Armistice

by Lara Elena Donnelly

  «But not the only Geddan here tonight,» the emcee went on, peering over the crowd with a theatrical hand shading his eyes. «Ms. Satri invited a special guest to this premiere, if I’m correct.»

  Aristide’s smile faltered. He glanced down at Pulan, trying to make it look admiring, and not anxious. She hadn’t said a word about this to him.

  «Ah!» exclaimed the emcee, and Aristide jumped. «There you are! Come up here and smile for the cameras.»

  Aristide followed the line of the emcee’s outstretched hand and felt his breath snag in his throat.

  The shifting illumination of searchlights and palm shadows slid over the specter’s golden hair. Cut in a neat shingle, yes, but hair grew. It could be cut. Aristide knew all about that.

  The impossible apparition had Cyril’s face, Cyril’s sharp nose and bold, open-mouthed smile. It laughed as it slipped past ushers and actors and the general throng, amused by a trite joke from the emcee. An expansive, theatrical sound—almost mocking—bright and warm as electric lights. Aristide knew that laugh. Like a catchy tune he had not heard for years, even now he could identify the opening chords.

  But when the ghost left the crowd behind, light from the marquee burned through the illusion. Aristide saw the shape of small breasts beneath gray satin, the curve of narrow hips. With that, like dominos, each difference fell neatly into place, revealing itself. Jaw too wide, slightly too tall. Short dogteeth. Longer, leaner hands. She had a kinder brow, and softer, tired eyes. Eyes that regarded Aristide now with concern, tinged with amusement.

  “Are you all right?” she asked, stepping up to join him. “You look as though you’ve seen—”

  “Don’t say it.” Aristide held up a hand, as if to ward off a blow. The amusement vanished from her expression, and he knew he would lose his audience if he didn’t get a grip on himself. “I just abhor cliché.”

  «A warm welcome,» said the emcee, «to Lillian DePaul!»

  Around them, dozens of flashbulbs burst at once.

  CHAPTER

  FOUR

  Cordelia passed the long ride south reading a newspaper Mab had gotten for her in Berer—in Geddan, so she could read it. The Call. It was printed on poor-quality paper and the ink smeared if she touched it, but Mab had sworn it was run by a friend and the information was good.

  Well, accurate, more like. She wouldn’t call it good.

  Now the Ospies had figured out there were Catwalk operatives up in the mountains, they were diving in like terriers to a rat’s hole. Sofie’d been right about the camps. Outdoors, in the rain. Cordelia wondered if they’d keep that up through the winter, when it started to get cold.

  The stories gave some names, of Catwalk folk who’d got drug in. So far no Opal Saeger, no Luca Cattayim. That was good. Opal had been with her since early days and knew too much about everything. Luca knew almost nothing, except where they’d sent Cordelia. She wondered how long they’d hold out, if either of them got scratched, and hoped they’d keep from singing a little longer than she had last time the Ospies had ahold of her.

  She’d fallen asleep by the time they arrived in Anadh. The slap of thrown-back canvas startled her awake.

  “Hurry,” said Siyad, who’d driven her. “Put this on.” He gave her a cheap pair of slippers and a dark cotton robe cut high and tight in the collar and loose everywhere else. “From my sister.”

  Sofie and Mab hadn’t been able to spare clothes, so Cordelia had been stuck with what she came over in. She stripped down right there in front of Siyad, peeling sweat-stiff, stinking clothes from her body and tossing them in a heap on the ground. She left her knife and money belt strapped against her skin.

  Siyad stared at the rafters, which was more courtesy than she expected, and far more than she needed.

  When she was done with that, he handed her a scarf. “For hair. Porachin women no wear it short. People will see. We go through the night market, and is crowded.”

  He opened the small door to the side of the much larger truck bay, which was closed and padlocked for the night.

  It turned out the warehouse was on a wharf, so that when Cordelia stepped out she saw searchlights flash on the water before zipping up into the sky. She flinched and snapped, “What’s going on?”

  Siyad glanced over his shoulder. Two more bright white beams split the night. “A film is starting. The first night.”

  “A premiere,” she echoed, imagining the furs and jewelry, white spats and flashbulbs. They all seemed made-up, hallucinations or half-remembered dreams.

  “Come.” Siyad waved her toward the gangway. “I take you where you can stay. Then you are alone. You are dangerous to me and my family.”

  “I clock you.” She wiped her mouth with her hand, the lamb pastry settling uneasily in her stomach. “Let’s stroll.”

  It was close to midnight, but the city was still living. Even the narrower streets and shabbier neighborhoods were lined with fruit stalls and ice-cream vendors. Cafés had put their tables and chairs out onto the footpath, and did a busy trade. Folk were out shopping and running errands. Kids played between groups of chatting parents, running after dogs and little siblings and the occasional monkey. Trucks and carts rolled by, laden with people, rugs, melting ice, fruit and spices, bales of cotton, cords of wood … and it was loud.

  Moving freely in the street had become an impossibility for most of the Catwalk. When they did, they traveled with the weight of fear, eyes cutting side to side at each corner, with each step. Even in the mountains she had hunched and scuttled, wary of shepherds and tinkers and travelers, of children by the road.

  It was hard to shed that weight. She walked with her shoulders crunched up to her ears, trying to talk herself down. Distracted, she bumped into folk left and right, and realized she didn’t know the Porashtu word for “sorry.”

  She knew “please,” “thank you,” “no,” and “yes.” She knew “where is,” and “How do you say…?” and “My name is…” not that she could tell the truth. And she knew none of it would be enough. She had to find some people who spoke her tongue.

  She was leery about picking up the lead Sofie and Mab had dropped for her. It wouldn’t be safe to look up Ari. He’d have eyes on him: punters and secret police, most like. But it wouldn’t exactly be safe or easy to live on the street in a country where she couldn’t speak the language. She could make it work if she had to, but…’Tits, she was tired. She’d been willing to go without, grub for money, sleep rough, when she was building bombs and plotting. When it felt like she was fighting something. But if she’d been forced out of her fight, if the Ospies had come down hard as she heard they had, she didn’t want to struggle for nothing.

  But she didn’t want to be found out, either.

  * * *

  “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me,” Aristide growled, when the lights came up for intermission. He’d spent the remainder of the press barrage, and the first half of the film, silently seething. Judging by her crystalline smile and magnesium-bright manner, Pulan could clearly tell he was furious. There hadn’t been a chance to discuss things. It wasn’t as if they could slip away from their own film.

  And, it seemed, there would be no chance now. Pulan was already out of her seat, gathering the folds of her skirt in one hand. “I did not tell you because I knew you would not like it.”

  “No one at the studio mentioned it. Did you put a gag order on them?”

  “It was a last-minute lark. I only cabled her yesterday.”

  He didn’t believe her. Well, he believed she’d cabled at short notice. But she’d planned this; it was too perfectly uproarious not to be one of her publicity plots.

  Daoud would know, but he had slipped out of the theatre five minutes before the intermission title screen, presumably to put Pulan’s order in at the bar. And anyway, he’d be pinch-lipped in Pulan’s presence.

  “Shall we go greet the vultures?” asked Pulan. “Jinadh is here and you know how testy he becomes when he thinks that I have
slighted him. He asked for some quotes from you.”

  “Too bad; I don’t want to give them.”

  Pulan’s theatrical flightiness evaporated. She spoke forcefully, but kept her voice low and her expression placid. “Aristide,” she said, “you work for me. Please do not forget.”

  After a moment spent mastering his rage, Aristide closed his eyes and took a deep breath, banishing tension from his shoulders.

  It sprang back the moment they entered the lobby. Lillian, a horrible, beautiful vision in silk satin the color of blue smoke, stood poised at the foot of a marble pillar with a beaky escort at her side. They made an odd but handsome couple. She, somewhat taller, fair and starkly elegant. He, compact and clever-eyed, a badger streak of silver through dark hair swept back from a high forehead.

  Pulan’s unctuous cousin marked the third point in their triangle, no doubt assaulting them with frivolous banter.

  Jinadh was related to Pulan in the complex manner common to all Porachin nobility, and therefore her “cousin” for convenience’s sake. He certainly had the manner of a born courtier: carelessness and condescension tempered with a slight strain of simpering. Public opinion dubbed him debonair. Aristide found him to be tacky, and a cad.

  Lillian’s escort noticed them first, and lifted his glass in greeting. Aristide envied him his drink. Lillian, following his gaze, raised her arm halfway as though manacled by restraint.

  When Jinadh saw them, his flirtatious smile turned ferocious and the steno pad came out. Aristide bypassed him, extending a hand to the other man. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”

  “Vasily Memmediv.” Tatien, by the name and accent. “Regional Affairs, with the Geddan embassy.”

  Coworkers then, not lovers, though Lillian was standing awfully close; it could be both. Aristide wondered what they got up to in Regional Affairs. Boring name. Just boring enough to pique his interest, if he had let it. “Aristide Makricosta. It’s a pleasure.” It wasn’t.

  “I should have done that,” said Jinadh. “Please excuse me.” There wasn’t even venom in it, though he wouldn’t have missed Aristide’s snub. Jinadh could divest himself of all sense of irony when it suited his purposes. “Ms. DePaul, I know that you met Mr. Makricosta onstage in front of a thousand people, but perhaps you’d like a more intimate introduction?”

  She laughed: Cyril’s laugh again, but not quite. This time, Aristide could detect the disingenuous note at its heart. Cyril’s laughter had to be surprised out of him, by a particularly apt piece of bitchiness, or Aristide’s tongue pressed against the high arch of his foot. Aristide had the sense that Lillian’s laugh got marching orders, and followed them or faced a court-martial.

  “And of course,” said Jinadh, “my cousin Pulan Satri, the genius behind this evening’s entertainments.”

  «It’s such a pleasure to meet you in person,» said Lillian. Her Porashtu was almost unaccented, smooth as velvet. How long had she been speaking it? Living here? How had he not known?

  Because he hadn’t asked, or looked, or lifted up his head, most likely. And now he wanted to plunge twice as deeply into oblivion.

  “Would anyone like anything from the bar?” he asked, and promptly forgot every request that was made of him. That was all right, though: He didn’t plan on returning once he had a drink in his hand.

  * * *

  «I suppose my quotes just walked away for good.» Jinadh slipped his steno pad into his pocket. «Unless you’d care to give me a line or two, Ms. DePaul?»

  «It depends on the line.» Lillian’s cheeks were beginning to ache from smiling. Switching back to Geddan for Memmediv’s benefit, she said, “I may be here as Ms. Satri’s personal guest, but I am a member of Gedda’s foreign service. You won’t get a very candid interview.”

  “You underestimate my wiles,” said Jinadh, and Lillian’s heart twisted. “May I take you someplace quiet to talk? The balcony perhaps?”

  “Go on,” said Memmediv. “Go with him. You’ve got ten minutes until intermission ends, and I have every confidence in you as the face of Gedda.”

  She would have said no; should have. She needed to stay with him, flirt with him, put warm weight on his arm. The least useful thing she could do right now would be to abandon him for another man, especially Jinadh. If Flagg found out—

  But then Jinadh had his arm through hers and refusing would make a scene, which was the last thing she wanted.

  He took her up the curving stairs, chattering about something neither of them would remember later. She laughed in all the right places. Eventually, he picked a spot at the railing with clear lines of sight in all directions. At least from there she would be able to keep an eye on Memmediv; she could tell Flagg, truthfully, she hadn’t let him out of her sight.

  It wasn’t, in fact, much quieter than the mêlée below, but they were less likely to be interrupted or eavesdropped upon. Still, when she asked, “What do you want?” she kept her voice low, kept smiling, and kept a careful space between them. And she spoke in Geddan, because on the balance there would be fewer people fluent in that language, if they did overhear something.

  “Lillian, I…”

  He didn’t touch her, but his voice, when he said her name … She crossed her arms, pulling farther away from him. “Don’t.”

  “I apologize.” He dropped his head, flipping through his steno pad. She didn’t think he was actually reading his notes.

  “I’m flattered that it’s still so hard for you, after so long.” Dangerous, to say things like that in a public space; but it was cruel, as well, and she needed cruelty now to cool Jinadh’s ardor. This had always been more difficult for him. He had not been raised to school his passions with the rigor instilled in her by His Excellency Stewart DePaul, known to diplomatic colleagues as the Cipher. In Porachis men were expected to be volatile, free with their emotions; weeping and expressions of anger were par for the course. Growing up in the middle of court intrigue had taught him craftiness and the importance of masking what he truly felt, but it had not taught him to kill the fire, only to lie about the fuel.

  Jinadh shifted, taking half a step away, and she was satisfied to see her tactics had achieved the desired effect. “You are right,” he said. “It should not be. It is not, usually. Or if it is, I am better at ignoring it.”

  “So why did you bring me up here?”

  She saw his cheek dimple, knew he’d caught the inside with his teeth. It marred the lush bow of his lips. “Do you know who that man is?”

  “Vasily Memmediv, deputy counselor of—”

  “Regional Affairs, I know.” He snapped the steno pad shut and tapped it against the railing. “And why is he here with you?”

  She turned her head enough to catch his pained expression from the corner of her eye. Despite herself—they shouldn’t talk about this here—she said, “Are you jealous?”

  “Would you blame me?”

  “Yes. We agreed long ago—”

  “I know.” He sighed. “But that isn’t why I ask.”

  “Jinadh,” she said, a steel shank of warning sliding into her tone. If she’d wondered, before, whether he was leveraged … “Don’t tell me something you’ll regret. Don’t tell me anything I’ll regret.”

  “Tell me why he’s here with you, and maybe I won’t have to.”

  “I know what he is,” she said. “What he does.”

  Jinadh leaned heavily on the railing. Below him, gowns swirled in eddies of gossip. “That isn’t an answer to my question.”

  “Satri said I could bring a guest, and he volunteered.”

  Jinadh shook his head. «My butter-headed cousin,» he said, lapsing back into Porashtu. «She’s up to something. And I would give good odds your guest is mixed up in it. Look.»

  Lillian had gotten caught up in conversation, and missed the arrival of Inaz Iligba and Prince Sekibou into Pulan’s circle. Sekibou was shaking Memmediv’s hand, his smile a bright arc destined to draw the eyes of photographers.

  It was no
t a picture she wanted to explain in her next press conference.

  “Excuse me,” she said to Jinadh, and tried to bolt. But he put a hand on her arm—too much a Porachin gentleman to close his fingers around her wrist, but firmly enough that she stopped to listen.

  “Let him talk,” said Jinadh. “If you frighten him now, you frighten her, and then there will be nothing to tell. And they’ve asked you to tell them something, haven’t they?”

  She swallowed against the constriction of her throat. “If I can catch him at treason,” she said, “Stephen comes home for the Solstice holidays. If not … I don’t know when I’ll see him again.”

  He didn’t flinch at the name, though the pressure of his hand on her wrist briefly increased.

  “It’s the first time they’ve really…” she started over, reframing. “Is this what it’s like for you, every day?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Except I will never see my son, no matter how faithfully I report.”

  Not this argument again. “You knew how it would be, when I decided to keep the baby.”

  He withdrew his touch from her arm. “I always wanted children. A big family.” Bitterness coated the words.

  “I loved you very much.” Now she was angry that she hadn’t stopped him earlier, and it was making her imprudent. He had always made her imprudent. “I would have married you and you know it. But it wasn’t a possibility.”

  “It was,” he said, forcing the word between clenched teeth. “You know that it was. All we had to do was leave Porachis. And I would have, for you.”

  “And what would that have gotten us? My brother is dead, Jinadh. If I had forfeited my position with the embassy here, and we had gone to Gedda, who knows what would have happened to us?”

  “Don’t pretend it was about them. Regime change wasn’t a threat then!”

  “That didn’t stop it from happening. And I don’t imagine Acherby would have treated our family with kindness.”

  “But I would have been able to raise my son. He does not even know who I am. He is eight years old and he does not know who I am.” He turned his back on the railing and the lobby, to hide his pained face, and pressed the flat of his palm across his mouth.