Isabelle’s nervous gaze skipped over Queen Margareta and landed on a lean man in royal purple wearing a silver medallion bearing the royal heraldry and the marks of cadency befitting a second son. His posture was languid, almost bored, and the upper half of his face was obscured behind the jeweled scales of a wyvern mask.
Julio. My betrothed. She tried to make the name and title fit the figure before her, but a wide, thin-lipped mouth and a narrow chin weren’t enough to hang a label on. A pox on whoever had come up with the idea of masquerade balls. How was she supposed to be properly introduced to people if she couldn’t see their faces?
She arrived at the foot of the dais. A pair of Temple censer bearers detached themselves from the wings and walked slowly around her, wafting her with a heady, pungent incense. A sagax in a golden robe embroidered with carmine clockworks planted himself between Isabelle and the king. He was one of the fellows who had taken offense at her existence upon her arrival at the docks, the one who had claimed Kantelvar was deranged by his vision of the Savior’s coming. Did he have any idea how right he was? Dared Isabelle speak to him? The enemy of my enemy can give me information on my enemy. Yet she dared not reveal the exact nature of Kantelvar’s scheme, for the sagax would surely see that the easiest way to defeat Kantelvar was to remove Isabelle.
The sagax chanted in the Saintstongue, pronouncing the words roughly and mechanically, as if by rote rather than meaning, pleading with the Builder to sanctify an unclean woman to stand in the presence of Carlemmo, who was His power in the world. He monotonously reiterated the Temple’s assertion that Iav’s sin had somehow corrupted all women, enfeebling them body, mind, and soul. My many-times-great-aunt. And she was innocent … or at least Saint Céleste had defended her. On a level below reason, Isabelle felt she was the damned saint’s partisan, if for no other reason than any argument a woman made against this presumption of corruption was invariably rebutted with, “If you were a man you would understand this, but you’re a flawed woman, so you can’t.”
Apparently satisfied that Isabelle was not going to vomit up a swarm of locusts on the spot, the sagax finally withdrew.
Isabelle curtsied to the king and summoned up her voice. It cowered in the back of her throat like a dog hiding under the bed in a thunderstorm. She dragged it out and brought it to heel. These were not her words but an agreed-upon formula: “Your Majesty, I bring greetings from His Imperial Majesty Leon XIV, le Roi de Tonnerre, of l’Empire Céleste. In his name, and for the sake of everlasting peace and friendship between our kingdoms, I present myself, my life, and my blood, to reinforce the strength of your line.” Somehow the words seemed bigger and heavier, more important than when she had practiced them in front of her handmaids.
The king stirred, but his voice seemed to be coming from far away, as if he were calling back to her from halfway down a lonely road. “Princesa Isabelle des Zephyrs, your offer is well made and graciously accepted. Rise and be welcome. All hail la Princesa Isabelle.”
The crowd voiced a dutiful cheer. Likely more than half of them were privately outraged about the gross breach of tradition her marriage represented. How many in that faceless crowd still plotted her murder? And might all the masks, with their promise of anonymity, tempt her enemies to strike at her tonight?
Carlemmo gestured Isabelle to an empty chair beside Julio’s. The príncipe watched her warily from behind his wyvern mask, hunching into himself like a wounded animal holed up in a cave. His left leg was noticeably stiff, the amputated limb disguised with a boot, the buckles of the prosthesis poking out from his garters. His breath reeked of wine.
With a sinking heart, she curtsied to him and tried to speak, but her mouth had gone dry; this was the man to whom her fate was forever tied, a sulking, drunken stranger in a mask.
“Príncipe,” she managed, barely more than a whisper.
“Your Highness,” he said in the careful tones of someone rummaging for misplaced syllables. “You are even more beautiful than I had been led to believe.”
“Thank you, Highness.” She had a hundred things she wanted to talk to him about—politics and prophecies, intrigue and murder—but none of them involved her appearance. Also, she wished his gaze would’ve lingered at least a moment on her face. She made perfunctory obeisance, then took her chair.
Music resumed, and the crowd began to mill. A herald called out for the commencement of public ceremonies and all the most important nobles began queuing up in order of social rank. One by one they would ascend the steps, greet her, exchange rote pleasantries, and present her with gifts. Judging by the sheer number of nobles present, it was likely to take hours, and every last one of them would be judging her.
Would Lorenzo Barbaro be in the queue? What would she say to him if he was? Do you remember a time you spent with Vedetta des Zephyrs? Did you know you have a daughter? She supposed revealing herself as a bastard would be one way to extract herself from this marriage trap, if she were willing to sign her own writ of execution in the process.
She turned her mind from the mystery of the past and tried to think how best to persuade Julio to attempt reconciliation with his brother. She did not believe in prophecy, but Kantelvar did, and he seemed to be trying to arrange for its conditions to be met.
“Look at them,” Julio muttered to no one in particular, the words muffled in an alcohol-scented fog. “Lord of the Ten Gates all the way down to the royal rat catcher, every pendejo with a title to hide his name behind, bowing and scraping to el rey in public and wagering on the hour of his death behind the curtains. Boy-buggering whoreson. Cloth-of-gold sack of shit.”
It was impossible to tell toward whom these imprecations were directed. Isabelle steeled herself and pushed a question onto the field. “And what happens when your father dies?”
Julio snorted like a man waking from a dream and finding himself in a gutter. “I suspect we will all be horribly killed.”
This was not the sort of answer Isabelle had expected, but it seemed like a good enough opening for her petition. “If you don’t think you can beat your brother, why not come to an accord with him? Surely avoiding bloodshed is in everyone’s best interest.”
Julio cast a doleful eye upon her. “What makes you think there’s going to be a fight?”
“I … just assumed there would be some sort of struggle.”
“No doubt,” he said, “but riddle me this, oh unlucky princesa. What is messier than a civil war between two brothers?”
“I have no idea.” Indeed, Isabelle felt adrift in this conversation.
“A civil war with no brothers.” Julio took a drink. “If there is one brother left, he wins. If there are no brothers left, it’s a free-for-all.”
Isabelle was appalled at this insight. The Savior was supposed to be born into a time of universal war, but Julio could not be killed, at least not right away, not until Kantelvar was convinced Isabelle was with child. Did he know that was the plan? She dared not broach the subject until she had some idea how he would react.