“But how did you do it?” I ask, as we return to the gallery.
He grins. “For years I have been collecting marionettes, studying their origins. Though I suppose it all really came together when I made a tour to Elinbruk last year. I hadn’t been since I was a child. Have you ever been? No? You really should go. It’s spectacular in the spring.
“Well,” he continues lightly, enjoying watching me squirm, “while my father was busy nosing about for a duchess to woo on my behalf, I found something far more useful in the old royal Bibliothek. I’d heard rumors of it, from my studies, but I honestly wasn’t even sure it existed.”
“What existed?”
“Hearth tales are never a reliable source of magic legacy; too many tellings and retellings by uneducated fools to be trusted. Full of half-truths and all sorts of moral nonsense, the blatherings of old women, best suited for children in breeches. But,” he says, absentmindedly straightening the cap of a wizard hanging nearby, “some of the old masters did write things down that my great-great-grandfather never got around to burning. Their spells, their poisons, their histories. I’ve just never had access to them. Father always kept me penned up here, having to rely on what my tutors brought me. It was buried deep in the Bibliothek, hidden inside an old text about trees and the properties of wood. I guarantee you the cleric that brought it to me thought little of it. ‘Archaic gibberish,’ I believe he called it.
“I wish now that I’d taken the whole book! If I’d only had more time …” He sighs. “As it was, I could only take a page with me, but the cleric was never the wiser. Then it was simply a matter of convincing my father to commission the wooden soldiers, speaking the right words over them and then pointing them in the right direction. The directive to kill or maim means nothing to the marionettes; they have no moral objections. With very little effort, they were able to greatly aid my cause.
“I’ve been waiting for many years for my chance to rule, to not have to sit in a corner and watch a fool give all the orders any longer. He was many things, my father, but a visionary was not one of them. He never appreciated art the way I do,” he says, looking fondly at his collection. “He never understood my interest in puppets, never saw their full potential as I do. Now they are proving themselves far more loyal and capable than my human servants.”
His eyes glow. I wonder if he envisions a whole estate filled with wooden creatures to do his bidding, serving him without question or reservation. I shudder at the thought.
“But the soldiers, they are not alive. Just … set in motion?” I prod, thinking of how the saboteur seemed to listen to me, to respond.
“The only magic I know of to give a wooden figure a fully human life is the blue moon enchantment your father spoke of. And that I have never found in a book … though I’ve searched. Believe me. But until your father told me your whole tale, a puppet turning to living flesh was something I only dreamed possible. I never imagined when I first watched your little show in the square weeks ago that I was watching the work of a creature who represented my grandest notions. I was there just observing the masses, studying them in preparation for my plan to become the Margrave sooner than Father intended. The people were so taken in by it all, eating up your stories like they were starved.
“I must thank you for that, for it was your dramatics that inspired me to request the saboteur in the first place. I was planning to poison my aunt and Father the old-fashioned way, you know, by hand. But after seeing your theatricality, suddenly using a puppet seemed far more elegant.”
I blanch, feeling sick. He used the saboteur not only to poison the Margravina of Brylov and mortally wound Emmitt and the soldier in the wood, but to kill his own father. The count keeps rising.
“What will happen to the masses, to the people of Tavia if I am to make this bride for you? Surely there is a better way to force a union between us and Brylov than a battle.”
I think of the Maker’s Guild and all the village people who will suffer if we are forced into a war.
“I am loathe to discuss politics, especially with a maker. It’s so dreary.”
“Concerned the terms are too difficult for a commoner such as myself, my lord?” I ask in a huff. My attitude is well beyond the bounds of propriety, but I have ceased caring. It’s this or the Keep, and all his efforts tell me the new Margrave needs my skills here.
He glares at me. “You are making my point. But, if you must know, with Tante Emmaline nearly sleeping on death’s pillow, I’ve already sent a dispensation to Elinbruk to petition the king to allow me to rule both territories. I’m sure he will agree; Tante Emmaline has no children, and I am my father’s only heir. A von Eidle has held the territories in the southern seat for generations. It seems only right that I join both of our lands together. Together, the south will be even stronger.”
And your own pockets far fuller, I think.
“And if Brylov resists?” I ask. “Or the king disagrees?”
“He won’t. My father was one of his favorites. But, in that rare case,”
