“Ah, but that is the beauty of this ploy. It covers l’Empire Céleste in a blanket of virtue. It shows that I can better trust my new foreign allies than my own nobles.”
Isabelle’s heart twitched, but she understood Margareta’s fear. And how could she say the queen was wrong? Carefully she laid out the simplest truth she could manage. “I cannot speak for His Majesty, but neither I nor Jean-Claude wishes to disrupt the very faction we are attempting to join. This union is not low-hanging fruit to be risked for some greater prize.” At least she hoped it wasn’t.
Margareta raised two fingers. “Peace, daughter-to-be. As it happens, we agree with your assessment. Diego opposes this marriage to the hilt, and the majority of our court agrees with him. Marrying our royal scion to the daughter of a different bloodline shatters all precedent, and that prospect terrifies them, especially in this time of uncertainty.
“As of this moment, the opposition is disorganized, but any public accusation against Diego without ironclad proof to reinforce it will provide them with a rallying cry. We cannot allow that.” Her silver-eyed gaze bored into Isabelle’s as if trying to read her soul. “All our hopes depend on the success of your marriage. I only pray that your womb is not as temperamental as your mother’s.”
Isabelle’s eyebrows twitched upward in surprise, but of course Margareta would have been apprised of la Comtesse des Zephyrs’s much maligned infertility; like mother like daughter, or so it was said. Still, that was a hypothesis that could only be tested experimentally … with a man she’d never met.
Isabelle wound her courage up like a spring. She did not dare ask a favor, but a question … would Margareta take offense? “Majesty, if I may be so bold, does Príncipe Julio know any of this?”
Margareta huffed. “Julio was present when Don Divelo presented his story to me. He agrees that we will deal with Diego … privately. It goes without saying that no one here will so much as breathe the name Diego to anyone in San Augustus, lest he be forewarned.”
There was some shifting of weight amongst the captains but no protests, which was good because there wasn’t enough room in here for an argument.
Emboldened, Isabelle aligned herself behind the wedge of her curiosity and gave a push. “May I make a request?” This didn’t have to rise to the level of a favor, she hoped.
Margareta regarded her with the closed expression of a person who received thousands of petitions a day and said no to most of them. “What request is so small that you require it of me?”
“Only a message to Príncipe Julio, from my lips to his ears. I look forward to meeting him.”
Margareta’s expression relaxed. “Of course. You shall have your chance. In deference to your Célestial traditions, a great masquerade is being planned in honor of your arrival.”
Surprise pulled a response from Isabelle’s lips. “But Artifex Kantelvar said tradition forbade a meeting.”
Margareta said, “Kantelvar is … old-fashioned, an appropriate temperament for a cleric.”
At the thought of being able to meet Julio before the wedding, delight bloomed in Isabelle’s breast, only to be blown away by a frigid wind of doubt. If Julio could meet her, why hadn’t he bothered to try? Why wasn’t he here? Kantelvar said he had opposed this marriage from the beginning. Perhaps he still did, and this indifference was his way of expressing it.
*
After the steaming closeness of the audience cabin, the chill night breeze slapped Isabelle’s face with fingers of ice. High thin clouds threaded their way through the glittering maze of stars. Isabelle did not return to her cabin. She was too keyed up to sleep and too tired to think. Instead, she made a circuit of the ship, climbing to the quarterdeck, crossing the stern, and then making her way forward. Her good hand absently occupied itself folding and unfolding the prosthetic digits covering her wormfinger. The closer she came to Aragoth, the more treacherous the path forward became. The queen’s faction was fractured; the queen herself burned with the sort of ambition that scorched anyone who came close; Isabelle’s betrothed was apparently a broken man who wanted nothing to do with her; and, oh, yes, people she had never met were trying to kill her.
She reached the forecastle and leaned out over the forward rail, a position that would likely have given poor Jean-Claude fits. Would that she could just fly away, go somewhere nobody cared that she was a princess and only cared that she was Isabelle. There were several problems with that notion, of course, the first and most obvious being that she was not in control of where this ship was going. Even if that were of no issue, escape was a null set. If she ran away, people would look for her. If she managed to escape them … well, she’d spend the rest of her life holding her breath waiting for that condition to end.
On her next circuit, she stopped before Captain Santiago and asked, “How long will it be until we reach San Augustus?”
He said, “Two weeks, if the winds do not betray us.”
Isabelle made an unladylike grunt. While she was cooped up on this ship, her enemies had two weeks to plan her demise. Of course, Margareta had said she would deal with Duque Diego privately, though what that entailed, Isabelle could not guess; it could be anything from a knife in the back to an exceptionally stern talking-to. And Kantelvar had said he intended to lay a trap for Thornscar, if the man was still alive.
Isabelle resumed walking. There was so much going on, all out of reach. All being handled, or was there something she’d missed? She needed to sit down and sift it all. No, belay that. She needed to sleep, to let her mind rest and all the data settle. Then she needed to figure out what questions she should be asking.
*
The next morning, Isabelle sat on the Santa Anna’s quarterdeck, charcoal stick in her left hand and easel erected before her. The early sun warmed her back through half a dozen layers of clothing. The cool breeze caressed her face but found no loose strand of hair with which to cavort. Even her hair was a prisoner to fashion and tradition, a captive denied parole.
Marie stood beside her, speaking in ghostly whispers: “There was more shadow here. Stubble here.”
For three careful hours, Isabelle had painstakingly toiled over a picture of Thornscar based on Marie’s unimpeachable memory. This was a technique she’d practiced before, and she’d been able to produce sketches and paintings of people she’d never seen as if they had been seated before her.
“Anything else?” she asked in a calm, patient tone that was nearly a mantra of meditation.
“No,” Marie said in her hollow voice.
Then she leaned back to take a better look at her creation. He was a lean-faced man with a high-bridged nose that put her in mind of a young centurion. His mustache hung down in points below his chin in the high-Aragothic style and his cheeks were covered in stubble. The long scar that puckered his flesh from brow to chin merely gave him character.