Chapitre Douze

Douce-Amère

Leon

"It would have been strange enough, a prisoner wearing a mask of wood. It was more unsettling that no one wanted to speak of it."

It had taken some convincing to get his father to agree to meet with him privately, considering that Leon insisted that not even Fitzroy be present in that room. There were no windows for spies to peer in, and Lucien had assured Leon that the room was far enough removed from everything else in the mansion that no eavesdroppers would overhear them.

Lucien ran his fingers through the end of his beard. "Fascinating. Did you get the sense that this prisoner had been there long?"

"Well..." Leon thought about it for a moment, biting his index finger. "Yes. Yes, I'd say it looked like he'd been there a while. Everyone knew how to react when the guards moved him."

Lucien chuckled. "Well, that raises all sorts of interesting questions, doesn't it?" Lucien began to pace around the room. "Rarely do they keep anyone in those prisons for more than a few months. Only a handful of crimes are punishable by a lengthy prison sentence."

"That's right!" said Leon. "I got the feeling that most of my fellow prisoners were there waiting for either interrogation or execution."

"Exactly!" Lucien pointed to Leon. "So what sort of crime had the prisoner in the wooden mask committed? It couldn't have been too heinous. Maybe he owed a debt that he could not pay off?"

"Perhaps," said Leon. "But that doesn't explain the mask. Why hide his face? Furthermore, if you're going to hide his face, why hide his eyes too?"

"He probably doesn't owe a debt, then," said Lucien. "His identity is a secret that someone's keeping. There is something dangerous about who he is, and therefore they do their best to keep it a secret. Well... actually, no..." He grabbed at his beard, "They don't do their best."

"How so?" Leon raised an eyebrow. "They kept him in a mask, in a special cell where he was secluded from the other prisoners, and it was heavily implied that they would silence anyone who spoke to or about him."

"Yes, but why keep him in a prison in the capital?" Lucien asked. "Think of how many prisoners go in and out of that place. Sure, most of them only leave to face the hangman's noose, or they die of some disease. But once in a while someone, such as yourself, is promptly proven innocent and released."

"So, if they truly wanted to keep him a secret they could lock him up in a prison on the frontier..."

"Exactly!" said Lucien. "A military prison under some marquis' watch, or a prison in some rural county. They could keep him so secluded, so secret that no one except his jailers would even need to know he existed. Then they wouldn't even need the mask!" Lucien grabbed Leon by the shoulders. "You know what this means? Someone in the Imperial family has jailed this man and is keeping his identity secret, but whoever it is wants him close at hand for some reason. You said yourself that they were moving him back into his cell."

"At least, that's how it seemed."

"Whoever is keeping him must have regular meetings with him!"

Leon stood and leaned against the wall, looking away from his father while he pondered his words. "What makes you think it's a member of the Imperial family?"

"Who else would have the power to keep someone in prison like that perpetually? I suppose it's possible for some lower lord to bribe the guards, but it would be far too expensive to keep something like that a secret for long. If, however, it's an imperial order then the warden would be guilty of treason if he did not obey."

Leon nodded along. "I thought you'd want to know about this. So will you assign Fitzroy to have spies look into it?"

"Not just yet," said Lucien. "Fitzroy's agents are spread rather thin these days, and we have many enemies who are still hidden in shadow. Once we've dealt with more of them we'll investigate this prisoner in a wooden mask. After all, we haven't yet found Corina's real killer."

Leon rounded on Lucien, fury burning in his face. "You what?"

"Fitzroy is still investigating," said Lucien, taking a long draw from his flask.

How could he announce such news so calmly? So casually?

Leon grabbed his father by both shoulders. "Who was the man who swung in my place? Who did the court hang?"

"A murderer," said Lucien, still so infuriatingly calm. "One of the conspirators plotting against the Empress."

Leon stepped away from his father and stammered for a moment. "You... you obstructed justice?"

"Hardly," said Lucien, chuckling. "I stopped the court from hanging an innocent man and ensured that the man they punished was guilty."

"He was not Corina's killer!"

"He was a killer," said Lucien, visibly growing frustrated with Leon's exasperation. "What does it matter? The man they hanged for Corina's murder took many lives, as he testified. Yes, that part of his testimony was true."

"But... how did you get him to confess to a murder he did not commit?"

"Fitzroy employed a little coercion and a little bribery. Truthfully, I'm not certain of the specific details."

"So..." Leon paused for a moment, bit his lip, and then continued, "Even though I was innocent, we still had to resort to less-than-honorable means to gain my freedom..."

Lucien shrugged. "That's the world we live in, son: less than honorable. We operate far below true justice."

"And you wonder why I despise this Empire and the games it plays?" Leon spat the words at the ground, unable to lock eyes with his father.

"I don't wonder, I know," said Lucien, grabbing Leon's chin and staring him straight in the eye. "When I was young I was not so different from you. But as terrible as you think Salia is, if you tried living in the barbaric lands of our neighbors you'd grow to love Salia soon enough."

"Perhaps." Leon rolled his eyes as he pulled his face away with a jerk. Ah, that age-old argument. Whenever one spoke of the injustices in Salia another would always counter that things were far worse outside of the Empire. Some were even soldiers or missionaries who knew for sure that this was so. But they all missed the point; knowledge of another's injustices did not excuse one's own.. "If you don't mind, Father, I'll be going."

"Do try to stay out of trouble." Lucien smirked at him.

After leaving the meeting Leon went down to the hedge-maze. He'd gone through the maze dozens of times, but it never ceased to be an interesting experience. Especially since his father's servants and gardeners would, whenever possible, make slight changes to the layout of the maze and even leave little treasures for people navigating the maze to find.

It seemed that the gardeners had changed the layout again. Some of the hedges grew out of large clay pots, and had been switched around. Leon was determined that they would not outwit him with such a simple change. Surely, he would easily reach the fountain in the center and effortlessly find his way back again.

Colorful potted flowers lined each corner. At times Leon couldn't help but imagine that there was some sort of pattern to them, some way that the gardeners had arranged them so that they knew how to find their way through. Did violets mean make a left turn next? Did tulips indicate that one had gone the wrong way?

Occasionally he glanced up at the windows on the third floor of his father's manor. If he squinted carefully, he could see one of Fitzroy's agents watching him as he navigated the maze. Normally, knowing he was being watched made him feel on edge. However, given recent events, he found himself glad to have such dutiful protectors.

At last he'd found it! The center of the maze. The gentle trickle of the fountain, combined with the colorful blossoms on the trees, and the shade of the canopy above always made the center such a peaceful little sanctuary from the troubles of the world. Even the statue of the minotaur made him feel protected.

But his heart raced as he realized he was not truly alone. Beatrice sat upon the edge of the fountain with a book in her hands. She looked up from the pages when Leon arrived and closed the book.

"I'm sorry," said Leon, "I didn't mean to interrupt."

"No, it's fine," said Beatrice. "Truth be told, I read the same line four times trying to figure out what it meant. I'm just... not in the mood to read, I guess."

"I see." Leon glanced around at the exits for a moment. Should he leave? After their dance, he'd felt so uneasy around her, being alone with her might not be prudent. On the other hand, it would be rude to simply walk away the moment he saw her. How much would avoiding her make matters worse?

"Sit with me?" Beatrice asked, patting the spot next to her on the fountain's edge.

"Certainly, my lady," Leon said, taking a seat beside her.

They sat in silence a few moments, listening only to the sound of birds singing in the distance.

"My father," Beatrice began, "He was always fond of hedge mazes like this. He had the best maze designers in Salia collaborate on the layout of the one at our home."

"Your father... Count Roche, was it?" Leon asked.

"Yes, Count Delaine Roche." Beatrice beamed at him. "I'm surprised you remembered."

Leon blushed and looked away from Beatrice. This was just a friendly conversation with his mother. Why were his hands shaking? Why was his heart fluttering with every note of her voice? More importantly, how could he stop feeling this way?

"Anyway," Beatrice continued, "He used to put on a bull mask and chase my sisters and I around the maze. We'd pretend that he was a minotaur and run to the center, where the minotaur couldn't get us. If he caught us before we could reach it, though, he'd tickle us until we almost couldn't breathe."

Leon couldn't help but smile at the image of a child version of Beatrice running through a maze and laughing as her father chased her. "Sounds fun."

"It was." Beatrice nodded and swirled her fingers in the fountain. "He used to moo when he wore it, too. Not a comical moo like a cow, a deep, scary moo. Almost like a roar. You know, like a bull." Beatrice flicked the water off her hands at Leon and laughed when he flinched. With that charming smile still on her face she continued. "When he grew sick there were days when he couldn't even remember our names. Sometimes it seemed he didn't remember anything at all."

"Oh... I'm sorry..."

"Don't be," said Beatrice, "It was years ago." Even though her smile never left her lips, Leon could see the tears gathering in her eyes. "One day I had an idea. I walked into his room with the minotaur mask and held it out to him. He smiled at me when he saw it, held it up to his face, and mooed like he had when I was a girl, just before he started tickling me."

"You reminded him of who you were," said Leon.

"And who he was," said Beatrice. "Perhaps that's the real reason for traditions we keep with loved ones. So that we have something to cling to, something that defines both who we are and who they are."

"You're a wise woman." Leon folded his hands in his lap.

Wonderful. Now he had one more reason to fall in love with her, something he'd been trying so hard not to do. Yet, how could anyone resist? She was beautiful, but beautiful women were plentiful in Salia. Far more rare and precious was a wise woman who had not let her wisdom become cynicism. A woman with a brilliant mind and caring heart.

"Do you have any fond traditions with your father?" Beatrice asked, breaking his trance. "Some happy memory from when you were a child?"

Leon thought for a moment, looking around at the colorful flowers that decorated the center of the maze. Did he have anything? Any story he could tell? His relationship with his father had been strained for years. Ever since he was about twelve, really. These days he always assumed that the unease in their relationship was because he was so ruthless in how he played Le Jeu Fatal, but now that Leon thought about it, that was around the time Lucien married his second wife.

"I do have one happy memory," said Leon. He leaned back on his hands against the edge of the fountain. "Back when I was just a little one. Andre was still a baby and my mother was pregnant with Annette. It was a lovely spring day. The last of the snows had finally melted, and the green fields were full of daffodils and dandelions. My father took us all on a picnic. After we ate, we all laid down on the blanket and stared up at the clouds moving overhead, talking about what each cloud resembled. My father pointed to one and told us a story about a dragon that came out of the sea to protect a group of sailors from pirates." Leon stopped and bit his lip.

"Sounds like a wonderful memory!" said Beatrice.

Leon nodded along and tapped his fingers on the stone. "That's the last happy memory I have of either of my parents. My mother died giving birth to Annette, and my father was never the same after that. He had nannies take care of us, just as he does with his youngest children now. I don't know exactly why, but when my mother passed he changed, became all business. Then he married my first step-mother before the year was out. I hated her more than she deserved." Leon shook his head and groaned. "Now that she's gone too... I wish I could go back and treat her differently. I think back to every time I refused to embrace her. Every time I made a show of wiping her kisses off my cheek. That poor woman didn't deserve my ire."

Beatrice's warm fingers covered his hand, and his heart-beat erupted like a thousand thousand cannons firing at once. Clearly she was just doing this to comfort him; he told himself that over and over. Accept the comfort. Don't refuse her affection like you refused Marion's.

He closed his fingers around Beatrice's. Yes, this was comfort. She was merely fulfilling her role as his new mother and comforting her son. So why was he so excited at the softness of her hand? Banish the thought! She is your mother now; you should be able to think of her as such! He dare not look into her eyes now, lest she see the beast gaining strength within him. Or worse, lest he see requited desire in her eyes.

"Excuse me," came a voice from nearby. Both Beatrice and Leon jerked their hands away from each other. Beatrice turned her knees away from him and looked elsewhere.

Leon sprang to his feet. "Monsieur Fitzroy!" Leon wrung his hands together. "To what do I owe this pleasure?"

"I would speak with you privately," Fitzroy said to Leon. He gave Beatrice a brief bow. "I'm sorry to interrupt, my lady."

"No," said Beatrice, "It's fine, we were just talking."

"So I see," said Fitzroy. "Lord Leon, if you would..."

"Yes, monsieur," Leon said. He turned back to Beatrice and bowed his head. "I'm sorry, mother. Let us continue this discussion later."

"No need to apologize," said Beatrice. "And yes, let's."

Leon left quickly with Fitzroy, eager to be away from the swarm of temptation. Every moment with Beatrice made him want her so. Worse yet, it was not the same, basic desire he had for any other woman for whom he'd lusted in the past. He wanted to know her, to be a part of her, and for her to be part of him.

He needed to focus on other things. Anything to take his mind off Beatrice for a while. "Monsieur," he began, "What is this all about?"

"I know who arranged to have Corina killed," whispered Fitzroy. "The same person who tried to have you killed the night of the ball. I wanted to tell you before I told your father."