The steward took their sodden coats and their swords. In l’Empire Céleste, disarming a King’s Own Musketeer was tantamount to disarming le roi, but in Aragoth, he was just another foreign soldier.
A pair of menials scrubbed the muck from their boots. Jean-Claude would have sooner gone barefoot than had any poor drudge kneeling before him scraping his boots, but no representative of Grand Leon went barefoot like a peasant, and, as one of his musketeer instructors had pointed out many years ago, “If they don’t clean your boots, then they have to scrub the whole floor.”
The steward led them into a lushly appointed library. Jean-Claude did not have the sort of mind that could peruse a man’s book collection and deduce everything there was to know about the inner workings of his mind, but he looked around anyway. The books were certainly impressive, leather-bound volumes in various colors, some with titles sewn, stamped, or embossed on their faces, but most without. A few large, old, hand-calligraphed volumes were chained to the wall at a broad writing desk. A few upholstered chairs sat before a fireplace, and paintings of people Jean-Claude didn’t recognize filled in the gaps. Judging from the wear on the upholstery, the place got used, but how much time did Diego himself actually spend here? Maybe his housekeeper spent a lot of time in here knitting when Diego was away.
The door on the far side of the room opened, and a silver-eyed, thickset man in a fine doublet, tall boots, and slops—Diego, presumably—strolled in. He folded his left arm behind his back in the position Jean-Claude always thought of as the please-put-me-in-an-armlock pose. He made a point of dismissing the two armed guards who accompanied him. The guards took up stations outside the door, a subdued but unmistakable declaration that, while they were all civilized people, violence remained an option. Diego glanced at the philosopher impersonator and said, “You are Princesa Xaviera’s man, are you not?”
DuJournal doffed his hat in a sweeping bow. “Lord Martin DuJournal, mathematician, swordsman, and gadfly, at Her Highness’s service.”
That answered the question of who DuJournal worked for, and opened up a whole slew of other questions, such as, what had the other princesa retained him to do, precisely? It made sense that Xaviera would have wanted to open up a line of communication with Isabelle while she was alive, but why had her minion lingered when everyone thought Isabelle was dead?
Diego turned his silver-eyed gaze on Jean-Claude. “And you must be the musketeer.” Jean-Claude braced himself for some sly mockery of his competence, but Diego only said, “I present you and your king with my condolences,” which was almost worse.
Jean-Claude did not say, You tried to kill her yourself, you goat-sucking whoreson, nor did he let that emotion anywhere near his expression. “I shall bear them to him, personally. Before I return home, however, I must conclude my investigation. Sadly, a few sizable holes remain. I was hoping you might help me fill them, in the interest of—completeness.”
Diego raised one salt-and-pepper eyebrow. “Completeness? Not justice?”
Jean-Claude produced a mirthless smile. “The only true justice is in the crime that is foiled before it is committed. That twisted thing the law calls justice is little more than revenge by committee. Completeness only asks that the whole story be told. All I want to know is, why did Thornscar want to kill Isabelle?” That danced nicely around any suggestion of impropriety on Duque Diego’s part.
Duque Diego had been reaching for a goblet of wine on the sideboard. He paused with his fingers on the rim and gave Jean-Claude a puzzled look. “Thornscar?”
Jean Claude would have sworn the man’s surprise was unfeigned, but how could Diego not know his own assassin’s name? “The man who attacked the Santa Anna and tried to kill Princess Isabelle.”
Diego looked like he was going through some quick mental shuffling of his own. “Did he call himself that?”
Jean-Claude answered warily. “In fact, he did not. The name was given to me by another.” By Kantelvar, in fact.
Diego asked, “And did you see this supposed would-be assassin?”
“Face-to-defaced-face,” Jean Claude said.
Diego drummed his fingers on the sideboard. “And I suppose you have some accusation to lay against me in the matter of the attack?”
“None that the authorities to which you bow seem to care about,” Jean-Claude said, glumly aware that he was not leading this conversation, though it seemed to be meandering in an intriguing direction. “Though you might do well to distance yourself from the burning of Princess Isabelle’s residence.”
“Your concern for my welfare is touching. I assure you I had nothing to do with setting fire to your princesa’s chambers. That foul deed belongs to another. I know not who. I am only surprised no zealot has stepped up to take credit.
“I have not seen the man you call Thornscar since the night he bade me have a mirror placed aboard the Santa Anna.”
At least Jean-Claude now knew what Diego was fishing for. “What name did you know him by?” Jean-Claude asked, and it felt like flakes of rust were dislodging from his brain. “And what hold did he have over you that he could compel you to that act of sabotage?” Diego as the cat’s-paw in someone else’s scheme was backward to Jean-Claude’s expectations. He cast a glance at DuJournal, who was as intent on the conversation as a cat on a mouse hole.
Diego turned and gave Jean-Claude a sharp, direct look. “First answer this. At whom was his attack aimed?”
“At Isabelle,” Jean-Claude said.
Diego shook his head. “Of what significance was a crippled, deformed, unhallowed princesa from a fading power? She had no inherent worth.”
Jean-Claude had no sword, but his heavy cane would make a fine club, and he imagined he could stave this arrogant pig’s skull in before his guards could intervene.
DuJournal placed his hand upon Jean-Claude’s shoulder. “I am sure Duque Diego is only asking you to look at the attacks from Thornscar’s point of view. Who was his target?”
“Kantelvar,” Jean-Claude realized aloud; the artifex was the only one who had actually been attacked. “He attacked Kantelvar and failed. That’s when he turned tail and fled. But why in the Breaker’s Torment…” The question died on his lips as his brain got on with the business of exhuming his assumptions to take a better look at their desiccated corpses. If Kantelvar had been the target all along … “Just who in the name of all the saints were you helping?”
Diego took a defensive swig of his wine and said, “I am not completely sure.”
“Are you saying you helped someone you didn’t know sabotage a diplomatic mission?”