“I don’t understand.” Miriam’s face was blank as she stared down the barrel of Olga’s gun. Her heart pounded. Buy time! “What are you talking about?” she asked, faint with the certainty that her assignation with Roland had been overseen and someone had told Olga.

“You know very well what I’m talking about!” Olga snarled. “I’m talking about my honour!” The gun muzzle didn’t deviate from Miriam’s face. “It’s not enough for you to poison Baron Hjorth against me or to mock me behind my back. I can ignore those slights—but the infamy! To do what you did! It’s unforgivable.”

Miriam shook her head very slowly. “I’m sorry,” she said. “But I didn’t know at the time it started between us, I mean. About your planned marriage.”

A faint look of uncertainty flickered across Olga’s face. “My betrothal has no bearing on the matter!” She snapped.

“Huh? You mean this isn’t about Roland?” Miriam asked, feeling stupid and frightened.

“Roland—” Olga stared at her. Suddenly the look of uncertainty was back. “Roland can have nothing to do with this,” she claimed haughtily.

“Then I haven’t got a clue what the it you’re talking about is,” Miriam said heavily. Fear would only stretch so far, and as she stared at Olga’s eyes all she felt was a deep wellspring of resignation, at the sheer total stupidity of all the events that had brought her to this point.

“But you—” Olga began to look puzzled, but still angry. “What about Roland? What have you been up to?”

“Fucking,” Miriam said bluntly. “We only had the one night together but, well, I really care about him. I’m fairly sure he feels the same way about me, too. And before you pull that trigger, I’d like you ask yourself what will happen and who will be harmed if you shoot me.” She closed her eyes, terrified and amazed at what she’d just heard herself say. After a few seconds, she thought, Funny, I’m still alive.

“I don’t believe it,” said Olga. Miriam opened her eyes.

The other woman looked stunned. However, her gun was no longer pointing directly at Miriam’s face.

“I just told you, dammit!” Miriam insisted. “Look, are you going to point that thing somewhere safe or—”

“You and Roland?” Olga asked incredulously.

A moment’s pause. Miriam nodded. “Yes,” she said, her mouth dry.

“You went to bed with that dried-up prematurely middle-aged sack of mannered stupidity? You care about him? I don’t believe it!”

“Why are you pointing that gun at me, then?”

For a moment, they stood staring at each other; then Olga lowered the machine pistol and slid her finger out of the trigger guard.

“You don’t know?” she asked plaintively.

“Know what?” Miriam staggered slightly, dizzy from the adrenaline rush of facing Olga’s rage. “What on earth are you talking about, woman? Jesus fucking Christ, I’ve just admitted I’m having an affair with the man you’re supposed to be marrying and that isn’t why you’re threatening to kill me over some matter of honour?”

“Oh, this is insupportable!” Olga stared at her. She looked very uncertain all of a sudden. “But you sent your man last night.”

“What man?”

Their eyes met in mutual incomprehension.

“You mean you don’t know? Really?”

“Know what?”

“A man broke into my bedroom last night,” Olga said calmly. “He had a knife and he threatened me and ordered me to disrobe. So I shot him dead. He wasn’t expecting that.”

“You. Shot. A, a rapist. Is that it?”

“Well, that and he had a letter of instruction bearing the seal of your braid.”

“I don’t understand.” Miriam shook her head. “What seal? What kind of instructions?”

“My maidenhead,” Olga said calmly. ‘The instructions were very explicit. What is the law where you come from? About noble marriage?”

“About—what? Huh. You meet someone, one of you proposes, usually the man, and you arrange a wedding. End of story. Are things that different here?”

“But the ownership of title! The forfeiture. What of it?”

“What ‘forfeiture’?” Miriam must have looked puzzled because Olga frowned.

“If a man, unwed, lies with a maid, also unwed, then it is for him to marry her if he can afford to pay the maiden-price to her guardian. And all her property and titles escheat to him as her head. She has no say in the matter should he reach agreement with her guardian, who while I am in his care here would for me be Baron Hjorth. In my event, as a full-blood of the Clan, my Clan shares would be his. This commoner—” she pronounced the word with venomous diction—“invaded my chamber with rape in mind and a purse full of coin sufficient to pay his way out of the baron’s noose.”

“And a letter,” Miriam said in tones of deep foreboding. “A letter sealed with … what? Ink? Wax? Something like that, some kind of seal ring?”

“No, sealed with the stamps of Thorold and Hjorth. It is a disgusting trick.”

“I’ll say.” Miriam whistled tunelessly. “Would you believe me if I said that I don’t have—and have never seen—any such stamp? I don’t even know who my braid are, and I really ought to, because they’re not going to be happy if I—” she stopped. “Oh, of course.”

“ ‘Of course,’ what?”

“Listen, was there an open door to the roof in your apartment last night? After you killed him? I mean, a door he came in through?”

Olga’s eyes narrowed. “What if there was?”

“Yesterday I world-walked from my room to the other side,” said Miriam. “This house is supposed to be doppelgängered, but there is no security on the other side of my quarters. Anyone who can world-walk could come in. Later,

Brilliana and I found an open door leading to the roof.”

“Ah.” Olga glanced around, taking in whatever was behind Miriam. “Let’s walk,” she said. “Perhaps I should apologize to you. You have further thoughts on the matter?”

“Yes.” Miriam followed Olga, still apprehensive, knees weak with relief. “My question is: Who profits? I don’t have a braid seal, I didn’t even know such a thing existed until you told me, but it seems clear that others in my braid would benefit if you killed me. Or if that failed, if I was deprived of a friend in circumstances bound to create a scandal of monstrous proportions around me, it certainly wouldn’t harm them. If you can think of someone who would also benefit if you were split apart from your impending alliance—” She bit her tongue, but it was too late.

“About Roland,” Olga said quietly.

“Uh.  Yes.”

“Do you really love him?” she asked.

“Um.” Tongue-tied, Miriam tried to muster her shredded integrity. “I think so.”

“Well, then!” Olga smiled brightly. “If the two of you would please conspire to convince your uncle to amend his plans for me, it would simplify my life considerably.” She shook her head. “I’d rather marry a rock. Is he good in bed?”

Miriam coughed violently into her fist. “What would you know about—”

“Do you think I’m completely stupid?” Olga shook her head. “I know you are a dowager, you have no guardian, and you are competent in law. You have nothing to lose by such intrigues. It would be naive to expect you to abstain. But the situation is different for me. I have not my majority until marriage, and upon marriage I lose my independence. Isn’t that an unpleasant paradox?”

“I don’t understand you people,” Miriam muttered, “but I figure your inheritance and marriage law is seriously screwed. Rape as a tool of financial intrigue—it’s disgusting!”

“So we agree on one thing.” Olga nodded. “What do you think could be behind this?”

“Well. Someone who doesn’t like me—obviously.” She began ticking off points on her fingers. “Someone who holds you in contempt, too, or who actively wants you out of the way. By the way, what would have happened to you if you had shot me?”

“What?” Olga shrugged carelessly. “Oh, they’d have hanged me, I suppose,” she said. “Why?”