An Alchemy of Masques and Mirrors--A Novel

by Curtis Craddock

  The comte filled his voice with indignation. “Isabelle was not in the coach when the attack occurred because the musketeer, of whose many offenses I have previously made you aware, compromised the integrity of Isabelle’s security arrangements by removing her from the protective perimeter. His recklessness directly resulted in the debacle during the cavalcade and the death of Isabelle’s guard captain.”

  Outrage flared in Isabelle’s heart. Jean-Claude had spent his whole life watching out for her, but who would watch over him or the shade of his honor? Me.

  “Lies!” she spat, as if the word were made of fire. Her father could not cast his shadow at her through Marie, but he would beat her somehow. Buoyed by her anger, quivering from expectation of the blow, she stepped around the comte so as to be on equal footing with him in regard to le roi. Facts were what she had, and so that was what she deployed. “Thanks to Jean-Claude, I was nowhere near the shooting, and even if I had been in the coach, Vincent still would have been shot. As it happened, I was sitting a horse in the cavalcade and had a very good view. The shot came from a second-story window along the left-hand side of the road. The bullet punched all the way through an alchemetal breastplate, Vincent’s chest, and an inch of ironwood. The only thing I missed by not being there was getting sprayed with blood. I also saw Jean-Claude leap from the back of a running horse into the window from which the shot had come, and I saw the room explode, and I saw him lying facedown on the ground afterward. After the coach stopped, I pulled the bullet out, but it was apparently an espejismo because it vanished shortly thereafter.”

  The comte said, “Sire, please forgive my daughter’s temper. She is overwrought and not thinking clearly. May I suggest she be allowed to retire while we discuss these important matters?”

  Grand Leon cleared his throat and silenced the room. He gazed intently at Isabelle. She felt herself start to shrink and melt away like a sugar sculpture in the rain. She dared not offend le roi, and many nobles grew wrathful if proper deference was not given … but Grand Leon was in no way typical. He was the man who had employed Jean-Claude, after all.

  What does he want? That was Jean-Claude’s favorite question. Le roi wanted to use Isabelle to see to Célestial interests in Aragoth. The question became whether he would try to use her as pawn, player, or partner. Not the latter if she shrank from the comte’s bullying.

  Stand tall, she could almost hear Jean-Claude whispering in her ear. Riding her pain and outrage, Isabelle squared her shoulders and met Grand Leon’s gaze steadily. She did not race to defend herself verbally as a desperate woman might. She had to be both strong and reserved and trust him to read her correctly.

  The corner of Grand Leon’s mouth twitched in what might have been a suppressed smile, and he turned to Kantelvar. “What do you think, Artifex? Was my musketeer’s ploy reckless or inspired?”

  The artifex’s hump gurgled, and his clicking voice said, “That which is inspired is frequently reckless. In any case, it seems not to have affected the outcome.”

  “An aphorism and an evasion. I should have expected nothing else. Comte, your petition is denied. We choose to include Princess Isabelle in our councils. I now assume you will point out that, until she is married, you remain her legal guardian, entitled to know her business.”

  “I would not presume to tell you what you already know, sire.”

  “Indeed. We would hear what Isabelle thinks should be done to ensure her safety.”

  The request caught Isabelle off guard. She was on trial, her mettle being tested. Even that was something; she’d never been acknowledged to have mettle before. Forge it hot and hammer it hard.

  She wished for eloquence but settled for logic. “I suggest a small troupe of guards loyal only to me as a last line of defense, and a larger group of agents to seek out threats and deal with them before they get near me. I would rather confront my enemies in their bedrooms than mine.”

  Grand Leon said, “Your husband may wish for you to be more heavily guarded.”

  Isabelle tried to keep the sourness from her voice. “Despite two attempts on my life, my betrothed has made no attempt whatever to contact me, not even by proxy. For now, I must assume his indifference will continue.”

  “Two attacks?” the comte asked.

  Kantelvar ignored him and said, “The prince is well apprised of your situation, Highness, and he looks forward to meeting you, but he is constantly observed and politics have made it impossible for him to seek you out in person.”

  “Which politics?” Isabelle asked. “And why does he accede to them?”

  “In the interest of prosecuting the investigation, the attack against you on the ship was kept secret—”

  “I had a right to know!” the comte snapped, and then he started coughing as the stress of his anger and the effort of projecting into Marie took a toll on his distant, enfeebled body. Isabelle hoped it would force him to withdraw but prayed the fit would not kill him, not until Kantelvar had a chance to resuscitate Marie … if that was not an empty blandishment.

  “He could have sent a message,” Isabelle said. “And why is he not here now?”

  Kantelvar said, “Because after today’s attempt on your life, and with the threat of civil war on the horizon, all the royal family currently in the city have been moved to places of refuge lest some political opportunist attempt to abort the succession debate by an assassination during the uproar.”

  Once again, Grand Leon coughed quietly, and the conversation stilled. “Gentlemen, if you please, we would have a private word with our cousin.”

  Kantelvar raised a mechanical finger as if to make a point, but Grand Leon’s bloodshadow rippled, a sleeping giant on the verge of awakening, and the cleric subsided. The artifex took the comte by the arm and led him into the corridor outside with all the other servants. The felt-lined door shut with a dull thunk. A heavy and complete silence fell.

  Isabelle almost wished her father had stayed; she could count on her fury at him to give her strength beyond fear. Perhaps that was why he had been dismissed.

  She faced her sovereign. Suddenly the spacious chamber felt very small, or Grand Leon very large within it. She waited, trying not to shudder, wondering why he deigned to treat her as, if not an equal, at least someone worth listening to. Her wormfinger twitched in its glove, agitated.

  Grand Leon gazed upon her for a long moment. She was just wondering if she ought to offer a conversational gambit when he said, “You have cultivated the gift of silence. Good. Most of my nobles prefer to assail me with opinions, requests, outrage, flattery, demands, and the occasional outright lie. Can you see the problem, from their point of view, that is?”

  Since he seemed to value silence, Isabelle gave the question due consideration before saying, “Because they are telling you what they want, and therefore giving you a way to manipulate them.”

  Grand Leon smiled, saying neither yes or no, and then changed the subject. “The world turns. King Carlemmo is dying. I should rejoice, for his death will leave his kingdom divided and weak. Ripe for the plucking. But how to obtain it without bruising the fruit?

  “Carlemmo’s obvious heir, Príncipe Alejandro, is out of favor and has been exiled across the deep sky, and his reserve heir, your betrothed, is crippled and weak, almost entirely under the thrall of his mother.

  “And yet with Carlemmo dead, I will have outlived my oldest rival, and all my younger ones are so tediously earnest. They are still filled with the deadly delusions of youth and power, not realizing that youth is temporary and power, even the power of sorcerer kings, is fundamentally limited. We cannot alter the skylands in their peregrinations, or the Solar in its daily journey, or the weather on which it seems all other things ultimately depend. I have ruled my empire for more than fifty years, and while I have no intention of dying any time soon, I have come to be humbled by the vastness of time.”

  Isabelle strove to divine a deeper purpose to this soliloquy. Was he truly baring his soul to her, or was t
his some official fiction? It had the grandiose stage quality of a nonpareil autobiography, but there was no doubt that he had a grandiose soul, so there was no telling.

  There was a large tapestry map of Aragoth on the wall. As Grand Leon spoke, his bloodshadow flowed up and surrounded the kingdom, pressing against its borders like a crimson fist around a plum. “My nobles strain at their leads, like hounds on the scent of a wounded animal. They want to ravage the beast and gorge themselves on its flesh even before its heart stops beating.” Barbs of crimson stabbed past the border into the center of the country.

  As the shadow stretched, somewhere in the back of Isabelle’s mind, on a level beyond normal hearing, she heard or felt screams, the echoing wails of all the tormented souls he had shadowburned. The un-sound stood her every nape hair on end. She reminded herself that Grand Leon had a reputation for sipping lightly from those upon whom his bloodshadow fed … but still he kept bloodhollow emissaries, one in every kingdom big enough for an embassy. Restraint was a relative concept.

  Grand Leon continued, “Nor are my nobles alone. Aragoth teeters, and all the petty kingdoms around it are ready to pounce. The Vecci have designs on it, and the countryside swarms with Stalfjell mercenaries. Even the barons of Oberholz are pacing around the edges, a pack of starving wolves looking for an easy kill. All that holds them back is their mutual distrust of each other and the promise of an easier battle once the Aragoths start fighting amongst themselves, as all are convinced that they must do.

  “I, conversely, have no desire for bloodshed, no yearning for useless glory, no desire to heap rewards on my nobles for being shortsighted brutes. Nor do I have any desire to have l’Empire’s longest border devolve into unproductive turmoil.” His shadow withdrew from the map, like an outgoing tide, and puddled around his feet. The mental howling faded from perception if not memory.

  To Isabelle he asked, “What do you think?”

  Isabelle spoke carefully. “I think that keeping the peace would be a good idea.”

  “And how do you think that might be accomplished?”

  “Forgive me, Majesty, but I have barely begun to scratch the surface of Aragothic intrigue. So far, the closest ally of my mother-in-law-to-be has hired an anti-royalist to kill me so that my position may be given to his dearest enemy, and everyone seems to think this makes sense. From my outsider’s perspective, it seems the only way to prevent a war would be for there to be a truce between the príncipes, but no one seems to think that such an agreement is within the realm of possibility. Indeed, you just said Príncipe Alejandro has been exiled.”

  “Not in so many words. Margareta had him sent to the Craton Riqueza on the pretense of performing a royal audit of the treasure ports. She wants him to be as far away from Aragoth as possible when Carlemmo dies. It is a gamble, however, because fully half of Aragoth’s navy is on or about Craton Riqueza, and an extraordinary number of them are in sky dock, suffering from outbreaks of swamp fatigue, or otherwise exhibiting a noteworthy disinclination to follow orders from their fleet command—but Alejandro’s proximity may well motivate them to his cause, if only because some admiral sees the chance to play kingmaker.

  “Meanwhile, Margareta is hoping Carlemmo dies while Alejandro is still en route, leaving him neither here nor there when the incivilities begin in earnest. She has also taken the precaution of keeping his wife, Princesa Xaviera, in San Augustus.”

  “A royal hostage,” Isabelle said.

  “But not a very good one, from Margareta’s perspective. Xaviera has proven barren, else this succession conundrum would not exist. As it stands, many of Alejandro’s supporters would be happy to see her replaced with a more fecund bride, but Alejandro will have none of it.”

  Good for him. Isabelle liked Alejandro already, better than Julio, in fact, but she said, “And so the príncipe’s allies would be happy to see his wife murdered by his worst enemy. This is more evidence that Aragothic politics are insane.”

  “They would settle for having her set aside as an honored and acknowledged mistress, but Alejandro refuses even that compromise.”

  Isabelle reflected on Grand Leon’s household. The queen had died years ago, but le roi kept three acknowledged mistresses—who also happened to be the most intelligent and influential women in l’Empire—so perhaps that idea did not seem offensive to him.

  She took the conversation in another direction. “It seems to me that I will be a poor hostage as well, seeing as many in Aragoth disagree with me on religious grounds and would be happy to see me given to the sky.”

  “Ah, but being an inadequate hostage can make you a more effective negotiator; your value will be in what resources you can offer rather than in your, shall we say, intrinsic worth.”

  Isabelle sensed that this was near the core of the matter le roi had been easing up to. “And what resources can I offer? Do you propose to empower me to deliver the full weight of l’Empire to my husband’s cause?”

  “If Margareta is willing to make certain concessions to l’Empire, yes.”

  For a moment Isabelle was too stunned to do anything but stare at him. She wanted to ask, Are you serious? One might doubt Grand Leon’s purposes or disagree with his reasons, but never ever his proclamations.

  Isabelle forced herself to ask, “What sort of concessions?”

  “Margareta is prickly to deal with. She is clever, aggressive, and opportunistic, but she is also impatient. She has shown a tendency to mortgage the future for the sake of the present. There was even a rumor, a nasty slander I believe, that when a previous artifex offered to help make her queen to fill the gap left by the childbed death of Carlemmo’s first wife, she offered up her firstborn son to the Temple in exchange. Alas, the clergyman disappeared shortly after she was crowned, so he never had a chance to collect.”

  Isabelle’s curiosity was piqued. “Another artifex? Was that the same one who showed up at my birth?” It would have been about the right time.

  Grand Leon’s expression grew dark. “That is one of the details Jean-Claude neglected to procure during his scramble to salvage your life.”

  Isabelle winced, cursing herself for forgetting that Jean-Claude had been sent to guard her as a punishment for his incorrigible impudence. She did her best to reverse course. “How can an artifex just disappear?”

  “I am informed that he attempted a crossing into Skaladin to meet with tribes disaffected by the sultan in an attempt to create a buffer between the sultanate and Aragoth. Instead, he was waylaid and killed. The most popular rumor is that one of his retinue was left alive to carry his meat back to Om as a taunt while the raiders took his Exalted metal parts as a trophy, sacred artifacts to be traded for high honor in the sultan’s court.”

  “Do you believe that?” Isabelle asked.

  Grand Leon made an ambivalent gesture. “I hear many fantastic rumors. Most turn out to be false or greatly exaggerated. Some simply dissipate like smoke. A very few prove true.

  “On a matter closer to hand and nearer to the present, I deem Margareta’s lust for power to rule her sensibilities. It is likely she will not object too heavily when you insist that, in return for l’Empire’s support, your children be fostered in the Célestial court.”

  Isabelle stiffened as if slapped. In the same dialogue, le roi had told a horror story about Margareta’s agreeing to sell her unborn children and then suggested Isabelle do the same. Of course, noble children were always pawns to politics, royal children ten times so, but to Isabelle, who had long believed that children were a dream out of reach, the idea of crafting a child of her flesh and soul only to send it away was revolting.

  Yet this was a man whose mistresses were his closest councilors and by whom he had dozens of children, acknowledged bastards all. He could not be oblivious to maternal impulses.

  “And what will you do if the queen does not agree to these conditions?” Isabelle asked.

  Grand Leon said, “I doubt she will refuse. She wants to capture Aragoth intact, which wi
ll not happen if it comes to blows.”

  “But if she did, you must have a plan for it. Every good plan includes a contingency.”

  “Now you are starting to sound like Kantelvar—the man has wheels within wheels—but yes, there is an alternate plan, not as elegant, quite a bit more tediously bloody, but effective. I don’t suppose you know what persistence hunting is?”

  This coming from a man whom Isabelle deemed to have his own many-layered, deeply laid plans. She said, “In Gottfreid’s Eine Studie der Barbaren, he describes persistence hunting as a technique used by the tribes of Nyl during the dry season wherein a large, dangerous animal is harassed continuously by a rotating schedule of hunters. Prevented from drinking or resting, it eventually collapses from exhaustion and makes for a safe kill.”

  Grand Leon’s eyebrows rose in surprise of the pleasant variety. “Precisely so. A similar technique should work here. We grant a little aid to one faction, then a little aid to the other to prolong the war. Back and forth. Over and again. It will probably take years, but eventually the beast of Aragoth will collapse and succumb to our coup de grace. The hard part will be restraining our nobles from full commitment. They will be so eager for glory and plunder that they would likely forfeit victory to achieve it.”

  The proposed strategy made Isabelle rather queasy, but le roi continued, “On the other hand, if Margareta is assured of our cooperation, we can resolve the debate swiftly and decisively, capturing Aragoth mostly intact and possibly without untidy lakes of blood.”

  Isabelle saw the two visions of the future spooling out before her. She took the yet raw, bloody events of the day, the terror, the agony, the grief, and multiplied them a thousandfold in her mind. It beggared her imagination, and yet, she suspected, fell far short of the reality. To condone war was unthinkable.