Armistice

by Lara Elena Donnelly

  “Luckily, I have lots of time.” He sipped his coffee two-handed, pinkies delicately splayed. “I’m meant to be on a little lovers’ holiday; a slew of plans all week, set up for two. But my companion has been called away.”

  “Oh, so now I’m your female company.” The sudden pressure behind her ribs wasn’t hope, exactly. It bore a likeness to anger, and to fear. If he was here, what would she say to him? Cyril, who’d as good as kicked her country in the rear on its stumbling way to ruin. Sock him in the teeth, first. Spit in his face. Then maybe haul him close and cry on him, because he’d ruined everything and now he was one of the last scraps of her old life left. “You think your companion’s gonna be jealous?”

  It took Ari a moment too long to clock her. When he did he faltered, and that not-quite-hopeful pressure popped like she was sinking into deep water.

  “Yes,” he said, too cheery. “A lot of catching up to do.”

  * * *

  In the event, they didn’t attend the concert. Cordelia couldn’t face the crowds, and Aristide couldn’t face Srai Sin with her at his side. It would have been worse than going alone.

  They passed the afternoon on his hotel balcony, ordering up a long series of bottles. “You drink harder than you used to,” she said, bare feet propped on the elaborate railing.

  “I’ve got every reason.” He topped up her glass, then his own. Porachin terroir produced delicious young wines, crisp and vegetal, alive with tiny bubbles. Very easy to consume in quantity.

  “About that,” she said, and he wished she hadn’t been keeping pace so handily. The wine had eroded her reserve, and now she was asking questions. “What happened? To you, and … After I got drug in, and then let go, I never saw either of you again.”

  “I killed myself,” he said, ignoring her “and” and “either of.” “Or rather, made it appear as if I were dead. It worked for long enough that I got out of the city. I spent several hideous weeks up-country, hiked through the mountains, grew a rotten beard, and showed up in Erlsbord looking like a tramp. I ran a shell game to pay for a third-class ticket to Berer, by way of Hyrosia. Not the escape I’d planned.”

  “What was the plan?”

  “There was money here and there, which I would have been able to get my hands on if I hadn’t been dining left-handed by the Geddan border and worried about drawing attention. I meant to get much further much faster, but that isn’t quite how things worked out.”

  After he left Amberlough, his alias accounts and shell corporations went on making trades and earning interest without him. There was even still property in Asu: a neat little apartment in the capital, and a bungalow off the red-sand beach of Ishin Sao.

  He hadn’t bothered to retrieve most of his wealth; not once Pulan took him in and started paying him. When he’d landed at Hadhariti he couldn’t scrape himself off the tarmac. It was too much effort, too much commitment to a new life he’d never wanted.

  Every now and then, when he thought of breaking with the studio and doing something with his money, he always shied away. Dissolving the companies and selling the land felt like an admission he refused to make. He tried, mostly, not to think about his assets at all, or the plans that he had made for them.

  Cordelia didn’t have those scruples. “And Cyril?”

  He felt the delicate stem of his wineglass press into the edge of his finger, and took a deep breath to steady himself. No call to smash the crystal.

  Blunt as a hammer, she asked, “What happened to him?”

  Aristide shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  “And you never tried to find out?”

  “How successful do you think my inquiries would have been?” He let acid drip through the words, to discourage her from touching any further on the topic.

  She shrugged, small enough he could tell she was chastened.

  Awkward silence persisted. Then, because he felt he owed it to her, and when else would he say it? “I met his sister last night. Lillian.”

  “What? How? What’s she doing in Porachis?”

  “At a film premiere. She’s the press attaché with the Geddan embassy. Been here for years, apparently.”

  Cordelia cast her gaze upward, as though she were searching for a particular slide or file in the library of her mind. “He told me,” she said at last, and it hit him in the gut as squarely as a prize fighter’s blow. “Told me he had a sister, in Porachis. I just forgot.”

  Aristide closed his eyes, as if it would stop him from seeing the truth of his words. “I never knew in the first place.”

  “Yeah, well, you two were cagey as harbor cats,” said Cordelia. “And probably screamed about as loud when you—”

  “What shall we do for dinner?” he asked. “It’s getting to be about that time.”

  “Ah,” she said. “So that’s how it is.”

  This was why he had rebuffed every effort his old life made to creep up on him in Porachis, sent every Geddan expatriate who sought him out back the way they had come, with a swift kick in the rear if they dawdled in their leaving. To avoid this conversation.

  “We could order something up,” he said, and knew he was talking too fast. “Or there’s a very nice place down the street that cooks the most delicate savory almond custard. We could even have someone from the hotel pick up the custard and bring it here. I’ve been very generous with my tips to the staff, so I should hope they’re well disposed toward me by this point.”

  Cordelia eyed him narrowly for a long moment, like she wanted to push him on the subject. Eventually, she just shook her head. “Were you always such a rotten swell?”

  “It’s insidiously easy to get used to luxury,” he told her, grateful for her disgust. “And appalling to be deprived once you’ve acquired the taste.”

  “My heart’s breaking.” She thumped her chest. “Hear that jangle? Shards.”

  Her callousness made honesty easier. “I have missed you, Cordelia.”

  “Sure you have. You’ll lose your edge without something to grind it on.”

  Raising one lewd eyebrow, he asked, “Are you volunteering?”

  “Queen’s sake.” She emptied the last of their latest bottle into her glass. “You’re wasted off the stage.”

  The small, sharp sound he made surprised him. Cordelia’s grin brightened, then wavered when she caught his eye and realized it hadn’t been laughter.

  He took a deep breath against the ache of memory’s bullet wound, gave her his showiest wink, and said: “I know.”

  CHAPTER

  SIX

  Lillian had hardly been back at her desk an hour when Flagg’s secretary rang her up. “Ma’am, Counselor Flagg would like to see you in his office at your earliest convenience.”

  Which meant now. Tidying the drift of news dispatches that had spread across her blotter, she took a deep breath and rose to make her report.

  The girl who’d called Lillian from her work also let her into Flagg’s office. He smiled at them both, all paternal graciousness. But as soon as the door shut, the pleasant mask fell from his face like a sheet of ice shearing from a glacier. “Sit.”

  She took the chair facing his desk, sitting halfway back on the cushion. Neither comfortable nor wary; merely attentive.

  “Coffee?” A fresh carafe steamed on the sideboard.

  “Please.” She was making do with an hour’s poor nap on the train. And if Flagg’s coffee did cause her a heart attack or aneurysm, it might be a welcome relief.

  He placed the cup in front of her and settled into his chair without the slightest creak of wood or whisper of upholstery. Steam rose between them like a scrim, behind which Flagg’s keen eyes shone.

  “Well?” he said.

  “He’s gone down the coast. To liaise with—”

  “One of his contacts, yes. He told me that willingly. Satri’s estate and studio are just south of Anadh. The safe wager is he’ll claim it’s one of our agents in her household. None of them are reliable, though; she’s too careful fo
r that. Give me something I don’t know already.”

  “He did spend some time speaking with Asiyah Sekibou and Satri, at the premiere.”

  “What did they say?”

  Damnation. “I was out of earshot.”

  “A curious strategy. I wonder if you’re taking this as seriously as I’d hoped you would.”

  “I tried to get him into bed,” she said bluntly. “He didn’t jump for the lure.”

  Flagg’s lip curled with distaste.

  “He wants to meet again,” she said. “But I don’t think it’s a good idea. I had a keen sense he knew what I was about.”

  “Take him up on it,” said Flagg. “These things require time and repetition, in my experience. Build his trust.”

  “I’m sure you saw everything that came in yesterday’s pouch. Negotiations in Dastya are hanging by a bit of tinsel. A sneeze would send them toppling, let alone a well-armed separatist movement. I imagine you’d like to wrap this operation up in as little time as possible.”

  “And I imagine you would prefer fewer repetitions. But we all make sacrifices for the foreign service mission.”

  “This is hardly what I expected when I took the exam,” she said. “It’s certainly not my area of expertise. But I think I’ve found someone who can help.”

  If there had been any blood in Flagg’s face, it would have drained away. As it was, he turned a paler shade of gray, and his expression exchanged its habitual cast of exhaustion for something verging on terror. “Ms. DePaul, this is a covert operation of highest—”

  “Someone trustworthy.”

  “It is my job to judge these things.”

  “I believe you already have,” she said. “Not that he’s ever said, outright. Not that anyone in this office has ever told me as much. But I can extrapolate from the facts I do know.”

  Flagg verged on blustering. “But if my networks have been compromised—”

  “Not him. Because no matter what Memmediv may have offered him, you hold him by a stronger, shorter jess. The same one that holds me. Unless you’ve told Memmediv what you know about my son?”

  Comprehension brought a faint sparkle back to Flagg’s eyes, like light playing over antimony. “Ah. Of course. And you approached him?”

  “It was a chance meeting,” she said, unwilling to admit Jinadh’s motives. He had been ready to expose himself, and Memmediv, for her. Such a romantic, and a fool. He shouldn’t be playing this kind of game. “I admit I took liberties, but it seemed he could be useful. He’s Satri’s family, and from what I understand visits her estate quite regularly. If Memmediv is there now…”

  Flagg nodded. “Well done. Out of line, but when has this profession ever been in the habit of orthodoxy? And given the cable I received this morning, it will be especially important to keep trustworthy eyes on Satri in the near future.”

  “Why?” she asked, wariness threatening.

  “How closely do you follow the Catwalk’s activities?” Other Ospie officials would have found a way around the name. Favored terms included “anti-Nationalists,” “terrorists,” “troublemakers,” and “our little problem with the trains.” Not Flagg. When he meant a thing, he said it.

  “Closely enough to answer questions from the press.” And to make convincing condemnations.

  “You know about the raids on Chuli encampments, then. The arrests.”

  “Yes.” The alliance between the Catwalk and the Chuli had never been a formal thing, but Lillian had done her best to weave it into one when the Porachin press questioned Gedda’s police and military action against its own citizens.

  She imagined many Chuli would have been amused at the idea they were anyone’s citizens.

  “I’ve received a cable from Farbourgh with some interesting news. A Chuli boy named Luca Cattayim and a woman named Opal Saeger were among those arrested outside Tannover. The press hasn’t printed their names yet, and we’re keeping it that way. Cattayim said his family had been harboring a Catwalk operative named Spotlight, but that he never knew her real name. Our intelligence says Spotlight is the code name for a high-level operative of the organization, possibly its founder.”

  Flagg picked up a folder from his desk, flipped it open, and removed a photograph. With a deft motion of his wrist, he turned it and placed it in front of her, revealing two scantily clad people buried in feather boas. A tall, dark-skinned man with a head of sumptuous curls held a smaller, paler woman in a deep dip over his knee. Her arm trailed elegantly behind, wrapped in a long rope of pearls.

  She knew the man; had stood beside him last night in front of a hundred cameras. He had cut his hair, and his face had lost the taut, satin-finished haughtiness here leant—she suspected—by copious application of cosmetics. She recognized him more by his carriage than anything, and by his eyes, which caught the camera in a gaze that both invited and incensed.

  “The woman?” asked Lillian, because she couldn’t feature Makricosta living rough in the Culthams, or scrounging matches and fertilizer to build bombs.

  “Her name is Cordelia Lehane. They worked together.” Flagg tilted his head slightly to the side, regarding the photo from an angle. “Strippers.”

  “And now?”

  “Saeger eventually admitted Lehane was smuggled out of the country into Tzieta, supposed to catch a cargo ship bound for Porachis. It seems she didn’t know the ship’s name, or the intended port of call. I’ll say this for the Catwalk.” Flagg’s eyebrows puckered. “They know just how far to trust their people, and won’t trust them an inch farther.”

  Lillian kept her face pleasantly bland, and breathed through her nose—the kind of shallow, unsatisfying breaths one took when nauseated. She wondered how long it had taken to extract that information from Saeger, and how many times she had to tell them I don’t know before they believed her.

  “The Cattayim boy has an aunt in Porachis—shunned by the family, but he said she’d been sending money on the sly to fund terrorist activities. That’s a place to start, but…”

  Lillian pressed her fingertips to the lip of her coffee cup. “You think she’ll look up Makricosta.”

  “Wouldn’t you?”

  “Not if I was smart.”

  “But if you were desperate?”

  “Those two things aren’t mutually exclusive,” she said, and hoped for her own sake it was true.

  * * *

  She called Jinadh from her desk, because the cover story she had created would stand up to eavesdroppers. She didn’t need the operator to connect her; she had both of Jinadh’s exchanges by heart, and called the Anadh apartment first.

  «Addas residence,» said the majordomo.

  «Hello,» she said, «this is Lillian DePaul, the press attaché with the Geddan embassy. Is Mr. Addas in?»

  He was, and very shortly she had him on the line. After he’d said «Hello» but before he could ask any questions, she said, «I wanted to let you know I would be free this evening to finish that interview.»

  There was a brief pause on the other end of the line. Then, «Of course. My schedule is open. I should be able to get to Myazbah by half eight. Will that do?»

  «Perfectly well, yes. The Aktanand at nine?» He would want time to freshen up and dress after the drive. And the Aktanand was close to the river walk, with its dark, quiet corners and winding paths.

  «I look forward to it,» he said, and even if he had been a worse liar, she might not have been able to tell it from the truth.

  The Aktanand was an old palace that had been turned into a bathhouse and social club when its owner died bankrupt, without heirs. The architecture was no less opulent for a change in ownership. The front of the building faced a round plaza crowned by a fountain, home to hundreds of small glimmering fish that drew egrets from the river. Floodlights flared up the delicately carved façade of the building, picking out bright filigree and precious inlays.

  She was early—she was always early—and he was already there, perched at the copper bar beneath low-hangin
g gilded lanterns. Brilliantine held waves of hair back from his face, and the high collar of his white tunic parted around his throat like the petals of a calla lily.

  «Ms. DePaul,» he said, rising from his seat.

  When they shook hands, his palm was dry and smooth, like fine linen. «Do you mind if we talk while walking? I’ve been behind a desk all day.»

  «Not at all. May I offer you my arm?»

  «No, thank you,» she said, and he dipped his head in polite assent.

  He left without paying his tab. No doubt he had an account, which the treasury dutifully settled each month on his aunt’s orders.

  Most of their affair had been conducted out of the major cities, and Lillian had paid their way in cash. Circumstance made their schemes seem thrilling, rather than tedious. The thought of it, in retrospect, exhausted her.

  «A beautiful night,» he said, «for this time of year.» Then, as they left the street behind and took the first curve of the river walk, he said in an altogether different tone, «What’s going on?»

  She shook her head and indicated they should walk a little farther, until the path branched. To the left it declined steeply, breaking into stair steps. Lillian had worn flat shoes, anticipating a ramble, and led Jinadh down to a small overlook on the bank, nearly hidden by a tangle of milkweed plants and jasmine.

  «You said you visit your cousin’s estate sometimes,» she said. «How about now? Could you go there for me?»

  «I assume you mean the obvious cousin. I have a lot of them.»

  «Yes.»

  «I’ve been known to drop in on her, but she isn’t usually pleased. What do you need?»

  «Two things. My … companion, from the premiere. I think he’s there now, and I want to prove it. Catch him at something if I can. Second, I need to know if the studio has hired anyone new, especially if they came on a recommendation from … » Damnation, she didn’t know what to say, to avoid his name. «Her director. The Geddan.»

  He nodded as she spoke. «I can do that.»

  «And she won’t suspect anything?»

  He plucked a milkweed pod from one of the bushes and peeled its segments back so that the downy seeds caught the moonlight and the breeze. «Like most of my family—and, if we’re honest, most of the country—she suspects me of nothing except vapidity.»