“Not what—oh, that.” Olga looked at her oddly. “What else would you have them do with bandits?”

“Um.” Miriam swallowed. “Not that.” The city gates were wide open and nobody seemed to be guarding them. “Is there meant to be anyone on watch?”

“Invasion comes from the sea, most often.”

“Um.” I’ve got to stop saying that, Miriam told herself. Her feet were beginning to hurt with all the walking, she was picking up dust and dirt, and she was profoundly regretting not making use of the dining carriage for breakfast. Or crossing all the way over, phoning for Paulie to pick them up, and driving all the way in the back of an air-conditioned car. “Which way to the castle?”

“Oh, that’s a way yet.” Olga beamed as a wagon laden with bales of hay clattered past. “Isn’t it grand? The largest city in the Gruinmarkt!”

“Yes, I suppose it is,” Miriam said hollowly. She’d seen somediing like this before, she realized. Some of the museum reconstructions of medieval life back home were quite accurate, but nothing quite captured the reek—no, the overwhelming stench—of open sewers, of people who bathed twice a year and wore a single set of clotiies all the time, of houses where the owners bedded down with their livestock to share warmth. Did I really say I was going to modernize this? she asked herself, aghast at her own hubris. Why yes, I think I did. Talk about jumping in with both feet …

Olga steered her into a wide boulevard without warning. “Look,” she said. Huge stone buildings fronted the road at intervals, all the way up to an imposing hill at the far end, upon which squatted a massive stone carbuncle, turretted and brooding. “You see? There is civilization in Niejwein after all!”

“That’s the palace, isn’t it?”

“It is indeed. And we’ll be much better off once we are inside its walls.” A hundred yards more and Olga waved Miriam into what at first she mistook for an alleyway—before she worked out that it was the drive leading to the Hjorth Palace.

“I didn’t realize this—” Miriam stopped, coming to a halt behind Olga. Two men at arms were walking toward them, hands close to their sword hilts.

“Chein bet hen! Gehen’sh veg!”

“Ver she mishtanken shind?” said Olga, drawing herself up and glaring at them icily.

“Ish interesher’ish nish, when sheshint the Herzogin von Praha—” said one, sneering contemptuously.

“Stop right there,” Miriam said evenly, pulling her right hand inside her cloak. “Is Duke Lofstrom in residence?”

The sneering one stopped and gaped at her. “You … say, the duke?” he said slowly in broken English. “I’ll teach you—”

His colleague laid a hand on his arm and muttered something urgent in his ear.

“Fetch the duke, or one of his aides,” Miriam snapped. “I will wait here.”

Olga glanced at her sidelong, then turned her cloak back to reveal her gun and her costume. What she wore would be considered respectable in New London: Over here it was as exotic as the American outfits the Clan members wore in private.

“I take you inside,” said the more prudent guard, trying to look inoffensive. “Gregor, gefen she jemand shnaill’len, als iffoor leifensdauer abhngtfon ihm,” he told his companion.

Olga grinned humorlessly. “It does,” she said.

A carriage rattled up the drive behind them; meanwhile, booted feet hurried across the hall. A man, vaguely familiar from Angbard’s retinue, glanced curiously at Miriam. “Oh great Sky Father, it’s her,” he muttered in a despairing tone. “Please, come in, come in! You came to see the duke?”

“Yes, but I think we should freshen up first,” said Miriam. “Please send him my compliments, tell these two idiots to let us in, and we will be with him in half an hour.”

“Certainly, certainly—”

Olga took Miriam’s hand and led her up the steps while the duke’s man was still warming up on the hapless guards. A couple more guards, these ones far more alert-looking, fell in behind them. “Your apartment,” said Olga. “I took the liberty of moving some of my stuff in. I hope you don’t mind?”

“Not at all.” Miriam shrugged, then winced. “I’ll need more than half an hour to freshen up.”

“Well, you’ll have to do it fast.” Olga rapped on the huge double doors by the top of the main stairs. “The duke detests being kept waiting.”

“Indeed—Kara!—oof!”

“My lady!”

Miriam pushed her back to arm’s length. “You’ve been alright?” she asked anxiously. “No murderers lurking in your bedroom?”

“None, milady!” Kara flushed and let go of her. “Milady! What is that you’re wearing? It’s so frumpy! And you, lady Olga? Is this some horrid new fashion from Paris that we’ll all be wearing in a month? Has somebody been biting your neck, that you’ve got to hide it?”

“I hope not,” Miriam said dryly. “Listen.” She towed Kara into the empty outer audience chamber. “We’re going to see Angbard in half an hour. Half an hour. Get something for me to wear. And warn Olga’s maids. We’ve been on the road half a day.”

“I shall!” She bounced away toward the bedchamber.

Miriam rubbed her forehead. “Youth and enthusiasm.” She made a wry curse of it.

Her bedroom was as she’d left it four months ago—Olga had taken the Queen’s Room, for there were four royal rooms in this apartment—and for once Miriam didn’t drive Kara out. “Help me undress,” she ordered. “Aah, that’s better. Um. Fetch the pot. Then would you mind getting me a basin of hot water? I need to scrub my face.”

Kara, for a wonder, left Miriam alone to wash herself—then doubled the miracle by laying out one of Miriam’s trouser suits and retiring to the outer chamber. “She’s learning,” Miriam noted. “Hmm.” It felt strange to be dressing for an ordinary day in the office world, doubly strange to be doing so with medieval squalor held at bay outside by guards with swords. “What the hell.” She looked at herself in the mirror. Her hair was past shoulder length, there were worry lines around her eyes that hadn’t been there six months ago, and her jacket was loose at the waist. “Not bad.” Then she spotted a couple of white hairs. “Damn. Bad.” She combed it back hard, held it in place with a couple of pins, and turned her back on the mirror. “Hostile takeover time, kid. Go kill ’em.”

There were no simple chambers for the duke. He’d taken over the royal apartment in the west wing, occupying half of the top floor, and his guards had staked out the entire floor below as a security measure. Nor was it possible for Miriam to pay a quiet visit on him. Not without first picking up a retinue of a palace majordomo, a bunch of guards led by a nervous young officer, and an overexcited teenager. Kara fussed around behind Miriam as she climbed the stairs. “Isn’t it exciting?” she squealed.

“Hush.” Miriam cast her eye over the guards with a jaundiced eye. Their camouflage jackets and submachine guns sounded a jarring note. Strip them from the scene and this might merely be some English stately home, taken over for the duration of a rich multinational’s general meeting. “Am I always supposed to travel with this much protection?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Kara said artlessly.

“Make a point of finding out, then,” Miriam said sharply as she climbed the last few steps toward the separate guard detachment outside Angbard’s residence.

Two soldiers came to attention on either side of the door to the royal apartment. Their sergeant strode forward. “Introduce me,” Miriam hissed at the majordomo.

“Ahem! May I present my lady, her excellency the countess Helge Thorold-Hjorth, niece of the duke Angbard of that family, who comes to pay her attendance on the duke?” The man ended on a strangled squeak.

The sergeant checked his clipboard. “Everything is as expected.” He saluted, and Miriam nodded acknowledgment at him. “Ma’am. If you’d like to come this way.” His eyes lingered on Kara. “Your lady-in-waiting may attend. The guards—”