Amberlough(7)

“Besides,” she said, still talking, in that too-casual way that flagged all her serious conversations, “you’re probably bored to tears.”

Bored. Once, it would have been true. Boredom was Cyril’s chief failing. He’d been bored as a child, and it had made him mischievous. He’d been bored at university, and it had nearly gotten him expelled; only the timely intervention of one of Culpepper’s talent spotters had saved him from being sent down in ignominy. And he had been bored behind the desk, a disinterested operator directing the moves and countermoves of domestic espionage. Smugglers and tax dodges, money laundering and corruption. Old hat to any Amberlinian. Bored, but afraid, wretched with cowardly self-loathing and the pain of convalescence. Bored, until Ari had made things interesting.

“Cyril.”

His attention whipped back to Culpepper, who hadn’t stopped talking. “Sorry. What?”

“Bascombe’s gone.”

“Ira? How?”

She locked eyes with him. “Tatié was your purview once. How do you think?

“Dead?”

She shook her head: half rue, half negation. “Just … gone. Tatié’s Foxhole is getting smart. They know we aren’t keen on the whole Dastya for Tatié gambit; think how much tax revenue Amberlough would lose if Tatié didn’t rely on shipping down the Heyn.”

“Shake with the right, shoot with the left?”

“And use a good suppressor, exactly. They learned from … last time. No trace. No messy politicking. But they know we know. And that we’ll feel the squeeze.”

Mother’s tits, he would defect to Liso if she tried to send him back. Taking over for Bascombe, he’d be running a network, rather than doing the work direct. But barely safer, for that. It was unofficial cover, spying on the other states within Gedda; if they caught you, you were on your own.

His throat already felt thick with the dust of no-man’s-land: those blasted, burnt steppes between the orchards and the sea. He was back amongst the tattered khaki ranks of Tatié’s armed forces, in the stuffy chambers of cigarillo-smoking officers. Dry earth and endless sky, the smell of blood and cordite …

“But you’re not headed east,” said Culpepper, snapping the thread of his memories. From the ill-concealed pity on her face, she knew what he’d been thinking. “We’re promoting one of our Hellican operatives—”

“Poor fox.”

“Be honest, Cyril. You would take Tatié over the Hellican Islands. Even now.”

He wouldn’t. He had learned: Better bored than dead.

“Anyway. He’d been building an action for us, but the whole thing’s easily moved to a new agent.”

“So you’re handing it to me.”

A shallow nod. “The work name is Sebastian Landseer. A wool merchant. Bit of a playboy—never at home. Skiing in Ibet, snowbirding in the Porachin Gulf. Polo, yachting. You know.”

“I begin to see your logic.”

“In choosing you? Yes. It’s hard to teach someone that kind of privilege. I know what your parents settled on you in their will; very generous, given Lillian was the heir outright. You won’t have to pretend on this action. Not much, anyway.”

“All right, all right.” She was going to make him ask. “Tell me, then. What’s going on?”

“The election.”

Cyril reached for the table lighter, finally remembering his cigarette. “Acherby won’t win.”

“He will if he throws it.”

“He won’t. Ada, he’s got a pry bar for a spine. He doesn’t bend for anything. Just bulls at it straight and hard until it breaks.”

“He’ll bend for this. Three primary reps, and a majority in the lower assembly? Do you know what he could do with that?”

“I have some idea.”

“Be serious, DePaul. The Ospies want Amberlough knocked down—they think we’re impeding trade, sacrificing Gedda for the sake of state interest. Pinegrove and Moritz have already endorsed Acherby, and intelligence out of both capitals says they won’t stop there. They want to impeach Josiah.”

Cyril froze with the lighter wick halfway to his mouth. The flame wavered in his caught breath. “Ada. There hasn’t been a primary impeached in forty years.”

“You don’t need to give me a history lesson. I’m out of the schoolroom.”

“Sorry.” He lit his cigarette and exhaled a thin, artful column of white. Josiah Hebrides had been Amberlough’s primary representative for six years, two-thirds of his allotted term, and the mayor of Amberlough City for eight years before that. He was crooked as a kinked zipper, but charming, and his equally unscrupulous constituents adored him. If he wanted an unprecedented second term as primary, he had only to reach out his hand and take it; none of Staetler’s nobility for him. “Stones, Ada. This is what you throw at me, first thing back?”

“You’re a sharp fox, or you were. I’m confident. So don’t let me down.”

“Thank you. That helps me relax.” Tension between his shoulder blades crept up the back of his neck, coiling into a headache.

“I don’t want you to relax.” She tapped a column of ash into her empty coffee cup. “Do you know Konrad Van der Joost?”