“I answer you truthfully,” Isabelle said.
“And what will you do when I put the negotiations for an alliance between Aragoth and l’Empire in the hands of my ambassador? He will bargain as I instruct him.”
Isabelle’s vision grew blurry as hot tears welled up in her eyes. “I will continue to advocate for peace.” For all the good it would do.
At last Grand Leon stepped back, and said, “Kneel.”
It was all Isabelle could do to maintain her poise as she smoothed her skirt and sank to her knees in the traditional posture of submission. If le roi had held a sword he could have easily lopped her head off. It would not come to that—they still needed her to breed—but she dreaded whatever punishment he might devise. Her father had found endless ways to humiliate her, and Grand Leon was many times more clever.
Grand Leon placed a hand on her shoulder, the cold fingers of a bloodhollow. “Princess Isabelle des Zephyrs, imperial cousin, we hereby grant you the position of special ambassador to the court of Aragoth, with full powers to make peace or declare war.”
Isabelle blinked hard in surprise, squishing out her unshed tears, and looked up. “Majesty, I … don’t understand.” Was this some kind of cruel joke?
“It means we give the negotiations for l’Empire’s part in Aragoth’s succession squabble into your hands. A civil war here would be a disaster. A winnable disaster from l’Empire’s point of view, but too costly by half. Peace, though, has possibilities.”
“And what would l’Empire gain from peace?”
Grand Leon gave the barest hint of a smile. “Our barons are a fractious lot, many of whom would happily see all the progress we have made turning l’Empire into a nation undone if they thought that by such calamity they could obtain one more square meter of land. Many of them have mortgaged themselves to the hilt to muster armies in anticipation of an Aragothic civil war. If they are forced to withdraw without conquest they will be broken on poverty’s wheel, much easier to control than if they are allowed to glut themselves on plunder. Hence, I need a negotiator who will fight for that peace until her last breath, and I give her the might of l’Empire to commit at her will. Certainly Margareta will want l’Empire’s armies at her side, and you know my terms.”
Isabelle sensed the words he’d left unsaid. “Because you know I will do everything in my power to avoid actually making that commitment, because to do so will cost me my children.” She had been wrong to think he didn’t understand a woman’s priorities. He knew exactly where her jugular was.
Before Isabelle could ponder her predicament, the soundproof door rasped open and a river of sound welled in like water through a cracked dam, a babble of voices that quickly became a flood, further churned up with the thud of marching feet.
Isabelle turned where she knelt. What in the world?
One voice rose above the rest: “I demand to see Princess Isabelle!”
“Jean-Claude!” He was alive! Thank all the saints! Isabelle lurched to her feet, rushed to the double doors, and threw them wide.
A quartet of guardsmen in various shades of livery, Aragothic and Célestial, bore Jean-Claude on a stretcher slung between two halberds. His face was smudged and bloody, his left arm was bandaged, and his right leg was in a splint, but his eyes lit up when he saw her. He was absolutely the most glorious thing she had ever seen. She plunged into the swirling pool of people surrounding him and threw her arms around his blue-coated waist. His age-thickened middle was reassuringly solid. “Thank the Savior! I was so … I thought you were…” Damn that taboo against expressing concern. “I will see you are granted great honor.”
He folded his uninjured arm around her shoulders. “Highness, I already have the greatest honor I could ever want.”
Isabelle would have liked to bury her face in his middle and weep for pure relief, but that would not make a good show. A princess was expected to be, if not detached, then certainly decorous. A momentary outburst of joy was permissible; wallowing in it was not.
Worse, saints help her, she had turned her back on le roi, a serious social blunder.
Isabelle jerked back from Jean-Claude as if she were on a hook, turned, and curtsied deeply to Grand Leon. Had she just undone all the devious trust he’d placed in her? Some nobles could be so damned touchy about the fine points of etiquette.
Jean-Claude’s head swiveled around until he caught sight of Grand Leon. He swept his hat in an approximation of a bow. “Majesty, please excuse me for bleeding in your presence, but someone just tried to shoot the princess’s coach and bomb me, which is rather backward of the way I would have done it, but I am thankful for his incompetence.”
Apparently unperturbed, Grand Leon gestured for Isabelle to stand up. He gave Jean-Claude a look of very nearly paternal exasperation. “I can see that the decades have not blunted your enthusiasm for extravagant pain. I will want a full report on this latest calamity when you have rested, but for now, we forgive your dishevelment and order you not to exsanguinate.”
Isabelle was befuddled. This seemed more like the reunion of two old friends than the tense confrontation between a musketeer and the monarch who had exiled him to l’?le des Zephyrs all those years ago. Maybe this was one of those mysterious male traditions she always found so baffling.
Jean-Claude’s bearers made to set him down on a sofa, but the Aragothic handmaids, who had surged in with the rest of the crowd, rushed to cover the embroidered fabric with a rough cloth to prevent Jean-Claude’s wounds from seeping on it.
Don Angelo emerged from the swirl of people and bowed to Grand Leon. “Your Majesty, we have recovered your musketeer.”
“Hah!” Jean-Claude scoffed. “Do you know what they tried to do to me? They tried to sic a surgeon on me. Builder be praised I woke before he sawed any bits off.”
Don Angelo wore an expression that suggested a man sucking on a lemon. “In his … delirium, your bodyguard threatened to shoot King Carlemmo’s royal surgeon.”
Grand Leon’s eyebrows twitched in suppressed amusement. “Did he?”
Jean-Claude’s face was ashen and haggard, but he seemed to be trying to cover up his weakness with more than his usual abrasiveness. “I’d be doing el rey a service if I did. Doctors kill more soldiers than bullets. The only reason we don’t take more of them to battle is we can’t get them to operate on the enemy first.”