“I really hope it happens,” Olga said, slightly more thoughtfully. “I’d like to see…over there.” She sat up. “But you asked about bandits! We are unlikely to meet any unless we travel in the spring thaw. They know too well what will happen if they try the Clan’s post, but after a harsh winter some of them may no longer care.”

“I see.” Miriam tried not to show any outward sign of being disturbed, but for a moment she felt a chill of absolute fear at this naïve, enthusiastic, emotional—but not stupid—child. She shuffled her legs together, trying to pinch out the draft. It would be a long day, without any distractions. “Tell me about the Church again…”

Two extremely uncomfortable days passed in chilly boredom. They stopped at a coaching house the first night and Miriam insisted on unloading a suitcase and trunk. The next day she scandalized Margit by wearing jeans, fleece, and hiking boots, and Olga by spending the afternoon engrossed in a book. “You’d best not wear that tomorrow,” Margit said disapprovingly when they stopped that evening at another post house. “It is for us to make a smart entrance, to pay our respects at court as soon as we arrive, do you see? Did you bring anything suitable?”

“Oh hell,” replied Miriam, confusing her somewhat (for Hel was a province administered by Olga’s father). “If you could help me find something?”

Expensive western formal costume—Armani suits, Givenchy dresses, and their equivalents—appeared to be de rigueur among the Clan in private. But in public in the Gruinmarkt, they wore the finery of high nobility. Their peculiarities were kept behind closed doors.

The duke’s resident seamstress had packed one of Miriam’s trunks with gowns fitted to her measurements, and at dawn on the third day Margit shoehorned her into one deemed suitable for a court debut. It was even more elaborate than the gown they’d fitted her for dinner with the duke; it had hooped underskirts, profusions of lace exploding at wrist and throat, and slashed sleeves layered over skin-tight inner layers. Miriam hated everything it said about the status of women in this society. But Olga wore something similar, even more excessively wasp-waisted, with an exaggerated pink bustle behind that suggested to Miriam nothing so much as a female baboon in heat. Margit declared Miriam’s presentation satisfactory. “That’s most fittingly elegant!” she pronounced. “Let no time be lost, now, lest we be undone by our lateness.”