Although he was half-tempted to visit the dungeons while still wearing a torn and blood-soaked tunic—perhaps it would put the fear of the gods into the prisoner he wished to visit—Bogo grudgingly visited the armory to change. The irritating thing about politics was that appearances mattered just as much as actions, if not more so. If he was seen looking disheveled as he left the palace, every mammal he passed from guards and servants to nobles and their hangers-on would assume that events were out of his control. That assumption could easily become reality if enough mammals believed it, and so he changed as quickly as he could. The only concession he made to his own comfort was to leave off the cloak of feathers that was his right as a captain general; besides being awkwardly heavy and restricting the cloaks were frustratingly fragile, and the one he had dropped on the floor of the council room would need artisans to repair it. Still, the feathers on the bracelets he wore at his wrists and the embellishments on his torc showed his rank well enough, and the lack of a cloak made the macuahuitl and the sabre he chose to wear on his belt that much more obvious.
When he was satisfied that he would give off the impression he wanted, Bogo set off for one of the palace's exits (despairing slightly at just how many ways in and out of the building there were), and had managed to reach the Hall of Ancestors before being interrupted. The grim look his features seemed to naturally set themselves into tended to be proof enough against mammals frivolously wasting his time, and he had supposed that in light of an attempted assassination he must have looked particularly fearsome indeed, for a number of servants had all but jumped out of his way as if he was radiating a heat too intense to bear. That the mammal who interrupted him was Corazón was, in retrospect, not overly surprising; the lion was if nothing else a consummate professional in the art of finding those in power.
The Hall of Ancestors was an enormous room, and yet also one with very little in the way of free space; it was absolutely full of statues of the former rulers of Zootopia. The walls were covered with elaborately carved iconography of the old emperors and empresses, and some of the statues were even in that old style, the subjects curiously blocky and almost grotesque in their poses. Corazón had knelt in front of one of the largest statues, which was positioned in place of pride where no other statue could hide it, and he rose smoothly as Bogo entered. "Captain General," Corazón said by way of greeting, quite solemnly and seemingly without any surprise at encountering Bogo taking a shortcut, "I was just telling the prince consort that you saved his daughter's life."
Corazón gestured at a statue as he spoke, which depicted the deceased husband of Queen Lana, Princess Isabel's father Fernando the Just. Although the jaguar who had been recreated in stone towered over the other statues, all but the oldest of which showed sheep, it was no trick of the sculptor to make him appear larger or more imposing in death. Fernando had been about the largest jaguar Bogo had ever seen, which had always made the queen appear even shorter than she actually was by comparison. Bogo looked into the impassive stone face of the dead prince consort, which despite the sculptor's best efforts carried only a fraction of the wisdom that had seemed etched into Fernando's features, and then turned to Corazón. The lion's face seemed lined with sorrow, and while Bogo recalled that Fernando had considered Corazón one of his most trusted advisers, it was hard to forget that Corazón had a well-known talent for oration. It was, perhaps, one of the things about Corazón that he liked least; he never knew whether or not the baron actually meant what he said. His words always oozed sincerity and because of that seemed all the more false. Was he truly grieving the loss of a friend, or was it all just a carefully planned charade to get something he wanted out of Bogo?
The captain general didn't care for politics, but that didn't mean he didn't know how the game was played. He stayed silent, trusting that Corazón would continue, and at last the lion did after heaving a theatrical sigh. "It was the worst day of my life when he died," Corazón said, "Yours too, perhaps."
Bogo inclined his head stiffly, still without a word. The prince consort's death had not been fair, nor had it been quick. He had always been a particularly energetic mammal, a devoted husband and an absolutely doting father despite the demands on his time as a judge. Seeing how rapidly he declined after taking ill had been a terrible shock, as his muscles withered away and his fur dulled until he was little more than a wraith unable to do so much as leave his bed. Bogo had been there for all of it, screening each and every blood magician and alchemist selected to treat the prince consort and watching everything they did. After one such treatment, when even a complete philosopher's stone nearly the size of a hummingbird's egg had failed to achieve any improvement, the prince consort had beckoned Bogo over after the alchemist left. "I don't think you need to worry about assassins, Captain General," Fernando had said, and while his voice had been little more than a croaking whisper there had been the ghost of good humor in his eyes, "The tumors are doing quite well on their own."
Bogo had started to voice a protest, but the prince consort had raised a paw, which seemed larger than ever with how thin his arms had become, and spoke again. His voice had been no louder, but there was steel in it. "Let me be clear, Captain General. If—if—someone is responsible for me falling ill, you are to do nothing without absolute proof. Nothing, do you understand? I don't want my legacy to be—"
Fernando had broken into a coughing fit at that point, but the point had been made. Although the prince consort had spent months too feeble to do much besides rest, he had never been stupid, and the tumors that burned his body from the inside out had not touched his mind. The city-state had been a spark away from civil war, all the various factions just waiting for an excuse to battle over old grudges in what the torcs would have made the bloodiest conflict ever fought. The prince consort was largely beloved by the populace, but there were the old families of sheep nobility who resented a jaguar joining the royal family and were likely entirely unappeased by Cencerro's appointment to the Queen's Council. So too were there the prey mammals who could trace their history back to the city-state's founding who thought putting a jaguar in a position of power was a step back towards the days of the emperors and their insatiable demands, and that was leaving aside the more opportunistic predator members of the nobility who were bitter about being overlooked when the queen married.
Similar fears were also, Bogo knew, why the prince consort had refused more radical treatment options; it was possible that the alchemists had been right and cutting out the tumors that had sprouted on his internal organs and in his bones before providing treatment with a complete philosopher's stone might have completely cured him. Then again, if he had died during the surgery public opinion might have turned against the Alchemist Guild. The blood magicians would have likely been happy to lead a whisper campaign against their traditional rivals by calling it deliberate murder, and the thought of the uneasy alliance between the two groups who controlled the very magic that kept Zootopia functioning failing was a sobering one indeed.
"I understand, my liege," Bogo had replied, and in that moment he had never hated politics more.
"Good," the prince consort had said, and he had slumped into his bed, not even his recent treatment enough to give him the strength to go on.
Bogo had turned to leave, considering himself dismissed, and to his surprise Fernando had spoken again. "If I am the victim of more than just poor luck," he said, "Whoever's responsible will go after Lana and Izzy, one way or another. Watch for that, Captain General."
Bogo had turned back to face the prince consort and nodded. "I promise, my liege."
Fernando had nodded weakly in return. "If that happens, Captain General, if someone is trying to claim power..." he said, his already feeble voice trailing off, "Find that mammal and dispose of them in whatever way keeps the peace."
His yellow eyes had been fever bright and his stare so intense that it entirely made up for his rail-thin and wasted appearance, as though he had reclaimed his former vigor through sheer force of will alone. Then his eyes had closed and his breathing had slowed, and Bogo had left the royal bedchamber as quietly as he could manage. It had been the last time he had ever spoken to the prince consort, who had taken a turn for the worse before finally dying, but even after six years Bogo had never forgotten the words. He had done his best to look into every mammal who was in or was moving towards the queen's inner circle; it had taken nearly a year for any male to dare bring up the possibility of the queen re-marrying, but Bogo privately suspected that she never would. The princess was another matter entirely, as she had no siblings, and mammals seemed to feel somewhat bolder in trying to extract an engagement in return for whatever concession the queen demanded.
Through it all Corazón had been a constant presence, and while he had never quite brought up his own son as a suitable match for the princess he had never failed to mention the cub or his achievements. Bogo considered the mammal standing before him, who had remained respectfully silent even as Bogo's own thoughts had drifted to the past, and spoke in a carefully neutral voice. "Worse than the day your wife died?"
Corazón had become a widower about two years ago, and while he had never made any move to suggest he had an interest in marrying the queen—or any other mammal, for that matter—it had not escaped Bogo's notice that the lion was perfectly positioned to do so. The queen trusted his judgement, no matter how soft-hearted it tended to be, and even the princess appreciated his input. If he took any offense at Bogo's implication, he gave no sign of it, his features resolving themselves into a somewhat rueful expression. "Not all political marriages are quite so blessed as that of our queen," he said, "We… tolerated each other."
Bogo grunted, somewhat surprised that Corazón would admit it so baldly, and he wondered if he had encountered an actual moment of genuine vulnerability from the council member. "We both loved our son, and that was enough," Corazón continued, with a slight shrug of his shoulders that was barely visible beneath his thickly embroidered clothes.
"Do you have any idea who might have tried assassinating the princess?" Bogo asked.
He had gotten sick of waiting for Corazón to get to whatever point it was he was building towards, and long experience had taught him that abruptly changing topics occasionally yielded results as the mammal being questioned found themselves caught off-guard. Corazón, however, was apparently a politician through and through, because he didn't seem so much as surprised at the question. "No idea whatsoever, I'm afraid," he said, and Bogo found himself surprised.
He had anticipated that the best cause scenario would have been for Corazón to stumble over his response, to give some indication that he knew more than he would willingly admit, and that the worst case scenario would be for the lion to simply name one or more of his political opponents as a possibility. Some of his surprise must have made it onto his face, because Corazón chuckled and clapped one enormous paw onto Bogo's shoulder. "If I named someone, and your investigation found it couldn't possibly be them, you would only suspect me more, Captain General, wouldn't you?" he said, and he was actually smiling, although there seemed to be something of a warning growl in his voice, "I can promise you I had nothing to do with the attempt, but beyond that… I suppose the question you ought to be asking is who has the most to gain from the princess's death. Are males who could take a wife really your only suspects?"
If the princess died, there would be no heir to the throne upon the queen's death, and the natural possibility was that the queen would be forced to marry and produce another heir. Then again, she might just as easily name someone as her chosen successor; it was a possibility that Bogo had not really considered as a motive until Corazón had implied it, thinking the likely motives to be either revenge or an effort to marry the queen. "They are not," Bogo said, and with one hoof he grabbed Corazón's paw and pulled it off his shoulder, "Thank you. I must be on my way."
"Of course," Corazón said, and gestured towards the door, "But if there is anything I can help you with, anything at all, you must let me know."
Bogo nodded brusquely and continued on his way, resolving to press Corazón further when he was finished with his present business.
The jail Bogo headed to was positioned well outside the grounds of the palace, and the almost palpable air of despair that it provided was all the more impressive because it had at one time been one of the grandest estates in all of Zootopia. Time and neglect had made the once finely engraved stone of the exterior crumble and become choked out by vines, and the grounds that had once been gardens had been completely leveled and left to nothing more than dirt. The estate itself was three stories tall, entirely made of thick stone blocks, and windows that had once been large and grand had been bricked up into narrow slits with heavy iron bars crossing them, weeping rust stains. The exterior wall that ran around the estate had been made even taller and a number of guard towers had been built, adding to the general impression of control.
As Bogo walked across the grounds, which were empty except for a miserable looking huddle of prisoners off in the distance under the keen eyes of several guards, he passed the only remaining sign of the estate's former owner. Near the entrance, looking rather forlorn on a crumbling marble plinth, was a statue. The statue was centuries old and so weathered that it was barely recognizable as a fox, but Oztoyehuatl the Betrayer's image was still there. Legend had it that the statue actually was Oztoyehuatl; the story went that as punishment for his treason, alchemists had transmuted his body to stone as slowly as they possibly could, somehow managing to leave him aware but incapable of movement. Sometimes, it was said, the statue would even cry tears of despair. Bogo considered it all nonsense, the sort of story mammals only told each other to frighten themselves. It seemed more likely that Oztoyehuatl's death had come from having his beating heart cut from his chest, as executions had been done in the old days, but the story had a value of its own. No one wanted to go to Oztoyehuatl's Jail, as it was commonly known, and only the worst of the city-state's criminals got sent to it. There were cells designed to nullify any alchemy a prisoner might attempt as well as the far more common and mundane cells built to be completely escape-proof.
Indeed, once Bogo had crossed what had formerly been the grand entrance of the estate, which had only worn marble floors as evidence of its former grandeur, he hit the first barrier to any potential escape. The formerly large and open grand entrance had been divided using walls made using alchemy that ran from floor to ceiling and met each other without so much as a gap; there weren't even doors. The same technique had been used on the highest security cells, which were built in featureless cubes of thick stone that had only the smallest of holes through them for air vents. There simply wasn't any way for a prisoner to escape as there were no holes large enough for them to get through.
Of course, prisoners did need to be fed, and that was where the alchemists on the staff came into play. They would use alchemy to break the perfectly smooth walls to create openings, as one did for Bogo to enter the hallway that led to the cell he was interested in. The alchemist, a deer wearing the rank of a lieutenant on her torc next to the ouroboros that marked her guild membership, fell into step behind him, making absolutely no attempt at conversation. It felt slightly claustrophobic to be walking down the stairs that led into what had been Oztoyehuatl's blood magic laboratories before they had been repurposed and expanded into dungeons and knowing that was no way out. The opening the doe made had been sealed behind Bogo, leaving him to the smooth stone tunnels lit only by the silvery glow of alchemical torches. He walked purposefully towards his destination, passing some of the more mundane cells shut only with heavy doors of thick iron bars, and could feel the eyes of the occupants of those cells upon him as he passed. None of the varied mammals called out, the only sounds remaining the echoing ring of his hooves and the guard's hooves against the polished and reflective stone floor; most of the prisoners seemed too exhausted to do more than sit up on rough cots. Bogo, however, felt no sympathy for them, and from the hard expression on the guard's face he doubted she did either. The mammals they passed were, he knew, all murderers who had taken advantage of the limitations of torcs, as the ones too foolish to work out a way to kill their victim without dying themselves were obviously dead. Some of them had been fiendishly clever, building elaborate and subtle traps that their victims had fallen prey to, and some of them less so, as torcs didn't work against poison. Lesser criminals, such as forgers and thieves, were housed in cells above ground that actually had windows, and they were afforded the privilege of leaving their cells for exercise. The murderers were left to their misery in their cells, which Bogo wasn't sure he considered a mercy the way the queen did; execution would have been kinder.
Still, as he moved deeper and deeper into the dungeons, he supposed that the mammal he was going to see deserved every bit of suffering that could fit into the remainder of his life. It was easily the most secure cell in the entire jail, hidden away behind multiple walls that the deer had to form openings through, and although the prisoner had never been known to use alchemy his cell had still been warded against it, just in case. The glowing array of arcane symbols made Bogo's fur tingle as he stepped over it, and then he was at last standing in front of the cell, nodding at his escort to seal the wall behind him until his conversation was over.
Under other circumstances, Bogo might have found the cell comically oversized; he himself would have been quite capable of fitting into the great cube of thick diamond marred only by the tiny air vents in its sides so small that a single hair would barely fit. A huge number of alchemical torches blazed in the walls of the room the diamond cube was in from just past the barrier that stopped alchemy, banishing all shadows from the cell, and there in the very center was the prisoner, a tiny shrew.
He was dressed in crude clothes of a dull gray, with a lead torc at his neck, and yet when he sat up on his minuscule cot and looked in Bogo's direction he held himself as though he were dressed in the same sort of finery as a noble. The little shrew's eyes were invisible beneath his bushy eyebrows, and he wasn't quite as plump as he had been when he had started his life sentence, but he was unmistakably the mammal who had variously called himself Tlatoani or Big. Bogo knew his real name, though, and he wouldn't give the notorious criminal the satisfaction of using one of his inflated titles. "Alfonso," Bogo said, looking down at the shrew; he wouldn't show him even the modicum of respect by bending down to get closer to the shrew's level, "We need to talk."
Author's Notes:
A macuahuitl is an unusual sort of weapon that consists of what looks a bit like a wooden cricket bat with pieces of obsidian set along its edge with gaps between them. Well-made macuahuitl used expertly seated and sharpened obsidian that were significantly sharper than even modern steel razor blades or scalpels. Macuahuitl were made in a variety of styles, much as swords are, from ones that could be wielded with one hand to ones that were about six feet (1.8 meters) long and required two hands to swing. Although there are no authentic macuahuitl from the Aztec-Spanish War left in existence (the oldest known macuahuitl is a 19th century replica), they were said to be so sharp that a skilled user could decapitate a horse with a single blow. Indeed, the macuahuitl had a number of traits that made it effective as a weapon; by striking with the edge or one of the flat sides, the user could use it to kill or to incapacitate. As Aztecs were frequently more concerned about gaining captives in battle than killing their opponents, this made it useful as a weapon that could first be used to injure and weaken an opponent (the gaps between the pieces of obsidian also helping to limit how much damage it did depending on how it was used) and then bludgeon them into submission.
Of course, all weapons have downsides, and macuahuitls are no exception. The pieces of obsidian could quickly chip or become dull while being used, and although an obsidian blade can hold a much sharper edge than a steel blade it is also much more brittle. This made the macuahuitl of limited utility against steel armor (except as a bludgeoning weapon), and the length and heft of the average macuahuitl meant that it was more suited for individual combat (which the Aztecs preferred) than for group tactics since it requires a fair amount of space around the user to avoid injuring allies.
Bogo's sabre is a less exotic weapon by Western standards, favored by European militaries from the 16th century through the 19th century. Sabres are effective blades for both slashing and thrusting, and while the modern sport of sabre fencing uses weapons that don't have very much in common with 16th century sabres the combination of slashing and stabbing attacks makes it unique compared to épée and foil fencing in which only stabbing attacks are valid. Personally, I prefer the épée of the modern types of European fencing, but the épée is a ridiculously specialized weapon at this point not really good for anything but dueling. Sabres, particularly those used in actual warfare, are pretty well designed to deal with unarmored or lightly armored opponents.
Considering Bogo's size and likely strength, he could probably easily wield an enormous macuahuitl with one arm, although as described I think it makes more sense for him to have a shorter more portable one. Rather than just being a matter of fitting on his belt, the City Guard presumably doesn't run into many scenarios where the captain general needs to cut an elephant in half with a single swing; I imagine macuahuitls would be used more for bludgeoning in this setting in much the same way a modern police officer might make use of a nightstick. The sabre is more ceremonial than anything else; during the Aztec-Spanish War, while the Spaniards used steel European swords, their native allies against the Aztecs were only allowed to use steel weapons with special permission, giving them prestige over macuahuitls.
Bogo's feathered cloak as an indicator of his rank is inspired by the real-world Mesoamerican tradition of working with feathers to create items of clothing, some of which were reserved for certain ranks of society. The feathers of the resplendent quetzal (a bird that certainly lives up to its name), for instance, were only permitted to be used for items made for the emperor or the gods.
Princess Isabel's father being a prince consort rather than a king suggests the type of royalty that this version of Zootopia practices, with the ruler being only the direct line descendent and not necessarily sharing that power with his or her spouse. This is currently the practice of the British royal family and is the reason why Queen Elizabeth's husband is Prince Philip rather than King Philip.
One of the things that I've tried to accomplish with this story, by having multiple viewpoint characters, is to show the difference in their perceptions. In the last chapter, Judy noted that there hasn't been a civil war for centuries and thinks that such a war couldn't happen due to the torcs. In this chapter, Bogo thinks that if the death of the prince consort was thought to be murder it could have very easily plunged the city-state into the bloodiest war it had ever seen due to the torcs. Their narration is colored by their own experiences and knowledge, and their opinions are going to be their own.
This chapter shows what I consider to be a fairly reasonable limitation of philosopher's stones, even of complete ones; they can't cure all forms of cancer. I figured that because of the way that cancer operates, which is essentially that defective cells reproduce uncontrollably, there's not always something for the stone to fix. Granted, the philosopher's stone might work in certain cases, because the body does have mechanisms to fight cancerous cells, but the prince consort was absolutely riddled with tumors. I imagine that his cancer had metastasized so severely that any treatment that didn't completely eliminate all of the tumors wouldn't be a true cure.
This chapter also indicates that torcs have their limitations, being unable to retaliate against poisoning and more elaborate means of murder that don't require one mammal to directly kill another. I figure that for just about any system there are ways around it, and this also shows that even if most murders don't require much police work, being essentially self-resolving, it's not as though the City Guard doesn't see any successful murders.
Whether Oztoyehuatl actually was transmuted into stone to become the statue in front of his former residence or if, as Bogo believes, it's simply a legend intended to frighten mammals, stories of statues that cry are not uncommon. There have been a number of statues, mostly of the Virgin Mary, that have been reported to shed tears, and the Catholic Church has investigated (and rejected) most of these claims as hoaxes. One occurrence, from 1953, was recognized by the church. In this setting, a world where supernatural powers follow understandable rules, it's not necessarily impossible.
The word "tlatoani" literally means "one who speaks" but less literally means "ruler." In the days of the Aztec empire, city-states were ruled by tlatoanis, who reported to the emperor. The shrew calling himself either Tlatoani or Big is, of course, this setting's version of Mr. Big, and my choice of the name Alfonso is inspired by the name I chose for his 1920s version in "…And All That Jazz," Alphonse Biggliani, which was in turn inspired by the notorious gangster Alphonse Capone. The next chapter from Bogo's perspective will go into his crimes, but next week it'll be back to Nick and Judy.
As always, thanks for reading! I'd love to hear what you thought.