The Trade of Queens Read Free

thus, he crossed ven Pridmann off the death list.
    There was a knock.
    â€œYes? Yes?” Julius said querulously, looking up.
    An apologetic face peeped round the door. “Sorry to bother you, my lord, but you have a visitor? Philip ven Holtz-Hjalmar from the Office of the Post, with dispatches from the Crown.”
    â€œTell him to leave them—” Julius paused. That’s funny, I wonder what it is? The post office in question was the Clan’s courier service, manned by members of the six families and their close relatives who held in common the talent of walking between worlds. Normally he could expect at most one courier delivery a day, and today’s had arrived some hours ago. “Show him in.”
    â€œAt once, my lord.”
    The manservant withdrew. After a moment’s muted conversation, the door opened again.
    â€œMy lord Arnesen.” Julius didn’t recognize the courier. He was a young fellow, wearing a dark business suit, conservatively cut, standard uniform for the couriers who had to travel in public in American cities. The briefcase he held was expensive and flashy: brushed aluminum with a combination lock and other less obvious security measures. “May we speak in private?”
    â€œOf course.” Julius waved at his servant: “Be off, and keep everyone away from the door.”
    â€œThank you, my lord.” The courier didn’t smile.
    â€œWell? What is it?” Julius strained to sit up, pushing back against the weight of his years.
    â€œSpecial message, for your eyes only, from her grace the dowager Thorold Hjorth.” He put the briefcase down on the side table.
    This should be good, Julius thought. The duchess Hildegarde, Helge’s grandam, one of the mainstays of the conservative faction, hadn’t had the time of day for him since the disaster at the Summer Palace three months ago. If she’s decided to kiss and make up now it must mean —
    He was still trying to articulate the thought when the messenger shot him in the face, twice. The gun was fitted with a suppressor, and Baron Arnesen was seated; there was barely any noise, and the second bullet was in any case unnecessary.
    â€œShe sent her best wishes,” said the courier, sliding his pistol back into the padded sleeve and picking up his briefcase in his left hand. “Her very best wishes.”
    Then he rolled his left sleeve up, focused his eyes on the temporary tattoo on the back of his wrist, and vanished into the locked and derelict warehouse that Julius Arnesen had been so reassured to hear of from his chief of security.
    *   *   *
    Meanwhile in another world, a doctor of medicine prepared himself for his next house call—one that would destroy families, rewrite wills, and quite possibly generate blood feuds. They deserve it, he thought, with a bitter sense of anticipation. Traitors and bastards, the lot of ’em.
    For Dr. Griben ven Hjalmar, the past six months had brought about a disastrous and unplanned fall from grace and privilege. A younger child of the same generation as the duchess Patricia, or Angbard ven Lofstrom, born without any great title or fortune to his outer-family-derived name, Griben had been quick-witted and ambitious enough to seize for himself the opportunity to study needful skills in the land of the Anglischprache, a decade before it became the common pattern of the youth of the six families. In those days, the intelligent and scholarly were viewed with circumspection, if not outright suspicion: Few paths were open, other than the military—a career with direct and useful benefits to the Clan’s scions.
    Griben aimed higher, choosing medicine. In the drafty palaces of the Gruinmarkt, the allure of Western medicine held a mesmeric attraction to the elders and the high ladies. With open sewers in the streets, and middens behind many houses, infection and disease were everyday killers: Childbed morbidity