“I don’t understand.” Miriam’s face was blank as she stared down the barrel of Olga’s gun. Her heart pounded. Buy time! “What are you talking about?” she asked, faint with the certainty that her assignation with Roland had been overseen and someone had told Olga.

“You know very well what I’m talking about!” Olga snarled. “I’m talking about my honor!” The gun muzzle didn’t deviate from Miriam’s face. “It’s not enough for you to poison Baron Hjorth against me or to mock me behind my back. I can ignore those slights—but the infamy! To do what you did! It’s unforgivable.”

Miriam shook her head very slowly. “I’m sorry,” she said. “But I didn’t know at the time it started between us, I mean. About your planned marriage.”

A faint look of uncertainty flickered across Olga’s face. “My betrothal has no bearing on the matter!” She snapped.

“Huh? You mean this isn’t about Roland?” Miriam asked, feeling stupid and frightened.

“Roland—” Olga stared at her. Suddenly the look of uncertainty was back. “Roland can have nothing to do with this,” she claimed haughtily.

“Then I haven’t got a clue what the it you’re talking about is,” Miriam said heavily. Fear would only stretch so far, and as she stared at Olga’s eyes all she felt was a deep wellspring of resignation, at the sheer total stupidity of all the events that had brought her to this point.

“But you—” Olga began to look puzzled, but still angry. “What about Roland? What have you been up to?”

“Fucking,” Miriam said bluntly. “We only had the one night together but, well, I really care about him. I’m fairly sure he feels the same way about me, too. And before you pull that trigger, I’d like you ask yourself what will happen and who will be harmed if you shoot me.” She closed her eyes, terrified and amazed at what she’d just heard herself say. After a few seconds, she thought, Funny, I’m still alive.

“I don’t believe it,” said Olga. Miriam opened her eyes. The other woman looked stunned. However, her gun was no longer pointing directly at Miriam’s face.

“I just told you, dammit!” Miriam insisted. “Look, are you going to point that thing somewhere safe or—”

“You and Roland?” Olga asked incredulously.

A moment’s pause. Miriam nodded. “Yes,” she said, her mouth dry.

“You went to bed with that dried-up prematurely middle-aged sack of mannered stupidity? You care about him? I don’t believe it!”

“Why are you pointing that gun at me, then?”

For a moment, they stood staring at each other; then Olga lowered the machine pistol and slid her finger out of the trigger guard.

“You don’t know?” she asked plaintively.