"Charles Stross - Merchant princes 02 - The Hidden Family" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stross Charles)

somewhere."

Sir Roderick sat down, and Lord Douglass rose. "Your majesty, I would say that
if adventures are contemplated overseas, and if this should coincide with a rise
in the price of bread, the introduction of new taxes and duties, and an outburst
of Leveler ranting, I should not like to face the consequences without the
continental reserves at Fort Victoria ready to entrain for either coast, not to
mention securing the loyalty of the local regiments in each parliamentary
district."

"Well, then." The king frowned, his forehead wrinkling as if to withstand
another fit of sneezing: "We shall have to see to such measures, shall we not?"
He leaned forward in his chair. "But I want to hear more on this matter of where
the homegrown thorns in our crown are obtaining their finances. It seems to me
that if we can snip this odious weed in the bud, as it were, and demonstrate to
the satisfaction of our peers the meddling of the dauphin at work in our garden,
then it will certainly serve our purposes. Lord Douglass?"

"By all means, your majesty." The prime minister glanced at his minister for
special affairs. "Sir Roderick, if you please, can you see to it?"

"Of course, my lord." The minister inclined his head toward his monarch. "As
soon as we have something more than rumor and suspicion I will place it before
your majesty."

"Now if we may return to the agenda?" The prime minister suggested.

"Certainly." The king nodded his assent, and Lord Douglass cleared his throat,
to continue with the next point on an afternoon-long agenda. The meeting
continued and m every way beside the sneezing fit it seemed a perfectly normal
session of the Imperial Intelligence Oversight Committee, held before his
imperial Majesty John the Fourth, king of New Britain and dominions, in the
Brunswick Palace on Long Island in the early years of the twenty-first century.
Time would show otherwise ...

On the other side of a flipped coin's fall, in an office two hundred miles away
in space and perhaps two thousand years away from the court of King John in
terms of historical divergence, another meeting was taking place.
"A shoot-out." The duke's tone of voice, normally icily deliberate, rose
slightly as he abandoned his chair and began to pace the confines of his office.
With close-cropped graying hair, and wearing an immaculately tailored dark suit,
he might have been mistaken for an investment banker or a high-class undertakerтАФ
but appearances were very deceptive. The duke, as head of the Clan's security
apparat, was anything but harmless. He paused beneath a pair of steel
broadswords mounted on the wall above a battered circular shield. "In the summer
palace?" His tone hardened. "I find it hard to believe that this was allowed to
happen." He looked up at the swords. "Who was supposed to be in charge of her
guard?"

The duke's secretaryтАФhis keeper of secretsтАФcleared his throat. "Oliver, Baron