“Pray?” Miriam shook her head. “I don’t understand—”

“Prayers! Oh, yes, I forgot. Didn’t dear Roland say that on the other side everybody is pagan? You all worship some dead god on a stick, impaled or something disgusting, and pray in English,” she said with relish.

“Olga,” Margit said warningly. “You’ve never been there. Roland’s probably telling fibs to confuse you.”

“It’s all right,” Miriam replied. What, Margit isn’t a world-walker? she wondered. Well, that would explain why she’s stuck chaperoning Olga around. “We don’t speak, urn, what is the language called again?”

“Hoh’sprashe?” said Olga.

“Yes, that’s it. And the other side is similar to this side geographically, but the people and how they dress and act and talk are different,” she said, trying to think of something it would be safe to talk about.

“I’d heard that,” said Olga. She leaned back against her bench, thoughtfully. “You mean they don’t know about the Sky Father?”

“Urn.” Miriam’s evident perplexity must have told its own story, because Olga beamed brightly at her.

“Oh, I see! I’ll have to tell you all about the Sky Father and the Church!” Olga leaned forward. “You don’t believe, do you?” she said very quietly.

Miriam sat up. Wha-a-at? she thought, suddenly surprised. “What do you mean?” she asked.

“Sky Father.” Olga glanced sideways at Margit, who appeared to be dozing. “I don’t believe in him,” she said, quietly defiant. “I figured that much out when I was twelve. But you mustn’t ever—ever—act as if you don’t. At least, in public.”

“Hmm.” Miriam tried to think straight, but her headache was militating against coherency. “What’s the problem? Where I come from, I was raised by unobservant Jews—Jews are, like, a minority religion—but I wasn’t Jewish, either, I wasn’t their child and it passes down by birth.” Let’s leave what I actually believe out of this or we’ll be here all day. “Is there … what’s the Church like? I haven’t seen any sign of it at the duke’s palace.”

“You didn’t see the chapel because he told us you weren’t ready,” Olga said quietly, pitching her voice just above the level of the road noise. “But he told me you’d need to know before court. So you don’t give your enemies anything to use against you.”

“Oh.” Miriam looked at Olga with something approaching respect. The ditz is a self-made atheist? And the families are religious? “Yes, I think he was right,” she said evenly. “Just how influential is the Church?” She asked, steeling herself for bad news.

“Very!” Olga began with forced enthusiasm. “Mass is held every day, to bring the blessing of Sky Father and Lightning Child down upon us. They both have their priests, as does Crone Wife, and the monastic orders, all organized under the Church of Rome by the Emperor-in-God, who rules the Church in the name of Sky Father and interprets Sky Father’s wishes. Not that we hear much from Rome—it has been under the reign of the Great Khan these past decades, and the ocean crossing is perilous and difficult. Next month is Julfmass, when we celebrate Lightning Child driving out the ice wolf of the north who eats the sun; there’ll be big feasts and public entertainments, that’s when betrothals and further knots in the braids are formally announced! It’s so exciting. They’re cemented at Beltaigne, as spring turns toward summer, right after the Clan meets—”

“Tell me about Julfmass,” Miriam suggested. “What happens? What’s it supposed to be about, and what do I need to know?”

Ten miles down the road they were joined by a mounted escort. Rough-looking men on big horses, they wore metal armour over leather. Most of them carried swords and lances, but two—Miriam peeped out at the leaders—had discreetly holstered M-16s, identifying them beyond a shadow of a doubt as family troopers.

“Halle sum faggon,” the sergeant called out, and the coachman replied, “Fallen she in’an seien Sie welcom, mif ‘nsh.”

Miriam shook her head. Riders ahead and riders behind. “They’re friendly?” she asked Olga over Margit’s open-mouthed snores.

“Oh yes!” Olga simpered her patented dumb-schoolgirl simper, and Miriam waited for her to get over it. She’s been raised wholly apart from men, unless I am very much mistaken, she reasoned. No wonder she goes strange whenever anything that needs to shave passes through the area. “Your uncle’s border guards,” she added. “Aren’t they handsome?”

“Mmmph.” Miriam blinked slowly. Handsome. She had a sudden hot flashover to the night before, Roland’s hands gently teasing her legs apart during a long-drawn-out game that ended with them both spent, damp, and woozy—then she took in Olga’s innocent, happy face and felt abruptly downhearted, as if she’d stolen a child’s toy. This wasn’t part of the plan, she thought dispiritedly. “They’re guards,” she said tiredly. “Seen one set of guards, seen ’em all. I just wish I could get at my suitcase.” She’d stashed her pistol in it last night, along with her notebook computer and the rest of her escape kit.

“Why is that?” asked Olga.

“Well.” Miriam paused. How to put it diplomatically? “What if they wanted to take advantage of us?” she asked, fumbling for an alternative to suggesting that Angbard’s guards might not be effective.

“Oh, that’s all right,” Olga said brightly. She fumbled with something under her blanket, then showed it to Miriam, who blinked again, several times.

“Be careful where you wave that,” she suggested.

“Oh, I’ll be all right! I’ve been training with guns since I was this high,” she said, lowering the machine pistol. “Don’t you do it over there?”

“Ah.” Miriam looked at her faintly. “No, but I suppose conditions are different there.”

“Oh.” Olga looked slightly puzzled. “Aren’t you allowed to defend yourselves?”

“We’ve got this thing called a government,” Miriam said dryly. “It does the defending for us. At least in theory.”

“Hah. There was nobody to do that for our grandmothers when the civil war began. Many of them died before… well, even Daddy said I needed to learn to shoot, and he’s a terrible backwoodsman! There aren’t enough of us with the talent, you know, we all have to muck in like commoners these days. I may even have to join the family trade after I marry, can you believe it?”

“The, ah, thought hadn’t occurred to me.” Miriam tried to sound noncommittal; the idea of Olga running around Cambridge with a machine pistol, a platinum credit card, and a suitcase full of cocaine would have been funny if it hadn’t been so frightening.

“I really hope it happens,” Olga said, slightly more thoughtfully. “I’d like to see … over there.” She sat up. “But you asked about bandits! We are unlikely to meet any unless we travel in the spring thaw. They know too well what will happen if they try the Clan’s post, but after a harsh winter some of them may no longer care.”

“I see.” Miriam tried not to show any outward sign of being disturbed, but for a moment she felt a chill of absolute fear at this naive, enthusiastic, emotional—but not stupid—child. She shuffled her legs together, trying to pinch out the draft. It would be a long day, without any distractions. “Tell me about the Church again …”

Two extremely uncomfortable days passed in chilly boredom. They stopped at a coaching house the first night and Miriam insisted on unloading a suitcase and trunk. The next day she scandalized Margit by wearing jeans, fleece, and hiking boots, and Olga by spending the afternoon engrossed in a book. “You’d best not wear that tomorrow,” Margit said disapprovingly when they stopped that evening at another post house. “It is for us to make a smart entrance, to pay our respects at court as soon as we arrive, do you see? Did you bring anything suitable?”