“This isn’t the kind of thing that would appeal to Frye’s base,” said Lillian. “But she needs to branch out if she wants to win. I told her as much when we spoke at the Parks Foundation fundraiser.”

That was Lillian: hands in every pie to the wrists.

Now Honora Simons took to the podium for her turn to speak: grief and hope, duty to the memories of the deceased. Cyril vaguely remembered Lillian mentioning her in letters from school. Had she visited Damesfort one summer? Her pat phrases were followed by applause, which faded into an expectant hush when she failed to leave the stage.

“So far,” she said, “our speakers have been officials, politicians, and policy makers. People who are helping to rebuild our nation, in what we hope was the image carried in the hearts of those we honor here today.”

He wondered if Lillian had written this speech. She would deploy cloying sentiment if she thought it would stick. Honora’s syrupy delivery wasn’t doing it any favors.

“Now,” she went on, “I have the solemn privilege of introducing a man who was there at the inception of the Catwalk—”

Cyril realized who was about to speak, and wondered if what she had said was true.

“—Who knew Cordelia Lehane as an everyday acquaintance before we knew her as a leader.” Honora was positively gleeful, and hiding it poorly. “A man who shared a stage with her, and can speak about her not as a figurehead but as a friend. Distinguished guests, I give you: Aristide Makricosta.”

As the crowd had stood longer and longer in the cold, their feet in icy puddles, audience response to the speakers had flagged. It picked up now, noticeably, though the clapping had a heavy, flat tone: Everyone was wearing gloves. Honora returned to her seat, ceding the microphone to Aristide.

He looked, somehow, warmer and more comfortable than the rest of them, as though he had been carried in a litter over the slush and wore long underwear of a better quality. A life onstage, Cyril supposed, had prepared him for this moment. And probably a significant amount of brandy.

He did not seem to have trained in the same school as the other speakers. There was no hesitancy as he approached the lectern, nor any reverence. “I wouldn’t have called her an everyday acquaintance,” he said, taking a satin rope from a silent stagehand. The rope he would pull to reveal the memorial. “More late nights and weekends.”

Startled laughter.

“Nor, I think, would I have called her a friend. Not at first. She could chafe; she didn’t have an easy personality. I think sometimes more curse words passed between us than pleasantries.”

Some of the laughter had become uneasy. But Aristide, like a sailor testing the wind and moving to suit, shifted his weight and changed his tack.