DuJournal took his time answering. “Aragoth gains nothing from Princess Isabelle’s death. In fact, returning her intact to l’Empire Céleste would be to Alejandro’s great political advantage, and I would gladly help you with that.”
“Which leaves only Julio,” Jean-Claude said. “As much as Alejandro would like him out of the succession debate, having him missing would only serve to destabilize his rule. Missing heirs and heroes give the opposition a figurehead around which to rally. The fact that this figurehead is insubstantial only works to their advantage, for that which is not corporeal cannot be destroyed. It therefore behooves Alejandro to wish Julio’s corpse to be discovered, conveniently murdered by Kantelvar before he could be rescued. That leaves only one contender for the throne.”
DuJournal fidgeted with his sword. “Better that Julio should be rescued, I think, and held at least for a time. Once the imposter is exposed, and Artifex Kantelvar is implicated, support for Julio’s marriage to Princesa Isabelle will evaporate and Queen Margareta’s faction will collapse.”
Jean-Claude twisted his knife one last time. The bolt popped out and the door glided open on well-oiled hinges. Beyond, a spiral stairway corkscrewed down into darkness. There was no dust on the floor here, but a breath of cool, damp air brushed his face. No sounds of habitation rose from those depths. The place felt abandoned.
Jean-Claude ushered DuJournal forward and waited until the man swung his foot out over the decline. “I defer to your judgment on Julio; he’s your brother, after all.”
It is not quite possible to spin in place while walking forward down a winding stair, but the man who styled himself Lord DuJournal tried it anyway. He might have tipped backward and tumbled down the stairs had not Jean-Claude seized him by the doublet and pulled him back onto the landing.
“Príncipe Alejandro, I presume.”
The man’s eyes narrowed, but all he said was, “How did you know?”
“I probably would not have suspected anything, except that I have met the real DuJournal, and you look nothing alike. After that, it was just a matter of summing up the peculiarities. You work for Xaviera, but she does things for you, and you speak her name with tender familiarity. You know this place like someone who has lived here all your life. Your sword is of the finest maker in all Aragoth, and so on and so forth.”
“And, just now, if I had spoken against Princesa Isabelle—”
“You would be at the bottom of these stairs. For what it’s worth, I much prefer this outcome.”
“As do I,” Alejandro said dryly. “But how do we proceed?”
“As before,” Jean-Claude said.
“But why reveal that you know my secret, if not to blackmail me?”
“Because keeping up the pretense of ignorance is as bothersome and inconvenient to me as your disguise is to you. We cannot work together if we are both investing effort in maintaining the fiction of your rather excellent disguise. By the way, how are you managing to not have silver eyes, and to pass amongst your own courtiers without so much as a hiccough of recognition?”
“A glamour talisman of the highest order. It even disguises my accent. The Goldentongue who made it for me charged a small fortune. Fortunately, I have a large fortune that Margareta has not yet figured out how to confiscate.”
“I had heard the citadel was warded against such magic.”
“Against unauthorized sorcery. Being a member of the royal family, I am authorized.”
“I would have thought Margareta would revoke your permission.”
“She can’t. The mechanism that provides the protection is from the Primus Mundi.”
“Ah, so you know how to use it, but nobody knows how it really works.”
“Exactly. I do know there’s a pecking order of sorts and she can’t interdict me.” Alejandro made a sweeping gesture toward the stairs. “I think I should prefer it if you go first.”
Jean-Claude lit an alchemical lantern and stumped down the stairs. Trusting Alejandro with his back was a risk, but a minor one. This was a man who rejected fratricide even for the prize of the throne—not just a nobleman, but a noble man—but he might need a moment to recover from the shock Jean-Claude had given him.
Down the stairs and past another landing they found a heavy door ajar. Beyond it Jean-Claude was surprised to see a vast round room with carved granite columns and a painted ceiling. It was lined with mostly empty bookshelves and workbenches. A wide table took up the center of the room. The place looked to have been emptied out in a hurry, and a variety of oddments had been left behind: a few books; some broken glass; bits of brass, iron, and copper; a few pieces of clockworks. Unfortunately, no one had left behind any princesses. The only other exit was a curtained doorway on the far wall.
“Evacuated,” Alejandro observed, emerging from the stairwell behind him.
“It was a shot in the dark to begin with,” Jean-Claude said, wondering who precisely he was trying to console. This had been his best lead, and now he would have to fall back on trying to wring information out of Clìmacio, and do it all before San Augustus became the world’s largest graveyard.
There came a squeak from behind the curtain.
Jean-Claude froze and listened.
“Help.” The voice barely hung together long enough to reach Jean-Claude’s ears. “Help me. Please.” It was female, young, but ghostly hollow. Only years of professional caution saved him from racing through the curtain. Breaker only knew what sort of ambush lay beyond.
“Who is that?” he called.
“Monsieur Jean-Claude, is that you?”
“How do you know my name?”
“Your voice. I remember. You took me and Izzy home.” She sounded like her voice was rising up from the bottom of a well.
Jean-Claude felt the world spinning. “Marie?” How was this possible? “Hold on, child!”
Jean-Claude flew past the first curtain into an antechamber with another heavy curtain at its opposite end.
“No light,” the Marie voice called from behind the second curtain. “No light, please.”
Jean-Claude halted, staring at the curtain and then his lantern. “Why not?”
“It will make the bloodshadow come back.” Her voice was eerily devoid of the emotion her words should have carried.
Alejandro joined him in the antechamber.
Jean-Claude said, “Tell me what happened.”
The Marie voice spoke in a monotonous rhythm. “I don’t know. It’s all mixed up. I remember you brought us back to the château, and we went to see the comte, then there was a nightmare and I couldn’t wake up. I tried and I tried to wake up but I couldn’t. And then the artifex stuck needles in my arms and said no light, and everyone went away, and then I woke up, and I called for help and nobody ever came.”
Jean-Claude braced himself against the wall as his mind fought to catch up with the story. Marie was alive. Well, she’d always been alive, but now she was awake and aware. He thrust his lantern into Alejandro’s hand and said, “Get this out of here.”
Alejandro seized him by the elbow before he could get away. “What if this is a trap?”
“Then I have fallen for it. Twelve years ago, I failed this girl. I failed her more absolutely than I have failed anything in my life, at least until I lost Isabelle. I told her I would make her safe, and then le Comte des Zephyrs turned her into a bloodhollow. So if it pleases Your Highness, wait outside, and if I do not return, you may assume whatever you wish.”
Alejandro nodded solemnly and took himself out. Jean-Claude tugged at the flap of his jacket and squeezed as gently as possible past the second set of curtains. The room was black as a hatful of soot. It smelled of urine and feces. How long had she been trapped in here? In the dark. All alone.
“Where are you?”
“On the cot,” the Marie voice said. It was horrible not being able to see her, like talking to a ghost. He followed the sound of her voice and ended up barking his shin on the frame of the cot and biting
back words that were inappropriate to use in the presence of ladies. Jean-Claude felt his way along the cot until he found a human foot. It twitched under his fingers, but she did not cry out.
“Sorry,” he said, and felt her shift on the cot, sitting up, or trying to. Her fluttering fingers brushed his, and he clutched her hand. Living skin, but cool and papery, dehydrated.
“Are you a dream?” she whispered, and he felt ashamed for his own trepidation.
“I am real,” he said.
“Thank you,” she said in that same vacant tone, but when she reached for him, he gathered her into him, hugging her around the shoulders as she squeezed him. She shook like an autumn leaf. As feeble as she was, it didn’t take long for her to exhaust herself, and he replaced her on the cot. He plied her with water from his skin. Not too much. She’d have to come back slowly. The same with food. She’d also need clean clothes and linens, things that made humans feel human. And he would have to figure out what to do about these tubes stuck in her arms.
“Do you know what the pipes are for?” he asked.
“Kantelvar said they were going to filter out the comte’s bloodshadow.” As feeble as she was, she already sounded better for having water in her.
“You can remember things Kantelvar said to you when you were having your nightmare?”
“I can remember everything,” she said, “but it’s hard. It’s like going down a deep hole and it’s hard to climb out. I feel like I’m going to slip and fall and get stuck forever.”
Jean-Claude grimaced for the cruelty in which he must now engage. As much as he would have liked to stay and cosset Marie, there was too much else to be done. She had to be provided for, which meant leaving, and he still had to find Isabelle, which meant he needed every scrap of information he could get.
“I need your help,” he said. “Kantelvar kidnapped Isabelle. Do you know anything about that?” He wished he could be more specific with his question, but he had no idea what Marie might have seen.
Marie was quiet for a long moment, and Jean-Claude, with his hand on her shoulder, could feel tension quivering through her. At last she said, still in that ethereal voice, “Izzy used to cry herself to sleep because of me. I’ll try.”
Spoken without reproach, those words nonetheless drove a spike of pain into Jean-Claude’s heart.
Marie took a deep breath, like a swimmer about to dive to the bottom of a lake, and then went very still. He held her hands as she dove into the murk of memory. He found himself holding his breath. Was she going to come back? Must he sit by while yet another woman slipped through his grasp to her doom?
She gasped and shuddered; a sound like the last hiss of a boiling kettle passed her lips.
“Marie, are you injured? Can you hear me?”
“Yes.” She clung to his arm. “Isabelle and Kantelvar brought me here. Isabelle was worried about me. Then they left. Later he came back. He was in a hurry. He kept shouting at someone who didn’t answer. ‘Pack this up. Take it to the Voto Solemne.’”
Jean-Claude had to stifle a surge of pure vicious joy at this. This is what he had been looking for: the name of a ship. Finding one ship in the deep sky would be like finding the proverbial needle in the wheat field, but at least he knew which wheat field and which needle.
Marie continued in an exhausted monotone. “And then he left, too. And then I woke up, and I knew I shouldn’t move, because Isabelle gave me instructions about the lights and the tubes before she left. I called for help. And then it was quiet until you came. And now you’re going to leave me, too.”
“I will come back for you,” he said. That was the second time today he’d made that promise. He hoped this time was not as futile.
“That’s what Isabelle said.”
“Kantelvar kidnapped Isabelle. I’m going to get her back.” No oath he had sworn before Grand Leon had ever had such conviction.
It was physically exhausting for Jean-Claude to drag himself out of the dark room. Twelve years ago, he had delivered Marie to her enemies. For the intervening decade, he had counted her as dead, and now he must abandon her to the darkness, at least for a while.
To Príncipe Alejandro, who had been gathering the remnants of the sanctum’s contents onto the table, he said, “Your Highness. I must beg a favor.”
“An attendant for the girl. Done. I can barely begin to imagine what she has suffered. I will send one within the hour. Within the quarter hour, be it within my power to do so.”
“No light,” Jean-Claude said.
“Of course.” He drummed his fingers on the table. “Have you ever noticed how it is possible to be horror-struck by the pain of one person and simultaneously oblivious to the travails of thousands?”
“I am but a simple musketeer,” Jean-Claude said. “Caring for one person is quite enough burden for me. To care so deeply for thousands and still be sane would require the fortitude of a saint.”
“With answers like that, I can see why Grand Leon keeps you around.” He handed Jean-Claude his lantern and they started up the stairs. “Are you going to tell me what she told you?”
“Are you going to tell me what you found in the gleanings?”
“You first.”
“The name of a ship, I think, that Kantelvar used to carry Isabelle away.”
“Hah! We have him, then. We can locate him using the registry at the Naval Orrery. It has a chartstone from every ship flagged out of Aragoth.”
“You are assuming this ship is flagged out of Aragoth, and under the name I was given, but you are right that it’s worth a try.”
“If it does not have a chartstone in the Naval Orrery, then it would risk being challenged by our picket ships. I doubt Kantelvar would want to take that chance, so that’s half your problem solved.”
“And what did you find?”
“A candle stub.” He produced the waxy stump and began rolling it over in his fingers.
“And what’s so remarkable about that?”
“Nothing in and of itself, but this place has sconces for alchemical lanterns, so it has no need of candles, and this is finest beeswax, and this”—he flipped the stub up to display an indented pattern on the flat end—“is the maker’s mark for a chandler in Castrella, my wife’s home province.”
“And she brought her candlesticks with her when she moved to San Augustus.”
He nodded, looking progressively more worried the more he fondled the waxy remnant. “It’s possible to poison candles, you know. Dip their wicks in certain solutions of arsenic, for example.”
“But that candle is spent,” Jean-Claude pointed out, “and I have heard no rumor that she is ill.”
“No. Just barren.” And now his eyes burned with suspicion. “And hopeless in her distress at being unable to conceive, she prays at her altar every night, burning candles just such as these.”
Poisoning herself. Jean-Claude was beginning to think that was Kantelvar’s style. “And Xaviera’s infertility gave Kantelvar the leverage he needed to bring Isabelle into play and give Julio a plausible claim to the throne, a plan that has now thrown all four shoes.”
“Now the imposter that sits at Margareta’s side finds himself back-footed. He believes both his chief conspirator and his bride-to-be are dead.”
“Unless he is in on it,” Jean-Claude said.
“I doubt he’d agree to making Isabelle disappear. More to the point, I know Margareta wouldn’t, and she seems to be pulling the imposter’s strings. They’ll be in an absolute panic.”
“So what’s their next move?” Jean-Claude asked.
Alejandro’s face grew still in thought. “He’ll want to level the battlefield. Xaviera.”
“Wait. How does removing her help him? Your faction has been begging you to set her aside so you can remarry. Getting rid of her would be doing your side a favor.”
Alejandro glowered at him, but Jean-Claude said, “I am thinking from his point of view, not yours.”
“She still works as a host
age against me,” he said. “Even if the rest of the world would discard her.”
Jean-Claude said, “Just be sure you don’t commit yourself too quickly to rash action. One of my academy instructors had a saying: ‘When you hitch up a team of four, make sure fear and anger are not in the lead.’ I have frequently served Isabelle best by not being at her side.”
They reached a four-way intersection. Alejandro stopped and perforce Jean-Claude did as well. “Your point is taken, but with my father on his deathbed, I must make sure my wife is removed from the pretender’s reach, as I should have done before. Damn that leaving her in place was so useful.” The príncipe pointed down one corridor. “If you follow these footprints, they will lead you as surely as I can to wherever Kantelvar went.”
Jean-Claude scowled at the indicated path. “No doubt those tracks lead to an empty berth where a skyship once was, and I cannot walk on air. I need to visit the Naval Orrery, and I need a ship to pursue Kantelvar, and for those things I need your help, Highness. As much as it pains me not to bay and chase like a hound on the scent, I must take my own advice and turn aside to assist you.”
Alejandro accepted that with a nod and led him down a different path in the maze.
Both of them were covered in dust, gray as ghosts, by the time they emerged into the light of one of the citadel’s forecourts. Tall, straight walls gave the impression of walking through a canyon. The rain had finally quit, but the yard was still pocked with puddles. Golden light splashing off the upper third of the walls told Jean-Claude it was late afternoon. They had been down in that maze for most of the day.
Alejandro said, “We will fetch Xaviera and send a minion to tend Marie, then we’ll make our way to the orrery.”
But no sooner had they thrust their way into one of the citadel’s occupied sections, a broad hallway with glazed windows and parquetry floors, than a guardsman in royal purple livery hailed them. As it would have seemed suspicious to run away, and as Jean-Claude would have lost a footrace in any case, he merely shared a worried glance with Alejandro qua DuJournal and contrived to greet the approaching guardsman with no more than a look of mild curiosity.
An Alchemy of Masques and Mirrors--A Novel Page 35
