The Clan Corporate

Back home in Cambridge, Miriam's mother had never made a big thing about wanting grandchildren. But that was then.

They took Miriam to visit her mother for lunch in a sealed sedan chair carried by two strapping porters. It was a hot day, but there were no windows, just a wooden grille behind her head. It was impossible to see out of. She protested when she saw it, but the ferret just stared at her. "Do you want to attend the duchess, or not?" he asked. Miriam gave in, willing to accept one more indignity if it gave her a chance to talk to Iris. Maybe she'll be able to get me out of this, she told herself grimly.

The box swayed like a ship on choppy water. It seemed to take forever to make its way across town. By the time the porters planted it with a bone-jarring thump, Miriam had gone from being off her appetite to the first green-cheeked anticipation of full-blown nausea: she welcomed the rattle of chains and the opening of the door like a galley slave released from belowdecks, blinking and gasping. "Are we there?"

"Momentarily." The ferret was as imperturbable as ever. "This way." Another closed courtyard with barred windows. Miriam's spirit fell. They're just shuffling me between prisons, she realized. I'm surprised he didn't handcuff me to the chair.

Now the nerves took over. "Where is-she isn't under arrest too, is she?"

Unexpectedly, the ferret chuckled. "No, not exactly."

"Oh." Miriam followed him, two paces ahead of the guards he'd brought along. She glanced at the walls to either side, half-wishing she could make a break for freedom. A couple of gulls squawked raucous abuse from the roofline. She envied them their insolent disdain for terrestrial boundaries.

They came to a solid door in one wall, where a liveried servant exchanged words with the ferret, then produced a key. The door opened on a walled garden. There was a gazebo against the far wall, glass windows-expensively imported, a hallmark of a Clan property-propped open to allow the breeze in. "Go right in," said the ferret. "I believe you are expected. I will collect you later."

"What? Aren't you coming in with me? I thought you were supposed to be watching me at all times?"

The ferret snorted. "Not here." Then he stepped back through the gate and closed it with a solid click.

Wow. Miriam narrowed her eyes as she looked at the gazebo. Mom's got clout, then? She marched up to the door. "Hello?" she asked.

"Come right in, dear."

Her mother watched her from a nest of cushions piled on top of a broad-winged armchair. She looked more frail than ever, wearing a black velvet gown with more ruffles and bows than a lace factory. "Has someone died?" Miriam asked, stepping into the shadow of the gazebo.

"Sit down, make yourself comfortable. No one's died yet, but I'm told it was a close-run thing."

Miriam sat in the only other chair, next to the circular cast-iron table. Iris watched her: she returned her mother's gaze nervously. After a while she cleared her throat. "How much has Henryk told you?"

"Enough."

Another silence.

"I know I shouldn't have done it," Miriam said, when she couldn't take it anymore. "But I was being deliberately cut out of my own affairs. And they've been trying to set me up-"

"It's too late for excuses, kid." Miriam stared. Her mother didn't look angry. She didn't look sad, but she didn't look pleased to see her, either. The silence stretched out until finally Iris sighed and shuffled against her cushions, sitting up. "I wanted to look at you."

"What?"

"I wanted to look at you again," said Iris. "One last time. You know they're going to try to break you?"

"I don't break easily." Miriam knew it was false bravado even as the words left her mouth. The great hollow fear congealing inside her gave the lie away. But what else could she say?

Her mother glanced away evasively. "We don't bend." She shook her head. "None of us does-not me, not you, not even your grandmother. But sooner or later we break. Thirty-three years is what it took, kid, but look at me now. One of the old bitches already."

"What do you mean?" Miriam tensed.

"I mean I'm about to sell you down the river." Iris looked at her sharply. "At least, that's how it's going to seem at first. I'm not going to lie to you: I don't see any alternatives. We're stuck playing the long game, kid, and I'm still learning the rules."

"Suppose you explain what you just said." There was an acid taste in her mouth. Miriam forced herself to unclench her fingers from the arms of her chair. "About selling me down the river."

Iris coughed, wheezing. Miriam waited her out. Presently her mother regained control. "I don't like this any more than you do. It's just the way things work around here. I don't have any alternatives, I'm locked up here and you managed to get caught breaking the unwritten rules." She sighed. "I thought you had more sense than to do that-to get caught, I mean. Anyway, we're both out of alternatives. If I don't play the game, neither of us is going to live very long."

"I don't need this!" Miriam finally let go of her tightly controlled frustration. "I have been locked up and policed and poked and pried at and subjected to humiliating medical examinations, and it's all just some game you're playing for status points? What did you do, promise the Queen Mother you'd marry me off to her grandson if she beat you at poker?"

Iris reached out and grabbed her wrist. Startled, Miriam froze. Her mother's hand felt hot, bony, as weak as a sparrow: "No, never that! But if you knew what it was like to grow up here, fifty years ago…"

Miriam surprised herself: "Suppose you tell me?" Go on, justify yourself, she willed. There were butterflies in her stomach. Whatever was coming, it was bound to be bad.

Her mother nodded thoughtfully. Then her lips quirked in the first sign of a smile Miriam had seen since she'd arrived.

"You know how the Clan braids its families, one arranged marriage after another to keep the bloodline strong." Miriam nodded. "And you know what this means: the meddling old gra

"But Mom, Henryk and Angbard-"

"Hush. I know about the breeding program." Miriam's jaw dropped. "Angbard told me about it. He's not stupid enough to think he can push it through without… without allies. In another ten years the first of the babies will be coming up for adoption. He needs to convince the meddling old gra

She fell silent. Miriam shook her head. "This isn't like you, Mom."

"This place isn't like me, kid. No, listen: what happens to the Clan if Angbard, or his successor, starts introducing farmed baby world-walkers in, oh, ten years time? Without tying them in to the existing great families, without getting the old bitches to take them in and adopt them as their own? And what happens a generation down the line when they become adults?"