The Clan Corporate

The king nodded. "We must circulate," he said. "At di

"It will go well," she insisted, gripping Helge's wrist. "You are a modest young woman, I see. Good for you, Helge. You have good hips, too." She winked. "You will enjoy the fruits, if not the planting."

"Uh. Thank you," Helge said carefully, and detached herself as soon as she could, which turned out to be when Angelin's glass ran dry. She glanced around, wondering if she could find somewhere to hide. Her disguise wasn't exactly helping make her inconspicuous. Then she spotted a familiar face across the room. She slid along the wall toward his corner. His eyes slid past her at first: What's wrong? she wondered. Then she realized. Oh, he doesn't recognize me. She pushed back the veil and nodded at him, and James Lee started. "Hi," she said, reverting to English.

"Hi yourself." He eyed her up and down. "How-modest?"

"I'm supposed to be saving myself for my husband." She pulled a face. "Not that he'd notice."

"Hah. I didn't know you were married."

"I'm not. Yet. Are you?"

"Oh, absolutely not. So where's the lucky man?" He looked mildly irritated. So, have I got your interest? Miriam wondered idly.

"Over there." She tilted her head, then spotted the Queen Mother looking round. "- 'Scuse me." She dropped her veil.

"You're not-" He looked aghast. "You're going to marry the Idiot?"

She sighed. "I wish people wouldn't call him that."

"But you-" He stopped. "You are. You're going to do it."

"Yes," she said tightly. "I have a shortage of alternative offers, in case you'd forgotten. A woman of my age and status needs to be grateful for what she can get"-and for her relatives refraining from poisoning her mother-"and all that."

"Ha. I'd marry you, if you asked," said Lee. There was a dangerous gleam in his eye.

"If-" She took a deep breath, constrained by the armor of her role. "I am required to produce royal offspring," she said bitterly.

Lee glanced away. "The traditional penalty for indiscretions with the wives of royalty is rather drastic," he murmured.

She snorted quietly. "I wasn't offering." Yet. "I'm not in the market." But get back to me after I've been married to Creon for a year or two. By then, even the goats will be looking attractive. "Listen, did you remember what I asked for?"

"Oh, this?" A twist of his hand, and a gleam of silver: a small locket on a chain slid into his palm.

Helge's breath caught. Freedom in a capsule. It was almost painful. If she took it she could desert all her responsibilities, her duty to Patricia, her impending marriage to the damaged cadet branch of the monarchy-"What do you want for it?" she asked quietly.

"From you?" Lee stared at her for a long second. "One kiss, my lady."

The spell broke. She reached out and folded his fingers around the chain. "Not now," she said gently. "You've no idea what it costs me to say that. But-"

He laid a finger on the back of her hand. "Take it now."

"Really?"

"Just say you will let me petition for my fee later, that's all I ask."

She breathed out slowly. Her knees suddenly felt like jelly. Wow, you're a sweet-talker. "You know you're asking for something dangerous."

"For you, no risk is too great." He smiled, challenging her to deny it.

She took another deep breath. "Yes, then."

He tilted his hand upside-down and she felt the locket and its chain pour into her gloved hand. She fumbled hastily with the buttons at her wrist, then slid the family treasure inside and refastened the sleeve. "Have you any idea what this means to me?" she asked.

"It's the key to a prison cell." He raised his wineglass. "I've been in that cell too. If I wanted to leave badly enough-"

"Oh. Oh. I see." The hell of it was, he was telling the truth: he could violate his status as a hostage anytime he felt like it-anytime he felt like restarting a war that his own family could only lose. She felt a sudden stab of empathy for him. That's dangerous, part of her realized. Another part of her remembered Roland, and felt betrayed. But Roland was dead, and she was still alive, and seemingly destined for a loveless marriage: why shouldn't she enjoy a discreet fling on the side? But not now, she rationalized. Not right under the eyes of the royal dynasty, not with half the Clan waiting outside for a grand di

A bell rang, breaking through the quiet conversation. "That means di

They filed out through the door, Helge on the king's arm, before an audience of hundreds of faces. She felt her knees knock. For a moment she half-panicked: then she realized nobody could see her face. "Put back your veil, my dear," the king murmured. "Your seat."

Hypnotized, she sat down on something extremely hard and unforgiving, like a slab of solid wood. A throne. A brassy cacophony of trumpetlike horns blatted from the sidelines as other notables stepped forward and sat down to either side of-then opposite-her. She moved her veil out of the way, then recoiled. A wizened old woman-a crone in spirit as well as age-sat across the table from her. "You," she accused.

"Is that any way to address your grandmother?" The old dowager looked down her nose at her. "I beg your pardon, your majesty, one needs must teach the young flower that those who stand tallest are the first to be cut down to size."

"This is your doing," Helge accused.

"Hardly. It's traditional." Hildegarde snorted. "Eat your sweetbreads. It's long past time you and I had a talk and cleared the air between us."

"We'd listen to her, if we were you," the king told Helge. Then he turned to speak to the elderly courtier on his right, effectively locking her out of his sphere of conversation.

"There's nothing to talk about," Helge said sullenly. She toyed with her food, some sort of meat in a glazed sugar sauce.

"Your traditional demeanor does you credit, my dear, but it doesn't deceive me. You're still looking for a way out. Let me tell you, there isn't one."

"Uh-huh." Helge took a mouthful of appetizer. It was disgustingly rich, implausible as an appetizer. Oily, too.

"Every woman in our lineage goes through this sooner or later," explained the dowager. She stabbed a piece of meat with her knife, held it to her mouth, and nibbled delicately at it with her yellowing teeth. "You're nothing special, child."

Helge stared at her, speechless with rage.

"Go on, hate me," Hildegarde said indulgently. "It goes with the territory." She'd switched to English, in deference to her granddaughter's trouble with the vernacular, but now Miriam was having trouble staying in character as Helge. "It'll go easier for you if you hate me. Go on."

"I thought you didn't believe in me." Miriam bit into the sweetbread. Sheep's pancreas, a part of her remembered. "Last time we met you called me a fraud."

"Allow me to concede that your mother vouched for you satisfactorily. And I will admit she is who she claims to be. Even after a third of a century of blessed peace and quiet she's hard to deny, the minx."

"She's no-"

"Yes she is. Don't you see that? She even fooled you."