky. She’s about seventeen, Miriam reminded herself. A teenager. Whatever happened to teenage rebellion here? Do they beat it out of them or something?
“Good. Listen, when you’ve finished, go find her. I need someone to walk with me to Lady Olga’s apartment. When Brill gets back, the two of you are to sort out whatever I’m wearing tonight. When I get back I’ll need you both to dress me and tell me who everybody is, where the bodies are buried, and what topics of conversation to avoid. Plus a quick course in court etiquette to make sure I know how to greet someone without insulting them. Think you can manage that?”
Kara nodded, a quick flick of the chin. “Yes, I can do that.” She was about to say something else, but she swallowed it. “By your leave.” She stood.
“Sure. Be off with you.”
Kara turned and scurried out of the room, back stiff. “I don’t think I understand that girl,” Miriam muttered to herself. Brill I think I’ve got a handle on, but Kara—She shook her head, acutely aware of how much she didn’t know and, by implication, of how much potential for damage this touchy teenager contained within her mood swings.
Brilliana turned up as Miriam finished her coffee, dressed for an outdoor hike. Hey, have I started a fashion for trousers? Miriam rose. “Good morning!” She grinned. “Sleep well after last night?”
“Oh.” Brilliana rubbed her forehead. “You plied us with wine like a swain with his—well, I think it’s still there.” She waited for Miriam to stand up. “Would you like to go straight to Lady Olga? Her Aris says she would receive you in the orangery, then take tea with you in her rooms.”
“I think, hmm.” Miriam raised an eyebrow, then nodded when she saw Brilliana’s expression. No newspapers, no telephones, no electricity. Visiting each other is probably the nearest thing to entertainment they get around here when none of the big nobs are throwing parties. “Whatever you think is the right thing to do,” she said. “Where’s my coat…”
Brilliana led her through the vast empty reception chamber of the night before, now illuminated with the clear white light of a snow-blanketed day. They turned down a broad stone-flagged corridor. It was empty save for darkened oil paintings of former inhabitants, and an elderly servant slowly polishing a suit of armour that looked strangely wrong to Miriam’s untrained eye: The plates and joints not quite angled like anything she’d seen in a museum back home.
“Lady Aris said that her Excellency is in a foul mood this morning,” Brilliana said quietly. “She doesn’t know why.”
“Hmmph.” Miriam had some thoughts on the subject. “I spent a long time talking to Olga on the way here. She’s … let’s just say that being one of the inner Clan and fully possessed of the talent doesn’t solve all problems.”
“Really?” Brilliana looked slightly disappointed. She pointed Miriam down a wide staircase, carpeted in blue. Two footmen in crimson livery stood guard at the bottom, backs straight, never blinking at the two women as they passed. Their brightly polished swords looked less out of place to Miriam’s eye than the submachine guns slung discreetly behind their shoulders. Any mob who tried to storm the Clan’s holding would get more than they bargained for.
They walked along another corridor. A small crocodile of maids and dubious-looking servants, cleaning staff, shuffled out of their way as they passed. This time Miriam felt eyes tracking them. “Olga has issues,” she said quietly. “Do you know Duke Lofstrom?”
“I’ve never been presented to him.” Brilliana’s eyes widened. “Isn’t he your uncle?”
“He’s trying to marry Olga off,” Miriam murmured.
“Funny thing is, now I think about it, not once during three days in a carriage with her did I hear Olga say anything positive about her husband-to-be.”
“My lady?”
They came to another staircase, this time leading down into a different wing of this preposterously huge mansion. They passed more guards, this time in the same colours as Oliver Hjorth’s butler. Miriam didn’t let herself blink, but she was aware of their stares, hostile and unwelcoming, drilling into her back.
“Is it my imagination or… ?” Miriam muttered as they turned down a final corridor.
“They may have been shown miniatures of you,” Brilliana said. She shivered, glanced askance at Miriam. “I wouldn’t come this way without a companion, my lady. If I was mistrustful.”
“Why? How bad could it be?”
Brilliana looked unhappy. “People with enemies have been known to find the staircases very slippery. Not recently, but it has happened. In turbulent times.”
Miriam shuddered. “Well, I take your point, then. Thank you for that charming thought.”
A huge pair of oak doors gaped ahead of them, a curtain blocking the vestibule. Chilly air sent fingers past it. Brilliana held it aside for Miriam, who found herself in a shielded cloister, walled on four sides. The middle was a sea of white snow as far as the frozen fountain. All sound was damped by winter’s natural muffler. Miriam suddenly wished she’d brought her gloves.
“Whew! It’s cold!” Brill was behind her. Miriam turned to catch her eye. “Which way?” she asked.
“There.”
Miriam trudged across the snow, noting the tracks through it that were already beginning to fill in. Occasional huge flakes drifted out of a sky the colour of cotton wool.
“Is that the orangery?” she asked, pausing at the door in the far wall.
“Yes.” Brilliana opened the door, held it for her. “It’s this way,” she offered, leading Miriam toward an indistinct gray wall looming from the snow.
There was a door at the foot of the hump. Brilliana opened it, and hot air steamed out. “It’s heated,” she said.
“Heated?” Miriam ducked in. “Oh!”
On the other side of the wall, she found herself in a hothouse that must have been one of the miracles of the Gruinmarkt. Slender cast-iron pillars climbed toward a ceiling twenty feet overhead. It was roofed with a fortune in plate-glass sheets held between iron frames, very slightly greened by algae. It smelled of citrus, unsurprisingly, for on every side were planters from which sprouted trees of not inconsiderable dimensions. Brilliana ducked in out of the cold behind her and pulled the door to. “This is amazing!” said Miriam.
“It is, isn’t it?” said Brilliana. “Baron Hjorth’s grandfather built it. Every plate of glass had to be carried between the worlds—nobody has yet learned how to make it here in such large sheets.”
“Oh, yes, I can see that.” Miriam nodded. The effect was overpowering. At the far end of this aisle there was a drop of three feet or so to a lower corridor, and she saw a bench there. “Where do you think Lady Olga will be?”
“She just said she’d be here,” said Brilliana, a frown wrinkling her brow. “I wonder if she’s near the boiler room? That’s where things are warmest. Someone told me that the artisans have built a sauna hut there, but I wouldn’t know about such things. I’ve never been here on my own before,” she added a little wistfully.
“Well.” Miriam walked toward the benches. “If you want to wait here, or look around? I’ll call you when we’re ready to leave.”
When she reached the cast-iron bench, Miriam turned and stared back along the avenue of orange trees. Brill hadn’t answered because she’d evidently found something to busy herself with. Well, that makes things easier, she thought lightly. Whitewashed brick steps led down through an open doorway to a lower level, past water tanks the size of crypts. The ceiling dipped, then continued—another green-lined aisle smelling of oranges and lemons, flakes of rust gently dripping from the pillars to the stone-flagged floor. Here and there Miriam caught a glimpse of the fat steam pipes, running along the inside of the walls. The trees almost closed branches overhead, forming a dark green tunnel.