Armistice

by Lara Elena Donnelly

  “Stop that,” he said. “Be still or you’ll make it worse.”

  She swallowed hard and folded her hands in her lap with stern intent. “I’m terribly sorry I was late,” she said, as if restarting a scene that had gone badly. “But after traveling down I didn’t have bus fare and I—”

  “Is it money?”

  “Pardon me?” Lady’s name, she still had it. Despite the dust and the dark circles under her eyes, her mended hems and ragged nails, she could still call on the imperiousness of inherited money, the manner of Nuesklan high society before the OSP.

  Aristide was not cowed. “Is it money, that you need? Your letter didn’t say.”

  Sofie’s mouth rearranged itself a few times before finally settling into a smile that failed to hide insult. “No, Mr. Makricosta. It isn’t money.”

  “Pity.” He held out his hand for the hose and she smacked it into his palm. After a long breath of sweet, cool smoke, he said, “That might have been easier than whatever else it is you need.”

  “I’m sure it would have.” The ice in her voice did not freeze him. In such a hot place as Porachis, it was welcome.

  “What is it, then? Because I’d rather get this over with.”

  “I didn’t mean,” she said, with the precision of a lancing needle, “to place an undue burden on you. I am simply trying to find my wife.”

  * * *

  He let her talk at him, absorbing the story of her woe through an insulating layer of scented smoke.

  Taphir, the young husband, had left them both as soon as he hit home soil. In Porachis, Aristide couldn’t imagine a marriage in which two women shared one husband would have been easy to sell to Taphir’s matriarchal, and no doubt massive, family. And his own security would probably have been paramount, having come straight out of prison and across the sea as the Ospies ate his homeland.

  “It was hard,” said Sofie. “Especially since I had just realized I was pregnant. Mab was my pylon. But then we started getting news about the seizure of Chuli pastureland, the railroad bombings and the reprisals, and now the prison camps, and the typhus…”

  Aristide didn’t keep up with the news from home, but as Sofie talked he heard echoes of half-remembered conversations, mostly in Porashtu, poorly translated thanks to his disinterest and mediocre skill.

  “She wanted to help,” said Sofie, staring at the smoldering hookah coals. “Can you imagine? Her family disowned her, for marrying outside, but she still wanted to help.”

  “If she’s gone to Gedda,” said Aristide, “I hate to say it, but all the alleys where I did business have likely been bricked over.” Perhaps “hate” was a strong word, but he did find as he said it that something pinched in his chest: a kind of grudging regret.

  “Not Gedda,” said Sofie. “I wouldn’t let her. Not if it left me alone here with Nadia. But I … she found a way. She was sending money—money we couldn’t afford—and letters to a cousin. I didn’t know she kept in contact with them, or maybe it was recent, since the Ospies. Mother knows we’ve all made some interesting decisions in the intervening years.”

  There was a freighted pause. Aristide brushed some ash into the hookah’s tray, and declined to comment.

  Sofie cleared her throat. “At any rate. There was money going missing, and then one day, a woman shows up on a cargo ship and Mab says we’re meant to take her in.”

  “A Chuli woman?”

  Sofie shook her head—a pin dropped to the table—and leaned closer. Her eyes cut side to side before she said, “Catwalk,” in a low voice. “This was just after they found a passel of them hiding with the Chuli, in the mountains.”

  “Oh,” said Aristide, who comprehended about half of what she’d said. “The Catwalk. They … bombed a few things? Rail lines, or something like that?”

  “You’re going to make me tell you?”

  “I don’t pay attention to the news from Gedda.”

  Her laugh could have flensed flesh from bone. It certainly set him back a few inches in his chair.

  “So you were harboring a fugitive?” he asked, feeling his steps blindly. Suddenly it seemed Sofie was holding up the opposite end of a very different conversation than the one he thought they had been having.

  “Only for a night,” said Sofie. “I was livid. We fought, and finally agreed she couldn’t stay. And that was that, until…”

  “She disappeared,” he finished, picking up the bitter fact she’d dropped in front of him at the beginning of this interview. “And you sent me a letter. Why should I know where she is?”

  “You helped us once before,” said Sofie.

  “I had the means.”

  “You have means now.”

  “Not the ones that you require. I have no credit with the Ospies or the queen, and my employer’s protection only extends so far.”

  Sofie’s eyelashes fell across her broad cheeks, and he saw the delicate skin of her eyelids was stained red-purple with fatigue and broken blood vessels. “It isn’t just the money, or the connections. I want to know why they took my wife. It might help me, to prove her innocent or…”

  “How on earth should I know?” he asked, and sucked—perhaps a trifle petulantly—on the hose.

  “Because this woman we sheltered, she knows you.”

  He forgot to exhale the breath he had drawn. A small dribble of smoke curled over his lower lip, disappearing in a flood as he said, “Oh. Does she?”

  “She saw your photograph in the roto. When Mab asked if she knew you, I remember her words exactly.”

  “Which were?”

  “‘He’s why I’m here, if you go about it the long way.’” Sofie’s slum whine was surprisingly accurate.

  “What did she look like, this woman?” Aristide braced himself, because he could feel the tension in the air that came before a painful revelation.

  “Very skinny, rather small. She had freckles, and her hair was cut like a razor’s. Dark brown, poorly dyed.”

  “I don’t suppose she gave you a name?”

  Sofie shook her head. “Do you have something to do with the Catwalk?”

  This time he laughed, so caustic it nearly burnt his lips on the way past. But she didn’t flinch. Her body just collapsed further into itself, exhausted.

  “Not in the way you hope I do,” he said. “Though now, the imprudence of arranging this meeting via post, without any subterfuge, smacks of a suicide attempt, rather than an amateur mistake.”

  “I am past prudence. I have not eaten anything but gruel this week. My wife is gone, only the Eyes of the Arches see where, and I don’t know what to tell my daughter when she asks me where her mumma is.” Sofie’s face curdled, and she sucked hard on the hose to save herself continuing. When she had blown out her breath full of smoke, she said, “Please. You must know someone.”

  He finally heard a note of supplication in her voice. Admirable, how long she’d held it in check. He imagined her hoarding pride like precious coins. It hadn’t been enough; she’d spent it all on this encounter, and she was playing on credit now.

  “Isn’t there a name you can give me? Just one name. Somebody sympathetic, in the police, or…?” Her knuckles turned white, she gripped the hookah’s hose so tightly. “I took a bus down all the way from Berer. Please.”

  “Porachin police can’t help you,” he said. “I’d wager she hasn’t even been arrested. Not by them, not officially.”

  “The government then.”

  “The palace won’t want to get involved, not for your wife. The only reason I’m safe is that I’m famous, and so is my employer. It isn’t fair, but it’s the truth. They can’t afford to let me disappear.”

  “What about our people?” she said. “Gedda.”

  He started to scoff. Then, he stopped.

  He knew at least two people in the Geddan embassy, if passing acquaintance counted. And he knew at least one of them was mixed up in something nasty, likely counter to the Ospies’ aims. That didn’t mean Memmediv would help Sofie
, not unless she could give him something. Or potentially ruin something for him.

  Oh, and this was pettiness, but Aristide wanted to put that fear in him: the fear of ruination. The same fear Memmediv had brought back into his life. And what would it cost him, if Sofie did the work?

  “Just one name?” he asked.

  “Yes,” said Sofie, and her eyes grew wide. The bones of her face, which he remembered as strong, not pretty but handsome, were slightly too prominent now. They cast shadows beneath her eyes.

  “All right. But this never crossed my lips—you heard it somewhere else. And please, when you contact this man, don’t send him a letter anything like you did me.”

  * * *

  It turned out Pulan was in deep with a couple of branches of the Lisoan government, most importantly the defense ministry. And she assured Cordelia her contacts had an interest in stirring any Geddan pot that threatened to boil over.

  “If they are busy mopping their own floors,” she said, “they will not have the time to build another house on their neighbor’s land. And if it all leads to a regime change in the process, I do not think his Majesty will mind.”

  They had a stockpile of weapons left over from the Spice War—stuff Gedda and their allies had sold to republican rebels in hopes of scratching palace rule, which had been confiscated everywhere south of the partition. The stuff was a few decades old by now, but it had been stored well and still worked.

  “I have tested the chain guns myself,” said Pulan, and her smile made Cordelia’s heart kick—the same way a leopard’s snarl might have. “Though it seems likely that your interests lie more with TNT, and mines, and blasting caps.”

  That was true, but it made her dream: What if they could use a chain gun? What if they brought the whole creeping, grinding conflict out into the open, instead of tearing up rail lines and chucking homemade bombs into office buildings?

  “I might like to look at a gun or two,” she said. “For a laugh.”

  “I’m sure Asiyah would be more than happy to supply you,” said Pulan, refilling her wineglass.

  But as dinner went on and they got into the gritty details of the plan, Cordelia started to understand what Pulan expected her to do. She wasn’t exactly thrilled about it, and said so.

  First of all: Cyril’s sister had a kid.

  Why should that matter so much? Why did it get her behind the ribs, to know this woman she had never met had popped out a baby boy DePaul? Why was she wondering if Cyril had ever met him? Why should she care at all about Cyril, who had ruined everything she ever knew?

  Second of all: She wanted to go back to Gedda, but the prospect of really doing it, with a price on her head probably, caught cold and sharp in her gut like she’d swallowed an icicle.

  Third and final: She didn’t really understand why this kid was so important.

  At the outset, Pulan had asked her to contact her people in Gedda, but given the tatters of her network and the difficulties of reaching back into their communications from so far away, not knowing how things had gone after she left … it came out pretty clear there was no easy way to arrange this at a distance. She regretted selling the Catwalk to Pulan as a solid organization, because now that she was going to be flinging herself off a cliff and hoping it caught her, she wasn’t sure it would hold.

  “I did not think, anyway, that you were the kind of general who gave her commands from far away,” said Pulan. “Surely you wish to return to your people.” Her smile, over her slice of cocoa sesame cake, struck Cordelia like a blowdart and stung like poison.

  “Well yeah, but…” There wasn’t a “but,” not really. She’d been ready to crawl back across the border before the CIS started scooping people up. Now she wanted to make sure she had her feet under her before she went home; make sure she had a plan and firepower.

  “Are you afraid?” Pulan asked sweetly.

  Cordelia leveled an iron stare across the remains of their meal. “Tell me why.”

  “You need to know? I thought that this was commerce.”

  “Courtesy,” said Cordelia. “Trust. They’re valuable. So tell me.”

  Pulan tapped her fork against her chocolate-smeared plate, making the silver and porcelain chime as she considered. “The child,” she said at last, “is leverage. They use him to control her. And now, they have asked her to…” She rubbed the tips of her fingers together thoughtfully and said a few Porashtu words. “To break my plans. To snare Mr. Memmediv. I cannot afford this. So we must win her for ourselves. This is the cost.”

  It didn’t surprise her, the Ospies leveraging a kid. What it did was make her mad as a snared rat. “Tell me more.”

  Pulan smiled, probably because she knew her hooks were in. “He is at school in Cantrell. Term ends in two weeks. I think that would be the ideal time to take him. Things will be in … uproar? Routines broken. Good cover.”

  There had been, at one point, a small network in Cantrell, headed up by the station agent who had scouted cargos for them and flagged trains that made good targets. Code name: Greasepaint.

  It’d be ideal if Cordelia could get some kind of message to him before showing up on the back stoop, but that was fraught with all kinds of risk. And anyway, he might have got drug in. Cordelia’d been reading the papers, and getting Daoud to translate the wireless for her when she could. They must have rounded up half her networks by now, not to mention some poor folk named no doubt out of desperation. It seemed like her scrappers were having a hard time keeping their jaws locked against the Ospie pry bar.

  She didn’t blame any of them. She knew the weight and pressure of that jemmy: It broke teeth and bones.

  But to make it to Cantrell she’d have to get into Gedda at all. “And how am I supposed to cross the border? It was hard enough getting out. I don’t think they’ll let me sail through without any papers.”

  “I could get you some. Very easily.”

  “There are too many details I don’t have,” said Cordelia, still leery. “Things like this you have to do right. Who usually picks the kid up? Does it need some kind of letter? Permission slip? Kidnapping’s risky—the easiest thing, safest thing, would be to do this like it normally goes off, close as we can. Folk get sore when kids go missing and I don’t want my people tarred with that reputation. If we make it look tabletop, less chance people will start checking under the board.”

  “I will get you what information I can,” said Pulan, “but I cannot promise much of it, or very quickly. My source is under too much scrutiny. I understand it is a difficult job, but I am offering a substantial payment. So if you want your guns, you will find a way.”

  CHAPTER

  ELEVEN

  “He knows you’re onto him,” said Lillian as she shut the door behind her. She hadn’t heard from Flagg since their last meeting, which had ended poorly. But his car had been waiting for her this evening at the bottom of the chancery steps. She took some pleasure in dropping this unpleasant news in his lap.

  Flagg pinched the bridge of his nose. “If he knows, Satri will too. And who knows who else.”

  “I have a plan,” she said.

  Palm up, he swept his hand through the air: an invitation to continue.

  “He offered me a deal, when he realized I was working for you.” She omitted the part of the interaction in which she had deliberately blown her own cover with overdone makeup and overt sexuality.

  “So you’re serving two masters now?” Flagg picked a piece of lint from his cuff, then casually said, “Must run in the family.”

  “With all respect,” she said, speaking past the ligature of anger and grief that had tightened suddenly around her throat, “I’m cannier than my brother ever was. I know where to put my feet.”

  “And is he offering you firm ground?”

  Lillian smoothed the flap of her briefcase, fingertips lingering on the metal clasp but not quite fidgeting. “Counselor, you needn’t worry about where my loyalties lie.”

  “That isn’t an
answer, DePaul. What is he offering you?”

  “Nothing he can deliver on,” she said, a little too tightly.

  Flagg didn’t look convinced.

  “You have my son,” said Lillian. “Whose orders do you think I’ll follow?”

  “Speaking of your son.” Flagg laced his fingers. “Have you been in touch with your royal contact?”

  “He’s been busy. Lady Suhaila’s birthday, you know. The party lasted several days. He had to put in an appearance, as family, and for his column.”

  “Of course,” said Flagg, though he looked unsatisfied with her explanation. “But the Cattayim woman is proving to be rather more ignorant than we’d hoped, or more reticent, so I’d like any source of information I can get about our likely fugitive.”

  “You arrested her? Cattayim, I mean.”

  “Please.” Flagg picked some minuscule piece of dust from his lapel. “We have no jurisdiction off the chancery grounds.”

  Lillian imagined a black bag over the head at night, a swift blow, awakening disoriented in a cell. She hoped the reality had been less dramatic. “I’ll speak with him this evening.”

  When she finally got home, she dropped her briefcase on the floor, shed her jacket and pumps, and made it to her study before Waleeda had finished collecting her detritus from the floor.

  «Long day?» the majordomo asked.

  «I’m sorry!» Lillian called, and leaned back to look out the door. Waleeda had an arm full of shoes, satchel, and linen, and she was shaking her head.

  Shutting the door to her study, Lillian pulled the screen across the open window and turned on her fan. Under cover of the electric whirr, she unlocked her desk and pulled out a bottle of whiskey. Not sorghum, but pure Enselmese barley dried over peat. Prohibitively expensive, imported to Porachis, so she’d been making this bottle last. The cork came out with a soft whoop, releasing the scents of brine, smoke, and fennel. As her portion sat in the tumbler, airing out, she collapsed into her chair and peeled away her stockings.

  Stockings. In Porachis. This never would have happened when Van Kappel was ambassador.

  She didn’t usually let herself dwell on what-ifs. The Ospies were the reality and it wasn’t safe or productive to imagine otherwise. But ever since her meeting with Memmediv, her mind had been peeking down shadowy paths she wouldn’t have otherwise allowed herself to notice.