Free The Merchants' War by Charles Stross Page B

hysteria) suggested that, while the king's popularity rose whenever he took decisive action, he could easily hemorrhage support by taking responsibility for the actions usually carried out by the home secretary in his name. No more lying democracy: no more hope that if you could just raise your thousand-pound landholder's bond you could take your place on the electoral register, merging your voice with the elite.
    The journey went fast, and he'd only just started reading the small-print section near the back (proceedings of divorce and blasphemy trials; obituaries of public officials and nobility; church appointments; stock prices) when the train began to slow for the final haul into Queen Josephina Station. Erasmus shook his head, relieved that he hadn't finished the paper, and disembarked impatiently. He pushed through the turbulent bazaar of the station concourse as fast as he could, hailed a cab, and directed it straight to a perfectly decent hotel just around the corner from Hogarth Villas.
    Half an hour later, after a tense walk-past to check for signs that all was in order, he was relaxing in a parlor at the back of the licensed brothel with a cup of tea and a plate of deep-fried whitebait, and reflecting that whatever else could be said about Lady Bishop's establishment, the kitchen was up to scratch. As he put the teacup down, the side door opened. He rose: "Margaret?"
    "Sit down." There were bags under her eyes and her back was stooped, as if from too many hours spent cramped over a writing desk. She lowered herself into an overpadded armchair gratefully and pulled a wry smile from some hidden reservoir of affect: "How was your journey?"
    "Mixed. I made good time." His eyes traveled around the pelmet rail taking in the decorative knick-knacks: cheap framed prints of music hall divas and dolly-mops, bone china pipe-stands, a pair of antique pistols. "The news is-well, you'd know better than I." He turned his head to look at her. "Is it urgent?"
    "I don't know." Lady Bishop frowned. There was a discreet knock at the door, and a break in the conversation while one of the girls came in with a tea tray for her. When she left, Lady Bishop resumed: "You know Adam is coming back?"
    Erasmus jolted upright. "He's what? That's stupid! If they catch him-" That didn't bear thinking about. He's coming back? The very idea of it filled his mind with the distant roar of remembered crowds. Inconceivable-
    "He seems to think the risk is worth running, given the nature of the current crisis, and you know what he's like. He said he doesn't want to be away from the capital when the engine of history puts on steam. He's landing late next week, on a freighter from New Shetland that's putting into Fort Petrograd, and I want you to meet him and make sure he has a safe journey back here. Willie's putting together the paperwork, but I want someone who he knows to meet him, and you're the only one I could think of who isn't holding a ring or breaking rocks."
    He nodded, thoughtfully. "I can see that. It's been a long time," he said, with a vertiginous sense of lost time. It must be close on twenty years since I last heard him speak. For a disturbing moment he felt the years fall away. "He really thinks it's time?" He asked, still not sure that it could be real.
    "I'm not sure I agree with him... but, yes. Will you do it?"
    "Try and stop me!" He meant it, he realized. Years in the camps, and everything that had gone with that... and he still meant it. Adam's coming back, at last. And the nations of men would tremble.
    "We're setting up a safe house for him. And a meeting of the Central Executive Committee, a month from now. There will be presses to turn," she said warningly. "He'll need a staff. Are you going to be fit for it?"
    "My health-it's miraculous. I can't say as how I'll ever have the energy of a sixteen-year-old again, but I'm not an invalid anymore, Margaret." He thumped his chest lightly. "And I've got lost time to make up for."
    Lady