That would teach him to laugh at old women. He’d been hoping to avoid conversation until Carmody, and even then keep it to a minimum. ≈Yes,≈ he admitted. ≈But not well.≈ Five years of immersion hadn’t made him eloquent, just competent, with a vocabulary oddly weighted in favor of tactics and violence.

≈You don’t look like you can speak it at all.≈ She cased him with sharp eyes. ≈Where are you from?≈

≈Enselem,≈ he said, recalling his papers. ≈But I make business in Liso.≈

≈War business,≈ she said. Not a question.

He had no prescribed story to explain himself, so instead found himself extemporizing. ≈The kind that is better in a war.≈

≈What kind is that?≈ she asked, and he could feel her marshaling her forces for an attack. If he chose whatever she was preparing to be angry about, he might drive her off and have the rest of the flight to himself. But that meant hours spent at hostility’s elbow, and perhaps an ugly scene.

So instead: ≈I work with a Porachin shipping company, in Liso for many years. Now, I help move aid into the north.≈ He’d known an Ibetian woman who did the same thing; she passed messages for his people sometimes. It would hold wine better than a sieve, at any rate.

The pinched expression on his neighbor’s face softened into satisfaction. She put her hand to her heart, bowed, and flicked her fingers up to her brow and then toward him: a greeting, and expression of gratitude. He’d learned to use it on village leaders, reluctant officials, and long-suffering matriarchs who agreed to take him into their crowded compounds when the weather turned wet.

≈Achela Aowamma,≈ she said.

He made the reverse gesture: fingers to her, to his forehead, to his heart. ≈Ambrose van Weill.≈

≈I’m sorry if I was sharp with you,≈ she said. ≈Many people have been taking advantage of our country’s disarray.≈

≈War makes profit,≈ he said. ≈Especially for the … hm. Not honest?≈

≈Unscrupulous,≈ she supplied.

≈Yes,≈ he said, thinking of Aristide and wondering what underhanded economics had paid for his expedited cashmere suit.

≈Ah,≈ said Aowamma, as the flight attendant stopped with his cart. ≈I will have arrack and water. And you? Ambrose? Will you have anything?≈

He would, but … what was van Weill’s drink? Not rye. Not gin. Certainly not a cocktail. Something strong and dark, probably expensive. He felt himself fall further into the character, felt the persona wrap around him like a warm, muffling duvet in the chill darkness of the cabin.

“Peated whiskey,” he said, defeated by Shedengue. At least his Enselmese accent was credible. ≈Uh, Calishaughn, if it is there? Or Tolishnaughcaul?≈

When the flight attendant handed over their glasses, Aowamma raised hers and toasted him. ≈If only all neighbors could get along so well.≈