“One would think, but the transference itself is not damaging. I am informed, by a man who has been through it, that it was like having his identity torn apart, memory from memory. The man in question was only in there for a few minutes, but he was never quite the same again afterward.”
“Xaviera has been in there for hours,” Jean-Claude said, feeling sick.
“Then I fear for her sanity. The only way to get something out of the Hellshard is to run the shard itself through the ring. At that point, the Hellshard unspools and releases its captive.”
The carriage entered the palace grounds and merged with a train of similar conveyances, all under heavy guard. The field in front of the royal residence was crowded with onlookers on foot, and thousands more streamed in through the outer gates. Apparently, no one had thought to keep them out. The changeless present in which the masses lived had just become a formless future, and so they milled together like cattle before an oncoming storm.
Progress slowed to a crawl as Diego’s carriage pressed through the mob. It was all the outriders could do to keep a path clear.
Jean-Claude said, “I shall make better progress on foot.” He pushed open the door and set off toward the side entrance of the palace, slithering through the crowd as easily as a snake through tall grass. Even so, it was a long way around the building for a man with a limp, and he had plenty of time to curse the Aragoths’ love of oversized architecture.
He had just reached a corner that would take him out of sight of the main entrance when a great blast cracked the air. Bomb! He whirled to see a cloud of wooden splinters raining down from a rising cloud of black smoke. Diego’s carriage. The duque’s pennon fluttered and flapped like a wounded vulture, and in the space cleared by the blast, Jean-Claude viewed the shattered corpse of a man in mourning black. Diego.
“Breaker’s hells!”
Terrified people and horses shrieked. The injured wailed. The crowd surged away from the point of detonation, thousands of people all trying to escape the same space at the same time. A wave of panic rippled outward, uniting the crowd in the purpose of flight.
Jean-Claude lurched toward the side of the palace. He rounded the corner just in time to take shelter from a wave of people crashing against the wall in their haste to escape, crushing and trampling one another in their fear.
Only then did he have time to wonder what had happened, or rather how it had been done. Had someone used the crowd for cover and just lobbed a bomb in the coach window? An anonymous face throwing an anonymous grenade … except that explosion was too big to be an ordinary hand bomb.
Even more important than how was why. What did Margareta know about Diego that he hadn’t known she knew? Was Margareta even behind this? Builder only knew how many other factions there were in play.
So forget causes; what were the consequences? As far as Jean-Claude knew, everybody else in the court thought Diego was Margareta’s staunchest ally. His death would therefore be blamed on her enemies, increasing the outrage against Alejandro and his faction. Worse, Jean-Claude knew of no one in Margareta’s faction except Amerigo who knew enough to level a charge of treachery against Margareta, and by the time Amerigo returned from sending a ship for Julio and Isabelle, the trial would be over. When she did return, Isabelle would sail straight into a trap.
Jean-Claude had to find Grand Leon, let him know Isabelle was still alive, and warn him about Margareta’s treachery. Then, with any luck, he would be ordered to make the way clear for Isabelle’s return. Surely Grand Leon would not want Margareta or her puppet to be sitting on the throne when Isabelle returned, and here he was, with a way into her palace, where confusion was rampant and a lone assassin might find a way to improvise. He would never have a better chance at making sure her reign of terror never became official … but if he got caught, the entire blame would fall on l’Empire Céleste, and on Isabelle by proxy once she was brought back to San Augustus.
So don’t get caught.
The palace’s side entrances were all manned by guards who were demonstrating an annoying level of discipline by staying on post despite the commotion around the front of the building. Jean-Claude was supposed to meet his contact at the third door along. Could this be a trap as well? Jean-Claude checked the sword at his hip.
He raised his hands up away from the weapon as he approached the wary-looking guard at the door. “Excuse me.”
“What’s going on out there?” the guard asked. People were still streaming by behind Jean-Claude, but the force of the stampede had been absorbed by the size of the grounds.
“Fireworks,” Jean-Claude said. “A very inappropriate display. It caused a panic. Look, I’m here to see Javier, it’s about his mother.” This was not exactly the script he was supposed to be using, but it hit on the key elements.
The guard looked momentarily nonplussed, then he knocked on the door. When a cook’s helper stuck his head out the guard said, “Tell Javier there’s a man here about his mother.”
The assistant disappeared and was replaced a moment later by a swarthy man in a cook’s apron. He gave Jean-Claude a look that said quite plainly that he was not the man Javier expected. “My mother?”
“She has a message for you concerning your wedding.”
“Ah. Well, come in then.” Javier looked at the guard for confirmation of permission and then drew Jean-Claude inside.
Jean-Claude stepped in warily, but the pastry kitchen was notably devoid of ambushers. No sooner had the door closed behind him than Javier whispered, “Did Diego send you? What’s going on out there?”
“Yes, and somebody set off a bomb in the courtyard.”
“What!” The cook’s yelp got the attention of all the other kitchen workers. “Has the fighting started?”
Jean-Claude made a shushing motion and spoke through his teeth. “Don’t panic. No, it has not, and with any luck it won’t. You just go about your business, don’t listen to any rumors, and if anyone asks, I was never here. Understand?”
Javier nodded, and Jean-Claude clapped him on the shoulder. “Good. Now point me in the direction of the royal wing.”
On the way out of the kitchen, Jean-Claude absconded with a double handful of raspberry tarts; it had been ages since he’d had a decent meal. Amongst the many pieces of advice he was sure his mother would have given him if she’d ever thought about it was “Never set out to murder a monarch on an empty stomach.”
*
The royal palace was so vast and convoluted that it seemed to Jean-Claude that it took him roughly two-thirds of forever to locate the royal wing, and he had yet to find a way in to get to Grand Leon. All the doors were guarded, the guests escorted, and the servants identified.