Armistice

by Lara Elena Donnelly

  Asiyah led the relevant parties through the high brown grass to the makeshift runway. Cordelia, Inaz, and Pulan came along to see them off. When Stephen saw the plane his eyes went wide: so large Aristide half-worried they would fall out of his face. Over breakfast, the boy had been charmingly rambunctious, but as they walked he had grown quiet and developed a furrow in his brow that put Aristide in mind—awfully—of his uncle.

  “I’ve never flown in an airplane before,” he said to Aristide.

  “Neither have I.” Aristide was unused to children and so spoke to him like a four-foot-tall adult.

  “Are you frightened?”

  He lied often to anyone, when there was utility in it, but saw none here. “Terrified.”

  “Holy stones, Ari.” Cordelia rolled her eyes. “You were born to be a rotten nanny, weren’t you?” Then, to Stephen, “Captain Courageous ever fly?”

  He nodded slowly. “Yes. And once, he had to walk on the wing to shoot a baddie who wanted to blow up the airplane and kill him and Dash, his dog.”

  “Ah,” she said. “Like your Dash. You got him?”

  Stephen lifted his tiny suitcase.

  “Well,” she said, “I don’t think you and Dash are gonna have to do any wing-walking. Just listen to what Asiyah tells you. I bet it’ll be fun.” This last bit—including the injunction to listen to Asiyah—she aimed rather pointedly at Aristide.

  In the plane, Asiyah was arranging sheepskin across the seats. Inaz lingered nearby, watching him with a pleat of concern around one corner of her mouth that did nothing to settle Aristide’s nerves. If Inaz had flown with him before, and she had that look on her face …

  “All right,” Asiyah announced, shouldering into a sheepskin jacket that made him look less princely and even more like a rogue than usual. “Time to say goodbye. We have a nice wind and I do not want to lose it.”

  “Be good,” Cordelia said to Stephen. “Piss now, ’cause he ain’t gonna pull over for you.”

  “I don’t have to,” said Stephen. Cordelia cocked an eyebrow at him. He gave a heavy sigh and set down his suitcase.

  “Good kid,” she said. “There’s a nice rock over there.”

  Pulan and Daoud stepped off from the group, to have whatever farewell they felt was necessary. Daoud had, Aristide supposed, worked with her for some time, doing all sorts of unsavory things; it was worth five minutes before they parted ways.

  Inaz and Asiyah were occupied with an intimate and enthusiastic farewell against the fuselage, which left Aristide and Cordelia standing face-to-face in the middle of a field, about to part. Possibly for the last time.

  “So you’ve never flown before?” She said it in the direction of the plane, rather than to him.

  “No,” he said. “Why, have you?”

  She snorted and shook her head, messy curls falling out of their much-abused finger waves to cross her forehead. “Where would I have found a plane?”

  “Well, you’ve gotten up to all sorts of other mischief while my back was turned. Can you blame me for asking?”

  “No,” she said, and the light in her eyes dimmed suddenly.

  “Cordelia,” he said, and she finally looked at him. “Are you … you’re sure about this. About staying here. You aren’t frightened?”

  “Sure I am,” she said. “But didn’t you ever want something even though it scared your guts clean?”

  “Will it be worth it?”

  “I hope so.”

  “And you trust him. Memmediv.”

  He didn’t like the way her jaw moved, or the way she shifted her weight from one side to the other. Before she spoke she gave a sharp nod, as though she wanted to convince both of them. “I trust he wants his as much as I want mine. And as long as those two paths run side by side, we’ll do all right.”

  Aristide’s nails bit the inside of his palm. “Promise me you’ll put a bullet in his head the moment he crosses you.”

  It didn’t make her laugh; he wasn’t sure he’d wanted it to. “If he does. If I can.”

  “Aristide.” Asiyah was hanging out of the cockpit. “I am ready.” Daoud was buckled in at the rear, short enough to clear the narrowing fuselage. Stephen stood patiently as Inaz swaddled him in sheepskins.

  Cordelia turned back to Aristide like she wanted to say something else, but couldn’t think of exactly what. She shook it off, whatever it was, and said instead, “I’ll … well, I’ll…”

  “Be seeing me?” Campy disdain curled off of it: the same tone he used to use with punters, when he picked on them from the stage. It had the desired effect: She smiled.

  “I guess not,” she said. “For a while, anyway.”

  He wished she hadn’t tacked that last bit on. It felt like an assurance neither of them would make good on easily. He couldn’t imagine going back to Amberlough. He couldn’t imagine her getting out, not a second time. For one thing, he didn’t think she wanted to. There was something in her bearing, on the verge of departure, that had been absent from it thus far. A lift to her spine, an angle to her shot-away chin. In profile, she looked a little like the airplane: small and scrappy, nose pointed to the sky. Like she might take off and defy all expectations of physics, logic, common sense.

  It made her beautiful, and reminded him of how things had been. For once, he didn’t jerk back from the thought. Her presence had begun to temper the pain of his memories. And now, she was leaving, and so was he.

  He didn’t know how to do this. He had spent his life not doing this.

  On her small, round shoulders his hands looked huge. He tried to let them rest lightly, so that she need not bear his weight. When he squeezed, he could feel her collarbone beneath the wool and skin and muscle.

  Aristide had known so many ferocious people in his life, himself included. But in the end they were all bones, barely shielded from the world and all too easy to break. He hated to be reminded.

  “Cordelia,” he said. “Be careful.”

  She snorted derisively, but there was a shadow in her eyes. “Yeah, all right, Ma. I’ll do my best.”

  “Really,” he said.

  A dimple appeared in her chin, and her lips pressed together so firmly that a bloodless white halo formed at their edges. “Really,” she said, and the word barely made it out. “But I ain’t making any promises.”

  Asiyah called his name again. Aristide ignored him.

  “If anything happens,” she said, and had to swallow hard. “If anything happens to me, I want … I just want folk to know what I did. All the way from the Bee to now. I just been working so hard, Ari, and I’m stagefolk still, deep down. I miss the applause, you know?”

  Her slum whine haunted the vowels, conjuring the swish of velvet curtains, the clatter of backstage at the interval. The smells of street food, sawdust, greasepaint, sweat.

  “I do,” he said.

  “Will you make sure?”

  He didn’t often make promises, and when he did, he rarely kept them. But this one felt like a folktale geis that would boil his blood if he broke it. “I will.”

  “Thanks,” she said, and wiped roughly at her eyes.

  “And…” He couldn’t look at her, but he made himself do it, commit her to memory as she was and remember her as she had been.

  “And?” she prompted.

  He swallowed against the tightness in his throat that threatened to cut off the words. “Thank you.”

  “What for, you overgrown blush boy?”

  He pressed her shoulders once more, reassuring himself that she was truly here, that this wasn’t one of those dreams he’d had where he did something he’d failed to do in waking life. He’d had those too often, since leaving Gedda.

  “For the chance,” he said, “to say goodbye.”

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY

  In the Grand Ldotho Hotel in Dadang, northernmost port city in the Kingdom of Liso, Lillian had fallen asleep by the telephone. She half-woke to Jinadh standing beside her chair, towel around his waist, receiv
er tucked between shoulder and ear.

  «Yes, we look forward to seeing him,» he said, and Lillian was instantly alert. «Thank you for telephoning. Mmhm. Yes. Thank you again. Goodbye.»

  «They’ve left?» she asked.

  «This morning, early. They’ll stop to refuel in Hyrosia, and should be here by tonight if the weather holds.»

  Suddenly, the day stretched ahead like an endurance trial. Jinadh took one look at her face and said, «Let’s go find something to eat. And then perhaps see a film?»

  They did exactly that. The concierge directed them to a restaurant overlooking the harbor, which served rich lamb stew thickened with ground peanuts. Neither of them ate much. Jinadh attempted to be cheerful, which only made Lillian snappish.

  During the newsreel that played before the latest Porachin export, the audience shifted and murmured. Lillian’s Shedengue was rough at best, but she made out half sentences and whispered speculations about how the king and queen would respond to the Geddan threat to their sovereignty.

  Lillian pitied whatever poor press secretary would have to speak on the palace’s behalf, and felt guilty and grateful to be leaving the whole mess behind for Asu.

  Then, politics disguised as a fluff piece: Lady Suhaila, third heir to the Porachin throne, receiving two Geddan refugees at the palace. The Porashtu reporter called them Mab Cattayim and Sofie Keeler, “companions,” and she could parse enough of the Shedengue subtitles to tell they were likewise evasive.

  Still, the two women were together, and safe for now: replacing Makricosta as the queen’s symbolic charity case. Something she could feel good about, at least.

  When they came out of the air-conditioned movie palace, the temperature felt even more oppressive than before.

  «I rarely admit to this,» said Lillian, squinting in the sunlight, «but I suppose it’s all right if I’m not the face of the Ospies anymore. I could really use a drink.»

  Jinadh’s laugh cracked as it came out. «Of course.»

  They returned to the hotel bar, because the afternoon was waning and neither of them wanted to be away when Stephen arrived. It was not crowded at this hour, and service was swift. Lillian, sinking into the luxury of being unobserved, unremarked, unaccountable, held her gimlet to her forehead for a long time before she sipped.

  “We have to talk about this before he arrives,” she said, when she was halfway through the cocktail.

  “‘This’ what?” said Jinadh, running a finger around the edge of his glass. He was drinking arrack cut with seltzer, milky-pale and shimmering with effervescence.

  “What we’re going to tell him. About his father.”

  “I am his father. Is there more to tell?”

  “You know it isn’t that simple.”

  He sighed and tipped his glass back. A drop of condensation fell from its foot and splashed the bar. «No. Of course not.» He stared down at the water droplet on the polished brass, drew his finger through it, refused to look at her.

  «You’re afraid,» she said.

  «Can you blame me?» Now he did lift his eyes. «He may have spent the last two years away at school, but he grew up Porachin. He knows exactly what I’ve done, and what he is.»

  There was nothing she could say to that; it was true. She only hoped that Stephen wouldn’t spit on his father like people in the streets.

  “What should we tell him about Gedda?” she asked. “And Liso?”

  Jinadh shook his head. “I do not think he needs to know about that. Not unless it leads to something he can understand. He will have to adjust to so much already.”

  It was difficult, even for Lillian, to conceive of the magnitude of the change Stephen would face. He wouldn’t be going back to Cantrell, or even to Porachis; they were moving to Sunho: a city larger and louder than any he’d ever seen. Whatever friends he’d made at school he would never see again. Whatever he loved best about Porachis was lost to him, perhaps forever.

  The temptation was so horribly strong to treat it like a press conference: delivering facts coolly, refusing to take questions. But this was her son; he deserved a compassionate truth.

  She finished her gimlet in one long swallow, and flagged the bartender down for another.

  * * *

  Stephen grew quiet as they drove away from the airfield. He had been glued to the window throughout the flight. Daoud had slept most of the time, and Asiyah had been busy keeping them aloft. Aristide could barely look down, but Stephen—sitting in his lap, because the plane was small, and hadn’t that been a novel experience—kept a running commentary on all the things he could see: farms, cities, dolphins, islands, flocks of birds, the shadows of clouds. And he had been chatty as a mockingbird at the stop in Hyrosia, too. Daoud had uncurled from the rear seat to stretch his legs, and taken Stephen into the airfield bar for almond candies and a seltzer. He’d come back sticky and sugar-mad.

  That hadn’t lasted, and the second leg of the flight he’d spoken less, and rather more curtly when he did. Now he was cranky, tired, and judging from his somber expression, nervous.

  Daoud, to Aristide’s chagrin, had begun to act roughly the same. He hunched in the front seat, tapping the upholstery with his fingers. Occasionally he let out a beleaguered sigh.

  Aristide was not a comforter, by nature or by practice, so he talked to Asiyah and let his new secretary fret up front. Stephen was a silent, brooding presence between him and the prince, suitcase on his lap and stuffed dog clutched to his chest.

  “What’s the most expedient route to Oyoti from Dadang?” Aristide asked. The tense, hushed atmosphere in the car pushed his volume down to just above a whisper.

  “Hire a driver,” said Asiyah, matching his tone but not meeting his eyes. “The trains do not go all the way in. The nearest you can go by rail is Ul-Kisr, and then you need a car. You are still determined to do this?”

  “Why?” asked Aristide. “This war we’re supposed to have?”

  Asiyah turned to glare at him, stiff-jawed, and raised his eyebrows in a question. Aristide didn’t clock his meaning until he angled his eyes at Stephen.

  The boy was staring up at Aristide, mouth ajar. “A war?” he said. “Where?”

  “Nowhere you’re going,” Aristide said. Which was apparently the wrong thing, because Asiyah made a hopeless choked sound and Stephen got that Cyril-like furrow between his brows again. Aristide had to look away, out the window of the car.

  He was in Liso now. One step closer to an impossible goal he would hardly let himself conceive of.

  Stephen didn’t leave him alone. “But you are. Going to the war. Are you a soldier?”

  “Have I given that impression?” asked Aristide, glancing back. “Lady’s name, I’ve let myself slide.”

  “So you aren’t a soldier,” said Stephen. “Why are you going to war?”

  “He is not going to war,” said Asiyah, sliding an irritated glance at Aristide from the corners of his eyes. “He is being an idiot.”

  Stephen turned to Asiyah. “You shouldn’t call people names,” he said gravely. “Even if you are a prince.”

  Slightly taken aback, Asiyah struggled for words. Aristide slid smoothly into the gap and said, “Very true, Your Highness. Very true.”

  “I apologize,” said Asiyah, mock-grave. “I did not mean to say he is an idiot. Only that he is in love.”

  If not for Stephen in between them, Aristide might have struck him. In the front seat Daoud shifted, then froze when the leather creaked beneath his weight.

  “With who?” asked Stephen.

  Aristide scowled. “Ask your mother,” he said, and put his back to the boy.

  Undeterred, Stephen said, “Prince Asiyah, is there really going to be a war?”

  “Ask your mother,” said Asiyah, and they all sat in silence for the rest of the drive.

  * * *

  The gimlet had taken enough of the edge off Lillian’s anxiety that she realized how tired she was. Jinadh suggested she try to sleep, but she kept him fr
om doing the same by restlessly tangling herself in the sheets, unable to get comfortable. It was a relief when the telephone rang.

  “He’s downstairs,” she said to Jinadh, after she hung up. She wondered if her face looked quite as apprehensive as his, and tried to raise her cheeks for a smile. It didn’t feel quite right on her face, and judging from his reaction, didn’t look right, either.

  But when the lift doors opened and she saw Stephen sitting on one of the caned chairs, all the stiffness melted from her; she could feel the grin stretching across her teeth, cramping the muscles below her eyes.

  Breeze from the ceiling fans ruffled his hair. He still wore his school uniform, horribly wrinkled, and he was eating a stick of peanut-honey candy. There was a crumb on his face, near the corner of his mouth. She could see all of this in minute detail, crisp and super-saturated.

  She didn’t realize she had said his name until he looked up. She stepped out of the lift and he jumped from the chair—so much taller than when she’d last seen him, limbs too long for the rest of his body. Running across the room, he pitched himself at her belly and wrapped his arms around her waist so tightly that the ridges of his knuckles made her bones ache where he clasped his hands. His cheek pressed into the arch of her stomach just below her ribs, and she could feel his breath through her shirt.

  Words failed her. She might have said I missed you, or even just Hello, but she could only hold him more tightly, pressing his sharp cheekbone more deeply into her flesh, pushing her fingers through his hair—mother and sons, he needed a bath, his hair was filthy—and kissing the top of his head.

  “I flew on an airplane,” he told her, and she burst into something not quite fully tears, but not quite laughter, either.

  “It was so much fun,” he went on, ignoring her hysteria with a child’s innocent narcissism. “Prince Asiyah can fly, like Captain Courageous! And in Hyrosia when we stopped to refuel there were goats on the runway and a woman had to come with a stick and chase them away before we could take off again.”