Armistice

by Lara Elena Donnelly

  «I almost envy that,» she said, watching the white sylphs spread on the air. Some of them fell, settling on the river. Others rose and disappeared. «Underestimation might be a welcome change.»

  He looked up from the milkweed pod and met her eyes. «It would suffocate you.»

  «And it doesn’t do the same to you?»

  «I grew up in a vacuum,» he said. «I’m used to it.»

  There was nothing she could say to that.

  «How is he?» asked Jinadh, when the silence was just beginning to stretch thin.

  «He’s doing well; I had a letter this week. His bowling team won their end-of-term match. In victory, he’s about as modest as you.»

  That finally coaxed a smile out of him. Not his dazzling public one, but a smaller, one-sided quirk of his lips. «I’ve never claimed that I was perfect.»

  «Oh no,» said Lillian, «I’m fairly certain that you have.» She was smiling now, too, and Jinadh even laughed. Jasmine scent caught in the eddies of air around them. Their shoulders touched.

  Lillian caught her breath and shifted her weight, breaking the contact. Jinadh’s laughter faded into a sigh.

  «I won’t be able to get down to Hadhariti for a day or two,» he said. «I’m supposed to lunch with Auntie tomorrow, and—»

  «You can’t reschedule on the queen. I understand.» She gathered up her abandoned professionalism. «Thank you, Jinadh.»

  He shook his head. «I have entirely selfish motivations, as you know.»

  «Stephen,» she said, which came out as a question even though she hadn’t realized she was asking one.

  «Of course,» he said, and threw the empty milkweed pod into the river.

  CHAPTER

  SEVEN

  “How’d you end up working for this lady again?” asked Cordelia, as they left the picture palaces and aqueducts of Anadh behind them. “You said she was an old friend, but…”

  “I knew her father. We did a little work together, though that would’ve been … oh, twenty years ago?”

  “When you say ‘work,’ are you talking about walking the boards? Or are you talking about running the alleys?”

  “Nadar was a punter, to his belly.”

  “Did he have money? He coulda put in for a show.”

  “You know he didn’t.”

  “So are you still doing that kind of thing?”

  He couldn’t look away from the road for long, but he felt the upholstery shift beneath him as Cordelia’s spine went stiff. Tension seeped from the passenger’s side.

  “It’s just,” she added, “I remember how my last stint working for you ended.”

  “You needn’t twist the knife.”

  “I ain’t twisting. I’m asking a question. You still got your fingers in the pie?”

  He lifted one hand from the wheel and splayed it for her. “Do you see any mincemeat?”

  She didn’t answer, but the leather squeaked again as she relaxed.

  They’d cut their stay in the city a few days short, at his suggestion. He could tell his charity grated on Cordelia, though he had the money and loved to spend it on beautiful things. Yesterday, he’d taken her to the harbor parade to be fussed over in elegant salons and ateliers. The awful dye job had been dealt with, colored a beautiful chestnut brown, clipped and curled and set in waves. It looked almost natural, now. She had refused a manicure, but he couldn’t blame her for being self-conscious about those hands.

  In the trunk of the car was a new set of cream-white leather luggage, stuffed with linen and silk and summer-weight wool. She’d been ambivalent about Porachin fashion—tunics, dhoti, tight trousers, abi, et cetera—but equally reluctant about the revealing turn most Geddan fashions had taken faced with such blistering heat.

  “I don’t know if I can pull it off anymore,” she’d said, staring at her reflection in a low-backed jersey dress with a steep décolletage. “Not until I get a little better fed. And even then.”

  So it was mostly trousers and cambric shirts, culottes and modest jumpsuits. All of them, he noted, with deep pockets.

  Aristide had reason to be glad his career had given him a lifetime of experience in sublimating guilt.

  In addition to the physical marks, Cordelia had adopted a number of curious habits he recognized as the symptoms of paranoia. Triple-checking doors once she had locked them, a tilt of the head that allowed her to glance over her shoulder without appearing to. She jumped at sudden noises: loud voices, backfiring cars. She sat with her back to walls.

  It made him wonder what she had really been doing all this time, or if Gedda had actually gotten that bad. He knew there had been a few bombings, and wished for once he’d paid some attention to the news.

  They rounded a sharp turn where the cliffs fell back to form a shallow cove. Across the inlet, a rambling white mansion perched on the lip of the steep red rocks. Late-afternoon light struck the clay tiles of the roof and the colored glass of windows thrown open to the breeze. The house’s veranda hugged the edge of the cliffs, except for a narrow sparkling strip of water: a swimming pool, cantilevered over the empty space above the ocean. A second, smaller terrace perched above the first: earthy green flagstones and pergolas covered in flowers. A trim yacht sat at anchor far below. Where the grand house’s estate stretched inland, Aristide could just make out the Lisoan village, the Cestinian villa, the pirate encampment. A series of low-roofed dormitories and office buildings bracketed the sets on one side, and on the other the open-air commissary. Beyond that, horses grazed in a pasture, along with two elephants and several zebra. Pulan kept the big cats caged, largely.

  “Hadhariti,” he said, pronouncing it as he had been taught: the soft fricative of the dh, the tip of his tongue lingering behind his teeth. It was the one Porashtu word he could reliably get right, besides his curses.

  Cordelia whistled low. “I thought we were going to a studio.”

  “It is the studio. We prefer to film outside the city, but close enough to get into town for business.”

  “Yeah, but that’s a house, too. Who lives there?”

  The wheel slipped beneath his palm as the car came out of a curve, pointed toward the winding driveway. “I do.”

  * * *

  There were other autos in the turnaround. Two of them.

  Aristide let the car crunch to a stop on the white chips of gravel, with a good distance between his bumper and the spit-shining chrome grille of a low red racer, its seats upholstered in spotted animal hide.

  That one he knew. The Kingdom of Liso was lucky Asiyah was so far down the line of succession. He’d be an embarrassment on the throne.

  The second car was smaller, black, dustily innocuous. Of the two, it worried him more. Pulan wasn’t expecting him home from Anadh for another day at least, and given what she’d gotten up to at the film premiere …

  He wondered if this guest was someone she didn’t want him to see, or someone she didn’t want to see him.

  Cordelia was, of course, unaware of anything out of the ordinary. He wondered if he should tell her. She hopped down from the running board and cocked her head back to take in the house’s façade: arched double doors studded in brass, tall windows of colored glass in tiled frames. Two mosaic peacocks—the studio emblem and Pulan’s family crest—perched at the apex of the entranceway, their tails trailing nearly two stories to the ground.

  “Not too shabby,” she said. Then, kicking one of Asiyah’s tires, “This hers too?”

  “No,” said Aristide.

  “Huh. Got company then.” Her eyes were wary when she added, “Wonder who.”

  He didn’t even need to come up with an explanation, because by then he could hear voices behind the massive double doors, growing louder, and then the echoing metallic chunk of the latch.

  Cordelia had a hand out of one pocket—the left, and from her face it pained her—flexed as if she was prepared to grab ahold of something swiftly. From its position, just off her hip, he guessed a knife or a gun. She wasn’t w
earing one now, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t gotten used to it.

  From her bare explanation, he’d thought she was whoring or doing a little black-market trade. He hadn’t asked questions because he’d been afraid the answers might hurt. Now he wished he had—it seemed like ignorance might have held off the blow only to let it fall more heavily at a less opportune time.

  Daoud saw them first, and put a hand to Pulan’s arm. Her ringing laughter cut off abruptly when she saw Aristide in the drive. It took her guests a moment longer to catch on.

  “Aristide,” she said, venomously cheerful. “What a surprise. We did not expect you for another day at least. You did not call to say you were coming.”

  “I didn’t know I had to.” Asiyah stood behind her, with Inaz. And that man from the premiere, the one who had come with Lillian … Memmediv, that was it, looking like he’d swallowed a tack and could feel it scraping all the way down.

  That would be the black car, then. Interesting.

  “Satri,” said Memmediv, staring straight at Aristide. Pulan held up a hand to silence him. The sleeve of her tunic fell back, and her bangles clinked in the hush.

  The gravel moved beneath Aristide’s feet and it felt like the earth shifting, the crumbling of his foundation. His hands might be clean, but had he been standing on a midden heap this whole time? “Am I such sour milk that you can only have your friends over when I’m away?”

  “Well, you are not getting any sweeter, standing there in the heat. Daoud, please show Mr. Makricosta and his friend to the terrace.”

  “I can get there quite easily myself.” Aristide half-turned and took a breath to call Cordelia, almost letting the name fly before he remembered. “Nellie. Shall we?”

  As they passed by, he caught Memmediv’s glare full on and flung it back, unsure exactly what was passing between them, but unwilling to take it without giving back just as good.

  * * *

  Cordelia didn’t know exactly what had just happened, but she keystone-sure didn’t like it.

  She wasn’t recognizable, not if she kept her hands hidden. And anyway, she didn’t think her face had made the papers yet, nor her name the wireless. Put all of it together and there was no reason those folk on the steps should know her.

  But she was still shaking when she followed Ari through the grand entrance hall. Didn’t take much of it in—tall ceilings, a million tiny tile swirls, a staircase and gallery twined with an intricately carved stone railing. The heels of Ari’s brogues slammed the marble floors. Cordelia, in sandals, slapped after him more quietly, up a set of shallow steps and out another pair of peaked and studded doors.

  She wasn’t prepared for the sea, and stopped dead on the threshold.

  Born in the city, raised in the city, hardly ever having left, she was used to the ocean hemmed in by boats and boards and Spits. Flat and filmed with oil. Stinking. Her old squeeze Malcolm—in the Queen’s arms now, face likely buried in her tits—had always said they’d go to the shore, one summer, but he gave too much time to the theatre and she gave too much time to other men, and it never quite worked out.

  Seeing all that water, open to the horizon and breaking on the sand, she didn’t think he would have liked it. Too big, where his world had been so small.

  She took a deep breath of the clean air: fragrant heat mingling with brine and spray. For the space of that breath, she was glad of everything that had happened, if it gave her this view of the sea.

  Then Aristide said “Damnation,” and kicked a chair.

  There was a group of them under the shade of the covered veranda, gathered around a table filled with the remains of a meal. Five, one for each of the folk they’d run into at the door.

  Cordelia collapsed into one of them, picked up a piece of flatbread from a platter, and asked, “Something the matter?” with her mouth full. Something obviously was, but even more reason to eat while she could, if she was going to get booted out on her rear.

  Aristide sat across from her and tilted the wine bottle to check its contents. When he realized it was empty, he got back out of his chair and started pacing. She watched him until he came to rest between two pillars, staring over the sunny terrace a few steps below, and the sea stretching to the edge of the sky.

  “Ari,” she said, and when he didn’t turn, she said it again in the voice she’d learned to make folk listen. “Who are those people? What’s got such a pin in your rear?”

  He shook his head and let it hang, still not looking at her. “I think I may have lied to you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Before he could answer, an engine turned over and roared to life at the front of the house. Aristide put the curve of his palm to his forehead, pushed it to the edge of his carefully waxed curls. “That car,” he spat, and from the vehemence, Cordelia guessed it wasn’t really the red auto his fury was aimed at.

  “Who were they?” she asked again.

  He pulled his cigarette case from his pocket, roughly, and flicked it open. “That was Asiyah Sekibou. Lisoan royalty, barely. Friends with their defense minister. He’s been having an affair with Inaz for ages. That’s the woman who was with him. She’s an actress, works for Pulan.” He still had those stageman instincts, and made her watch a whole burlesque as she sat in suspense: the jeweled latch snapping as his case closed, the flash of the gold band and teal-green paper as he tapped a straight on the snowy leather: once, twice.

  A second motor rumbled away, and Aristide exhaled smoke.

  “I thought that’s why he was always around. Because of Inaz. Now, though, with Memmediv popping up like garlic mustard…” He took a drag, flicked ash onto the pristine tile. “That’s the other man, the Tatien. He was at Pulan’s premiere. Came with … with Cyril’s sister.”

  “You think they’re a pair?”

  “Oh, how should I know?” Savagely, he jettisoned his butt over the terrace railing. “What matters is Pulan’s father used to sell Lisoan guns to the Tatien militia, and he schooled her in the trade.”

  “Yeah?” Apprehension crawled up Cordelia’s spine.

  “You asked if I’d gone licit, Cordelia, and I have. But—”

  “She hasn’t?”

  “Stupid,” he said. “I should have known.”

  And she should have known it was a bad idea to pitch her horseshoes in with Ari one more time. All she had to do was hold her own hands in front of her face to see why. But here she rotten was, back in the midden, wondering if she should get out before she got stuck any deeper.

  “I apologize for interrupting,” said a soft voice from the doorway. Cordelia turned, too fast, and saw the boy’s eyes widen. She had to learn easiness again, or folk were going to clock her, even if they didn’t know what for. “But Pulan would like to know how long your guest will be staying.”

  “That’s an extortionate exchange rate,” spat Aristide. “She didn’t tell me anything about hers.”

  “Do not be snippy,” said the boy. “This is her house, anyway. You don’t have to live here.”

  “It’s convenient,” Ari snapped, harsher than the situation called for.

  The boy crossed thin arms over his chest and sneered. “I am sure it is.”

  Ari got that chastened look Cordelia used to pride herself on bringing out on men’s faces when they carped about her stripping, or her late nights, or her knocking other fellows. So that was how it was with these two.

  “Anyway,” said Ari, as though there hadn’t been a spat, “she isn’t a guest. I’m bringing her on as an assistant choreographer. Chitra could use the help.”

  The boy said nothing except “Hm,” but he cast a look at Cordelia that settled onto her shoulders with the weight of judgment.

  “I can dance,” she said, defensive. Mother’s tits, but pride could stuff her head up her rear sometimes. “And I got a lot of experience working up routines.”

  “Before any final decisions are made,” said the boy, “I’m sure Ms. Satri would like to speak with you, Miz
… I apologize, your name?”

  “Nellie Hanes,” she said, like she’d practiced a thousand times on the way over.

  Aristide rolled his eyes. “She’ll say yes, Daoud.”

  “Sometimes,” said the boy, “I wish the gods had blessed me with such confidence.”

  That brought Ari’s smile back, until Daoud tacked on, “Then I think about how you arrived here, and I remember it is completely unwarranted.” He turned on his heel and went back into the house.

  Aristide’s fingertips tightened around the lip of the ashtray until his nails turned white. Cordelia worried he was going to throw it.

  “It really was that bad?” she asked, looking at the tendons in the back of his hand instead of meeting his eyes. “The shell game and all?”

  “Well, I didn’t show up in a limousine.” He let the ashtray go. Cordelia heard a faint clink of glass on tile as it settled.

  “Ari,” she said.

  He gave her a poisonous look she didn’t feel like she deserved. “What?”

  “If she gets caught at whatever she’s doing…”

  “It won’t go well for us, I assure you.”

  “You gonna stay, now you know?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I suspect.”

  “Still,” said Cordelia, figuring she could benchmark her own plans based on his. It was comforting, somehow, to know he was balancing on the same rope she was. Or at least one between the blades of the same shears. “How much you stand to lose, if she does get scratched?”

  He tapped his fingers on the tabletop, then pinched another cigarette from his case. “My job and my credibility. And I doubt they’ll let me stay in the country, without either of those.” Then he cocked his head behind his lighter and stabbed her straight through with a keen expression she hadn’t seen on him since Amberlough. “But I’m beginning to get a feeling that it’s more serious for you. Isn’t it, Nellie Hanes? Is there somebody who you’re hiding from?”

  “Why?” she asked. “You afraid they’re gonna pick up the wrong rock and find you instead?”