“And what if they find me wanting?”
“They won’t; your destiny and Julio’s are intertwined,” Kantelvar said. “You were made for each other.”
“What do you mean by that?” Isabelle asked.
“Let us gather your bloodhollow handmaiden, and I will show you.”
Isabelle tugged away from him, alarmed. “What does Marie have to do with this?”
Kantelvar paused and turned. “Have you forgotten? I promised to revive her, and I always keep my promises.”
*
As long as Jean-Claude didn’t move, all the various pains in his body receded to dull background aches. The problem came when he tried to move, to lift his head off this fine pillow, or worse, to sit up in bed.
Isabelle had provided him with a feather mattress. It was far too fine a thing for him, who was used to sleeping on a straw-filled canvas mat on the floor. Or just on the floor. Or the dirt. Such luxuries as this could sap a healthy man’s will to bestir himself, let alone a wounded man’s.
If only there were not so much yet to be done. Isabelle’s enemies weren’t taking the morning off, and there were ever so many more of them than there used to be. He was going to need to take an apprentice … or two … or a dozen. Except he wasn’t really the masterly type. The day he couldn’t do this job himself was a day he did not want to think about.
So he had to act. Now. Pain or no pain.
Reluctantly, gingerly, he swung his legs out of bed. It was like stirring up a well-banked fire. All the embers of ache flared to life, passed through pain without stopping, and landed in agony. His leg, in particular, burned like a sap-filled log, hissing and sparking. The world swam …
“Se?or? Se?or musketeer, what is the matter?” Gentle hands steadied his shoulders and large, warm brown eyes stared into his.
Jean-Claude jerked upright and immediately regretted it, but at least he didn’t pass out again. One of the Aragothic handmaids hovered before him, or perhaps “hand-matron” would be a better description. She was not old—perhaps a few years younger than Jean-Claude himself; with women, it always paid to underestimate—but not so young and blank faced as the rest of Isabelle’s new servants. Did her age represent experience and competence, or simply the inability to improve her station?
Competence, he decided as she pressed a goblet into his hand and held on with both of hers until she was sure he could support the weight without spilling it. The drink was translucent white, like watered milk.
“Dream spirits,” he grunted, and made to thrust it away; the stuff eased pain but brought strange visions and made men its slave.
The se?ora caught his hand. “It is only a very thin mixture, enough to dull the hurt but not addle your wits. Sip it slowly and maybe you will be able to get out of bed without falling over. Or maybe you would rather the surgeon see you in pain and ask la princesa to order you back in bed for a week.”
“The princess, where is she?”
“The artifex took her to meet the queen. She commanded that you be allowed to rest.”
“And who is guarding her?” Kantelvar’s security had proved singularly inadequate.
“Royal guards. She specifically commands you to remember that you cannot aid her if you kill yourself.”
Very competent. She was exactly the sort of servant whose goodwill he needed to cultivate. “Se?ora,” he said. “May I be so bold as to ask your name?”
“Adel,” she said. “Now drink.”
Jean-Claude sipped. The stuff tasted vile, bitter and oily. “And how is it you come to speak in Isabelle’s voice?”
“As the most experienced lady here, she asked me to. I am the royal midwife.” On her purple sash was a silver pin in the shape of two interlocking rings, the symbol of her station. “I was Príncipe Julio’s wet nurse before I got elevated. It is to be hoped that I will be there for the birth of his son … sooner rather than later.”
Jean-Claude phrased his next question carefully, which is to say backward of the information he wanted. “Do you think Príncipe Julio will find Isabelle to his liking?”
Adel hesitated. “She is very smart. I think she would make a lovely queen. I think Príncipe Julio would have liked her.”
“Would have?” The dream spirits were starting to take hold of Jean-Claude’s flesh, taming his pain even as they made his senses tingly around the edges. Deliberately, he put the goblet down.
Adel deftly removed it from arm’s reach. “He loved strong women.”
“Women who fought back?”
“No. Not like that,” Adel said, clearly eager to defend her príncipe but not sure how. “He once told me that so many of the people at court are just like mirrors; they show you yourself. He could not stand those people. He liked people who were like windows, or telescopes, or—or mysteries. They showed him things he hadn’t seen and made him think. He said he could never call any man a friend who was afraid to slap his face. It was the same with women. I think he always envied his brother because of Xaviera.”
Jean-Claude leaned back in his seat, impressed. “Princesa Xaviera is a strong woman?”
“She was raised on the border with the Skaladin Breakerspawn. Her mother once fended off a siege of the fortress at Castrella, and she swore that her daughter would learn to fence and to shoot and to ride and lead men because, she said, it is best for a woman to be able to protect her own house and honor. Since Xaviera came to San Augustus, she fences in the challenge courts and hunts with the men.”
Aware that he was being gently diverted, Jean-Claude nonetheless asked, “And what does the court think of that?”
“They say it is the reason she cannot have children.”
Jean-Claude grunted dismissively; he had grown up on a farm where women did hard physical work all day and still produced large families. “So Príncipe Julio would rather have Xaviera than Isabelle.”
“I did not say that, se?or!” Adel protested. “It is just that since his accident—” She bit her lip.
“He has lost interest in women?” Jean-Claude ventured. If Julio’s manhood had been damaged—
“No. No. If anything, he is more ‘interested’ than he used to be, but, before, he had one or two women he would go to, respected women, discreetly.”
Jean-Claude waved this along; he understood how the process worked.
“Since the accident he is … less discreet, and less discriminating.”
“These women are more like mirrors,” Jean-Claude said.
“Bent mirrors. They show him bigger than he is.”
Jean-Claude frowned in distaste for Isabelle’s sake, but were Julio’s actions really hard to understand? A cripple who could no longer fight or hunt or engage in other masculine pursuits would want to exercise his masculinity in whatever way he had left.