“This way,” Amerigo said. He took Jean-Claude by the elbow and guided him through a door. It took Jean-Claude one heartbeat to realize which door. Amerigo had been leading them toward the edge of the building. He propelled Jean-Claude through into the park outside the orrery. Amerigo stepped out after him and slammed the door shut in Felix’s face, setting the lock before anyone inside had realized what happened. There was an outraged scream and several heavy bodies hit the door at once. It bowed outward, creaking.
“Run!” Amerigo shouted, and pelted along the side of the building, heading for a corner. Jean-Claude lurched after him as fast as he was able, his game leg straining. Why? Who? He had no time or breath for the questions. He had almost reached the corner when a coach came around it, heading in the opposite direction. It carried Duque Diego’s banner. The doors swung open and the footmen riding outside boosted Amerigo in without slowing down. Jean-Claude lunged after him, slipped, and nearly got pulled under the wheels before strong hands grabbed his belt and hauled him in. He landed in a graceless heap on the floor.
“Would somebody mind untying me?” he muttered into the cabin’s carpet.
Somebody sliced the thongs on his wrists, then Don Amerigo and Diego himself helped Jean-Claude into a seat. Diego was dressed in impeccable court garb, all in mourning black.
Jean-Claude said, “I thank you for the rescue. I’m guessing you two know each other.” He gestured to the winded academic. “I hope I have not put you out too much.”
“Not at all,” Diego said. “When my eyes in the citadel told me that you were being sent to the Naval Orrery, I sent a fast messenger to warn Don Amerigo, who is my cousin.”
“That doesn’t explain why you bothered exposing yourself on my behalf.”
“Because my informants tell me you were there when Príncipe Alejandro was apprehended. I want your account.”
“How much do you already know?” Jean-Claude asked.
Diego made a balancing gesture. “I wish to compare it with what you can tell me. From the beginning, if you please.”
Jean-Claude rubbed his rope-bitten wrists while he considered his options. Fortunately, Diego’s interests seemed mostly to square with his own, at least insofar as rescuing Kantelvar’s captives was concerned.
“To be fair, I didn’t actually figure out that Lord DuJournal was Príncipe Alejandro until after he met me in the citadel…” He gave most of the story to Diego, omitting only the hellish bargain Margareta had tried to make with Alejandro. If the accusation of regicide was to be laid, let it be from other lips. “But the main point is that Kantelvar took ship on the Voto Solemne, and I believe he carried Isabelle and Julio into the upper sky somewhere spinward of here.”
By the time he finished, Diego’s coach had returned to his town home, and they all made their way inside. Jean-Claude acquired another cane and barely resisted a cup of wine.
“I will send a ship for them,” Diego said. “Amerigo, if you will assist.”
“I need soldiers. I imagine that Captain Felix has interdicted the Naval Orrery by now.”
“Take what men you need.”
“Kantelvar may have switched out the chartstone on his ship,” Jean-Claude said.
Don Amerigo frowned but said, “We won’t know until we look. And even if he has … well, we shall see.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means I will explain on the way. Come.”
Never had Jean-Claude wanted so much to pounce on an offer, not even when he had been admitted by the musketeer academy, but could he serve Isabelle by rushing forth to meet her, or by making sure she had a place to land?
“As much as my soul yearns to accompany you, if you can fetch Isabelle, then I am afraid I have work to do here.” He had to contact Grand Leon and let him know Isabelle was still alive. That would be the greatest protection he could afford her. To Diego he said, “If I might prevail upon your guesthold for a change of clothes, a weapon to protect myself in these dangerous streets, and someone to go attend poor Marie…”
“Of course.” Diego snapped his fingers and summoned a minion to fulfill Jean-Claude’s needs. For once, Jean-Claude was more grateful than annoyed with this brusque efficiency. Barely had he shrugged into a new set of clothes, fine but not fancy, when another servant came in and summoned him to Diego’s side. He found the duque in the entry hall.
Diego said, “Margareta has summoned all of her faithful servants to witness the king’s passing and attend Alejandro’s trial for regicide.”
“That didn’t take long,” Jean-Claude said dryly. “You’d almost think she was expecting this turn of events.”
“The trial is a sham, and everyone knows it. What will matter is whether his conviction and execution will enrage or dishearten his supporters, and that will depend on his behavior during the trial. If he is vigorous in his own defense, then his death will inflame his faction against the queen. If he is passive, it will dishearten them. As long as Margareta holds Xaviera in the Hellshard, he is likely to be passive.”
“And you want him to be active. Why?”
“Because then, after he has been executed, Julio will return. Margareta’s pretender will be exposed as a fraud and all the factions will unite behind Julio.”
“Even l’Empire,” Jean-Claude surmised, “because he will have Isabelle at his side.”
“Precisely,” Diego said, and Jean-Claude judged him sincere.
“And that is why you are going to ask me to rescue Xaviera, to put fire in Alejandro’s heart, so that he will provide a more inspirational death.”
Duque Diego was solemn. “You know as well as I that this can only end with the triumph of one prince and the death of the other. So has it always been, and your Isabelle is to be wedded to our faction. Will you not serve her now as you have so faithfully throughout?”
“Of course I will,” Jean-Claude grunted. Nor would he so quickly turn his back on Alejandro, who had saved his life twice.
Duque Diego said, “Your master, as well as other heads of state, has been invited to attend in person or by proxy, to ensure that the event is as broadly and irrefutably witnessed as possible. At last report I heard Leon had arrived in the vessel of his emissary.”
“I will convey your intent to him,” Jean-Claude said.
They mounted the coach and spent much of the drive through the tense and empty streets discussing Jean-Claude’s insertion into the castle. There was a cook who would open a door for a man with the right passphrase. Felix would almost certainly be at the queen’s side, with the key to the Hellshard in his belt pouch.
“Just what is the Hellshard anyway?” Jean-Claude asked.
“It is a spike, a spire of quondam stone, six feet high and shaped like an obelisk, that hovers about a foot off the ground. Nobody knows how. Likely they will bring it out for the trial, just to remind Alejandro what is at stake. Nobody knows what its original purpose was, or if it even had one, but now it is a special kind of torture. The ring that Felix holds is like a door. Anything that passes through is drawn out, almost like a wire, and spooled into the Hellshard.”
“Would that not be fatal?”