It was all the security anyone could have hoped for, but Isabelle’s enemy was both crafty and bold. Jean-Claude rechecked his rapier and pistol, assuring himself for the thousandth time they were primed and ready. He sifted the onlookers with his gaze, playing a solitaire game of If I were an assassin, where would I be? In the crowd by the side of the road? It’s not the best angle. There are lots of people in the way, and how would I escape? A rooftop, wearing a guard’s stolen uniform? Easy to escape, but how do I strike? I can’t see my target from that angle. In a dark window? Do I want to be trapped in a building with hot-blooded pursuit on the way? Of course, a Glasswalker assassin need not be trapped anywhere there was a mirror …
He was peering into a shadowed cleft on the right side of the road when the crack of gunfire erupted on his left, a thunderous bang that nearly stopped his heart.
A hundred things happened at once. Time turned thick and gelatinous. Jean-Claude’s head swiveled, but even that simple movement was like swimming in molasses. Dark smoke and angry red sparks plumed from a second-story window. There was a gray flash of movement. Inside the coach, Valérie screamed. People in the crowd joined the chorus. The driver cracked his whip and the royal coach lurched forward, gathering speed. Half the mounted guard closed tightly around it as it hurtled up the street, a distraction that would draw off any further assassins.
Jean-Claude whirled farther around to find Isabelle staring in the direction of the window. Unhurt, thank the Builder.
“Go!” Jean-Claude shouted at Isabelle. “Remember your duty.”
The mounted dignitaries urged their mounts into a gallop. Isabelle hurtled after them while the pikemen pressed the crowd back. Crossbowmen on the roof launched quarrels through the open window … but where were the other gunshots? Only a fool would rely on a single musket shot for an assassination attempt.
Jean-Claude goaded his horse in the flanks and charged the building from which the shot had come. Peasants scattered before him. Soldiers already poured in the ground-floor entrances, and crossbowmen had leapt onto the roof.
Jean-Claude stood up on the saddle—twenty years ago this would have been a lark—and pushed off, not quite a leap; grabbed the sill of the window from which the gunshot had come; and heaved himself up. Momentum was on his side. Gravity was not. He got his elbows up on the sill before his initial thrust ran out. The room was empty of life, though the burning stench of gunpowder lingered. There was a full-length mirror on the right-hand wall.
Damn! Jean-Claude struggled to drag himself into the room. His feet scrabbled on the stucco. If only he were twenty years slimmer … he squirmed through the window until his bulk passed the tipping point and he toppled inward. He hauled himself upright just a heartbeat before the opposite door burst open and two Aragothic guards charged in.
“Where?” barked the first guard, looking wildly around.
“Gone,” Jean-Claude said, gesturing to the mirror. There was no other way out of the room. “Can one Glasswalker follow another through a glass?” Maybe they could launch a pursuit.
“I don’t know.”
Before Jean-Claude could invent any suitable invective, a beckoning finger of smoke caught his attention. The gray ribbon twined, like a snake charmer’s cobra, from a large clay pot by the mirror stand.
Match cord!
Jean-Claude turned and bolted for the window. “Bomb!”
He leapt. A giant boot kicked him in the back, and the world turned white.
CHAPTER
Ten
The sound of the blast jerked Isabelle’s head around. Smoke and fire belched from a gaping hole in the second-story wall. Bits of wood and plaster rained all over the cavalcade. Sparks wafted skyward and then faded and died, like damned stars reaching for paradise. Alarm bells pealed.
The street rang with the sounds of panic, shouting, and running. Most of the onlookers had stampeded, leaving trampled bodies in their wake, and no assailants had appeared to replace them. But where was … Oh Savior, no!
On the cobbles below the window lay a crumpled figure. His white hat and silver trim shone in the angled afternoon light.
“Jean-Claude!” Horror ran like snowmelt through her veins. Not him. Anyone but him. She wheeled her horse around.
A strong hand grabbed her upper arm, and a ruddy-faced lieutenant barked at her, “Get these women out of here.” He pointed in the direction of her ladies’ carriage.
Isabelle opened her mouth, her lips agape for one endless moment as she stared at an endless fall.
Your duty is to see to it that, no matter what else happens, Jean-Claude had said, the princess reaches the palace in one piece. She had to get herself to the palace. She must not fail him.
She wheeled her horse and gave it the spurs. It leapt to a gallop. He heart felt ripped from her chest. She caught up with the ladies’ carriage and gave the beast its head, trusting it to keep up with its herd, not trusting herself to keep going. Going when all she wanted to do was turn back. Not him. Please. Never had she wanted so much to disbelieve her senses.
The wind in her face scrubbed Isabelle’s eyes clean, but she could not seem to breathe. No. No. No! But she had to get the princess to safety.
Damn the princess. What good was she? Useless, broken, crippled.
It was only her imagination that Jean-Claude’s hand was on her back, keeping her balanced, pushing her on.
The handmaidens’ carriage rattled beneath the citadel’s gates and across a courtyard the size of Windfall before it finally lumbered to a stop. The lathered horses stamped in their traces. Isabelle all but fell from her horse and had to grab the bridle to keep herself upright.
Guards crowded around the armored coach, lifting Vincent from the cabin. His shining breastplate was pierced and stained with blood. His head lolled like a newborn’s. Valérie stood nearby, half wailing and half sobbing, her white dress soaked in blood. Several royal Aragothic servitors tried to calm her. “Princesa, please…”
A man wearing the sash of the king’s chamberlain exchanged verbal broadsides with the guard captain in overheated Aragothic.
Isabelle gathered what remained of her wits, shouldered into the press around Vincent, and knelt at his side. How could anyone have that much blood in them? His haughty expression slumped like a candle in the sun.
Several sets of hands grabbed at her. “Get off, soldier!”
Isabelle shook the hands off. With her good hand she ripped her helmet and wig from her head and tore off the false mustache. “I am Princess Isabelle! Stand back.”
Vincent’s eyes fluttered open at the sound of her voice, and his gaze focused briefly on her face. “Mademoiselle. Thank the Builder.” Blood was on his lips, and his voice gurgled. “Tell your father, I served him … defend you with my life … Valérie.” His eyelids lowered halfway as the light of his soul guttered to a last whiff of vapor and departed on the breeze.
“Vincent!” Valérie shrieked. She fell to her knees and seized him by the collar. His blood oozed between her fingers. She folded in on herself and wept.
Isabelle backed away a step to let her grieve. He was gone, stolen by an assassin’s musket ball. A musket ball meant for me. And if it hadn’t killed him, it would have killed Valérie. All these people had chosen to stand between Isabelle and bullets.