“What?” She shook her head. “Listen, Roland, I didn’t grow up under the Clan’s thumb. Thinking this way is alien to me. I don’t really give a flying fuck what Angbard thinks. If I behave the way they seem to expect me to, I will be dead before the week is out. And if I survive, things won’t be much better for me. The Clan is way out of date and overdue for a dose of compulsory modernization, both at the business level and the personal. If the masked maniac doesn’t succeed in murdering me, the Clan will expect me to go live like a medieval noble lady—fuck that! I’m not going to do it. I’ll live with the consequences later.”

“You’re—” he swallowed. “Miriam.” He held out his arms to her. “You’re strong, but you don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve been trying to resist the pressure for years. It doesn’t work. The Clan will get you to do what they want you to do in the end. I spent years trying to get them to do something—land reform on their estates, educating the peasants, laying the groundwork for industrialization. All I got was shit. There are deeply entrenched political groupings within the Clan who don’t want to see any modernization, because it threatens their own source of power—access to imported goods. And outside the Clan, there are the traditional nobility, not to mention the Crown, who are just waiting for the Clan nobility to make a misstep. Jealousy is a strong motivating force, especially among the recently rich. If Angbard hadn’t stood up for me, I’d have had my estate forfeited. I might even have been declared outlaw—don’t you see?” There was anguish in his eyes.