“No. The lie is just the most recent excuse for them to do what they’ve always done. Aragoth is divided in more ways than you know. There are feuds and rifts that go back centuries, even through the Skaladin occupation. The grandchildren of nobles who made bargains with the invaders are still considered traitors by the grandchildren of those who did not. Slights and injustices are handed down like precious heirlooms. My father was fully occupied stamping out these feuds wherever they flared up. Even opening up the Craton Riqueza for exploitation could not consume enough of their enmity to abate the hostilities. If anything it made them worse. Aragoth needs to change, even if that means letting the great houses drink each other’s blood until they the choke on the clots.”
“And how much of that blood do you want to drink?” Isabelle asked. “If you really want to change the world, try not going to war. Accept the fact that in the end, nobody gets to win. I’ve been reading your history, and it’s almost nothing but war. There is no way more war is actually a change. To say that peace exists only at the whim of war ascribes peace no strength or value save as a respite for the beast to lick its wounds before rampaging again. That is certainly how Kantelvar saw the world. I therefore stand against it, against him. I say peace has value. It is worth striving for, risking for, sacrificing for.”
“If I can bring Duque Diego and his supporters over to Alejandro’s side, it will vastly shorten the war. What more would you have me do?”
“It won’t help as much as you think,” Isabelle said. “Kantelvar has stirred up all the Risen Kingdoms. If Margareta finds her local support draining away she will turn to the troops waiting just across Aragoth’s borders, Vecci and Oberholzers—”
“And Célestials,” Julio added. “Let us not forget your people, either.”
“My people.” Isabelle stood up from the crate, her eyes round as an idea bloomed in her head. Kantelvar had been counting on a fight between two sides, neither of which could afford not to fight. Everything balanced on that assumption.
Sometimes the only way to win was to break the game.
She took a deep breath of humid air, met Julio’s gaze, and said, “I’m going to give you an army.”
He regarded her skeptically. “What?”
“Grand Leon appointed me his ambassador to Aragoth and granted me the power to declare which Aragothic faction l’Empire would support. I choose you, a third faction. Neither Alejandro nor Clìmacio will ally with each other for fear of betrayal, but neither one of them can afford to fight two opponents at once. You can force them to parley.”
Julio looked stunned, but when the expression melted it was into a thoughtful, calculating look. Levelly he said, “You are assuming that Grand Leon has not reabsorbed that power or given it to another since your disappearance.”
“Once he realizes I am alive, he will honor his word,” she said, keeping the Or this will all be for nothing to herself. “He has no desire for this war, and I will make it plain to him that I have a plan to prevent it.”
“You would make me a puppet of l’Empire Céleste, turn Aragoth into your satrapy.”
“Of course not,” Isabelle said.
“But that is not how my people will see it. There are still graybeards alive who remember the Skaladin occupation. Nobody wants another boot on our necks.”
“Which is exactly what they will get if Kantelvar’s plan plays out. Even with his death the war goes on, everybody gets drawn in, everybody loses. I don’t imagine you want Célestial barons rampaging through your lands any more than I do, but Alejandro and Clìmacio don’t know that.”
Julio’s brows pinched in thought. “It won’t be Clìmacio though, will it? It will be Margareta, and I cannot imagine her agreeing to any terms that do not involve keeping a large portion of what she has stolen.”
Isabelle’s pulse thrummed with the excitement of her speculation. “Not if you can steal Clìmacio’s loyalty.”
Julio bristled. “What makes you think that wretch has any loyalty to give?”
“Appeal to his self-interest. He didn’t choose his path. He has had no choice but to pretend to be you or die, and indeed death is all he expects. You can give him a better option, convince him to sue for peace and pull him out from under Margareta’s heel. She has no power except through him.”
Julio shifted his weight from foot to foot as if in some wrestling match with himself. “Out of morbid curiosity, assuming we can dissolve Margareta’s power base, what do you suggest we do with her?”
Isabelle stared at her reflection in the pool. She wore no crown. She had no authority to hand down judgment. “Are you asking me to pass judgment on your mother?”
Julio joined her in staring at their reflections. “She never had any affection for me, much less love. I eventually stopped trying to figure out what I had done to displease her, but I never stopped hurting. Now I know why she hated me, feared me, and it doesn’t help.”
Isabelle retreated from pain into the safety of logic. “If you’re asking my advice, I would say Margareta should be judged by the Sacred Hundred, in public and with all due ceremony.”
“Such would be a trial of politics rather than evidence,” Julio pointed out.
“Yes,” Isabelle said glumly. “But at least it would force everyone to bob their heads at the rule of law. It will help everyone get back to pretending the government into existence.”
“You make it sound like some sort of dream.”
“The most important things we have are dreams,” Isabelle said. “Without them we cannot conjure new truths or better worlds. Where we get into trouble is when we tell ourselves dreams don’t matter, or we let other people tell us our dreams are silly or stupid. I dream of peace, and I won’t give it up.”
Julio paced a few restless steps around the circumference of the pool and back again, like a bear in a cage. Isabelle sat calm and still, trying to be like water, reminding herself of Jean-Claude’s maxim “Never interrupt someone who disagrees with you when they are in the process of changing their mind.”
Gretl returned with an armload of cloth that shook out into a long, fur-lined cloak. Isabelle wrapped herself in it gladly. Maybe now she’d have enough body heat to send some down to her frozen toes.
At last, Julio stopped pacing. “I will accept l’Empire’s aid and make a third faction, but be aware that what you ask may be as irretrievable as yesterday. We have no way of knowing what has transpired in San Augustus since the night you were kidnapped. The factions may have been at each other’s throats for a week already. If it comes to that, I will do whatever it takes to ensure Alejandro emerges victorious. Carlemmo is my father whether he sired me or no, and I will not repay him by betraying his true heir. Nor will I allow his kingdom to be destroyed if it is within my power to prevent it.”
Isabelle nodded. “We should get going. We should go first to the Célestial embassy and inform Hugo du Blain I am alive.” Hopefully someone as urbane as du Blain would be able to defer judgment on her noncanonical sorcery.