Armistice

by Lara Elena Donnelly

  “The Solstice Riots?”

  “The riots, yes.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, and apologizing to him gave her a small, cruel shiver of pleasure. To have accepted his apology would have been unconscionable. To dole out sympathy to him? That put her on higher ground.

  But he wouldn’t let her take it, not all the way. “Ah well,” he said, relaxing into the curve of his chair and kicking his feet up to rest on his case. “I’ve seen more of the world working for this cause than I ever would have selling beans.”

  * * *

  Cordelia tried to get a little sleep before she headed out—it was always good to snatch it in a soft bed if you could—but Pulan’s coffee was strong as nails steeped in lye, and she only used the time to fret.

  Aza, the maid, brought her a folded set of clothes and did her hair up nice. Pinned a little hat on top. She got a look in the mirror before she went downstairs: nylons, black pumps, a plain skirt suit. A sweep of curls across her forehead, finger-waved over one ear. A pair of white gloves, embroidered flowers at the wrists, disguised her battered hands. She looked boring. She looked safe.

  Aza gave her a carpet bag, too, with her new papers inside, and a soft coat of black wool. “Amberlough is cold,” she said, patting the fabric. “You need.”

  “Thanks,” she said, and took the luggage. “You know where Ari is? Mr. Makricosta?”

  Aza worked the words over for a minute, then said, “Ah,” and led her to the library.

  The table still stood empty at the center of the room, chair arrayed crookedly around it. Somewhere behind the shelves Cordelia heard the whoop of a cork, the small splash of liquor into a glass, and a dramatic sigh as familiar and far away as the smell of greasepaint and sound of applause.

  In that spirit, she pitched her voice to the back of the room and put on a heavy slum whine straight out of Kipler’s Mew. “Pour me one, why don’t you?”

  Something metal clashed—tongs on an ice bucket, a strainer against the rim of a glass—and there was a short silence before she heard Ari say, “Of course.”

  When he brought the glasses, his hands were steady. Still, his voice sounded odd, a little tight, when he said, “You gave me a fright. I didn’t realize anyone else was here.”

  “Came to say goodbye,” she told him, and hefted the carpet bag. “Clock you next in Tzieta, I guess.”

  He got a real look at her, in all her boring swags, and his eyes widened. “That bag is rather small for such a long trip.”

  She shrugged. “It ain’t like I’m gonna be dressing for dinner.”

  “Did Pulan give you the clothes?”

  “Who else? Mother’s tit, she’s a little sergeant. Orders, schedules, do this, do that. Worse than Malcolm ever was before a new show went up.” She almost hadn’t said it, but then wondered when she might ever get to say it again to somebody who’d understand.

  It knocked him sideways, she could tell, but he recovered fast. The small smile he managed surprised her—not that smutchy one she wanted to scrub off, but a real one tucked into the corner of his mouth like he was ashamed of it. “What ever happened to Sailer?”

  “Blew his brains out,” she said. “First sign of trouble. Always had to make a big scene over nothing, Malcolm.”

  There was a beat, in which she watched Ari try to dredge up a response that fit. He failed. “Here,” he said, and handed her the drink she’d asked for. A big balloon of a glass that rested in her palm, fragile as a soap bubble, the bottom holding just a swallow of some golden, syrupy stuff. It gave off a whiff of fruit—apricots, maybe—and it was so strong it crisped the inside of her nose when she inhaled.

  When they’d been sniffing and sipping in silence for too long, she said, “Sometimes, when things were good between us, we talked about leaving the city together, getting a little cottage when we got old.” She took a drink. “You two ever come up with something stupid like that?”

  Ari’s hands moved on his glass, one thumb sliding on the rim so the crystal gave a faint squeak. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  She knew, from his pause, from his bitterness. “I ain’t. You wanted to get out with him, didn’t you?”

  When he spoke, every last ounce of pride was gone from his voice. No angry northern burr, but no Central City, either. “I tried,” he said, and the words were empty and aching.

  She held herself back from a hand on his knee only because she worried it would break him. “What happened?”

  After a silence full of the second hand, his answer caught her off balance. “Do you remember that contortionist trumpeter? The one who could play all twisted up in knots? She was always running late, always drunk, sometimes didn’t show at all.”

  “Portia Prine. Yeah, I remember her.” So many times she’d tried to buy a plug of tar on credit. Mal hated her, would have liked to sack her, but the girl could bring in punters straight and true. Everybody liked a bendy bit of flesh dressed in next to nothing.

  “It was always a gamble,” said Aristide, “each night, whether she would make it to the stage. And I remember how, when we were coming up on the middle of the second act, I’d be watching over my shoulder for Malcolm to give the nod, or if I’d need to vamp while she wiggled into her costume, or if she wasn’t there at all and we needed to bring on Tory for a third set while the next act rushed to get ready.” He looked down, cheeks flushed, and pressed his lips tight like he regretted letting all that out.

  “Yeah,” she said. “You used to come off spitting mad.”

  “It was like those nights,” he said, “when Prine was running late.” The breath he took here was ragged, and he chased it with his booze. “Trying to catch Malcolm’s eye in the wings, losing the punters with every eight bars. You can only wait so long before you have to go on with the show.”

  PART

  3

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-THREE

  Lillian took the sleeper back to Anadh so she could return to the chancery straight off the train. The Yaima II spent nights in port. Memmediv had booked the ticket—a single. She wondered if that had been for the appearance of an intimate affair, or because he had never planned on returning to the chancery with her.

  In the rocking darkness of the compartment, she imagined the bull pen where Odell and the undersecretaries worked, visualized their bowed heads and cluttered desks and imagined what the place would look like tomorrow after Sofie’s story went to print.

  And then she imagined what it might look like when she was gone for good. Odell in charge, maybe? They would fall behind on deadlines, would miss a story here and there to be scooped by local outlets, who would paint Gedda poorly. He would play a game of catch-up she had striven to avoid. Though she hated that she’d kept the Ospies’ noses clean, she was proud of herself for a job well done.

  She wondered what sort of work she might pick up in Asu. She’d always been in the foreign service, from the day she took her degree. Early on, one of her mentors—Rathbone, what a horsewhip!—had spotted an aptitude for public speaking, for twisting words that might have left a mark into statements bland and comforting as warm potato soup. She’d been funneled straight into wrangling public relations for the corps, and in the hardest places, too. The Lisoan press wasn’t friendly to her country, but on the personal level, she made friends. It paid dividends in the papers. In Yashtan, her first weeks were spent battling the assumption she should be married and a mother. Then, proving she was right where she ought to be when a Yashtani senator’s wife was caught in an affair with the daughter of a Geddan business consultant. The scale of the resultant scandal was much reduced thanks to her actions. She had been given a commendation, and a discreet financial bonus.

  So a company spokesperson, perhaps, or personal secretary to somebody important. A cleaner-up of gaffes. Lady knew she’d spent enough time sweeping up after her own.

  There would be some kind of work to do. She could prove herself again. And if it wasn’t the straight shining road she had env
isioned for her life, evenly laid and paved in granite, neither was what she did now. She doubted that any such path had ever existed in the first place.

  Right now there was no road beneath her feet; she walked a tightrope every day. She didn’t dare look down, or second-guess. Nor could she charge forward without delicate consideration.

  There was cash in her safe, and her jewelry. It would never add up to quite enough to start a life without some struggle. She wouldn’t have time to pack much of a bag—not under Waleeda’s watchful eye. If the story ran tomorrow morning, she gave herself two to three days of damage control during which she could effectively avoid Flagg’s questions.

  She hoped it would be enough. It had to be.

  * * *

  It took him a day and a half to make it past her staff; she’d given them a list of names whose calls she wanted, and Flagg’s wasn’t on it. He didn’t come up to the press offices in person, perhaps because he knew that with the bull pen in this state, he might be torn apart for food.

  “Counselor Flagg on the line for you, ma’am.” Rinda’s hair was in some disarray, her skirt creased at the hips and knees. No one had gone home since yesterday, except for Lillian, who had begged an hour to prepare for the afternoon’s press conference. She’d used the time to move cash and jewels from her safe to her briefcase, buried under papers and cables and mimeos.

  She asked Waleeda to put several suits into a garment bag for her, and a few changes of underthings. After all, she’d said, who knew how long she’d be stuck at the chancery, with this mess ongoing?

  It was the best she could manage, given the circumstances. It would have to be good enough.

  “Is his name on the list?” she asked, glaring up from a pile of ticker tape.

  “Please, ma’am, he has called seven times today. And he threatened to have me sacked.”

  “Oh, fine. Put him through.”

  The phone on her desk rang and she picked up before the hammer had quite left the bell. “DePaul.”

  He didn’t waste time on pleasantries. “Where is Memmediv?”

  “Sir, I don’t have time—”

  “You’ve been stonewalling me, DePaul.”

  “I’ve been busy,” she said. “In case you haven’t noticed.”

  “Answer the question and I’ll let you get back to work.”

  She bit the inside of her cheek. The much-abused spot had begun to heal, and so the pain of her teeth tearing through flesh was more precise, more potent. “I’m not certain, sir. He wasn’t feeling well at Hadhariti, and honestly, I haven’t had much time to think about him since this story broke.” As if he were there to see her emphasize her workload, she sifted through the drifts of paper on her desk: transcriptions of wireless broadcasts, copies of newspaper articles, requests for comment.

  “Your driver tells me he didn’t get off the train with you yesterday.”

  Damn Amil to perdition. “He wasn’t feeling well,” she repeated. “He said he was going straight home, and that he’d ring the office. Did he?”

  Silence on the other end of the line.

  “Sir,” she said, “I really need to—”

  “What happened down there?”

  “Do you really want to talk about that on this line?” she asked. “Right now?”

  “Tonight. My office.”

  “Tomorrow,” she told him, firm. “Tonight I’m speaking to the press. Unless you want us to stay silent on this? I’m sure the palace would love that. Porachin journalists will keep slinging mud and I’ll be too busy playing spies and soldiers to wipe it off our face.” Frustration made her bold, and she took it a step further. “As the person tasked with keeping Gedda’s nose clean in Porachis, I strongly urge you to let this woman go.”

  “Out of the question. She funded anti-Geddan terrorism. She should be transferred to domestic custody.”

  “That’ll hold wine like a sieve. It’s the initial arrest that’s at issue.”

  “And the statements she gives when she’s out of custody?”

  She could have told him what she really hoped for: a blistering condemnation the papers would print for days. Something that would keep the entire mission busy, with their eyes to the ground in Porachis. Instead she said, “Cattayim and her wife are illegal immigrants, and Geddan to boot. If you’re lucky, no one will listen to them except a few bleeding hearts.”

  “That doesn’t seem to be what happened with this story.”

  “No,” said Lillian, “because this story makes us look worse than that one will. She can call us poor humanitarians once we release her, but that will die fast in the papers as long as you didn’t torture her.” A word with a mutable definition. “If the focus stays on our violation of Porachin sovereignty, this story is going to plague us like carpet beetles, eating holes in our international standing. Let her go, sir.”

  When he rang off, his voice was flat and cold as steel in winter. “Thank you for your thoughts, Ms. DePaul. Goodnight.”

  She let the phone fall into the cradle and closed her eyes, imagining swift miles cut through water.

  A part of her was on the deck of a ship bound for Amberlough, staring out from the prow and straining for sight of land. But the larger part was here, striving to make sure the liner’s most important passengers got down the gangway unremarked.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-FOUR

  When you leave, take me with you, wherever you are going.

  Daoud had not brought it up again. Did he still want to come, knowing Aristide’s reasons? Would he still want to come, if he had heard Asiyah’s warning about the filth and danger in Oyoti?

  Though Daoud’s striving and bootstrapping reminded Aristide of his young self, he knew the boy had never experienced the kind of poverty he had suffered in his own youth, both rural and urban. He very much doubted that Daoud had ever killed someone, or even knew how to fight. He could probably take a beating stoically, but that only worked if one’s attackers intended the beating to end before the critical juncture.

  Daoud was firmly a member of the middle class—shopkeeper’s son or something, Aristide couldn’t quite remember. But some kind of ethnic minority, and eager to eat prick besides, which didn’t go over as easily in Porachis as it did in Gedda. Or used to.

  Aristide thought about leaving it lie—if he didn’t mention it, Daoud might not, until it was too late.

  Traveling alone was often easier, except when it was not. And Oyoti might be the kind of place where it was best to arrive with allies. Someone to cover you while you took a piss or signed a paper. Someone to put their back to yours when you were surrounded.

  Besides, at least some of the work he intended to do in Oyoti—placing calls, sending letters, scheduling interviews—might go easier with a secretary.

  He wanted to have this conversation away from Pulan, though. Away from Hadhariti, which after the weekend felt like an airless room in which too many people had been breathing for too long: stale, sour, nauseating.

  With the entourage preparing to depart for Tzieta tomorrow, there was no chance of truly getting away—not to Anadh, for the holiday they had missed what felt like a thousand years ago. But perhaps just for an afternoon drive.

  Before he popped his head into Pulan’s office, he took a moment to assemble himself: slightly harried, aloof, unflustered by recent events.

  “Can I borrow Daoud for a moment?” he asked, only putting his head around the door once he’d knocked and she’d called for him to enter.

  It got him an incredulous arch of one sculpted brow. At his desk in the corner, Daoud perked up like a peaky houseplant hit with the watering can.

  “To help me work out my travel itinerary, post-airplane,” he said. “Nothing salacious.”

  “So you are still determined to leave us for Liso,” said Pulan. “It will be a great loss to the studio.”

  “You’ll find yourself another talented monstrosity.” Maybe one who didn’t mind what was going on behind the scenes. Or one wit
h less to lose if the operation came to light.

  “No one will ever drive me so…” She snapped her fingers, then shook her head and said «crazy,» in Porashtu, but the word she used had, if Aristide’s limited fluency could be trusted, several layers implying fondness and familiarity—the word you might use with a little sibling, or a vexing but adorable dog.

  «Daoud,» she said over one shoulder. «Go with him. But please come back by three o’clock—I want you for my telephone call.»

  He nodded sharply and nearly scrambled from his desk. Pulan’s expression sharpened and Aristide cringed, toes curling inside his shoes.

  This was an awful idea.

  But, just as he thought it, Daoud regained his composure, pulled his vest straight, and gave a tidy half bow. «Three o’clock,» he said. «Of course.» And his steps to the threshold were measured and soft.

  When he shut the door behind him, though, he turned to Aristide and said, quietly enough to keep his voice on the safe side of the doors, “Liso?”

  Aristide tucked his chin in assent, but said, “Not here. We’ll take my car.”

  Daoud followed at his heels as he navigated the corridors, screened and shuttered into artificial twilight against the heat and sun glare. “Ask Pramit to bring it and she will know we were not planning for your travels.”

  “I’m not going to ask,” said Aristide. “It’s my rotten car. I’ll take it when I want.”

  * * *

  Pramit, thankfully, was availing himself of the Porachin tradition of a noon-hour sleep. This meant, of course, it might be an unpleasant time of day to go for a drive, but as Aristide had noted, the weather was changing: a wet breeze blew in off the ocean, and clouds occasionally occluded the sun.

  As soon as they cleared the long driveway and started back toward the coast, Daoud said, “So you’ll take me?”

  Aristide paid more attention to the next curve than it truly warranted, and then said, “It won’t be pleasant.”

  “I told you, I do not expect a honeymoon.”

  “That isn’t what I mean. I mean it will be dirty and uncomfortable, and very possibly dangerous. The rocks I intend to overturn may be hiding some sizable scorpions.”