“Yeah.”
Still staring at his watch, he sighed. “My mother was a very wise woman. Not religious, but well versed in the scriptures. She said there was wisdom to be found there, even if one didn’t subscribe to the beliefs.”
“And?”
“She loved to receive gifts, but loved to give them even more. There was a passage she was fond of quoting, whenever the occasion arose: ‘The bringer of joy must be given joy in return.’”
“I know it,” said Cordelia.
“Most people do. But there are two more imperatives that follow it, less well known. I didn’t learn them until after my mother died, and I was searching for something for her eulogy.” He caught her before she asked the question. “Apoplexy, a month or so after the election.”
“How’s it go?”
Placing his watch back in his pocket, he smoothed the front of his waistcoat and composed himself like a boy reciting a lesson.
“‘The bringer of joy must be given joy in return,’” he said, “‘and the bringer of natural sorrows accepted with an open and steady heart. But the bringer of sorrows unnatural and cruel, who inflicts the pain we need not feel? As with the bringer of joy, turn back upon them what they carry. Let them feel as you do, that they may never endeavor to harm again.’”
The clock above his desk chimed, and Cordelia remembered to suck in a breath. “Thanks for that,” she said. “Inspiring.”
“I thought so, yes.” He rose to see her out. “Rather like your visit. Thank you for coming to see me. Perhaps it’s been too long since I looked up my cousin. We should be in touch more often.”
She hugged him, when he offered. It’d been a long time since somebody had.
“Hey Aldous,” she said, just before she left. “One last question.”
“Yes?”
“Can you get me a gun?”
It shook him for a moment—she could see the hesitation flit across his face. Then he steadied and gave her that milk-custard smile one more time. “Of course. Anything for a friend of Pearl’s.”
* * *
“No,” said Memmediv. “Absolutely not. Has your head flown off?”
They had taken a suite in a local hotel. It was a swell place, and Memmediv refused to pay in cash—too conspicuous. Instead, he cut a cheque from a government account, complete with a seal on the paper. It would take long enough for the transaction to clear, he said, that no one would clock where they were until long after they were gone.
And now he was mad that she wanted to take some risks.
“He’s here,” said Cordelia, stalking from wall to wall like the tiger used to in the menagerie at Loendler Park. “We’re gonna walk straight rotten past him tomorrow.”
“On our way to collect Ms. DePaul’s son, and take him safely to Tzieta, fulfilling our end of the bargain we made with Satri. I still want those guns, Lehane. And I’m sure your people would want theirs, if they knew what choice you were about to make.”
“But this is Acherby,” she said. “This is the man who burned down Gedda. We kill him and—”
“And what? His second-in-command takes power, or there’s a coup and some other Ospie rises. Maybe it would help my cause, but I can’t think of any well-placed politicians who would give a horse’s fart about Dastya when the Lisoan border has caught the imagination of the public. And for you, it would be even worse.”
“Sell me that,” she said, “’cause I ain’t seeing how.”
“So you shoot Acherby. You won’t escape. It will be suicide; you’ll be arrested, barely tried, and executed. Who leads your people then? What happens to the Catwalk?”
“They been doing all right without me so far,” she said.
“What, because they aren’t all dead yet? Because some of them are still hiding, waiting for word on what to do? They’ll piddle along, I’m sure. But tell me—when your contacts in Amberlough realized who you were, did their eyes light up?”
She crossed her arms, unwilling to give the answer she knew he wanted. He gleaned it anyway.
“I’m sure some people will still fight against the Ospies. But will they join forces with the Chuli, with the Tatien militia? Will they find some common cause they can hitch their buggies to? Diffuse revolutions fail, Lehane. And I did not enter into this alliance with intent toward failure.”
“You’re just afraid if I do this it’ll come down on your head.”
“Of course I am. If I think for one second you will try what you propose, I will personally stop you. By force, if necessary.”
For the first time—stupid—it occurred to her that he might be carrying a gun.
Well, fine. She’d have one, too, once Aldous came through. Memmediv might not look bad with a hole between his eyes. Wherever Cyril was—Queen’s arms, pauper’s grave, up to his oysters in a poxy whore—she thought he might like it, too.
It was tempting. Almost as tempting as Acherby. But then she wouldn’t get her Tatien contingent, her eastern thorn in Acherby’s side. That civil war she wanted would fall through. Unless Acherby died tomorrow. Then, how much would it matter to lose Tatié?
What he’d said was maybe true—kill Acherby, and another Ospie would pop up to take his place. But how could he lay that out then turn around and tell her if she got drug in, the Catwalk would fall flat?
It was just what Opal had said, too.
But apply that logic to the Ospies … break off their figurehead, maybe their ship would lose its way.
“Go to bed,” said Memmediv. “We have to get an early start.” He had his fingers to his temples, pressing so hard the flesh around them had turned white. She hoped whatever damage Ari had done to his head stayed with him a long time.
* * *
Next morning, while Memmediv was busy puking in the washroom, Cordelia went down to the front desk. She’d rung Aldous up the night before to let him know where they were staying—which, over the line, she framed as thanks for the recommendation—and now there was a package for her in the cubbies behind the clerk.
“Courier left it with the night manager,” he said, handing it over.
Heavy, but not so much for its size you’d know what it was right off. She thanked him and put the padded envelope in her handbag. In her bedroom—separated from Memmediv by a locked door—she tore it open and tipped out a small-caliber revolver, its nickel plating tarnished. Flipping the cylinder out, she spun it to check the chambers. Five bullets, no extras in the envelope.
She shouldn’t need more than one to do the job. Two if Memmediv came after her. She’d practiced on bottles and cans and rats and grackles in the last few years to make sure of her aim. Her right hand wouldn’t close on a pistol sure enough, so she’d learned to shoot with her left, though the recoil sent eye-watering pain up her crooked wrist. She was a good shot. The other three rounds were just insurance.
The whole thing fit neatly into the inside breast pocket of her coat, and barely showed. If she left the coat unbuttoned, the lump wasn’t noticeable and she had easy access to the gun. Its weight against her chest made her notice her heartbeat.
A knock on the door made her jump to clear away the wreckage of the envelope. “Yeah?”
“Time to go,” said Memmediv. So she went.
Traffic, as Aldous had said, was awful. Loren, done up in her smart black jacket with a peaked cap she must have had in her satchel, cursed softly as the cars around them jostled for better position. Cordelia caught glimpses of other drivers dressed about the same, lips moving in the same litany of foul language as Loren’s. Some of the cars were empty. Some had curtains pulled down around the rear windows. She settled deeper into her own seat beside Memmediv, angling her head so the brim of her hat shielded her face from anyone driving by too close.
They finally passed through the tall iron gates of the school, swinging from an ivy-wrapped brick wall. Frost had browned the leaves and crisped them with a fine rind of ice. A pristine white gravel drive shone under the pearly morning sky. They followed
a line of cars down its straight path toward the square brick face of the school, and then wound around behind it to the two dormitories facing each other across a wide quad with a fountain at its center, dry for the season.
Barely controlled chaos roiled in front of each dormitory: cars and luggage, adults with clipboards running after kids ranging from ankle biters to whatever age they started getting pimples and stray hairs.
“Show me the photograph again,” said Memmediv. There was an edge on the words that made him sound angry, but probably came from nerves. His smarmy little smile was long gone.
Lillian had given her a picture, the edges soft with wear. The little boy, dark skin rendered in pewter gray, gave the camera a cocky grin that showed one missing tooth. Dark hair flopped over his forehead: thick like his father’s, but straight as a pin. Huge black eyes took up about a third of his narrow face, in all. His sharp nose was his mother’s, and so was the haughty angle of his chin.
“I think the tooth has probably grown in by now,” she said, and put the photograph back into her handbag. The joke didn’t ease the tension.
Loren parked them at the edge of the quad and sat back in her seat to wait. Before either Memmediv or Cordelia could make a move to get out of the car, she looked out the window and saw a little boy dragging a big suitcase behind him. He did not look happy to be heading toward their car but he was coming anyway, a determined look on his thin face. Lillian had been dead-on about the flags and diplomatic plates; they must look like what he was used to.
“That’s him,” she said, softly resting her knuckles on the glass.
Memmediv nodded, winced, and got out to meet him. Cordelia followed at a little distance, trying to look small and boring. The kid cased them both with wary eyes, but didn’t say a word.
“Stephen DePaul?” said Memmediv.
The boy nodded soberly and offered his small hand to shake. Memmediv took it and introduced himself, with his title.
“Very pleased to meet you,” said Stephen, in a swell, slippery voice like his mother and his uncle had. “Has Mummy sent a letter?”
Memmediv produced the letter Lillian had given them, typed up on letterhead and slipped into a velvety, expensive envelope that Memmediv had sealed after he and Cordelia got a look at the contents.
Stephen took it gravely and slit the seal with the attitude of a much older man. It was a little creepy, watching this kid in a blazer and starched white shirt read from the official-looking correspondence on its official-looking paper. When he finished, he put it into the pocket of his jacket and said, very seriously, “I’ll just go tell the matron that we’re leaving.”
When his back was turned, Cordelia caught Memmediv’s eye. Neither of them said a word, or changed their faces much, but there was a taut sense of being on the verge of success. Cordelia didn’t dare breathe, almost.
Then over Memmediv’s shoulder she clocked a face she’d only ever seen in papers. She caught herself before she gasped, turning it into a hitch and then a sigh. Memmediv didn’t notice, and when a moment had passed he turned and went off after Stephen. Cordelia stood with the heels of her pumps buried in the gravel like tent stakes, staring at Caleb Acherby: the leader and destroyer of the country.
He was surrounded by bruisers in black suits, guns bald-faced under open jackets. And inside the circle, he was chatting with a man in tweed beneath black robes, some kind of teacher. Headmaster, maybe.
Beside him, a little kid. Younger than Stephen, even—Aldous had told her he was in his first year. That’d make him what, six? Seven? He was stuck to Acherby’s side, one hand hooked into the pocket of Acherby’s trousers, the other holding a small satchel. The long gray ears of a stuffed rabbit stuck out from under the flap. Around the circle of bodyguards, dozens of kids scurried by, screeching and throwing gravel and pulling each other’s hair, or sitting quietly with books, or hugging parents they hadn’t seen since the end of summer holidays.
She could do it. He was right there, and the gun Aldous had given her was heavy on her chest. All she had to do was pull it out and point it between Acherby’s eyes.
He’d even see her face when she pulled the trigger. Queen’s cunt, she’d dreamed about this moment.
As she watched, Acherby put a hand on the boy’s white-blond head with a fondness she’d never gotten from her own father.
Of course it would come to this: her with the revolver, and his rotten kid standing behind him. His kid, and his kid’s little friends all around with their runny noses and chapped lips and scabs on their knees.
She tried to imagine it: sent away at six, maybe the farthest you’d ever been from your family, and the longest. And the first time you saw your dad again—your dad who was proud of you and patted your head and applauded when you got a prize at school—a stranger put a bullet in his head.
But she had never been sent away to school, and her dad had never been proud of her or clapped his hands. He’d cuffed her for no reason and gone from her life when she was maybe as old as this kid. Imagining was hard for her, and what Acherby had done to people she loved was all too real.
He ruffled his son’s hair, and shook hands with the headmaster. The bodyguards began to shift and clear a path back toward a shining limousine.
Cordelia’s heart beat hard, and every pulse pushed against the weight of the revolver in her pocket.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-NINE
Aristide and Pulan heard the news on the wireless the morning they disembarked in Dastya. By dinnertime, every paper had printed the story in every edition, and the pundits were already into their second round of analysis.
Police and military swarmed through the city like ants. On the way to meet Inaz and Asiyah for cocktails, their hired car took them through a few Tatien streets, all hung with Ospie banners, or in some cases with Regionalist blue and gold that sped Aristide’s heart uncomfortably. He didn’t like to think of himself as particularly political, at least when there was no monetary benefit, but the last time he’d seen those colors displayed anywhere was during the ill-fated election that brought Acherby to power.
There were more police, on the Tatien streets, and more graffiti, but far fewer pedestrians. On these blocks, the driver was generous with his accelerator.
According to the radio, peace talks with Tzieta were on hold while Gedda dealt with this latest crisis. Aristide thought that was imprudent—better to batten what hatches you could in a situation like this. Though, knowing what he did about Memmediv’s deal with Pulan, he supposed the outcome of negotiations wouldn’t matter one way or the other; the Tatien separatists had their own plans.
Inaz and Asiyah were already checked in at the Byeczic Hotel, waiting for them. The rest of the crew had gone ahead to set up camp, and the other actors were quartered in circumstances rather plainer than the Byeczic but palatial, Aristide was sure, by most actors’ standards.
«We expected it,» said Asiyah, when they met for dinner. «Something like this was bound to happen eventually.»
«It may not lead to war,» said Inaz, but even she sounded doubtful. «Not immediately, and not outright.»
«Porachis will back Liso, whatever the outcome is.» Pulan pushed her sea urchin pasta around the plate. She hadn’t touched it, and was drinking almost as heavily as Aristide. «I must say I prefer third-party conflicts. They’re safe as well as profitable.»
“People love entertainment in a war,” Aristide said, applying knife to pork chop with gusto. “You ought to do very well indeed off the licit side of your business.”
Overall, he thought that he had taken the news of stockpiled Geddan weapons discovered just south of the Lisoan divide with considerably greater sanguinity than the rest of them. Possibly because he had very little personal stake in the fate of any of the countries involved.
Except, perhaps, that it might make things complicated in Oyoti. But that fence when he came to it.
This was one of those political developments that meant a great deal b
ut wasn’t particularly exciting to layfolk. Not quite sensational enough—no sex, murder, or broken taboos. But exactly the kind of thing that would tip two countries out of a proxy war and into open confrontation. There were people in the kingdom who had wanted democracy, or at least the appearance thereof, and were willing to attack their own countrymen if Gedda gave them money and weapons. Up until now, Gedda had just been a little more subtle about it, pushing strictly through its puppet ally, the northern republic. This development destroyed the illusion of neutrality.
It also meant Pulan had an opposite number: someone brokering deals between the Geddan government and republican fighters. He wasn’t surprised: Unrest meant money. He’d benefited from the principle often enough to know it was true. In another life, he would have welcomed this news, because it would have meant a tidy profit.
Now, it was simply going to be an inconvenience.
«You’re not still planning to go to Liso, are you?» Pulan reached out as though she would touch his wrist, but her fingertips hovered so she never quite made the connection.
He looked up from her extended hand, amused. “Of course I am.”
Daoud, at Pulan’s elbow, made a small sound. Aristide would have expected scorn from Pulan, but to his surprise, her eyes softened with concern.
«Staying there is going to become more difficult for you every day,» Asiyah cautioned him. «Even in a backwater. Perhaps especially in a backwater, and one so far north. If fighting begins in earnest you’ll be at the heart of it. And loyalists will not take kindly to a Geddan in their midst.»
«He is saying you’re an idiot,» said Inaz, her blunt phrasing at odds with her upswept braids and elegant black gown.
Aristide shrugged. “It will be a while yet, if it happens. And, in the event, I can hold my own.” He gave Daoud his warmest smile. It didn’t work as well as he’d hoped.
Asiyah’s mouth turned down at the corners, but he said nothing.
“Everyone is so dour,” said Aristide. If he was honest with himself, their misery put him in an excellent mood. He felt tolerant, a certain tension gone from his shoulders. He was finally on his way to do what he had to, but time and distance prevented him from doing it just yet. Liminal spaces and times—taxis, train compartments, waiting in the wings—had always made him feel a little dizzy. They were filled with freedom, and potential. Teetering on the eve of a big shoot, in the midst of a political crisis that had yet to completely shake out, had gone to his head like champagne.
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