Armistice

by Lara Elena Donnelly

  Inaz Iligba had risen astronomically far from her origins. Asiyah had found her a few years ago during one of his frequent business trips to Anadh, dancing in a down-market nightclub with a string of pearls around her waist. Smitten, he’d arranged a meeting with his old friend in the film industry. It was unlikely Inaz knew what Asiyah’s real business with Pulan had been.

  She was certainly beautiful. Porachin mother, Lisoan father, plush lips and waves of thick dark hair. And by some miracle, she could act. Otherwise Aristide would have suspected a political maneuver on Pulan’s part, casting her in so many films. But act she could, and other studios had been trying to poach her since her very first film with Pulan. Inaz stayed loyal to Hadhariti Studios, though, even when better contracts came along.

  «What are you boys whispering about down there?» demanded Pulan. «And in Geddan too. Such an appalling lack of courtesy toward Ms. Iligba.»

  «Apologies,» said Daoud, and ducked his head.

  «What about courtesy for me?» Aristide took advantage of Daoud’s averted eyes to bring his martini back from exile. «My Porashtu is … very bad. As bad as Inaz’s Geddan. Worse.»

  «She’s prettier,» said Asiyah.

  Inaz’s laugh rolled out like a banner unfurling, big and bright. Aristide noticed heads turn at other tables. So far they’d been lucky—no one had approached their party for autographs. «Sisi, don’t make him angry. Do you want me playing bit parts for the next five years? Aristide can be—»

  He didn’t catch the last word and wondered what it meant. Vindictive? Horrid? Vengeful? An absolute beast? He drained the last of his drink, though alcohol wouldn’t make it easier to move between languages.

  «We need to go,» he said, checking his watch, which he still wore on a fob. Unable to formulate the sentence he wanted in Porashtu, he said, “Any longer and we won’t be fashionably late; we’ll just look foolish.”

  Pulan sighed and rose from her seat in a rustle of crêpe and clattering bangles. «You’re hopeless. Inaz, Asiyah, ride with me? Daoud, don’t let Makricosta get any drunker on the way over. If he’s got a flask, take it off him. He’ll let you rummage around in his clothes.»

  Daoud’s smile tightened. Guilt painted the back of Aristide’s throat with acid.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, as soon as the driver shut the door on them. “I know you hate it when she does that.”

  “You always are.” Daoud neatened the folds of Aristide’s scarf, straightened the sprig of jasmine in his lapel. “Do you have a flask?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “I never am.” Daoud gave him a stern look. For such a small boy, with such bowed lips and luxurious lashes, he could be positively terrifying when he had a need.

  “I don’t have one,” said Aristide. “Primrose promise.” The vowels in the childhood saying got a little bungled up.

  “I hope you are not planning to spend our entire holiday this intoxicated.” The stern look graduated to irritation.

  Aristide squeezed closer to him and put on a theatrical purr dug out of his old box of burlesque tricks. “Only with love.”

  Daoud rolled his eyes.

  “Oh, all right. After tonight, I’ll be good.”

  “You will be good tonight, or Pulan will have my skin.”

  “Too late for that,” said Aristide, and pulled Daoud into his lap.

  “You are a filthy old drunk,” he said, but let himself be kissed.

  * * *

  Lillian’s hotel suite adjoined Memmediv’s; no doubt an arrangement of Flagg’s. The presence of the closed, locked door pressed on her as she slipped into her gown. Bias-cut silk in unadorned storm gray, it left her back bare from the nape of her neck to the edge of her lowest rib. The dramatic cut and delicate fabric did not admit of undergarments. Porachis was hot. One only covered what one needed to.

  Normally she loved the freedom of loose, minimal clothing. Normally, she was vain about her body, which she kept in very fine trim. But tonight was not normal, and she wished the brutal heat and the dictates of fashion allowed for something more substantial.

  She ran a brush over her hair, smoothing travel-muss from her sharp blond shingle. Black pearls for her ears, and a rope around her neck. She preferred to go without maquillage but, in acquiescence to the occasion, applied dark shadow and a muted red lipstick.

  It did not take her long to dress and paint her face. By then, the early tropical dark had descended and the casino and cinema marquees blazed. She took a tentative step toward the balcony, and fresh air, but the weight of the unopened door pulled her back across the room like a dragging anchor.

  Her knuckles hovered over the studded panels for half a breath before she steeled herself and snapped them down once, twice. It took Memmediv a long moment to answer, in which time she experienced the entire emotional range of the heroine in a three-volume novel.

  “Stunning,” he said, when he opened the door.

  The sweep of his eyes made her angry, but she pressed it down beneath what she hoped was a flirtatious smile. “You don’t exactly look like a bootblack, yourself.”

  He wasn’t quite finished dressing—an ivory shawl-collared jacket hung on the valet stand behind him—but a cummerbund hugged his waist over pleated trousers of summer-weight black wool. Warm light caught in the facets of his cuff links: cushion-cut smoky quartz set in white gold.

  She caught his fingers—her chest tight, breath short, a parody of lust—and raised his hand, angling it so the gem flashed. “These are beautiful.”

  “Thank you,” he said, bemused. He didn’t pull away, and there was an awkward pause before she released him.

  “Are you nervous?” he asked, turning to the clotheshorse and lifting his jacket free.

  She noticed a deep burgundy orchid set on a handkerchief amidst his toilette, waiting for its buttonhole. Picking it delicately from the folds of linen, she put her free hand against his chest, to stop him moving and stop her shaking. With unwarranted care, she placed the flower in his lapel. “Why?” she asked, raising her eyes to his. “Should I be?”

  He did not flush, and there was no hunger in his smile; this raised him several grudging rungs in her estimation. It also terrified her. She had hoped—and hated to hope—this would be easy.

  He took her hand from his chest, ran his thumb over her freshly varnished nails. “Flagg did say faultless. I would be quaking in my pumps.”

  “You’re not planning to behave badly, are you?” She plucked her hand away. “Please don’t make my job any harder than it is.”

  * * *

  It was good that she was used to flashbulbs. Standing on the red carpet was like entering a packed press conference. Blindly, she maneuvered through the gathered paparazzi by sound and touch and aching smile, arm in arm with Memmediv.

  It was a different type of press corps than the one she usually addressed—Society columnists, feature writers for the glossies—but some of the usual suspects were in attendance as well: front-page reporters, political pundits, a few of the foreign press. She wondered who had put out the word that she’d be here. Between packing and briefing, she hadn’t had time to write a release, much less liaise with her contacts. But it was a good story; she wasn’t surprised it had gotten out.

  At the end of a long, glamorous gauntlet, the Ocean Star picture palace raised its illuminated blade into the night sky. Date palms cast delicate shadows onto the pavement, silhouetted by the blazing marquee. Behind velvet ropes, fans jostled with reporters. The prevailing style of dress was very little, and brightly colored. Geddan-style formalwear was thin on the ground. Women mostly wore fishtailed skirts, heavily beaded, and intricately embroidered abi. The crêpe silk garments wrapped tightly around the ribs and tied between the breasts, ending in a cascade of fabric over one shoulder that fell in a train to the floor. Men wore long tunics and dhoti with gilded hems. Elaborate sandals mixed with pumps and velvet slippers.

  «It’s a very great honor,» Lillian said, again and
again, answering questions thrown at her by the pen-toting throng. «Yes, I’m thrilled to be here.»

  «Your grandmother is a major character in the film,» said one reporter. «Were you consulted at all during production?»

  She laughed, sparkling. «I’m afraid this is the first I’ll see of it. I’m sure it’s very well done.»

  «Are you close to Ms. Satri? Are you two friends?»

  «I’ve never met her,» Lillian said. «I look forward to it.»

  «Ms. DePaul, can you comment on Gedda’s attitude toward Ms. Satri’s film? Was there any resistance to your attending tonight?»

  She let that one slide by with a smile, turning to answer the next.

  «Ms. DePaul.» A low, familiar voice cut through the din. «How very good to see you after far too long.»

  «That isn’t a question, Mr. Addas.»

  Jinadh Addas could have passed for a leading man, if he hadn’t been holding a pen and steno pad. Passably tall and very broad-shouldered, he kept his waves of hair swept back, and long enough to brush his collar. His opium-dark skin was shadowed with earthy green, glowing rich red wherever light struck. In profile, he looked like a demigod from a bas-relief: a long, straight nose curved softly downward over a sensual mouth and close-clipped beard. Incongruously, he wore a fiercely tailored Geddan tuxedo, so dark blue it passed for black. Incongruously, but very well.

  She met his gaze, and saw nothing there but jocularity and journalistic interest. Jinadh was wasted in the tabloids. Anyone who could hide their inner thoughts so well should have gone into politics.

  «I didn’t expect to see you here,» she said. «Are you down for the premiere?»

  «Yes, just for the evening. I’m going back to Myazbah tomorrow, but I couldn’t miss Pulan’s masterpiece.»

  She wondered if he knew she had been coming. Satri might have told him, though she wasn’t sure how close they were, as cousins.

  «Who is your handsome escort?» asked Jinadh, with an edge so keen Lillian didn’t think Memmediv had felt it.

  «This is Vasily Memmediv.» She stepped back so they could shake hands. «He’s in Regional Affairs, under Maddox Flagg.»

  «Ah,» said Jinadh, and smiled blandly. Even Lillian, who knew his expressions more intimately than most people, couldn’t parse this one. Did he know he was talking to a fox? Or was he simply jealous?

  “Mr. Memmediv,” she said, abandoning Porashtu to be sure he understood, “this is Jinadh Addas. He’s a cousin of Ms. Satri’s, and he writes a society column for Gelari.”

  “Yes,” said Memmediv, equally bland. “I’ve heard of him.”

  Jinadh’s lips did something strange that almost betrayed an emotion. In lyrically accented Geddan, he said, “Only good things, I hope.”

  Lillian wondered exactly how much Memmediv had heard. His security clearance was certainly higher than hers, but then, it would have been hard to keep this particular secret from her, and she didn’t imagine Flagg would have shared it widely.

  «Ms. DePaul!» Farther up the carpet, people were shouting for her attention. She glanced toward the theatre, tingling with a flash of nerves.

  «Pulan is due to arrive any moment,» said Jinadh, with admirable urbanity given their situation. But Lillian noted the switch back to Porashtu. «She’s very eager to meet you. Did she really only send your invitation yesterday?»

  «Really,» she said, keeping an eye on Memmediv to see if he was following. His smile held, but his eyes had gone narrow and intent.

  «Well, I, for one, am glad you could make it.» Jinadh put a hand on her arm: casual enough to look like a friendly gesture. The warm ghost of his touch lingered on her skin as she turned away, in time to see two shining black cars draw up at the end of the carpet. Attendants rushed to open the doors. Cameras turned away from her, away from the other luminaries heading into the theatre, and refocused on the new arrivals.

  The first car disgorged a headache. If she had been less distracted by Flagg’s orders, she would have foreseen a Lisoan contingent. Inaz Iligba had Prince Asiyah Sekibou on her arm.

  “Oh good,” she said to Memmediv. “I had begun to wonder if the evening wasn’t going a little too smoothly.”

  He chuckled, and she felt it through their linked arms. “I would not worry about Asiyah. He’s barely royal, and the work he does for their intelligence organization is minimal. A courtesy appointment. He’s friends with the defense minister.”

  “So why do you think he’s here?”

  “Iligba. Nothing beyond that. This would be an awful place to do the kind of business you’re imagining.”

  “Satri looks pleased, though.” She stepped out of the car after Sekibou, wearing a black abi, beaded slippers, and satisfied smile. Her hair—extremely short by Porachin standards—was glued to her head with a bucket of pomade. An elaborate kiss curl crossed her forehead, pasted flat above her eyebrows. Gold dust made her russet skin shine.

  “It’s her film premiere,” said Memmediv. “Were you expecting her to sulk?”

  Satri waved, queenly, then cast her kohl-rimmed eyes at the second car. An almost-hush fell over the seething crowd. Lillian fancied she could hear the mechanism of the door click in the moment before it opened.

  Preceded by one highly shined white-and-walnut wingtip, the man who unfolded from the car struck the red carpet with an attitude that implied the rest of them would never match up, and might as well go home.

  His white linen suit blazed in the battery of photo flashes. Around his neck and trailing down his back, a scarlet silk scarf stirred in the breeze. As he greeted the crowd, light flashed on his rings. Silver pooled thickly at his temples and thinned to threads amidst finger waves of chestnut purple-brown.

  Aristide Makricosta, the notorious Geddan refugee. He shouldn’t have been so famous. But his story was compelling, and once the tabloids got ahold of it he became too popular to mysteriously disappear. Either very lucky, or perfectly calculated. The Porachin government certainly wouldn’t extradite him. He was the royal family’s new crown jewel, to flaunt in front of Gedda. He was everything the Ospies hated: brown-skinned, boy-loving, and crooked as a kinked zipper. Queen Yaima was happy to give him a home, casually displaying her stance against Gedda like someone newly affianced might let their ringed hand rest, just so, in a patch of sun.

  “Ah,” said Memmediv. “He’s looking well for a man on the run.”

  “I thought we weren’t chasing him.” Makricosta had once worked, onstage and off, with Gedda’s most dangerous anti-Ospie resistance leader: the woman behind the Catwalk’s terrifying bombing campaign. But as far as she knew, that was all in the past.

  “We have eyes on him,” said Memmediv, mocking her. “Didn’t you know? It isn’t unreasonable to assume he’s still in contact with his old networks.”

  But, as Flagg had said, those eyes might not be trustworthy. And Makricosta had plenty of reason to support Lehane, to fight the OSP with every resource at his disposal. Lillian had read her brother’s file cover to cover, or at least the parts that weren’t redacted.

  “Oh?” she said, hoping Memmediv was the kind of man who liked to impress a woman, rather than to be impressed.

  “You think he would settle for an expatriate life and a career in the pictures?” Memmediv jostled her arm a little, showed one dogtooth in a crooked smile. “People with that kind of dossier don’t slow down or stop. They gather momentum until they crash.”

  * * *

  The cheers gave Aristide a moment of gratification, swiftly supplanted by a familiar acid burn below his sternum. He would be utterly unsurprised if making this film had given him an ulcer.

  Pulan caught him around the waist as he approached, pulling him away from Daoud. It would look carefree and flirtatious for the cameras, but her grip pinched.

  “You look ill,” she said between her teeth. “Rearrange your face.”

  Aristide closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and affixed his most indulgent smile. The one that made him ap
pear gracious while inciting the paparazzi to guilty soul-searching.

  “That is better,” she said, and waved to the public. The cheering redoubled. People strained at the velvet ropes as they passed, holding out postcards and magazines for autographs, waving flowers and bangled wrists. Pulan sailed serenely through it all, nodding her head and gently clasping outstretched hands.

  She was, perhaps, more greatly admired than many of her stars. Certainly more than other studio executives. As glamorous as any actress, birth and circumstance had granted her the manifold blessings of nobility, beauty, and a whiff of international scandal. Her mother, a wealthy shipping magnate, had married a penniless aristocrat much younger than herself. She died when Pulan was very young. Rumors circulated that widowed Nadar Satri—prone to gambling, and not good at it—had maintained his lavish lifestyle through unsavory means. Aristide was in a good position to confirm those rumors, having early in his own career brokered a lucrative arms deal between Nadar and a shadowy branch of the Tatien militia.

  Not that he had blackmailed Pulan for his current position. That would have been an egregious breach of faith between friends. Decades of chatty letters and business dealings had built between them a bond that did not necessitate extortion.

  After her father died, Pulan gracefully exited the business of imports and exports. She had done it so well, Aristide wouldn’t dream of muddying her success. Besides, he’d gone straight now, too. He had knocked the last traces of nighttime dock sludge from his shoes when he left Gedda. He was practically respectable.

  The thought made him laugh. A flashbulb burst in his eyes. When his vision cleared, a giddy-looking emcee was beckoning him to a microphone beneath the theatre marquee. Pulan already stood there, beaming at him, one arm held out in invitation.

  «And here’s Mr. Makricosta,» said the emcee, as Aristide stepped up. «Ms. Satri’s foreign muse and our most glamorous refugee.»

  Pulan smirked. Her eyes slipped sideways, catching his. He had never seen someone so good at silently saying I told you so.