Dark Lady asked. She held up a cut-crystal decanter half full of amber liquid taken from a cabinet behind her. “Well, not technically cognac, I suppose. But it amounts to the same, even if it’s not imported from what used to be France.” “Still must be some primo scavvy,” Mildred said as Dark Lady began to pour the fluid into a number of shot glasses on a maroon pottery tray painted with Day of the Dead figures an uncharacteristically silent Mikey-Bob had set on the desk in front of his mistress. Dark Lady looked at her from under abruptly upraised brows. “It isn’t scavvy at all,” she said with some asperity as she continued to pour a couple of fingers into each glass. “It’s made by monks downstream in the valley to the west of the Basin, in fact. They have a fortified monastery and their own vineyards, and they do quite well, thank you very much.” “I’m sorry. I should have considered that possibility.”
