An Alchemy of Masques and Mirrors--A Novel

by Curtis Craddock

  Jean-Claude leaned back in his seat, impressed. “Princesa Xaviera is a strong woman?”

  “She was raised on the border with the Skaladin Breakerspawn. Her mother once fended off a siege of the fortress at Castrella, and she swore that her daughter would learn to fence and to shoot and to ride and lead men because, she said, it is best for a woman to be able to protect her own house and honor. Since Xaviera came to San Augustus, she fences in the challenge courts and hunts with the men.”

  Aware that he was being gently diverted, Jean-Claude nonetheless asked, “And what does the court think of that?”

  “They say it is the reason she cannot have children.”

  Jean-Claude grunted dismissively; he had grown up on a farm where women did hard physical work all day and still produced large families. “So Príncipe Julio would rather have Xaviera than Isabelle.”

  “I did not say that, señor!” Adel protested. “It is just that since his accident—” She bit her lip.

  “He has lost interest in women?” Jean-Claude ventured. If Julio’s manhood had been damaged—

  “No. No. If anything, he is more ‘interested’ than he used to be, but, before, he had one or two women he would go to, respected women, discreetly.”

  Jean-Claude waved this along; he understood how the process worked.

  “Since the accident he is … less discreet, and less discriminating.”

  “These women are more like mirrors,” Jean-Claude said.

  “Bent mirrors. They show him bigger than he is.”

  Jean-Claude frowned in distaste for Isabelle’s sake, but were Julio’s actions really hard to understand? A cripple who could no longer fight or hunt or engage in other masculine pursuits would want to exercise his masculinity in whatever way he had left.

  Understandable or not, a man with a broken spirit would be no good for Isabelle. Either she’d spend all her time propping him up, or he’d drag her down. In neither case would she soar as she ought.

  Another handmaid, younger than Adel, with eyes as wide and black as a doe’s, poked her head in the room. “Señora. Don Angelo is here, and the royal surgeon, Esteban, to see the musketeer.”

  “Tell them I will see them in a moment,” Jean-Claude said. They were here for his apology, no doubt. He did not look forward to apologizing, but Isabelle had promised, and he would not betray her word. To Adel he said, “Help me put some pants and boots on.”

  “The doctor is going to want to look at your leg,” Adel said reprovingly.

  “Then he can look at it through my pants. Look, the wound isn’t hot, and if it was going to go septic, it would have done so by now.”

  Reluctantly, Adel helped him dress and maneuver into an upholstered chair. Even those slow, orchestrated movements brought new pain. Already, he yearned for another sip of the dream spirits. Where had she put that cup? Away. Saints be praised. He wondered, briefly, if Adel was married, but then quickly put the thought out of his mind. His duty as Isabelle’s protector had long hampered his own romantic inclinations, and he had limited the pursuit of his primal urges to the occasional whore.

  Once he was delicately arranged in a firm upright posture, Jean-Claude allowed his visitors in.

  Don Angelo had come dressed to impress, wearing so many layers of fine purple silk and brocade that Jean-Claude wagered he’d doubled his thickness. His mustaches were waxed in perfect spirals. The doctor, Esteban, was a middle-sized, middle-aged man dressed in maroon robes of a more functional cut, though of an especially fine material.

  Both of them gave him respectful half bows. Jean-Claude replied in kind from his sitting position. “Please pardon me for not standing, gentlemen, but my leg is still weak.”

  Esteban said, “I should imagine it is in agony.”

  Jean-Claude swallowed his distaste for the man’s profession and got down to the business of this audience. “Not at all, thanks to you. Please allow me to apologize for my harsh words to you yesterday. I was quite out of my head with pain and worry for my princess, but that was no excuse for the unkindnesses I heaped upon you, and you, Your Grace.”

  Don Angelo hesitated, as a man prepared to besiege a fortress might do upon finding the gates flung open in welcome. After a moment of thought in which he apparently found no irony lurking in the corners of Jean-Claude’s apology, he said, “Apology accepted, señor musketeer. I must say I found your dedication to your task … compelling.”

  “Indeed.” Esteban smiled and a half-dozen concentric laugh lines rippled away from his white teeth. “Different people react differently to pain. It turns some men into babies, but it only makes you mad. You have the heart of a lion.”

  Jean-Claude liked Esteban better already. Yes, he was a doctor, but that wasn’t necessarily his fault. Some jobs were inherited—like fulling or dung gathering; others involved apprenticeship at an early age. They weren’t duties people necessarily wanted or enjoyed, but they had to be done. Embrace the man, despise the mission; that was the key.

  “I have something for you,” Esteban said.

  “Not more medicine, I hope,” Jean-Claude said warily.

  “Memento,” Esteban said. From his belt pouch, he flourished a small roll of silk that he unfurled to reveal a twisted, jagged piece of metal about the size and shape of Jean-Claude’s thumbnail. “This came out of your thigh. One inch to the left and it would have severed a major blood vessel. You are a very lucky lion.”

  Jean-Claude rolled the lump of metal between his fingers, its jagged edges creasing his fingers. It was iron, forged and—“What’s this?” He stopped rolling the projectile and stared at its largest flat face. There were molded ridges on it. He stared at the pattern they made. It was incomplete but recognizable.

  “What is what?” Esteban asked diffidently, as if Jean-Claude had just rudely pointed out a flaw in a guest gift.

  Jean-Claude showed it to him. “Look at this. See the raised pattern? It’s a maker’s mark.”

  Esteban’s brows lifted in curiosity. “I hadn’t noticed that.”

  “Are you sure this is the piece that came out of my leg?”

  “Oh yes, very sure. Why?”

  “Because before that, it came out of the Aragothic royal armory.”

  Don Angelo said, “That’s not entirely inexplicable. The armory distributes munitions to all the city’s artillery outposts. This bomb could have been stolen from any one of them.”

  “True.” Jean-Claude leaned back in his chair. His mind kept trying to pounce on some vital clue that would lead him straight to Isabelle’s enemies, only to have his inspirations evaporate in a puff of logic. Perhaps it was only weird to his drug-fuzzed mind that every last clue seemed to point in a different direction immediately before it ceased to be a clue. So was there any place the clues didn’t point, or rather that they collectively pointed away from? Isabelle had a word for that, “trifangulation” or similar. It was hard enough to do that with sticks planted in the ground. With people who kept moving around, it would be impossible.

  He said, “I don’t suppose the royal armory would respond kindly if I showed up and asked them if they were missing any mortar shells?”

  “Probably not,” Don Angelo said stiffly.

  Jean-Claude drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair and said, “Your Grace, may I trouble you for a crutch and a carriage?”

  “Of course,” Don Angelo said. “May I inquire why?”

  “Because I’m not fit to ride,” Jean Claude said. “And I want to have another look at that sharpshooter’s nest.”

  * * *

  By the time Jean-Claude’s chaise pulled up in front of the bomb-scarred building, pain had reclaimed his leg, and he had exhausted his supply of invective on whatever misbegotten soul had invented cobblestones. As good as the undercarriage springs were, and as slow as the cautious driver had been, he still felt as if someone had been hammering on his thigh with a red-hot tenderizer. For a long moment, he just sat in the soft, upholstered seat—this was a royal ch
aise—eyes closed, contemplating amputation. Perhaps the surgeon’s saving his leg had been the cruel thing to do.

  But, no, this pain was temporary … he hoped. Esteban said he should heal nicely, if he didn’t overexert himself—if he didn’t do his duty. Don Angelo had suggested he send someone else to examine the building, but who else could he trust? Who else would know what to look for? Breaker’s breath, even Jean-Claude didn’t know exactly what he was looking for, or even that he would recognize it if he found it. That was why he had to do the looking.

  He opened his eyes and stared up at the half-stone building. A large chunk of the wall was missing, and the edges of the hole were scorched and ragged, like old scabs.

  The city’s scavengers had already descended, scouring the street clean of potentially salable debris, everything from candlesticks to pot shards. Had they carried off anything telling?

  Jean-Claude turned his attention to his driver, Mario, a quiet man with a sun-browned face several shades darker than the average swarthy Aragoth. He had put up with Jean-Claude’s agonized mutterings without comment or complaint.

  Jean-Claude asked, “Monsieur, how would you like to help track down a killer?”

  Mario gave him a quizzical look. “What would you have me do?”

  “Put the word out that I am in the market for debris from yesterday’s bomb blast. I will pay top coin for items that interest me. Potential sellers should queue up here, and I will attend them shortly.”

  “Señor, the scroungers, they will bring everything they can find—old bones and bits of glass—and claim it was from the blast.”

  “And I will send them packing,” Jean-Claude said. “I am looking for just one thing.”

  “And that is?”

  “It’s a surprise.” Even to me. Likely he’d find nothing of interest, but he had to try.

  The street was packed with people moving hither and thither on their own business, and even the royal seal on the side of the chaise granted little reprieve from the press. There was a general clockwise motion to the action. Jean-Claude hefted his crutch—the damned thing made him look old and decrepit—and debarked on the left side of the conveyance to take advantage of the flow. It was like stepping into a very lumpy river that bumped him around in a direction that only averaged forward.

  With no small relief, Jean-Claude stepped up into the entry niche of the bombed building. It was a tenement, something else he had failed to notice yesterday. Had anyone talked to the owner yet? That should have been Kantelvar’s first stop. Instead, he was playing courtier to Isabelle. If there were a prize for being somewhere else when the action happened, Kantelvar would have won it. Well, that wasn’t quite true. He had fought Thornscar aboard the Santa Anna; he just hadn’t done a very good job.

  The apartments were built in a square around a courtyard centered by a tall pole strung with pulleyed ropes that did double duty as guy wires and washing lines. A dozen or so women and thrice that many children bustled about their daily chores, glancing up at Jean-Claude only for the oddity of his appearance. He asked the first one he encountered where he might find the building’s owner and was directed to the bombed-out room.

  Jean-Claude considered the problematic stairs and toyed with the idea of sending an urchin to fetch the owner down to him. Alas, he wanted to have a look at that room himself, so he lurched, step by grimacing step, up to the second floor.

  Jean-Claude found the owner and a gang of carpenters in the damaged room, using jacks to install a brace so that broken timbers could be replaced. There were holes in the floor and ceiling to match the ones in the walls. What was left of the floor was smeared with blood from the guards who had not gotten away. Jean-Claude quietly said the soldier’s prayer on their behalf—just in case it mattered—and turned his attention to the man who was directing traffic. “Monsieur, might I have a word?”

  The man turned and paused long enough to stare Jean-Claude up and down. His sweaty face went a bit paler. “You are the man who escaped. Señor, forgive me. I did not know—”

  “I am not here to accuse you of anything … yet,” Jean-Claude said with just enough bite to make the man wince. “What I want to know is, who occupies this room?”

  “No one. These rooms have been empty for weeks.”

  “Rooms?”

  “This one and the one next to it.” He pointed through a hole in the wall where the mirror, now a shattered spray of glass, had stood. “The owner raised the rents, and I haven’t been able to fill them.”

  “You’re not the owner?” It was true, the man didn’t look nearly rich enough. “Who is?”

  “Duque Diego.”

  Of course. If Duque Diego wanted to take another shot at murdering Isabelle, he had to provide his killer with a platform from which to strike, and a couple of empty rooms filled the bill nicely. Too nicely. Kantelvar’s protests of secrecy aside, Duque Diego must certainly have known he was suspected of the first assassination attempt, and what sort of idiot leaves such an obvious trail back to himself? Not a man like Duque Diego. Of course, if this assassin wasn’t Diego’s, then the choice of this corner apartment for the shooter’s perch might have been purely coincidental. Or it might have been that someone else knew Isabelle’s defenders knew about Diego’s first attempt on her life and therefore picked him as a convenient subject for a frame. His ownership of the building could mean anything, or nothing.

  Jean-Claude asked, “Has anyone else come asking questions like these?”

  “Two men came last night from the Temple inquest. I told them everything I’ve told you.”

  Jean-Claude grunted; those would be Kantelvar’s men. “Did they examine the room?”

  “The searched the whole building and took away two men.”

  “Were they witnesses or suspects?”

  “I have no idea, señor. One does not question the inquest.”

  “We’ll see about that.” He was going to have some pointed questions for Kantelvar when he was done here. And why am I here? If there had been any clues left after the bomb blast, odds were they had been taken by Kantelvar’s men, stolen by scavengers, or trampled by the repair gang.

  He searched the sharpshooter’s room as best he could with the work gang in the way. The bomb had blown away an ox-sized hole in the floor and in the slat-and-plaster wall. The smell of gunpowder lingered. He poked through the wreckage with his crutch. It was all wood and plaster and straw. Then he moved to the room next door. The mirror frame and most of the glass had ended up in small pieces on this side of the wall. There were some pot shards. Frustration extruded its slimy tentacles into his brain. What am I looking for?

  He wished he could have brought Isabelle with him, or at least her perceptions. She observed things so closely that even inanimate objects seemed to talk to her. Jean-Claude was better with people. People wanted to tell you their secrets. Secrets were only secrets because they were important to the holder, something to be obsessed about. A secret that wasn’t important was just a memory. All you had to do was find the right place to apply the pry bar, and secrets would come flying out of wherever they’d been wedged.

  “You are the musketeer?” came a thick, drawling voice from behind him. Jean-Claude hobbled around to face a square-shouldered man with dark eyes set slightly too close together. He wore a red doublet with ripped sleeves, slops, and high boots. He carried a rapier at his side, and a main gauche.

  “Who wants to know?” Jean-Claude asked, intrigued. Everything from the man’s sword to his casually aggressive stance marked him as a hired blade. Though Jean-Claude still wore his own sword, he was acutely aware that he was not at his best. Should he call for the custodian, or Mario? He wanted the man to talk, which was much more likely if he perceived Jean-Claude as helpless.

  “I have a message for you,” the fellow said, stepping into the messy room. His eyes were very hard despite his neutral tone. Not good.

  “Very good,” Jean-Claude replied, groping for his money bag as a means to r
eadjust his grip on his crutch. “How did you know to find me here?”

  “Followed you from the citadel,” said the swordsman, his hand drifting nonchalantly to his rapier’s hilt.

  “I was hoping you’d show up. I assume the message is payment on delivery?” The thought of money had to distract a mercenary. “Who sent you?”

  The swordsman hesitated. “He is a man with a scar.” He drew a line down his cheek.

  Thornscar. Jean-Claude’s heart thudded so hard it almost drowned out the pain in his leg. Not dead or discommoded after all. “And what did he have to say?” He shook a few coins into his hand.

  “He said you were a nuisance.” The mercenary drew his sword. It was a silky movement, not sudden or jerky. A man who wasn’t expecting it might have been flummoxed by its smoothness, its body-language illusion of peace. Jean-Claude had seen men run through by such ploys before they ever realized their danger.

  The swordsman lunged. Jean-Claude flung his handful of coins in the man’s face. The man flinched. It skewed his aim. Jean-Claude twisted. The blade ripped through his doublet but only creased his skin. He surged off his good leg, swinging the crutch as a cudgel down on the crook between the man’s neck and shoulder. The meaty shock reverberated up Jean-Claude’s arms. The swordsman’s eyes rolled up and he pitched forward to his knees. Jean-Claude came down on his right foot. His wounded leg buckled and he sprawled on the floor. Red sparks swirled before his eyes, and white-hot agony burned up his leg.

  Behind him, the swordsman convulsed, vomiting onto the floorboards. Jean-Claude was not in much better condition. Even though he had been expecting pain, it took him a dozen precious heartbeats to force himself up on hands and his good knee. His whole body shuddered, but he balanced well enough to plant his crutch and thrust himself upright, and none too soon; the swordsman finished retching and gathered himself to stand.