Bogo knew he would never forget the first time he had met Maria. Before their marriage, she had been living in one of the more rundown neighborhoods of the Inner Baronies, barely scraping by even with three roommates and two jobs as she put herself through one of the city's most prestigious universities. He had been a freshly minted ensign in those days, so green it was a wonder he had been trusted to patrol the streets even with a partner. He had shown up to her apartment after a burglary had been reported, which wasn't unusual for that neighborhood. What had been unusual was that Maria had been sitting on top of the would-be thief, twisting his arm behind his back, and sporting a black eye induced by her torc that perfectly matched the one on that poor dingo's face. "It certainly took long enough for the City Guard to show up," had been the first words she had ever said to him.
He had been smitten instantly.
Maria had consumed his thoughts for the following week, his desire to speak with her again warring with the part of himself that said it wouldn't be proper to do so. His partner had gotten sick of it, telling him in a way that was only half-joking that he wasn't the first mammal to have ever fallen in love and he should get over himself. Still, when Maria had found him on one of his patrols and asked him out to dinner, that same partner had clapped Bogo on the shoulder and told him to never let her go.
What it all amounted to, in Bogo's mind, was that he knew what young love looked like. He knew how it felt to feel as though you had some incredible connection to another mammal that no one else did, to feel as though you could bear any suffering so long as you had them by your side. He knew how infatuation could give way to something deeper and more powerful that could last an entire lifetime no matter what came in the way.
What he didn't know was what Totchli saw in the fox.
There was no doubt in his mind that the two of them had been about to kiss when he walked in on them, and as the princess excitedly chatted with Totchli and marveled over her left arm Bogo let the words slide past his conscious mind and studied his newest captain carefully. It really was a remarkable bit of alchemy for someone who had never been apprenticed by the Alchemist Guild, and he wondered how Nicholas had achieved such mastery. The fox's face was a mask of polite interest, as if sitting across from the queen and the princess was an everyday occurrence. If Bogo's scrutiny bothered him, he didn't show it at all, and Bogo couldn't help but think ahead to the conversation they would have to have about Alfonso.
"—isn't that right, Lord Bogo?"
Bogo was suddenly jolted out of his own thoughts by the queen's words, and his head snapped up to her. He had completely missed the thread of whatever she had been saying until the mention of his own name brought him back to awareness, and he went with the only safe response. "Absolutely, your majesty."
"I'm sure Commandant Totchli will be happy to spend more time with you later," the queen said to her daughter, the words warm and gentle, "But I'm afraid now isn't the time."
From the way the princess's ears drooped slightly, blood rushing to fill them, Bogo thought the princess was more embarrassed than the mild rebuke deserved. But then, the princess was caught at a delicate time in the life of any mammal, no longer a child yet not quite an adult. There was no doubt in his mind that the princess was eager to prove herself worthy of those adult burdens, and similarly no doubt that her youth had largely been a lonely one. In retrospect, it was little wonder that she had latched onto a mammal that doubtlessly represented to the princess everything she wished to be herself. Brave, skilled, endlessly devoted to Zootopia... and a chimera on top of all that.
If only Totchli had better taste in her mates.
Bogo pushed the thought aside and repressed the urge to sigh; he'd be happy if the royal family—and Zootopia—was around long enough for the princess to start developing an interest in romance, even if that meant having her rebel against the idea of a political marriage. It was the sort of problem he would have happily traded for; dealing with a heartbroken or infatuated princess sounded far easier that the current mess he was in.
He realized with a start that everyone in the room was looking at him, and he coughed, internally cursing the way his thoughts increasingly seemed to wander away from him. "It will be some time before we know exactly how Diego Cencerro died," he began, "But alchemy seemed to be involved. Captain Nicholas, if you wouldn't mind sharing your observations?"
Clearly the queen had expected him to provide a report, and from the way she eased ever so slightly back into her chair to listen Bogo knew that he had taken the correct approach. As Bogo turned to look at the fox himself, he forced himself to pay attention to the words as well as the mammal speaking them; there was no telling what he might have missed about Totchli with his attention distracted. "I'm not sure how much Lord Bogo already told you, your majesties," he said smoothly, giving a brief and yet ever so polite glance in Bogo's direction; the fox was certainly a sharp one.
Bogo inclined his head a fraction of an inch in acknowledgement and continued, his words as honeyed as they had been before. Whatever else Bogo could say about the fox, he had to grudgingly admit he had a real talent for appearing sincere. "He was acting very odd, though. He acted like he didn't recognize Captain Totchli here and said she had to be a fake. He said the same about me, and we've known each other for years."
"Is that so?" the queen interjected, "How did you know him?"
Her tone betrayed nothing, but Bogo thought he saw the signs of great scrutiny in her eyes. "I've done alchemy contracts in Phoenix for years, your majesty," Captain Nicholas said, his response almost instant, "I've had to report into the City Guard outpost there before."
The queen simply nodded and rolled her hoof for him to continue. "Then he said something about seeing the bigger picture. There was kind of a popping noise and all the bones in his head turned to sand," Nicholas finished.
"That certainly sounds like alchemy," the queen observed, "And you were the only alchemist in the carriage?"
Nicholas simply smiled at her. Bogo got the idea it was far from the first time he had been questioned, and he obviously knew how to manage himself. A different mammal might already be cracking under the pressure of the implied threat that the queen represented, but at least outwardly the fox was the picture of calm confidence. Bogo knew the queen didn't seriously suspect him of wrongdoing, but was simply trying to get his measure, and it seemed that Nicholas was well aware of that. "Your majesty, he didn't do it!" Commandant Totchli suddenly blurted, horror etched into her features, "Tell her about—"
Bogo cleared his throat and the rabbit fell quiet. "I was the only alchemist in the carriage, yes," Nicholas said, sparing a quick glance at Totchli that Bogo supposed might have been meant to be reassuring, "But my theory is that Cencerro was either murdered or committed suicide with an artifact from Quimichpatlan Barony."
As the fox explained himself with a confident air, speaking of the things that had been pulled out of the ruins from beneath Phoenix and the need for a philosopher's stone to use them, Bogo spared a glance at the princess. She was watching the fox with an air of rapt interest, clearly fascinated by the idea of adventuring into dangerous ruins and recovering valuable treasures. Nicholas was, Bogo had to admit, an excellent story teller, and unlike most alchemists who seemed to delight in speaking on the subject in an incomprehensible manner he related his knowledge in rather simple terms.
"To summarize, then," the queen said once he had finished, "Either a master of the Alchemist Guild or someone with the wealth to buy a philosopher's stone supplied this artifact to Cencerro."
Her smile was tired. "I can see how this doesn't narrow your suspects down any, Lord Bogo," she said, and Bogo nodded.
"And your other plan has yet to produce any results," she continued.
Bogo wasn't sure whether he should be pleased about that or not. Trying to trick one of his three primary suspects into revealing their intents by giving them an opportunity to strike at the princess had yet to result in anything, and Bogo didn't know whether that meant that his plan had been seen through, they all really were innocent, or that an attack was yet to come. And in the meantime, his forces were advancing ever closer to Phoenix, their pace so rapid that it'd only be about another six or seven hours before they arrived.
"No, your majesty," he said.
The queen stood with the commanding air of having made a decision. "I will be very interested to see how Lady Cencerro reacts to the news of her cousin's death," she said, "As well as that of my other advisers. However, I believe this presents a unique opportunity."
"Your majesty?" Totchli asked.
Bogo thought he understood the direction the queen's thoughts were going. "Diego Cencerro is no longer able to contradict anything we might claim he said," Bogo said, and the queen nodded with a satisfied air.
"Perhaps one of them can be goaded into making a mistake," the queen said, "Lord Bogo, I would ask you to make arrangements for the two of us to speak with each of them individually."
"Mother—" the princess began, but the queen cut her off.
"I know you want to be involved, dear. I would much rather have you with me and your safety assured. But there is something rather important that only you can do, and you can't be with me to do it."
"Bait," the princess said, lowering her head, "You need me to be bait."
Commandant Totchli looked shocked. Captain Nicholas had something in his eyes, although Bogo couldn't say what it was. Surprise, perhaps, or maybe disapproval. "I am afraid so, my dear," the queen said, "But you will not be alone in your carriage this time. Commandant Totchli and Captain Nicholas will be your personal guards."
The princess seemed caught between surprise and delight and a certain adolescent sulkiness at being sent away. The reactions of the fox and the rabbit were far less ambiguous; Totchli's entire body went rigid, her ears going upright, and even Nicholas shifted in his chair, his eyes widening.
Bogo was sure his own reaction at the queen's decision was just as easy for her to read, because she inclined her head slightly in his direction. "They have proven their loyalty more than any of your other guards," she said, "I should not like to take any chances."
Bogo bit back the argument he wished to make and simply nodded. "As you command, your majesty," he said.
The queen embraced her daughter, murmuring a goodbye in her ear, and then dismissed her and her two new guards. Once he was alone in his carriage with the queen, she turned back to him. "Say it, Lord Bogo," she said, "I know you don't approve."
"With respect, your majesty, you are placing an extraordinary amount of trust in the two of them," he said, "Trust that may not be earned."
The queen sighed, and when she sank back down into her chair it seemed as though the weight of the world was on her shoulders. "I don't trust either of them, not fully," she said, "And that's exactly why I sent them off with my daughter."
"Your majesty?" Bogo asked.
"I've given them the perfect opportunity to attempt something, should they be involved," she said, "And I made sure they're aware of my suspicions of my advisers. They have enough information, in other words, to believe they could succeed, but not enough to know of your own precautions when it comes to the guards outside my daughter's carriage."
Bogo sat back down himself, the true importance of the queen's words sinking in. "You believe that they might try killing your daughter and you're putting them all together despite that," he said.
The queen looked up at Bogo, her eyes full of anguish. "Does that make me a bad mother, Lord Bogo? I'm gambling with my daughter's life with little more than my impression of those two to go on."
"If it was my daughter, I would not have done it," Bogo said bluntly.
The queen seemed to sag further in her chair, and she favored Bogo with a weak smile. "There are times—very rarely, but there are times—when I don't appreciate your honesty, Lord Bogo," she said at last.
"If you always did as I recommended, you wouldn't be queen," Bogo said.
Her smile became a touch more genuine at his words. "Which I suppose is your way of saying that you'll support my decisions even when you disagree with them," she said.
"It is my duty, your majesty," Bogo replied, and for the queen he made an effort to try putting some kind of warmth into the words.
It was the simple truth that he didn't agree with her plan. He didn't trust Nicholas anywhere near enough to be comfortable with him near the princess; he had hoped to use his power as the head of the fox's chain of command to keep him on a tight leash, where he could be carefully supervised rather than enjoying the freedom of a civilian. Instead, the queen had decided to trust what seemed like her gut feeling based on little more than his report to her and a few minutes of talking with Nicholas directly. But he had raised his concerns and she had rejected them; all that there was left to do was to ensure that he did his best in seeing her will carried out. There was, however, one more objection he felt it was his duty to raise.
"The princess seemed to be enjoying the company of Commandant Totchli," Bogo said, "She may tell Totchli about the additional security arrangements."
"She won't," the queen said, "I warned her not to when I said goodbye."
Bogo nodded, and the tightness in his gut seemed to loosen a little. Not much, but some. "Then I suppose we can move on, your majesty," he said, and the queen nodded, wordlessly accepting his desire to move on to the next topic they had to discuss.
"The order we speak to them in concerns me," she said, smoothly transitioning to the question of her advisers, "If they're aware that we've already spoken to another one of them, the trap will be obvious."
"There are ways around that," Bogo began, but the queen cut him off.
"There are, but none of them are certain to work," she said firmly, "The only certainty is that whoever we speak with first will have no way of knowing our intentions. The second and third mammal we speak with may. Therefore, what it comes down to is this: of my three advisers, who do you think is the most likely to be guilty?"
It was a question that Bogo had considered at length, and now he considered it again. Lady Cencerro had the obvious connection to Diego Cencerro, as they shared a blood relation. It didn't seem so difficult to believe that, if any mammal could convince the former lieutenant colonel to go along with a treasonous scheme it would be his own relative. Conversely, the connection was so obvious that it seemed almost like the sort of thing someone else might have done for its potential to frame the ewe. After all, her cousin being guilty of treason would call Lady Cencerro's own loyalties into question, and even if she was completely exonerated of being involved, the taint of it would stick to her, perhaps for the rest of her life. The lesser nobles of the court would likely keep their distance for years, unwilling to go along with her plans and proposals out of the simple fear of guilt by association. After all, if it came out months or years after the fact that Lady Cencerro had been involved, their own positions would be seriously jeopardized.
It was the sort of move that didn't seem beneath Lord Corazón; he seemed practically to ooze false sincerity, and Bogo had never known how much of his political grandstanding was genuine belief and how much of it was simply his efforts to amass power. If the lion had been involved, deftly shifting suspicion onto his sometime ally and sometime rival seemed exactly the sort of calculated maneuver he would make. But then there was the matter of Jaime of Tecuani Barony, the prince consort's younger brother and one of the would-be assassins of the princess. Lord Corazón had been one of the prince consort's greatest friends and supporters before his tragic death, and the two predators had that apparent shared love in common. Certainly it seemed possible for them to have started scheming together in that regard, even if Jaime's apparent hatred of the princess as a half-breed freak didn't seem to align with Corazón's public persona. The lion's championing of the cause of greater privileges and rights for all the citizens of the kingdom wasn't limited merely to smaller mammals; he had also touched upon the subject of the treatment of chimeras. But that just led right back around into Bogo's suspicions of Corazón's sincerity; it wasn't as though Bogo knew Corazón's heart.
Last of all the advisers, though, was Cerdo. The pig had been the first to challenge Bogo's desire for more officers immediately before the attacks on the princess started, but he had also been the first to volunteer his own trained soldiers to add to the City Guard's strength. He was frequently in conflict with Cencerro and Corazón both, compared to how the lion and the sheep occasionally worked together, which did throw some suspicion on him. Unless, of course, Cencerro and Corazón were working together. But for all his pomposity, the pig was also capable of seemingly genuine moments of admitting his mistakes and exposing his vulnerabilities, much as Totchli had. Cerdo had freely admitted he had been wrong to oppose Bogo's request for additional officers, and the spectacularly poor timing of it did lend some credence to the idea that he wasn't involved. So too had he been the only one of the queen's council to admit to his cowardice when Jaime had made a second attack on the princess, cowering in fear for his own life rather than trying to save the royal family. He had missed the opportunity to play hero, as Cencerro had when her troops had captured Jaime in the first place, and if he was trying to draw suspicion away from himself he was doing so in a way that was ruinous to his own political aspirations.
Sifting through it all, though, there was one name that seemed to bubble to the top of Bogo's mind.
"Corazón," Bogo said at last, "We'll start with Corazón."
Author's Notes:
I don't have too much to add in terms of author's notes for this chapter. Considering the length of this story and how long ago some events happened in terms of when chapters were posted, I figured it was worthwhile to include something of a recap of what Bogo found suspicious about each of the queen's advisers as he works to trap them.
I did, however, have the opportunity to work in something of a minor pun that took some setup; as mentioning when Corazón first appeared, the word "Corazón" is Spanish for "heart" and thus "Corazón's heart" is a weak play on words.
As always, thanks for reading! If you're so inclined as to leave a comment, I'd love to know what you thought.