Amberlough(90)

Along with the deed, the lawyer procured a copy of Aristide’s birth certificate. After all, he couldn’t identify himself as the beneficiary of his father’s will under his stage name. The lawyer labored under the misapprehension that Aristide was acting as a factotum for an ill and absent friend. He did not disabuse her.

At home, he buried the papers under a pile of books on his bedside table and traded his town clothes for a jersey robe and slippers. Shoulders hunched around his ears, he went to pour himself a very stiff drink indeed. Though he was not in a habit of drunkenness, this was a special occasion.

He was happily on his way to forgetting who he really was when Ilse knocked on the parlor door and announced Finn had arrived. “Show him in,” said Aristide, rising unsteadily to pour another glass of brandy. His limbs moved half a beat more slowly than his brain. Liquor splashed across the bar.

“Ari?”

“Finn, darling. Do come in.” The brightness of his own voice pained him.

“I’ve got a message from Cross.” Even Finn’s frown managed to be endearing. He was like some kind of spaniel puppy, all liquid eyes and sweetness.

“I’m sure it’s nothing good.” Probably it would be the last. She wouldn’t stick around the Foxhole after this. “B-B-Brandy?”

“Ari, are you drunk?”

He tried to stopper the decanter and missed by half an inch. Cork squeaked against crystal. “Whatever gave you that idea?”

“You’re slurring a bit.” Finn took one of the glasses from the bar and sipped. “This is too good to waste on you in your state. Come on. Let’s get you to bed.”

“Oh, please,” said Aristide, desperate for distraction. “Let’s.”

*

Finn was briskly nursemaidish, despite Aristide’s amorous attentions. As the consequences of several large brandies in quick succession made themselves apparent, those attentions lapsed into idle fingers and occasional kisses. Aristide’s eyelids felt heavy. The room was very warm.

“Would you like to see Cross’s dispatch?” asked Finn.

“Lady’s sake, no.” Aristide put his hand across his eyes. “Not until I’m sober. I look abysmal when I weep.”

“I can go, if you want to sleep it off.”

He curled his fist around the hem of Finn’s waistcoat. “No. Stay. I want you to stay.”

Finn sighed. “Well, would you like me to read to you?” He shifted, reaching for the pile of books on the bedside table.

“Oh,” said Aristide, remembering what was beneath them. “No, no please—”

But it was too late. “Who’s Erikh Prosser?” Finn’s pronunciation of the tricky given name was flawless: the high “i” at the front of the mouth, with the pharyngeal consonant at the finish. Most people, even northerners, would have gone for plain “Eric.”

“Client of mine,” Aristide extemporized. “Owns some land up north where I have … interests.”

“Good luck to him, hanging on to it.”

“What do you mean?” Aristide peeled his eyes open and looked up at Finn, who was scanning the deed to a rocky scrap of meadow in the Currin Pass.

“Erikh’s a Chuli name. You think the Ospies are going to let the Chuli hold onto any of their assets? Won’t even let them stay in Gedda, most like. Push them across the border to Enselem, who don’t want them either.”

“Well, nobody’s exactly t-t … treated them with kindness,” said Aristide. Weighted with brandy, his tongue bungled the false stutter. “The Chuli. Don’t see why they ought to expect any different now.”

“I suppose you would know, wouldn’t you?”

“Pardon?” He rolled heavily onto his back. Finn had set aside the paperwork and was watching him.

“I clocked you long ago.” Finn drew his fingers through Aristide’s loose curls. “You’re an half-caste, aren’t you?”

“Mmm.” It wasn’t meant as an answer—he didn’t want to talk about it. But Finn went on.

“You can pass for Hyrosian, under your stage name. But your skin’s a little too tawny, and you’ve got a Chuli nose.” He traced the feature of interest with a fingertip. “And sometimes those northern curses slip out. When you’re upset. Or…” He turned pink. “Other times.”

Aristide gritted his teeth, furious to have years of reinvention stripped away. Suddenly, his verbal affectations—the conscious stutter and retroflex consonants, the aspirated glides—seemed glaring: clear markers of the work he’d put into eliding his native burr.

When he put on his performer’s smile, it felt like baring his teeth. “Darling.” He reached up and patted Finn’s cheek. “You are absolutely wasted in the bursar.”

Finn turned his head and kissed Aristide’s knuckles. “I always did toy with the idea of applying for a transfer. Can I use you for a reference?”

“Feel free,” said Aristide, sourly. “Though I doubt it’ll do you any good.”

“Oh, that’s all right.” Finn wrapped his arms around Aristide’s shoulders and didn’t seem to notice how stiff they’d gone. “When they sack me, I’ll come work for you.”