Amerigo dispatched one of his clerks at a gallop. To fill in the silence, and to stall Felix from trying anything else, Jean-Claude pointed with his nose at the day’s ledger of ships. “So what do all these code things mean?”
Jean-Claude couldn’t have found a better delaying tactic if he’d had a month of planning. This clerk was one of those people who loved details. They didn’t have to do anything so long as he could keep himself occupied just knowing them. And he was more than happy to recite them. Jean-Claude let his ears listen to the man ramble on about how vessels were classed by function, type, and tonnage while his mind chipped away at the problem of what he really needed to know. It was like trying to pick a lock with a spoon.
Even if he found the ship in the registry, it wasn’t along the coast anymore. It wouldn’t be on the scopes, and all Kantelvar had to do was get out of the local area of interest, then remove the chartstone shard from the orrery to make it disappear from all scopes. Of course, if he did that, his own orrery wouldn’t work anymore, either. The simulacrascopes worked on the principle of sympathy. The orrery on a ship had to have a chartstone matching the one in the ground beacon for them to be able to see each other. There was, however, nothing stopping a ship’s captain from having two chartstone flags, one for common spaces and another for secret destinations.
Don’t burn that bridge until you’ve crossed it. The best thing he could do was wait for the registry. The fetch-and-carry clerk returned at a stagger, the weight of the huge book bending him like a sapling. He aimed at an empty table and dropped the tome onto it with a resounding thud.
Jean-Claude stared at the volume in dismay. “Just how many ships are there in this harbor?” Certainly not enough to fill up a book that could double as a footstool.
“That’s a yearly archive,” Amerigo said. “Only part of it is the ship’s registry. The rest is manifests, shipyard fees, and so on. Now, what ship are you looking for?”
Jean-Claude glowered at the intimidating book; this was going to take longer than he’d hoped, if it was even the right track. “Open it up and I’ll let you know when I see it.”
The whole book might not have been filled with ships’ names, but it was still enough to make Jean-Claude’s eyes cross. It was alphabetized by ship type and then name; he might as well have set the damned thing on fire and tried to read an answer in the rising entrails of smoke like some ancient haruspex. Still, he plodded on page after page, “Next” after “Next,” until even the detail-oriented clerk got bored with it. Every now and again Jean-Claude startled when he saw a name similar to the one he sought; other times he twitched when he just wanted to set Felix on edge. So it was that nobody took notice when his gaze caught on the Voto Solemne. It was a spicer, a ship designed for long voyages with small but expensive cargoes. It was registered not to an individual but to the Temple, and it was berthed amongst the prison hulks at the lowest level of the harbor. Jean-Claude committed the numerical code to memory and then had the clerk advance a few more pages before saying, “Bring me the harbor records from five days ago.”
“You have it?” asked Amerigo
“I’m on the scent,” Jean-Claude said; he wanted to make sure the ship’s number he’d just memorized matched an actual ship that had actually left.
Jean-Claude returned to the maps and charts, scanning column after column. It took going over several dozen pages before he found what was he was looking for. TheVoto Solemne launched before daybreak the night after the fire, heading generally northwestward through several zones, and never returned. He cross-checked all five days’ worth of records before he was sure.
“Got you, you bastard,” he growled. Of course the ship could have swapped chartstones and changed directions as soon as it was out of range of the coastal scopes, but that was a problem for later. He’d learned as much as he could without surrendering a point to Felix.
“Where?” Felix asked, glancing at the chart without any comprehension.
Jean-Claude turned to Don Amerigo, who had been watching him with a wary curiosity. “Thank you, se?or, you have been most helpful. Felix, if you don’t mind taking us back to the palace, I have an answer for the queen.”
Felix’s eyes bulged. “What answer? All you’ve done is lead us on a wild-goose chase.”
“I have done what I said I would do,” Jean-Claude said. “I found the name of the ship on which the assassin escaped. I must bring her that information … or did you think I was going to hand it over to you so you could stab me like a dog in the street?”
Felix’s glare promised Jean-Claude a slow, painful death, but Amerigo hastily interjected, “Gentlemen, this way, if you please.” He captured Jean-Claude’s arm and tugged him away from the spot where he’d been rooted.
Felix followed, cursing not quite under his breath. Amerigo led the not-so-merry band out the door opposite the one they’d come in. Now that Jean-Claude had gotten over being awed by the Naval Orrery, he considered the backstage architecture of the building. Most of it was laid out in concentric circles joined by a few radial hallways leading out from the spectacular central venue. There weren’t many doors, and those few that did exist didn’t seem to have bolts that a man with bound hands could easily close. It was not a good place for an old man with a game leg to escape a bunch of young, fit soldiers. His best bet would be to ride Felix like a rented mule all the way back to Margareta, to flatter her for influence.
From a great and muffled distance came the tolling of a bell. Amerigo stopped in his tracks and lifted his head like a deer sensing danger. Everyone else in the small parade piled up behind him. The bell tolled again, and was joined by another one, deep throated and slow, and another. The sound grew closer and louder until Jean-Claude guessed that every bell in the city must be booming.
Amerigo sagged. “Padre de Santos.”
The soldiers shuffled nervously. Felix gave the first smile Jean-Claude had ever seen him generate. It was even less pleasant than his scowl. “The king is dead.”
Did that mean Alejandro was a murderer? If so, Jean-Claude could not blame him.