The night of Rotherhite’s dinner, Cyril’s cab switchbacked up the cliffs, crested the rise, and began a descent toward the interior. The houses lining the road drew farther and farther back until the driver pulled into a cul-de-sac surrounded by low stone walls and iron fences. Warm lamps lit the pavement, but not the sweep of gardens that separated each grand house from its neighbors and the street. The neighborhood was far enough from the edge of the sea cliffs that wind stirred the trees but didn’t threaten Cyril’s hat. He paid his fare and the cabbie left him standing at the apex of the cul-de-sac, staring down a long front walk lined in privet.
When the footman opened the door, light from the foyer spread in a golden fan across the path and the hedges. Cyril blinked in the sudden brightness.
“Mr. Landseer?” The footman bowed him in and took his coat. “The others are in the drawing room.”
Upstairs, Rotherhite held court at an upright piano, singing some sort of rowdy folk song. A fat man with a wide nose and wind-burned cheeks sang along. Berhooven, most likely. Van der Joost leaned on the side of the upright, holding a glass and half-smiling.
A young woman in a green silk bolero sat on the sofa. She had a strong jaw and straight nose. Her hair, cropped into a wavy shingle, shone the warm maple-brown of buckwheat honey. She tapped thin fingers on her knee, mostly matching the beat of the music.
A patrician older lady—by appearance, the mother of the seated girl—welcomed Cyril from her place at the sideboard. She had the same long neck as her daughter, and the same set jaw. Citrine earrings threw spots of gold onto the papery skin of her throat. “You must be the long-awaited Mr. Landseer.” She poured two aperitifs and brought them to where he stood. “I don’t suppose I have to tell you, but we’re all inordinately pleased you could finally make it to Gedda.” She offered him a glass. “I’m Minna Keeler. Please, have a seat.”
He took the chair at a right angle to the sofa, but not before shaking the hand of the striking woman seated there.
“Sofie,” said Keeler. “My eldest.”
Sofie’s handshake was firm and dry, and she met his gaze. Her eyes were bright hazel, more green than brown, flecked with spots of orange. “Mr. Landseer,” she said. “Mother’s told us so much about you.”
“All of it good, I hope.”
“I’m afraid Loelia was struck with a cold,” said Keeler, “and couldn’t come. Shame, she’s such a charming girl. And my youngest, Jane, is still in school.”
“My sincerest well-wishes for the invalid,” said Cyril. “I’ve only just recovered, myself.”
“Keeler!” Berhooven waved her over to the piano. “Come tell Van der Joost he’s talking rot.”
“Do excuse me.” She swept away in a ripple of navy skirts.
“Poor Mummy,” said Sofie Keeler. “Always called on to defend the ladies when Konrad hares off on one of his screeds.”
“And is that very often?”
She rolled her eyes. “You wouldn’t believe it. And the absurd thing is, she was raised by a lot of hair-shirted Holy Hearth missionaries at a cloister school in Enselem.” Sofie’s speech was rapid but smooth, rolling in the careless rhythm of privileged gossip: Each word ran into the next as if she expected he already knew what she was going to say. “Half the time, I think she’s quite nearly on his side. Only, if she gave in too easily, you can be sure he’d use it against her. He’s got a lot of clout.” Smirking, she lowered her voice and added, “Even if he does look like a lamprey.”
Their conspiratorial laughter was interrupted by the arrival of the butler, with the dinner announcement. Cyril, to his great delight, was seated with Sofie.
“Newcomer’s privilege,” said Rotherhite. He took the chair at the head of the table, with Van der Joost to his right and Keeler to his left. Berhooven sat at the foot, like a jester.
Rotherhite steered conversation—mostly sports, and his own exotic travels. Berhooven nodded along, occasionally interjecting with his own opinion, which invariably made him, and sometimes the rest of them, laugh. Cyril could tell Berhooven didn’t quite fit here. Even his appearance made him a stranger. He was shorter than his peers, and fatter, with a swarthy complexion and floppy dark curls.
Keeler talked with Van der Joost about business, business, business. Rotherhite picked on her and called her a killjoy, but her icy stare sent him into retreat.
With regret, Cyril saw that his attention to the group dynamics had cost him Sofie’s initial fondness. She toyed with her guinea fowl, pushing a bit of crouton through the raisin sauce. She was thoroughly out of the conversation by the time it swung around to the absent Mijkel Pollerdam, and Cyril asked, “Yes, where is Pollerdam? I was hoping I’d meet him tonight.”
“You’ll very rarely find Pollerdam venturing south of Morray.” Rotherhite dipped his fingers in the pewter bowl offered by a footman. “He spends nearly all his time at his factories.” Morray was a mill town tucked into the foothills of the Culthams, on the border with Farbourgh.
“He prefers more rustic entertainments,” said Berhooven, and Cyril wondered if it was supposed to be a double entendre. No one laughed. “But he’s promised to come down in time for the election.”
“Well, I think it’s admirable.”
The whole table turned to look at Sofie, whose silence had rendered her invisible until then.
“What is, dear?” Van der Joost’s pale eyes stuck to Sofie like barnacles.
“His staying in the north. If he doesn’t enjoy society, why force him? He’s keeping a sharp eye on his means of production, which is more than the rest of us can say.”
“You’ve got a clever daughter, Keeler.” Cyril favored Sofie with a smile at last. She returned it gratefully. “You’re lucky she’ll be here to inherit the family business.”
“Oh, no.” Sofie twirled her fork against her plate, scratching at the china. “I’m afraid it all goes to Steben. Mother thought I might be … overwhelmed.”
“Sofie.” Keeler cast a sharp glance down the table.
Cyril ignored the matron’s censure. “Steben?”
“Loelia’s going to be married in the summer,” said Sofie. “Steben is her intended.”
“And he has a fine head on his shoulders,” said her mother. “He’s just come down from the university at Farbourgh City, with a degree in economics. He’ll be a credit to the Keeler mills.”
“Will he keep the name, do you think?” The venom in Sofie’s voice told Cyril this was an old argument. “Loelia isn’t.”
“Sofie, that’s enough.”
Sofie opened her mouth, but Berhooven cut her off.
“What a spirited young woman,” he said. “Keeler, your supper table must be a lively place. Why don’t you have us all around some time?”
The conversation turned towards memorable past parties. Cyril invented some anecdote about the dreary social scene in the Hellican Islands: “Really,” he said, “I try never to be at home.” Sofie retreated into silence, and maintained it through dessert and coffee.
The party broke up earlier than Cyril was used to. He had already resigned himself to retiring when Berhooven cornered him in the drawing room.
“You’re not thinking of heading back to your hotel?” He kept his voice low and watched Cyril from under thick eyebrows. “You’ve come all the way from the Islands and you’re just going to go to bed? I had you pegged as a bit of a playboy. ‘I try never to be at home’ and all that.”
“I’m still a little under the weather,” said Cyril, but he let it sound like he could be convinced. Berhooven he knew the least about, from Landseer’s correspondence.
The man jumped on his hesitancy. “Come on, you’ve got to let me show you a little Nuesklan hospitality. Nothing for a complaint of the throat like a little tipple.”
“Don’t let Ives lead you down a path of dissipation.” Sofie threaded her arms into her coat, held open by a footman, then cast an appraising glance down Cyril’s figure. “I’ve seen him lay stronger men low.�
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“You’re afraid for my morals?”
“I’m afraid for your liver,” she said, and followed her mother out the door.
* * *
Berhooven’s car was surprisingly shabby, dinged in small collisions and left unrepaired. And he drove it himself, whereas the Keeler women both got into the back of a sleek blue affair with ebony running boards. Van der Joost stayed behind for cigars and, presumably, political talk, but there was a man waiting for him in the driver’s seat of a black car with a long bonnet.
“I thought we’d start at the top and work our way down,” said Berhooven. “Does that sound all right by you?”
Cyril assured Berhooven he would defer to a local’s judgment.
Their first stop was an upscale club decorated in tacky bucolic fashion. Farther down the cliffs they sat through a tame burlesque. Cyril tried to figure out if Berhooven was testing him, or truly thought that these were titillating venues.
He got his answer over thin, sour wine in an empty hotel bar. They sat by the window, looking over the boardwalk. Few people were out enjoying the seaside—the night had turned icy with sleet. Cyril was tired and bored, and had so far got nothing worth knowing out of Berhooven.
“You don’t seem to be enjoying yourself,” said his host.
“My head,” said Cyril. “I don’t think drinking is helping my cold after all.”
But Berhooven caught him in his lie. “I think you’re just a hard man to impress,” he said. “It’s time we went around the bay.”
Cyril realized it had been a test, and his apathy had helped him pass. “Around the bay?” he asked.
“If you want real entertainment,” said Berhooven, putting down a few bills for their tally, “you’ve got to head down to the wharves. I hope you don’t mind beer in the evening.”
“I don’t mind beer at all,” said Cyril, “provided it’s good.”
“This is Nuesklend,” said Berhooven. “Bad beer is a hanging offense.”
* * *
On the other side of the bay, Cyril felt at home immediately. Here, among the low buildings and towering rock, people braved the slippery pavement. They scurried in between bars and restaurants, flashing warm light and sound into the street each time they opened a door. In anticipation of the election, blue-and-yellow bunting hung from second-story windows: the colors of the regionalist party.
“Up on the cliffs it’s all industrialists,” said Berhooven, shouting over the roar of wind-driven surf. “A lot of them Ospies, like our friends at dinner.”
“But not like you?” Cyril followed him as he ducked into an alley. A door was propped open onto the narrow cobbled walkway, and Berhooven waved him inside. The crowd forced them to maneuver slowly.
“Oh,” said Berhooven, guiding Cyril to a table, “I move with the tide. And I could use a tax break or two. You saw the state of my poor buggy. Here, you first. Mind your step—the floor’s wet.” They slid into a booth, under an orange-paned lantern on a looped gold chain. The shallow arch of the ceiling was painted deep blue, spangled with mirrored tiles to imitate stars. Heat rose from the mass of bodies and warmed the room. On a low stage, a duo of accordion and double-reeded pipe wailed away at a syncopated reel. Smoke hung in a ragged veil over the heads of patrons and dancers.
“Put up your feet,” said Berhooven. “I’ll see about drinks.”
The band brought their reel to a staggering, stuttering, breakneck finale, and the dancers applauded. In the general rush for the bar, Cyril lost Berhooven. Scanning the press, he saw sailors from Liso, Hyrosia, and coastal Enselem. Three young women in Nuesklan police cadet uniforms drank in the corner, seemingly oblivious to the gaggle of prostitutes cruising the establishment. Cyril wondered if they knew yet, these laughing girls so smart in their jodhpurs and epaulets, that their force was on the Ospie payroll.
A flash of green drew his attention to the bandstand, where the piper and accordionist were arranging their instruments for the set break. A woman in a black dress and a green silk bolero had just brought them each a tall glass of cloudy beer. A familiar woman, with hair the color of buckwheat honey.
Sofie handed one glass to the piper, a willowy young man in a patchwork jacket. She kissed him, and Cyril smiled at what Sofie’s mother would no doubt consider an unsuitable attachment. Then, the accordionist set aside her squeezebox and opened her arms. Sofie sat on the woman’s broad lap and kissed her too, barely saving her beer from a spill.
Berhooven returned with a plate of smoked salmon and two glasses. He noticed Cyril watching the trio on the bandstand, now talking animatedly over their drinks. The accordionist, eldest of the three, had a weathered brown face and broad nose. She kept pushing back her dark curls, which threatened to cover her eyes like the shaggy fur of a sheepdog.
“Ah, so you spotted Sofie.” Berhooven laid a wafer of lurid pink fish across a cracker. “I wondered if we might see her here tonight.”
“Does she make a habit out of slumming with musicians?” But the familiarity between the three people on the bandstand told Cyril it went beyond that.
“Oh, our Sofie’s been keeping it up with those two since last summer. She’s asked them both to marry her, but her mother put a stop to it.”
“Both of them? One right after the other?”
“No,” said Berhooven. “Together. The ancient temples in Gedda allow for bigamy.”
“The Queen’s Cult?” asked Cyril, who knew already but wasn’t himself, and had to pretend.
“Yes. Keeler’s family are all Hearthers, just like most of your Ospies. The husband didn’t subscribe to anything, except maybe a religious interest in the stock markets. From what I’ve heard, the eldest Miss Keeler converted to the old religion as soon as she was of age.”
“I can’t imagine her mother was pleased.”
“As far from it as you can think. But the real scrapping came with the marriage proposal. Minna threatened to disinherit her.”
“But she’s already losing the business to her brother-in-law.”
“Well, yes. But she still has a comfortable allowance and a share in the mill.” He shook his head. “If you ask me, Minna’s more afraid for Sofie than anything else. If the banns are posted for her wedding, they go into the public record. You’ve probably heard what Acherby has to say about the temples. And with the Ospies on the make, Minna doesn’t want her daughter down as a cultist in a bigamous marriage. Let alone a bigamous marriage with a Chuli.”
“Chuli?” Cyril asked. Again, he knew, but Landseer wouldn’t.
“Nomadic shepherds, in the Cultham Mountains. Not Enselmese, not Farbourgere. They’ve always had a hard time, and if the Ospies get their way, well … it’s not just the states they want to unify. Society, religion, culture … the Chuli are scrapped. Nobody wants ’em and they don’t want nobody.” A rueful twist to Berhooven’s mouth hinted at his next admission. “I should know. My granny was one. Not such a fine accordionist, though.” He cupped his hands around his mouth and called out, “Play ‘Feer Miri’!”
The accordionist looked over Sofie’s shoulder and saw him. She nodded and picked up the squeezebox, settling it across Sofie’s knees, her arms around Sofie’s waist. Sofie caught Cyril’s eye, and nodded a greeting.
Cyril looked away, back at Berhooven. “Why are you telling me all this?”
“Because I know why you’re here.”
Cyril’s stomach dropped to the floor, but Berhooven went on. “Konrad’s been after all of us to bring you round. Woo you like a courtesan after favors from the queen. The Ospies have the people’s support in the north and the east, but the people don’t have money. The mill owners here can give a little, but not enough—if they could give, they wouldn’t need Acherby in office.”
“And this is how you’re going to convince me?” asked Cyril, raising his voice over the first yelping minor chords of Berhooven’s requested Chuli jig. “A few pints of beer in a regionalist pub, and a tragic love story?”
“No
nsense,” said Berhooven. “I just want to make sure you have a good time.”
“So you’re not advocating for the regionalist cause?”
Berhooven’s offended scoff was just this side of farcical. “Mr. Landseer. Only think how that would look to our friends uptown. I’d be drummed out of business.”
The use of his work name threw Cyril for a moment. In the din of the pub, under the glittering swathes of mirrored stars, he had almost forgotten who he was supposed to be.
* * *
His reports to Culpepper started out optimistic, but took a turn for the frustrated as the unionists continued to dance around. They were solicitous, but wouldn’t confide; Pollerdam came up in conversation repeatedly. Cyril began to understand that the absent mill owner was Landseer’s opposite number, another set of deep pockets whose compunctions might not keep him from contributing. If he gave, and took the edge off of the Ospie’s hunger, Cyril might lose leverage. So far, he’d stayed in the north and kept to himself, but as the weeks dragged on without development, Cyril’s anxiety intensified. He wanted this done. He wanted to incriminate the lot of them and get back home.
He was dressing for a fundraiser gala when he got the telegram. The party was a last-minute affair, ostensibly pooling money for a big publicity push in the final week of election season. Rumor had it Pollerdam was finally due down, and there were hints he might be generous.
One of the hotel staff knocked on his door as he was tugging his cuffs into place. When he answered, she handed him an onionskin paper, folded and sealed.
“Wire for you, sir,” she said, and clicked her heels. He tipped her and waved her off.
Hotel bar Stop fifteen minutes Stop Rye Soda End
To an ignorant reader, “Rye soda” might have read as a drink order, but in truth it was one of Cyril’s call signs. He hurried to fit his cufflinks into place, checked his bow tie in the mirror, and went downstairs.
At the bar he ordered—what else?—a rye and soda, and waited for his contact to find him. It must be important; they’d never met in person. Usually he dropped his reports for the other agent—man or woman, he didn’t know—to pick up and relay.
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