«Mycroft!» Madame turned her eye on me, and then her fan, blue lace over oiled ebony and heavy enough to split the skin of my eyebrow as she struck me. «Some watchdog thou art!» A second blow, a third. «Thou’rt supposed to keep Jehovah away from danger, not escort Him to where there are assassins!»

I squinted against the blood which trickled into my left eye, but had no right to defend myself with word or hand.

The king restrained her. «Dignity, Madame. Please step aside, and let my nurses see to the duke.»

Three nurses had arrived, and a litter draped with silk to bear the invalid to his museum-worthy cell. Protect the duke, that was my only thought as I made myself a living wall between His Grace and faux-frantic Madame. I laid him on the silks, and helped the nurses wrap him gently, like a statuette of gold and ivory packed for transport. Madame tried to reach past me, to tuck in her darling duke with her own hands, but I blocked her. «Into the car please, Madame.» I grasped her arm and steered her toward the car, hard.

«It’s not right!» Her eyes and lips shot hot protest at His unwavering Majesty.

«I’ll come to Las Huelgas myself as soon as I can,» the king promised as I corralled her into the car’s black cradle, «and I’ll check on Epicuro, too.»

«My Ganymede…»

Isabel Carlos II nodded his royal gratitude to me as I climbed in beside his stubborn future queen. I saw Ganymede too give me a last glance, cold and dismissive, and so infinitely less disdainful than my station deserved that I could not mistake it for anything but heartfelt thanks. With my left eye still squinting against the blood, and my right distracted managing the unhappy conjunction of skirts and closing car door, I did not spot Madame’s mancatcher until its blades closed around my throat.

«Thou’rt so hard to get a hold of these days, Mycroft. It’s unfair of Cornel so monopolizing thee.»

As she twisted the inlaid handle, the stiff pole toppled me forward onto my knees on the car floor and pressed my face against the opposing seat. I jerked against it, but the fine blades which ring the inside of the collar are every bit as ruthless as their mistress. Practiced hands—not hers—bound my wrists behind me, and I could hear but not see the car’s far door close. Madame had an accomplice, then, someone who had approached the car from the far side, unseen while the lady’s fuss over ‘her’ Ganymede had drawn all eyes. I clenched my jaw as I felt someone try to force something between my teeth.

Madame clucked. «Don’t be stubborn, Mycroft. We don’t want thee biting thy tongue when I short-circuit thy pacemaker.»