The Traders' War (Merchant Princes Omnibus 2) Read Free Page B

could – ’
    ‘Connive at ending a civil war?’
    ‘Sell off her daughter to a wife-beating scumbag is more the phrase I had in mind.’ Helge paused. ‘Against her wishes,’ she added. A longer pause. ‘Well?’
    ‘Well,’ the duchess said quietly. ‘Well, well. And well again. Would you like to know how she did it?’
    ‘I’m not sure.’
    ‘Well, whether you want to or not, I think you need to know,’ Iris – Patricia, the duchess Patricia, said. ‘Forewarned is forearmed, and no, when I was your age –
and younger –
I
didn’t want to know about it, either. But nobody’s offering to trade you on the block like a piece of horseflesh. I should think the worst they’ll
do is drop broad hints your way and make the consequences of noncooperation irritatingly obvious in the hope you’ll give in just to make them go away. You’ve probably got enough clout
to ignore them if you want to push it – if it matters to you enough. But whether it would be
wise
to ignore them is another question entirely.’
    ‘Who are “they”?’
    ‘Aha! The right question, at last!’ Iris laboriously levered herself upright on her chaise. ‘I told you the Clan is democratic, in the classical sense of the word. The marriage
market is democracy in action, Helge, and as we all know, Democracy Is Always Right. Yes? Now, can you tell me who, within the family, provides the bride’s dowry?’
    ‘Why, the – ’ Helge thought for a moment. ‘Well, it’s the head of the household’s wealth, but doesn’t the woman’s mother have something to do with
determining how much goes into it?’
    ‘Exactly.’ The duchess nodded. ‘Braids cross three families, alternating every couple of generations so that issues of consanguinity don’t arise but the Clan gift –
the recessive gene – is preserved. To organize a braid takes some kind of continuity across at least three generations. A burden which naturally falls on the eldest women of the Clan. Men
don’t count: men tend to go and get themselves killed fighting silly duels. Or in wars. Or blood feuds. Or they sire bastards who then become part of the outer families and a tiresome burden.
They – the bastards – can’t world-walk, but some of their issue might, or their grandchildren. So we must keep track of them and find something useful for them to do –
unlike the rest of the nobility here we have an incentive to look after our by-blows. I think we’re lucky, in that respect, to have a matrilineal succession – other tribal societies I
studied in my youth, patrilineal ones, were generally unpleasant places to be born female. Whichever and whatever, the lineage is preserved largely by the old women acting in concert. A conspiracy
of matchmakers, if you like. The ‘old bitches’, as everyone under sixty tends to call them.’ The duchess frowned. ‘It doesn’t seem quite as funny now I’m
sixty-two.’
    ‘Um.’ Helge leaned toward her mother. ‘You’re telling me Hilde-garde wasn’t acting alone? Or she was being pressured by
her
mother? Or what?’
    ‘Oh, she’s an evil bitch in her own right,’ Patricia waved off the question dismissively. ‘But yes, she was pressured. She and the other ladies of a certain age
don’t have the two things that a young and eligible Clan lady can bargain with: they can’t bear world-walkers, and they can no longer carry heavy loads for the family trade. So they
must rely on other, more subtle tools to maintain their position. Like their ability to plait the braids, and to do each other favors, by way of their grandchildren. And when my mother was in her
thirties – little older than you are now – she was subjected to much pressure.’
    ‘So there’s this conspiracy of old women’ – Helge was grasping after the concept – ‘who can make everyone’s life a misery?’
    ‘Don’t underestimate them. They always win in the end, and you’ll need to make your peace with them sooner or later. I’m