Coming from Isabelle, this was idle speculation, the by-product of a mind that looked at any situation and saw a dozen possibilities and a thousand implications … but the idea had appeal. If Isabelle wanted to run away, Jean-Claude could go with her. Except … flight did not equal freedom. Even if chains of duty did not bind them to a narrower course, relentless pursuit surely would.
She continued, “Since I was very young, I have been faced with an impossible dilemma. It is my purpose to marry into an honorable Célestial bloodline, bear children, and be a good chatelaine for my husband’s household. It is the only destiny for which one of my station is deemed fit, yet for most of my life, it has been patently obvious that those goals were unattainable. No one was ever going to want me, not even as a thing. It was frustrating, and yet, now that the world has turned … those failures offered a sort of freedom. No one expected anything of me, so I was free to expect things of myself.
“Now here I am, halfway across the deep sky, destined for marriage and children, but to a bloodline I could never have anticipated. When the impossible happens, the world shudders, for if one impossible thing can happen, why not another? I cannot help but wonder what other impossibilities are out there, waiting to be challenged.”
Pride and terror flooded Jean-Claude, and he chose his words carefully. “Is that what you want? To run away?” And what would he do if she decided to bolt this dangerous and suspicious marriage? His obligation as le roi’s musketeer was clear, but his duty to Isabelle was … compelling.
Isabelle shook her head. “I don’t think ‘want’ is a big enough or subtle enough word on which to hang the future. Perhaps Príncipe Julio will be the best thing that ever happened to me. Or perhaps he will be worse than my father. I only wish I had some way of finding out before it is too late.”
Jean-Claude nodded in acceptance of this ambiguity and swore to help bring her clarity. “I will do my best to provide you with what intelligence I can once we have you safely ensconced in the palace. Until then, secrecy is our watchword. Tell no one but your handmaids what you are doing, and don’t come out of your cabin until it’s time to debark. If you do come out, I’ll take it as a signal that you could not find a volunteer. Other than that, there’s no point in tempting fate.”
Her lips thinned in a wry smile. “Because Vincent will see through the disguise, and you don’t want him to know what we’re about until it’s too late to stop it.”
Jean-Claude’s face stiffened, which was itself a dead giveaway. He tried to relax his features, but he imagined that made him look exactly like a naughty child trying to look innocent with stolen pie smeared on his face. Isabelle was quick. He knew she was quick, and she still got ahead of him. She laughed at his stunned expression.
“How did you know?”
“Because this is … artful. Vincent prefers to test strength against strength. He doesn’t trust art. He would never agree to it.”
“But you will?” Jean-Claude asked, just to be sure.
“I trust your judgment and your subtlety. Besides, I want to see the city, and you can’t see anything from inside a coach.”
*
It was early afternoon when the predicted aetheric trough appeared. Santiago barked orders, and the crew swarmed into action. Jean-Claude bowed Isabelle into her cabin, then attached himself to Vincent with a mind to distract him from any interference he might chance to make in Isabelle’s preparations.
The Santa Anna slid down the sloping wall of the craton’s aetheric vortex—Progress at last!—until it was level with the equatorial rim. A long, loose caravan of ships—merchants, catch boats, leviathaners, and other sorts Jean-Claude didn’t recognize—stretched out toward the Craton Massif like so many beads cut loose from a string. An equally long line trailed out behind them. Coastal corvettes plied the sky around them like so many cloud sharks, keeping order in the line.
Jean-Claude glowered at the ships in front of them, in between him and solid ground, then turned to Santiago and asked, “This is a royal ship of the line, isn’t it? Shouldn’t they make way for us?”
Santiago nodded. “The cutters will move us to the front of the line as soon as we are in position to turn for the harbor. Until then, have patience; even crowns must wait on the wind.”
Jean-Claude made a disconsolate grunt and stared at their destination, so close and yet so out of reach. Flying, as they were, a hundred meters above the Craton Massif’s coastline, he had what he supposed was a magnificent view of San Augustus.
A pair of massive fortified stone towers, known far and wide as the Hammer and the Anvil, guarded the vast harbor’s entrance. The harbor itself was a wide, deep well of rock, open to the sky at top and bottom. As far as he understood the nature of such geography, the enclosure of the harbor created its own calm eddy of aether, a non-current in which skyships could safely tether without fear of being dashed against the rocks.
Beyond the harbor, the city of San Augustus climbed a series of steep, terraced hillsides forming a great bowl filled with a salad mixture of red-tiled roofs, verdant parks, coppery temple domes, and white marble buildings of state. It was at least thrice as big as the Célestial capital at Rocher Royale. Of course it was also many times older than Grand Leon’s city.
Away from the harbor and atop the highest hill stood the royal citadel. Looking through Santiago’s glass, he could just make out where the old walls from the age of chivalry had stood, before they had been replaced by a modern star-shaped fortress with sloping walls and cannon emplacements galore. Not for the first time on this trip, he lamented that skyships could not fly over land; it would make getting Isabelle to the citadel so much easier. If wishes were fishes, urchins would dine.
In the wide open center of the fortress, like a jewel in a gilded box, stood the royal palace, an enormous rambling structure that climbed over the hill like a vine. And this is where we are taking Isabelle, a warren of stone and strangers. Every unfamiliar face belonged to a potential assassin. Was it too late to turn around and take her away?
Probably much too late. For years, le roi had unofficially, discreetly backed the skyland kingdom of Brathon against Aragoth in their competition for a controlling interest in the savage but fabulously wealthy lands of the Craton Riqueza, the continent of riches, beyond the equator, a colonial competition l’Empire Céleste had entered very late with very little. Le roi was not in any position to win the game, but he was in a position to pick the winner, for the right price.