“I am saying that the situation is more complex than you grasp, but you are bound to stumble over the truth eventually, so it would be best for everyone if you found it unfractured. Come.” He turned and strode through another set of doors into a drawing room. It differed from the library mostly in that it had more paintings and no bookshelves. There was a gated alcove with comfortable chairs and a full-length mirror in it, suitable for receiving a sojourning Glasswalker.
Duque Diego said, “Se?or musketeer. Allow me to introduce you to His Highness Príncipe Julio de Aragoth.” He gestured to a painting.
Jean-Claude’s eyes rounded. The face was the same one he had confronted in the Santa Anna’s hold, only absent any scar. Jean-Claude’s thoughts lurched and spun like a skyship in a hurricane as he revised everything he had learned to balance around this new center.
DuJournal looked equally surprised. “You’re saying Julio attacked Kantelvar? Why?”
Duque Diego glowered at the painting as if willing it to yield up an answer to those very questions. “One night, over a month ago, I was roused from sleep in the hours of the dead and summoned to this very chamber by a man, an espejismo I instantly took to be His Highness Príncipe Julio, except that he still had his leg and his face was marked with a great scar. He was dressed in servant’s garb, and he quivered in horrible distress. He was so pale, I thought he must have been stabbed, but there were no fresh marks upon him. I asked him what had happened to him, and he said he had been betrayed. I asked him by whom and he said, ‘Everyone, my whole family, but Kantelvar most of all.’
“I asked him what he meant, and he asked me when was the last time I had seen him. When I told him that I had seen him that very morning, he became even more distressed. He told me that he had been kidnapped months ago, an attack arranged to look like a hunting accident. He fought back against his attackers, and that was when he acquired his scar. He said, ‘The man you saw today, the man who has been your príncipe for the last nine months, is a fraud, an imposter, a marionette placed there by Kantelvar in a bid to usurp the throne.’
“Needless to say, I was aghast, but such an outrageous accusation could not go unchallenged. Did he have any proof, any evidence of his legitimacy or his alternate’s fraud? He gave such proofs as speech alone may deliver. He answered every question I posed to him, no matter how subtle, yet even then I was skeptical. Why had he not gone to his father with this; why come to me? At that point, he became as bitter as winter and said, ‘My father is delirious. My mother wields the power there and she plots against me. There is no one in the royal household I dare trust, and even if I did, Kantelvar has spies everywhere, and my body is under his power. If he guesses I have found a way to escape him, it will mean my death.’ At last he persuaded me that with my help he could acquire such proof as to banish all skepticism.
“He said he had a plan to unravel the plot against him, expose the traitors, and prove his own true identity. All he wanted from me was to use my contacts on the ?le des Zephyrs to put a mirror on board Princesa Isabelle’s ship, a service to which I reluctantly agreed.”
Jean-Claude did his best not to sneer. “And what did he promise you in return for this favor? What tipped the balance? Or was it merely that you hoped he might dispense with Isabelle? Either he might have killed her or proved the marriage contract fraudulent. Whether he is the real príncipe or not, he was in a position to solve a problem for you.”
Diego’s face darkened. “Julio’s marriage to Princesa Isabelle would have been a disaster for Aragoth.”
“But once she was gotten rid of, you could sort out the problem of the príncipes at your convenience. So you gave your visitor what he wanted, but then it all went wrong. The attack on the Santa Anna failed, whatever its mission was. The scarred príncipe never came back, and you’ve been searching for him ever since.”
“He said he was being held by Artifex Kantelvar, but now Kantelvar is dead.”
Jean-Claude felt suddenly light-headed, as if the floor had dropped out from underneath him. Dozens of small clues suddenly lined up and came to attention like a regiment of lazy soldiers when a sergeant barked a command.
“Breaker’s blood,” he muttered.
Both DuJournal and Diego gave him puzzled looks.
Jean-Claude reviewed his clues and grinned. “Who is the one person who is never a suspect in a murder?”
DuJournal arched his eyebrows. “A riddle, monsieur?”
“Oh, better than that,” said Jean-Claude. “This rides right through the land of Riddle and into the duchy of Hoax.”
“Explain yourself,” Diego said.
“The victim.” Jean-Claude bumped his fist into his open palm while he gave throat to the idea boiling in his brain. “The victim is never a suspect in a murder.”
“That was not an explanation,” DuJournal pointed out.
Jean-Claude backed up to get a running start at his inspiration. “There were only three people who actually saw the man who boarded the Santa Anna: Vincent, me, and Kantelvar. Well, there was one more, but nobody counts a bloodhollow. Kantelvar knew his game was finished if either Vincent or I made the connection between Príncipe Julio and the boarder. Kantelvar had to get rid of us, and he had to frame a third party for it. He invented the name Thornscar on the spot and left the convoy in a tearing hurry. He had to secure his captive and set up a trap for the witnesses. It was only after he left that we discovered your involvement, Duque Diego, otherwise he probably would have gone after you as well.
“After that, everything falls into place. The attack on the cavalcade killed Vincent but missed me. He tried two more times to kill me after that, but thanks to DuJournal, I’m still above ground.”
Diego looked thoughtful. “You say Princesa Isabelle did not see the intruder, but she knew what he looked like. When she saw Julio’s face, I swear she nearly fainted.”
Jean-Claude straightened up and grinned. “Yes. Isabelle used her bloodhollow’s memory to draw a portrait of the assassin, but Kantelvar didn’t know about that. So on the night of the masquerade, Isabelle finally got a look at Julio. If Kantelvar saw her reaction as you did he immediately realized she’d recognized his deception. His intrigues were doomed, so he took the only course available to him. He kidnapped Isabelle and faked both their deaths.”
Diego’s face slackened in surprise. “You think they’re alive? I saw Kantelvar’s corpse!”
DuJournal said, “You saw a corpse that looked like his. We saw a corpse that looked like Isabelle’s, but it turns out to have been a fake.”
“Yes,” Jean-Claude said, “that’s the crux of it. He was trying to throw us off, make us think there was nothing left to search for, but he missed again. We already know he’s faked Isabelle’s death.”
“Actually we don’t know that,” DuJournal said. “It could have been someone else, parties yet unknown.”
“It could,” Jean-Claude said, “but I don’t believe it and neither do you.”
“Touché, but what I don’t see is why. Why would he go through all the trouble to bring Isabelle here, only to fake her death?”