Will she be sane? Will she thank me, or despise me for so enabling and prolonging her suffering? If so, at least she will hate me of her own free will.
Once she was satisfied of Marie’s health, Isabelle drew heavy curtains across the portholes, stuffed bedding in the crack beneath the door, and snuffed the alchemical lanterns. Darkness filled the room. And there can be no shadows without light. The comte would not be able to interrupt.
The skip’s rocking and the impenetrable dark combined to make Isabelle’s gut a little queasy, but she schooled her voice to calm and soothing tones and said, “Marie, I’m going to ask you a few questions. If you do not know the answer, say, ‘I don’t know.’”
Carefully and gently she went, so as not to scatter and scramble whatever was left of Marie’s consciousness. “I’m going to be asking you about things you have observed. I’m going to be asking you about people…”
*
Night was just wrapping her shawl across the shoulders of the hills behind the Chateau des Zephyrs when Lord—soon to be Comte—Guillaume and his companions cantered into the yard on fine coursing steeds. They laughed gaily amongst themselves, expounding upon, and grossly inflating, the events of the day’s hunt.
Jean-Claude, sitting on a low stone wall before the front gate, could not help but notice they had only two grouse between the six of them. His dear departed mother would have clubbed him if he’d spent all day hunting and come back with such a paltry catch, but these men had never in their lives hunted to stave off hunger, or grubbed in the dirt, or chopped wood until their backs ached, nor did they care for those who did … but those were old complaints and not important to the task at hand.
A pack of stable boys appeared from behind the house and swarmed round the horses to help the riders dismount and take their steaming steeds away. Jean-Claude rose and ambled toward the approaching party. “Good evening, my lord.”
It took Guillaume a moment to pick Jean-Claude out of the crowd of stable hands. When he did, his brow pinched in surprise and suspicion, but by the time Jean-Claude reached his side, he’d propped up a practiced smile, the sort one wore when preparing to dodge. “Good evening, my good musketeer. What are you … I thought you had taken ship with dizzy Izzy.”
Jean-Claude smiled grimly even while evolving plans for making Guillaume pay for that slight. “I have returned, and I am on His Majesty’s business.”
“I … see. In that case, how may I serve His Majesty?”
“He would have a word with you, personally, on a matter of some delicacy. Walk with me.” Jean-Claude tipped his hat at Guillaume’s companions—“Gentlemen”—and then strode off across the field, leaving Guillaume to catch up, which he did in a huff of unaccustomed effort.
“What is this about?” Guillaume asked impatiently.
“It is a matter of grave importance that impacts the future of l’?le des Zephyrs and indeed the whole empire.”
Guillaume scoffed. “As if His Majesty would entrust you with important business.”
Despite his bravado, Guillaume had a tendency to twitch, and his bloodshadow rippled in agitation. Jean-Claude might have been the town drunk, but he remained a King’s Own Musketeer, and interfering with a King’s Own Musketeer in the discharge of his lawful duty was a capital offense.
Jean-Claude led Guillaume down a slope into an orchard along the very same path he had walked with Isabelle just days ago. The buds had burst and leaves yearned skyward. “My master is very interested in knowing from whom precisely you received instructions to place a mirror aboard Princess Isabelle’s ship.”
Guillaume looked genuinely surprised. “Eh? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Really? I have very reliable information that says the mirror was taken aboard at your direction.” Planchette had told him about a longshoreman, who had told him about a linkboy, who had told him about Guillaume’s attaché. “It was such a thoughtful gift that the sender deserves an appropriate thank-you in return.”
Guillaume hesitated, as if struck by a thought, then shook his head. “You are mistaken, monsieur. Now, if you will excuse me—”
“I will not,” Jean-Claude said, grabbing Guillaume by the scruff of his collar and impelling him deeper into the plum grove. “The mirror came from your household.”
“Unhand me!” Guillaume twisted. Jean-Claude obliged him by shoving him into a pile of cut brush so that he tripped and landed on his backside.
Guillaume’s face burned. “Cur!” His bloodshadow lunged for Jean-Claude but broke up, confused, when it encountered the interlaced shadows of the orchard’s branches and leaves in the lengthening dark.
“I don’t think your pet can find me in this tangle of darkness. Pity.” After seeing his first execution in the Pit of Stains, Jean-Claude had dedicated countless hours to researching and devising ways to defeat bloodshadows. Obscuring one’s shadow in a tangle of shadows worked unless the sorcerer had the presence of mind to sift and shift all the shadows apart. Le roi could do it, but Guillaume was not that dedicated to his craft.
Jean-Claude drew his rapier and set the tip against Guillaume’s throat, just above the knot of his cravat. “Who told you to put that mirror aboard?”
Guillaume tried to crab-walk away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
Jean-Claude forced him onto his back. “This is not a good time to cultivate ignorance. Its rewards tend to be empty. Bled dry, in fact.”
“Breaker take you!” Guillaume squeaked. “I don’t know.”
“If not you … then it must have been your lovely wife.”
“No!” Guillaume shouted, and the trees rattled as his sorcery thrashed at their shadows. A lucky swipe brushed the shadow of Jean-Claude’s hat and sent it tumbling from his head. To Jean-Claude’s surprise, the hat evaporated like a puff of fog before it hit the ground. So what would happen if he dropped his rapier, or fired a bullet?
He slapped those questions aside and pressed his advantage with Guillaume. “I see I have struck a nerve. How noble of you, trying to protect your lady. Or perhaps you are only trying to protect yourself; as her lord and master, you could be implicated in her treason.”
“Treason? How is a mirror treason?”
“Aha! So you admit it.”
“I do not! She is innocent.”