Amberlough(16)

As if to chastise him for his confidence, his stomach contracted unexpectedly. He lurched for the wastebasket, but nothing came up. Setting the basket aside, he picked up the file and straightened the ruffled papers.

According to a one-page biography of the fictitious Sebastian Landseer, Cyril’s new working identity was an obscenely wealthy landowner in the Hellican Islands who had contacted the owner of a Nuesklend textile mill some five years back with a proposition: He could source wool from farmers on the islands and facilitate shipping to the Nuesklend mills. Taxes on international shipping were only nominally higher than interstate, and the quality was better. Nobody bought wool from Farbourgh anymore. Landseer had hit the timing perfectly: His offer coincided with the worst year of ovine skin blight Farbourgere farmers had seen in a decade.

The typeset on Landseer’s outgoing letters matched Central’s standard-issue typewriters, copies of the originals. The replies were of varied appearance, from different people typing and writing on different paper, with different ink. Cyril paged through and took note of the names: Rotherhite, Keeler, Berhooven, Pollerdam … Mill owners, Landseer’s colleagues in the textile industry, all prominent Ospies. Because Landseer’s occupation and lifestyle kept him far from Gedda, and a stranger to his peers, it was possible now for Cyril to take over and leave these people none the wiser.

The letters revealed that Landseer’s interest in Geddan textiles had been piqued by the upcoming election. Mills and dealers would reap higher profits if domestic tariffs were abolished. Landseer’s one compunction with unionist ideology was sourcing from within Gedda’s borders. His friends and contacts made veiled allusions to a black market, promised his wool would still sell to Geddan mills. After all, fabric couldn’t be made without raw materials, and a change in regime wouldn’t cure Farbourgh’s sheep. Money made hypocrites of most people, in the end. It was how Aristide earned a living.

Landseer’s last letters, postmarked from Ibet in northern Tatié, where he was enjoying heaps of fresh powder on the slopes, showed he was still holding out, still hesitating. But he promised his correspondents he would be in town during campaign season, “just to keep an eye on you,” he said, to Berhooven. “Rumor has it you’re a rager when there’s free champagne.”

“Lady’s name,” said Aristide, “what a hideous hour to be awake.”

Cyril was too well-trained and too hungover to snap the file shut with any speed. Anyway, Ari’s voice came from somewhere behind him, probably the hallway. Cyril could picture him, half-wrapped in his dressing gown, leaning forward on his toes at the edge of the fringed runner.

Carefully, Cyril folded up his research and switched it out for a set of innocuous memos.

“Do you realize what t-t-time it is?” asked Aristide. Cyril heard, just barely, footsteps on the plush carpeting. Cool, bony hands slipped over his shoulders, settling on the planes of his chest.

“I can’t lie in when I’m hungover.” Cyril shuffled the memos into a tidy stack and set his briefcase aside, unsteady enough that he didn’t have to worry about looking casual.

“Poor, p-p-pitiful Cyril.” Aristide settled on the arm of the chair, his robe falling away from a lean thigh, waxed smooth. He picked up the yellow-filmed tumbler from Cyril’s coffee tray. “Did Ilse bring you an egg tonic?”

“If you mean that vile mix-up you call a remedy, she did.” Cyril set a hand on Ari’s leg, stroked it. His skin was golden-brown, smooth but delicate with the first faint signs of age—Cyril placed Ari in his early forties, but would never dream of asking. He let his head fall into the curve of Aristide’s ribs and stomach, still warm from bed, and listened to his heartbeat and the waking growls of his hungry stomach.

“Ilse was going to do herring rollmops,” said Ari, finger-combing Cyril’s pomade-sticky bed head, “but you look like you mightn’t want any.”

Cyril swallowed against a rush of bile. “How is it,” he demanded, “that you’re awake and in good health while you drank at least as much as I did—”

“P-P-Practice—” started Aristide, but Cyril ran over him.

“—and spent half the night going through my things? I heard you rummaging around. Did you find anything interesting?”

The sly good humor vanished from Aristide’s expression. “Cyril.”

Cyril sighed and straightened. “No. Never mind. Let’s not get into it.” But he’d crossed a line. Their conflict of interest was not something they discussed. Ari stood from the arm of the chair and straightened his dressing gown.

“I’ll go see about some breakfast, shall I.” It was not a question. He stalked off in search of Ilse, leaving Cyril scowling over a third cup of coffee, his stomach not entirely convinced of the wisdom of a decent meal.

*

His hangover had passed into new and undreamt-of agonies by the time he arrived at the Foxhole, briefcase clutched in one white-knuckled hand and an unread copy of the Clarion wedged into his armpit. He’d been too sick on the trolley to do much but sip the cold, wet air and pray.

Foyles, whose powers of observation matched those of Central’s brightest, smiled with one side of his mouth. “Feeling woozy, sir?” he asked. “You won’t like what’s happening upstairs. I ain’t supposed to know it, but the Gentleman’s in with Culpepper and they’re both waiting for you.”