The Spirit Lens (42 page)

I paused, heart hammering. I had not yet spoken Michel’s name.

His back to me, my silent cousin motioned me to continue.

“It is only in assembling all these bits and pieces, and imbuing them with . . . aspirations . . . that we see a larger story. Let us return to the day that Gruchin, near madness from two years’ bleeding and compelled by unknown torments to loft an arrow at his king, stole his crude spyglass from his old partner’s shop. Hoping to direct attention to the nefarious activities of his masters, and thus avenge his family’s murder, he brought his spyglass and his coin to the field and made sure his own corpus would be left alongside them as evidence. You assigned your friend and counselor the Conte Ruggiere to investigate the matter. . . .”

Never did Philippe interrupt my account. I did not offer my interpretations of Michel’s state of mind, as I had to Dante and Ilario, nor did I dare ask whose name my cousin had scribed on the Heir’s Tablet in the royal crypt or what Michel de Vernase had thought of his choice. I did not soften my telling with apologies or implied excuses designed to flatter the king or his friend. Philippe would accept what I said or not. He knew the conte better than anyone.

“Majesty, you told me at the beginning of this journey that Michel de Vernase is either dead or hostage to those who wish you harm. Yet, in most of a year, you have received no request for ransom or favor. I say, either he is dead, or he is one of them.”

I did not beg pardon or forbearance. I merely stopped speaking and waited. Any number of reactions seemed likely: denial, argument, imprisonment, interrogation, accusation.

For interminable moments, Philippe remained motionless. Then he whirled about, snagged my arm, yanked open the door, and propelled me through the halls of his palace.

My eyes refused to meet those of the myriad curious courtiers and servants who stepped aside, bowing, to let us pass. My skin burned. I was unsurprised when Philippe burst through a door on the second level of the northwest tower—the headquarters of the Guard Royale—but my spirit quailed, nonetheless. House arrest? Or Spindle Prison, the desolate finger of stone thrust up from the river Ley? My heated skin broke into a cold sweat.

A mustachioed captain, built like a bridge piling despite modest height, leapt up from behind a scarred table and dropped to his knee, alongside several officers and orderlies. “Majesty!”

Philippe twitched his hand to get them up, and his head to clear the room of all but the sturdy captain. “Captain de Segur, since fifteen Cinq of last year, the Conte Ruggiere has been away from Merona on a diplomatic mission. I have just received information that on thirty-four Siece last, he was taken captive. By midday today, you will dispatch the fifth gardia to find him, beginning the search at Collegia Seravain and working outward in every direction, questioning every man, woman, and child in the demesne if needs must. You will dispatch the seventh gardia to Challyat. I will draw up orders for the Challyat’s chief magistrate to investigate the recent fire that killed the Marqués de Marangel and his family. It was no accident. As Magistrate Polleu looks into the murders, the gardia will conduct a search for Conte Ruggiere from Marangel outward. You will dispatch the eighth gardia to search—Tell him where, Portier.”

My gaping mouth had already closed, but I could scarce control a stammer. “Ah—Arabasca. Begin at Mattefriesse and work both east and west along the pilgrim road. Suspect any man of more than middling size, especially one who carries a finely sculpted leather mask.”

Philippe believed me, at least so far as to act upon my word. I should be pleased. Yet I could not shake the sense that I saw but the outliers of this royal storm and might still end up drowned.

“The ninth gardia will proceed immediately to Vernase,” snapped the king. “They shall maintain a cordon two hundred fifty metres distant from the estate of Montclaire. The contessa and her children will be treated with respect, but no one else is to be allowed in or out without identity vouched by three local citizens or an order sealed by this ring.” The royal signet of Sabria glinted from his clenched fist.

“Understand, Captain, and make this clear to every officer and man: Michel de Vernase has been the captive of sorcerers and tortured to break his mind. He
must
be apprehended, controlled, and kept in isolation until he stands in my presence. But no matter
what
he says or does not say, he is my First Counselor, a peer of the realm, and my friend. He will be offered every consideration and treated with the full honors of his rank. Have you any question?”

The captain did not waver from his stance. “No, Majesty. All shall be done as you say.”

Did Philippe believe what he said? Did he truly believe Michel a pawn? I could not guess.

“Nothing shall serve as excuse for failure.”

De Segur bowed. Philippe’s grip on my arm tightened, and we were out of the tower and forging yet another path through Castelle Escalon before the captain could have straightened up again. I could only brace for the unexpected.

Our destination became apparent as we barged through gawking crowds in the curved window gallery and on the broad stair leading to the queen’s household wing. My cousin bypassed Ilario’s apartments and charged through a small atrium, adorned with alabaster statues of dancers and horses. Even the pair of opalescent doors centering the curved wall did not slow us. Philippe slammed through them as if they were a leather swag over a peasant’s shanty.

Jeweled ladies in cream-colored silk covered their mouths or halted their embroidery in midstitch. Lady Antonia, plucked eyebrows exacerbating her shocked expression, stared up from a tête-à-tête conversation with Maura. Maura’s face clouded with concern as she took in my bruised face and the shoulder of my doublet wadded in the king’s fist.

Though I longed to reassure her, I dared not. My feet stood too near a chasm . . . as did hers. I looked away.

Near an open window, eight or ten ladies clustered on a plush couch and the floor cushions in front of it. Eugenie de Sylvae sat in the center of them, holding an open book, a soft flush draining rapidly from her cheeks.

Stiff and controlled, the king inclined his back to his wife. “A private word with you, madam.” No one would mistake this politeness for a request.

In a wave of shining hair and billowing skirts, the queen’s friends and attendants dropped into deep curtsies. Eugenie herself rose from her cushion. Tall—but a handsbreadth less than Ilario—and regal, she waited just long enough, and then sank, perfectly composed, into her own obeisance.

The queen did not wait for the king’s permission to rise. Her ladies followed her up in practiced unison. Most of them scurried immediately for adjacent chambers. A few, older women for the most part, awaited the queen’s gesture of dismissal. Even then, Lady Antonia went to Eugenie and kissed her on the cheek before sweeping from the room.

The last door snicked shut. Eugenie’s dark eyes fixed on her husband. Her chin, at once firm and fragile, lifted.

Philippe released my arm. “All these months I have yielded to your determination to rule your household as you desire and demonstrate your confidence in your servants. No matter that my every counselor has entreated me to set you aside, I have trusted that you hold this kingdom’s welfare paramount and would allow no grievance with me to change that. And whether or not you deem me fit as sovereign or husband, I could not—and cannot—believe you wish me dead. No longer can I afford forbearance.”

Though the queen maintained her silence, the stretched emotions in that room made my forced posture in Eltevire’s sorcerer’s hole seem comfortable.

“Sit.” Philippe waved at her couch.

The lady’s entire demeanor stiffened like setting plaster, as if the matter of her sitting was a skirmish in their private war. The king waited, immovable as the palace wall.

Eventually, with a small shrug, the queen settled, graceful and dignified, to the edge of the cushioned seat. Yet she did not yield as might some bullied child, but as a mature woman who made her own choices.

Philippe acknowledged her acquiescence with a stiff nod. Then he shook a finger at me. “This man, Savin-Duplais, is a distant kinsman, a fawning favor-seeker who aspires above his place. In some fevered campaign to
protect
me, he chose to take up the question of last year’s attempted assassination where Michel left off. . . .”

So did I come to understand my punishment for bringing the king such news. I had hardly expected thanks, and logic must approve my cousin’s play. Yet, for my humiliating ruse to become the definition of my character was an ugly sentence.

As Philippe gave an abbreviated, remarkable, and almost entirely truthful rendition of my morning’s recital, the queen’s defensive posture yielded to intense listening and growing horror. While omitting all mention of Dante, Ilario, hauntings, the Veil, or his own cooperation, he revealed how my efforts had uncovered a conspiracy to revive transference and possibly destabilize the Concord de Praesta, the peace between the Camarilla and the crown.

I listened carefully, beginning to think he intended me to play some further role. Why else allow me to witness this painful encounter?

“Michel?” Eugenie’s first word burst forth with full shock. “Working with sorcerers to destroy you? Philippe, how can you bear it? It’s even worse”—the momentary gap in her self-possession closed quickly—“worse than believing your wife a dupe. Or a traitor. Or a traitorous dupe incapable of keeping her children alive. Or do you believe I have been seduced into
this
conspiracy, as well? Perhaps wife and friend are not such bitter enemies as everyone believes!”

Philippe acknowledged neither her moment’s sympathy nor its bitter afterword. “Portier fears that one Adept Fedrigo may be another victim of these conspirators. If we could trace the young man’s movements, we might save him before he suffers the Marangel girl’s fate. Thus, we must and will question your mage, Orviene. And you, lady, must tell me anything you know that might bear on this tale. Firstly, why, in the name of the Pantokrator, did you suggest to Calvino de Santo that I might wish to wrestle on that day?”

She shot to her feet, confronting him squarely. Fire had returned to her cheeks. “Is it so inconceivable that I should care for your pleasure, husband?”

“On
that
day? When a poisoned arrow lay in wait for me? When my
pleasure
ensured unarmored flesh would await its strike?” The few paces of soft carpet that separated them yawned as an indescribable gulf. “I do not believe in such coincidence. How can I?”

For a moment I believed she might yield her secrets, so deep did her gaze search the man. And truly I wanted to remind them both that the arrow was never meant to strike him.

Eugenie folded her arms across her breast. “You have my permission to question Orviene about his missing adept. Nothing more, though, as always, my liege may do as he wills. As to the wrestling: Earlier that day I engaged in conversation with several friends. Our discussion ran to the manly arts, and it reminded me of things you told me in days when we did not know each other so well. Do not ask me names. My judgment names my friends trustworthy, and I will not have persons like your sly kinsman subject them to demeaning interrogation. I cannot possibly enlighten you further. Now, if that’s all . . .” She extended a hand toward the door.

“I will ask you to consider
this
, lady,” said the king, unchastened. “Was it you or your ‘trustworthy friends’ who raised the subject of
manly arts
that day? And if it was you, then why did it strike you on that particular day, when our personal pleasures had not been a matter between us for so very long? I will not believe Michel my enemy until I hear it from his own mouth. But if such a friend as he can turn traitor and murderer, then no person in this world is above suspicion.”
No wife, either
, he did not say.

He snapped a hand toward the door. I bowed to the queen and followed him out. He could not have seen her hands clenched fiercely to her breast or her grief-filled eyes locked to his back.

The king did not manhandle me as we hiked through the corridors. Neither did he dismiss me. Like a bruised duckling, I trailed after him to the study where we had begun. He sat down at a small writing desk and pulled out several sheets of paper, pen, and ink.

“Sit,” he said. Without looking at me, he waved at a side table. “Drink if you wish.”

I sat, gazing lornly at the decanter and cups, but could not imagine swallowing anything.

My cousin’s pen moved in bold strokes. When three papers were written, signed, and sealed with his ring, he rang for the pinch-mouthed undersecretary and dispatched one missive to the Grand Magistrate of Challyat, and one to the commander of the garrison nearest Vernase. The king dropped the third letter into my lap. It bore my name.

I clutched the sealed parchment as he moved to the sideboard, poured wine for each of us, then settled in his armchair. “I apologize for forcing you into that most awkward interview,” he said, quite unapologetically. “You needed to be there.”

“What would you have me do now, sire?”

“Go to Montclaire and continue your investigation publically. That letter is your commission. You can be sure Madeleine will demand to see it.”

I swallowed my astonishment. “The Conte Ruggiere’s home? His family . . .” Philippe’s own goodchildren.

“It will be impossible to silence the news that I am searching for Michel or to hide the particular nature of my orders to the Guard Royale. Suspicions will swarm this palace as insects swarm the maquis in high summer.” He drained his cup and set it aside. Distaste hardened his fair visage. “When he is found—alive, I pray—and proved innocent—which I believe absolutely—then the worst thing I could have done for him is feed ill rumor with the perception of indulgence. As with my wife, I cannot and will not express anything less than full faith in Michel de Vernase. Your theory demands investigation, cousin, and the court and the kingdom must see it pursued diligently, but
against
my personal inclinations. This lays the awkward burden squarely on you. You must continue serving as the efficient
agente
you are, while playing the diligent fool we have made you.”