TWENTY-EIGHT
Aristide’s plans changed rapidly after the leaked papers were discovered. Who knew how long Cordelia would hold up under Ospie interrogation? He needed an out that didn’t require international travel. The scheme was already laid for his exit from Amberlough, but he lacked a destination.
He had been scouting places where his money would be worth triple and out of reach of anyone who might like to freeze his assets. Places no one asked expatriates many questions. Now he was hemmed in. In such a bustling international port, the Ospies would be on watch for fugitives. The northern border, though … Now there was an opportunity.
So he visited a lawyer in the southwest quarter, a discreet, squirrel-faced woman who specialized in inheritance law. Aristide had never sent so much as a postcard home after leaving Currin. But he’d been an only child—there was no one else to take the farm after his father died. Which he had done, according to the records, almost five years ago. The waiting period was nearly run out, but not quite; the state of Farbourgh hadn’t claimed the farm as abandoned property. It still belonged to Aristide. Or, more accurately, to Erikh Prosser.
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?”