“Where are we?” A violent shiver chased the words. Once he started shivering and couldn’t stop.

“Here,” said Aristide, and handed him a cardboard suitcase. Inside were thick tweeds and a scratchy three-color sweater. “Your shoes will do all right, I think. But there are warmer socks in there. And dry.”

Sitting on the bumper of the van, Cyril struggled out of his cashmere trousers and into the tweed ones. He couldn’t get much colder, even bare-skinned. The double-breasted chalk-stripe he pitched in with the rest of the soiled laundry. His teeth were still chattering. “Where’d it come from?”

“Never you mind.” A hint of the burr came back with that, and Ari shook his head as if to clear it.

Cyril pulled the sweater over his head and the jacket over that, but it did no good. “Mother’s tits, it’s rotten freezing.”

“I don’t recall that you swore this much.” Aristide reached into his own jacket and produced a battered steel-and-leather flask. “Brandy?”

Cyril got down half the stuff in one swallow and began to feel better at once.

“You can polish it off if you like,” said Aristide. “I have more in my rucksack.”

“You’re carrying a rucksack?” He couldn’t picture it.

“Well, I wasn’t going to drag all my luggage through the countryside in the back of a laundry van. It’s been sent ahead.”

“To where?”

“Dastya.”

Cyril choked on his second pull of brandy, and had to clear his throat. “Aristide, that’s a war zone.”

“Nonsense. It’s just on the other side of one. Tatié lost it to the Tzietans months ago. East of Kareniv, we’ll be fine. There’s a Cestinian postal ship due in Dastya three days from now. If we scurry, we’ll be just in time to join my steamer trunks and sundries for the next leg of our journey.”

“What about the border?” asked Cyril. “Borders. I’ll be shocked if we can cross into Tatié at all, let alone from Tatié into Tzieta.”

“Luckily, we’ll be traveling to Ibet, at least on paper, with only a stop for document checks at the Tatien border.”

Cyril swore. “Passports.”

“Mine is for Erikh Prosser, my mother’s son.”

“But I don’t even have one.”

Ari smiled. “Check your pocket.”

Cyril put a hand inside the lapel of his jacket and found the inner lining stiff. He withdrew the relevant document, its cardboard covers warped with a dried spill.

“I’m afraid to look,” he said, but did so. “Ambrose Adam … Wallis, I suppose. What in damnation happened here?”

“You spilled your gin on it.”