The Clan Corporate

Pap smear? Miriam blinked. "Make them let me go," she said stubbornly, flexing her wrists.

"Not yet." Ven Hjalmar looked down his nose at her, standing there in her underwear with her wrists immobilized by boxer-woman. "When, exactly, did you lose your maidenhood?"

"None of your business." She tried not to snarl. If you do not obey your orders I will hurt you, the ferret had said: she didn't dare forget.

"I assure you, it is very much my business." Ven Hjalmar shrugged. "And it will be the worse for you if you don't answer."

"Why do you want to know?" she demanded. Boxer-woman tugged on her left wrist, hard enough to make her wince. "What is this?"

"I am attempting to compile a report for the Crown," Ven Hjalmar said primly. "You are thirty-three years old, I understand? You are in good health and disease-free, and I am informed already that you are not a virgin, but this is old for a first pregnancy, such as you will be attempting within the next year. I need to know everything about your reproductive history. If you will not tell me, I will have to examine you intimately, and then guess as to the rest. Which would you prefer?"

"It won't be a first pregnancy," Miriam admitted through gritted teeth. Damn, why couldn't I have gotten my tubes tied? She knew why: she'd never gotten around to it. She even knew why she'd never gotten around to it-the sneaking suspicion that one day there might be a right time and a right man to start a family with. The huge irony being that as a direct result she was now being lined up to start a family with absolutely the wrong man at the wrong time. "I was twenty-one." She tried to pull away again. "Make her let go of me."

"Keep talking," said ven Hjalmar.

Miriam tensed, but boxer-woman was developing an evil Nurse Ratched glare. "One child. Girl, the father was my ex-husband, I was still studying-a contraceptive accident. I didn't want an abortion but we couldn't afford to bring her up so Mom suggested we adopt out-"

Scribble scribble. Ven Hjalmar's pen was busy. Miriam kept talking, her mind blank; she managed one barefaced lie (that she didn't know anything about the adopters), but that was it. Abject surrender. She felt dirty. What business was it of this quack to pick over her sexual history? He wanted to know everything: had she suffered from morning sickness, what medicines had they prescribed, had she ever had bladder problems-only when your hired thugs punch me in the gut-and more. He went on for hours. Miriam made another stab at resistance when he started asking for names of every man she'd slept with, but at that point he dropped the matter and switched to asking about her hearing. But the interrogation left her feeling unaccountably dirty, like shop-soiled linen on display for all to see.

Finally, ven Hjalmar muttered something to Nurse Ratched, who let go of Miriam. Miriam took a step back, then sat down on the padded bench. "Yes?" she asked wearily.

"You have something of an attitude problem, young lady."

"No shit." Miriam drew her knees up beneath her shift and crossed her arms defensively around them. "You're the one giving me the third degree in front of an audience."

"They won't say anything." Ven Hjalmar smiled and said something to the other servant woman. She made a gabbling noise, incoherent and liquid, and turned to face Miriam. "As you can see."

Miriam looked away the moment she saw the tongueless ruin inside the woman's mouth. Oh shit, I'm going to have bad dreams tonight. "I see," she said weakly, trying to recover what was left of her shredded dignity. "What did she do to deserve that?"

"She discussed her mistress's intimate details." Ven Hjalmar shook his head lugubriously. "The royal family takes medical confidentiality very seriously."

Unaccountably, Miriam felt slightly less disheartened. So even you're afraid, huh? We'll see what we can do with that. "So what happens next?"

"I think we can skip the virginity test. It isn't as if you are being considered for the crown prince, after all." Ven Hjalmar stood up. "I believe you are a perfectly fit young woman, of sound body, perhaps a little disturbed by your circumstances but that will pass. If you would like something to help your mood, I am sure we can do something about that-have you considered Prozac? Guaranteed to cure all black humors, so I'm assured by the manufacturer. I shall take my leave now, and your own maidservants will help return you to your usual peak of feminine beauty." He produced the odd, simpering smile once again. "Incidentally," he added sotto voce, "I understand and commiserate with the difficult circumstances of your marriage. If it's any consolation, you may not have to lie with the, ah, afflicted one if you do not wish to. A sample can be obtained and a douche prepared, if you prefer."

"What if I don't want to become pregnant?"

Ven Hjalmar paused with his hand on the door handle. "I really don't think you ought to trouble yourself with such unrealistic fantasies," he said.

"But, what if?" Miriam called to him. Her fingernails bit into her palms hard enough to draw blood.

"Prozac," said ven Hjalmar, as he opened the door.

Three days after Dr. ven Hjalmar's humiliating interrogation, Miriam was begi

"What is it?" she asked, looking up from her book.

"You have an invitation," he said in hochsprache. He'd taken to using it almost all the time, except when she was obviously floundering. As ever, her jailer's expression was unreadable. "The baron says you may accept it if you wish." He repeated himself in English, just in case she hadn't got the message.

"An invitation." Where to? Her imagination whirled like a hamster on a wheel: Not the royal court, obviously, or it would be compulsory…

"From the honorable Duchess Patricia voh Hjorth d'Wu ab Thorold. Your mother. She begs your forgiveness for not writing and invites the honorable Countess Helge voh Thorold d'Hjorth to visit with her for lunch tomorrow."

"Tell her I'd, I'd-" Miriam licked her lips. "Of course I'll go."

"I shall tell her." The ferret began to withdraw. "I shall make arrangements. You will be ready to travel by eleven and you will be back here no later than five of the afternoon."

"Wait!" Miriam stood up. "Can I see Olga Thorold Arnesen?"

"No." He began to close the door.

"Or Lady Brilliana d'Ost?"

The ferret stopped and stared at her. "If you continue to pester me I will hurt you." Then he shut the door.

Miriam paced back and forth across the reception room in a blind panic, stir-crazy from confinement but apprehensive about whatever Iris would say to her. Of course Henryk will have told her, she thought. But blood was thicker than water, and surely Iris wouldn't side with him against her-or would she? She's been so distant and cold since she rejoined the Clan. The change in her mood had been like a safety curtain dropping across the stage at the end of a play, locking in the warmth and the light. Mom's got her own problems. She said so. Like her own mother, the poisonous dowager Hildegarde. The old women's plot. She crossed her arms. Henryk must have told her, or she wouldn't have known where to send the invitation, she thought. If I can persuade her to give me a locket I could make a clean break for it-

But a cold, cynical thought still nagged at her. What if Mom wants me to marry Prince Stupid? She wouldn't do that… would she?

The ruthless reproductive realpolitik within the Clan had made an early victim of Patricia voh Hjorth: her own mother had forced her into marriage to a violent sociopath. The scars had taken a long time to scab over, even after Patricia had made her run to the other world and settled down to life as Iris Beckstein for nearly a third of a century. Iris wouldn't have dreamed of forcing her own daughter into a loveless marriage of convenience. But now she was back in the suffocating bosom of the Clan, which way would Patricia jump-especially if her own skin was at stake?