“For the most part it is simple, just not easy.”
Isabelle did not look reassured. “If the task were simple, success and failure would be obvious.”
“Failure is usually obvious, but since you’re not dead, we must be succeeding.” He looked around, but none of the bustling sailors were close enough to eavesdrop. “Speaking of which, we have just finished arranging for your security in the cavalcade from the dock to the palace, and I wanted to go over your part in it.”
Isabelle sniffed. “You mean aside from sitting quietly in the center of the coach with Vincent and Marie across from me and burly men on either side,” she said. “I’m surprised you didn’t claim the right to ride in the coach as well.”
“What good would I do anybody in there? Can’t see anything from inside a coach. Besides, the coach is only a diversion. The procession from the docks to the citadel is a window of vulnerability. The route will be well guarded but it will also be packed with peasants, pedestrians, and, no doubt, assorted other persons beginning with the letter ‘P.’”
“Pensioners, plumbers, philosophers,” Isabelle added wryly. “Partygoers, pallbearers…”
“My point is, there will be too many people to watch. An assassin willing to sacrifice his life for his cause might get close enough to harm you. The only way to assure that does not happen is to make sure you aren’t where he thinks you are. This afternoon, when you and your handmaids get dressed, I want you to switch clothes with one of them.”
Isabelle’s eyes grew wide. “Then I will ride unobtrusively in the handmaids’ carriage while she rides in the coach with Vincent?”
Jean-Claude smiled at her astuteness, but he was still ahead of her. “Not exactly. The handmaid will take your place in the carriage. In your trunk, I’ve left a soldier’s uniform that I took from the quartermaster’s store. With a helmet for your head, cuirass for your figure, trousers, and boots, you’ll make a strapping young officer. Then you will ride in the cavalcade. One uniform amongst many. It’s the perfect camouflage.”
“But won’t any potential assassin have studied my face? My father did have pictures of me made when he was trying to marry me off.”
“Possibly, but he will be looking for a woman. He will most assuredly not be staring into the faces of the guards. He does not want to be seen and he will not wish to draw their attention. You will be invisible.”
“To the assassin perhaps, but don’t all these soldiers know each other?”
“Not as much as you’d think. With as many nobles attending as befits the arrival of a princess, there will be private soldiers galore, so many different liveries that the result is anything but uniform.”
“This would be a lot easier if we had a Goldentongue glamour charm,” Isabelle said.
Of all the saintborn sorceries, the Brathonian Goldentongue illusionists were the only ones Jean-Claude had ever actually envied. So much of his own work involved changing people’s minds—okay, shoveling horseshit by the cartload—that being able to alter his enemies’ perceptions at will would be like owning his own feedlot.
He said, “That would be nice, but there are none to hand, and it would unnecessarily expand the circle of people who know what we are about.”
Isabelle considered this. “Speaking of which, I will not require one of my ladies to take such a risk for me. If one of them volunteers for this duty, I will be grateful, but I will not dragoon anyone.”
Jean-Claude bowed his head to her, glad she had accepted the general plan and was making it her own by taking control of the details. “A conscript would not serve to fill this post in any case; all she would have to do to spoil it is fail to act like you.”
“And what happens if we aren’t attacked and we reach the royal citadel peacefully and Príncipe Julio is waiting for us? Will he be introduced to the wrong woman?”
Jean-Claude hesitated; he hadn’t thought in any depth about the social consequences of this charade. “He’s not supposed to meet you until the ball tomorrow night.”
“Ah, but could you resist the chance to get a peek at your future spouse? I keep thinking, if it were me, I couldn’t wait. I’d find a way to get a glimpse.” Romantic longings gleamed in her eyes. “I’d want to get to know him before the wedding, to find out what kind of person he is, to see his private face before his public one … unless he’s not interested.” She chewed her lower lip.
“He’d be mad not to adore you,” Jean-Claude said soothingly, though, in truth, if the young buck hadn’t made any effort to meet Isabelle so far, Jean-Claude doubted the laggard would bestir himself to greet the coach. More than ever, the idea of handing over his precious charge to some disinterested stranger churned Jean-Claude’s gut. How could any ruffle-wearing, peeled-grape-eating, sedan-chair-lounging aristocrat be worthy of Isabelle?
Isabelle said, “I know so little about him, most of it contradictory. Kantelvar says he is a great man, but everyone else depicts him as bitter and broken. He has surely shown no interest in me, not a secret visit, not even a message of greeting.”
Jean-Claude ached at Isabelle’s uncertainty. “I’ll find out what I can about him.” He’d start by talking to the príncipe’s servants. If you want the measure of a man, see how he treats his inferiors.
And what would he do if he found Príncipe Julio cruel or stupid? He could not toss Isabelle into a cesspit of a marriage … except that Grand Leon had signed the marriage contract. Was there any way, if worst came to worst, that he might convince le roi that this marriage was not in l’ Empire Céleste’s best interests? Not, he feared, without a considerably more politically compelling reason than Isabelle’s marital happiness.
Isabelle leaned against the rail, staring into the middle distance, her painting forgotten. She said, “Part of me cannot help but wonder what it would be like if Príncipe Julio did meet the wrong woman, if he accepted her as his wife. I could disappear, go wandering, see the world unencumbered by everyone else’s expectations.”