Well, it beat the usual punishments for high treason, which included the aforementioned peine fort et lure, or just a straightforward impalement-and-burning-at-the-stake, the traditional cutting of the blood eagle being considered too barbaric for this effete and gentle age.

Miriam suppressed a slight shudder as Niejwein bowed deeply, then bowed again, stuttering a mixture of gracious thanks and praise for her mercy, insight, wisdom, deportment, wit, and general brilliance. She merely nodded. "Take him away," she said, for the benefit of his jailers, "to suitable accommodation for a high noble whose loyalty to the crown is beyond question." Which was to say, a cell with a view.

It took three more weeks of ceremonial duties, horse-trading with noble descendants of real (but successful) horse thieves, sitting in court sessions and trying to show no sign of discomfort when her judges pronounced bloodcurdling sentences upon the recalcitrant few-not to mention diplomacy, shouting, and some pigheaded sulking-but at last they agreed to book her into a suite in a boutique hotel near Quincy, with an ob-gyn appointment for the following day. The ob-gyn exam was the excuse; the real purpose was to give her a weekend off, lest she explode.

"I think you can take two, or at most three days off before too many comments are asked," Riordan had said. "Then it will be getting close to Hedge-Wife's Night and you'll be expected to officiate-"

"Four," said Brill, just as Iris said: "Two." They stopped and glared at each other warily, like cats sizing each other up for a fight.

"People." Miriam rubbed her forehead tiredly. "I've had too much of this." She waved a tired hand, taking in the high ceiling, the ornate tapestries and rugs that did little to soften the wood and plaster of the electricity and aircon-free walls, the discreet chamber pots. They were in private, having exiled the servants for the duration of the brief discussion; they'd be back soon enough, like the rats in the walls that kept her awake in the dead of night with their scuttling and fighting. "I need to decompress, just for a couple of days-"

"We can bring doctors to you, there is no need for you to go to them. If we are secure by winter, then you can retreat to the Winter Palace and spend most of your time in Manhattan," Iris pointed out.

"That's months away. And anyway, you can hold down some of my appointments right now if I'm not here," Miriam told her. "Her grace, the dowager Duchess Patricia Thorold yen

Hjorth, mother of the queen-widow, who is indisposed due to her confinement. Isn't that the formula?"

Iris grunted, displeased. "Something like that," she conceded.

"Admit it, you want some time off, too, don't you?"

Her mother shook her head. "Coming back to this life hasn't been easy. If I give up now…"

After much haggling they had arranged that an anonymous carriage would leave town in the morning with Miriam inside, disguised as an anonymous lady-in-waiting of noble rank. An hour later, by way of the Clan's highly organized courier service, Miriam-wearing jeans and a cotton blouse, feeling almost naked after weeks in court gowns-checked into a four-star hotel near Quincy, with no servants and no visible guards, and and no pomp, ceremony, or stench of open sewers outside the windows.

(That the Clan owned the hotel via a cut-out investment company, and that it was carefully monitored for signs of external surveillance, and discreetly guarded by much better than normal security, was another matter entirely. There was a tacit agreement: As long as Miriam agreed not to test the bars on her cage, everyone could pretend they didn't exist.)

It had come as a welcome, but monumental, relief to have electricity and air conditioning and toilets and Jacuzzis and daytime television and other miracles that had not yet reached the Gruinmarkt. Or even New Britain. It was enough to leave her head spinning and half-dizzy with sudden culture shock: Aside from her brief stay in the safe house out west, she'd been living in strange, backward cultures for months on end. I ought to start with a shower, she thought, almost salivating with the pornographic luxury of it. And turn the air con up to max. And I'll wash my hair And then… the phone rang.

"What the-" She looked round, then made a dive for the room phone. "Yes?" she demanded.

"Ms. Beckworth?" (That was the name.) "This is the front desk, you have a visitor…"

Oh hell. Miriam glanced at her watch. Twenty minutes. "Can I talk to them, please?"

"Certainly, ma'am…"

"Miriam?"

"Olga?" Miriam sat down hard on the edge of the bed.

"Hi! It's me! I heard you were in town and figured I'd drop in. Mind if I come up?" There was a bright, slightly edgy tone to her voice that set the skin on Miriam's nape crawling.

"Sure, pass me back to reception and I'll tell them. Okay-"

A couple of seconds later the handset was back on its cradle. Miriam stared at it, hard. "Shit," she muttered. Her vision blurred; it's one thing after another. Her carefully fostered illusion of stolen time wavered: What's happened now?

There was a knock on the door. Miriam, far less trustful than she'd been even a couple of months ago, checked the spy hole: A familiar face winked at her.

"Come in."

"Thank you." Olga smiled reflexively. Then, as the door closed, her smile slipped. "Helge, I am so terribly sorry to impose on you, but we need to talk. Urgently."

"Oh hell." Miriam sat down again, her own face freezing in a smile that mirrored Olga's in its insincerity. "I guessed." Something's come up in the past three hours, damn it, and they want my input, even though I'm just a front for the policy committee.

Plaintively: "Couldn't it wait?"

"I don't think so." Olga took a deep breath. "It's about your mother."

"Shit. She's not ill, is-"

"No, it's not that." Olga paused.

"Yes?" Miriam's vision blurred as her heartbeat settled back to normal. Iris's multiple sclerosis hadn't been far from her mind for years, now; she'd thought she'd gotten used to the knowledge that sooner or later she'd have a really bad relapse, but all it took was Olga's ambiguous statement to drag her to the edge of an anxiety attack. "It's not her health?"

"No." Olga glanced around the room, her expression wooden. "I think-there is no easy way to say this."

"Yes?" Miriam felt her face muscles tense unpleasantly. "Your uncle. When he was ill. He told me to collect certain documents and, and bring them to you."

"Documents?" Miriam sat up.

"About the"-Olga licked her lips-"the fertility clinic." She stared at Miriam, her expression clear but unreadable. "You know about it."

"Know-" Olga shook her head. "Only a bit. His grace told me something, after the, the war broke out. It has been closed down, Helge, the program ended and the records destroyed."

"My uncle," Miriam said very slowly, "would never destroy that program."

"Well." Olga wet her lips again. "Someone did."

"Eh." Miriam shook her head. "I don't get it."

"His grace shut down the program, that's true enough. He had the records copied, though-taken out of the clinic, physically removed to a medic's practice office pending transfer to Niejwein. He wanted to keep track of the names, addresses, and details of the children enrolled in the program, but while there was fighting in Niejwein it was too risky to move the records there. And it was too risky to leave everything in the clinic. So."

"You'd better tell me what happened," Miriam said deliberately.

"I went to see Dr. Darling." Olga shivered for a moment, then walked across the room and sat down in the solitary armchair. "He's dead. It was a professional hit, almost a month ago. And his office was cleaned out, Helge. The records are missing."