by Pierre Pevel
One after another, all the city’s bells tolled as a great shadow passed with slow, powerful beats of its wings and settled on the keep of Le Châtelet. In a cell grown suddenly dark, La Fargue turned towards the window …
… and froze when he saw the enormous jaws opening to reveal the infernal glow deep within.
Almades reacted immediately.
With a single bound, he shoved a dazed La Fargue out of the cell and slammed the door shut behind him. The old captain nearly stumbled down the stairs before he caught himself.
‘No!’ he cried, spinning round as he heard Almades rap three times in quick succession on the closed door.
But the dragon was already belching its flames. The door exploded, blasted apart by a raging firestorm. A burning shockwave slammed into La Fargue, accompanied by a hail of wooden splinters. Propelled backwards, he rolled down the steps and lay stunned by a blow to the head. But the fall saved his life. Almades had known, in a fraction of a second, that there wasn’t time for them both to leave the cell and still close the door.
Neither he nor the Alchemist survived.
Of their bodies, only scattered ashes and a few bones remained. Although the Alchemist was a dragon, in human form he had been no more resistant to the blast than any common mortal. With its task complete, the great black dragon had flown off, and one by one, the bells of Paris had ceased to toll …
As he always did, La Fargue made a rapid recovery, like a knotty old oak that only lightning could kill. He had suffered a few bruises and superficial wounds, and the doctors assured him that his eye would heal. But the pain he felt lay elsewhere, in his grief and anger, in the frustration born of impotence, and in the guilt of having survived through the sacrifice of another man.
Raising his head, La Fargue drew a deep breath.
He paused, and then turned to Saint-Lucq. His eye patch gave him an even greater air of a rough gentleman hardened by battle, but his gaze was weary.
‘Still no news of Agnès?’ he asked.
‘None. Nor of Ballardieu.’
‘I’m starting to worry.’
‘Yes,’ the half-blood agreed impassively.
The captain of the Blades looked down once more at Almades’ grave. He remained lost in his thoughts, until his attention was drawn by a dragonnet speeding through the air above the cemetery. The little winged creatures were rarely seen at large now, as Parisians had recently begun to shoot them with slingshots, crossbows and arquebuses. Traps were set and people made sport of tormenting them, in lieu of their more distant, powerful cousins.
‘We’d best be getting back,’ said La Fargue, donning his hat.
The Hôtel de l’Épervier was a very austere and rather uncomfortable mansion which a Huguenot gentleman had commissioned after the Saint-Barthélemy massacre. It stood on rue Saint-Guillaume, in the faubourg Saint-Germain, not far from the large La Charité hospital. Built of grey stone, it had the unwelcoming look of a fortified manor. A high wall cut its courtyard off from the street. Flanked by a turret and a dovecote, the main building comprised a ground floor reached by a short flight of steps, two storeys with stone-mullioned windows, and an attic with a row of small dormer windows set in the slate roof. It was not an immense house, but it was efficiently arranged. The Blades had made it their headquarters, with a staff consisting of an old concierge, a young female cook and a former soldier who served as a groom.
Upon arriving at the Hôtel de l’Épervier, La Fargue, Saint-Lucq and Laincourt found the great carriage gate open and a coach standing in the courtyard. It had a superb team of horses and the coachman waiting on his seat was clean, freshly shaved and well dressed. Prestigious coats-of-arms were painted on the coach’s doors.
‘The marquis’ carriage,’ noted Saint-Lucq.
The captain nodded.
An old man was already descending the front steps as quickly as age and his wooden leg would permit. Small and thin, he had bushy eyebrows and a crown of long dirty blond hair circling his bald pate. It was Guibot, the concierge. He wore buckled shoes, a pair of dubious-looking stockings, breeches made of coarse cloth, and a shirt of yellowed linen beneath a long, sleeveless vest. Looking anxious, he tried to speak, but La Fargue cut him short.
‘Give me a moment, would you?’
Just returning from the Palais-Cardinal, Marciac entered the courtyard on horseback. He leapt from the saddle and, holding the reins in one hand, he removed a sealed letter from his doublet with the other and brandished it in the air.
La Fargue seized it.
‘Good news?’ he asked.
‘An audience,’ the Gascon replied.
‘At last!’
Marciac watched as the captain broke the wax seal and opened the letter. He wore a satisfied expression, but his features were drawn, his cheeks were unshaven and his hair was in disarray. His clothes were also rather unkempt, as was usually the case with him, although today he had the excuse of having spent part of the night up and about. He was dressed in a blood-red doublet, matching breeches covered in dust, a shirt with its collar hanging wide open, and a pair of worn boots. Blond, attractive, with the eye of a seducer and a roguish smile, he wore his sword with a casual grace.
‘No doubt we owe this hearing to dear old Charpentier,’ he explained. ‘I think he took pity on us. That, or he’s fed up with seeing one of us hanging about the Narrow Gallery, day and night.’
Within the Palais-Cardinal, the Narrow Gallery was a dimly lit corridor, furnished with a pair of benches facing one another between two doors, where those Cardinal Richelieu could not receive officially were forced to wait. Over the past few days Marciac, Laincourt and Saint-Lucq had each spent long hours sitting there.
‘The Cardinal will receive me at ten o’clock,’ La Fargue announced as he refolded the letter.
That did not leave him much time.
‘Go and freshen up,’ he said to Marciac. ‘And get some rest.’
Then he turned towards Guibot.
‘Where is he waiting for me?’
‘In the main hall,’ replied the concierge.
‘Good. Thank you.’
‘Captain?’ ventured Laincourt as La Fargue was starting up the front steps.
‘Yes?’
‘Will you be needing me right away?’
La Fargue frowned for a moment.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘I haven’t been home for several days now, captain.’
It was true, but Laincourt really wanted to see his friend Bertaud and Bertaud’s daughter, Clotilde. Jules Bertaud was a bookseller in his neighbourhood. Laincourt was always made welcome at his shop and, even if he remained oblivious to the feelings which sweet, young Clotilde had for him, he knew that both father and daughter worried if he went too long without paying a visit.
‘Very well. But be here when I return from the Palais-Cardinal. God only knows what will come out of my interview with His Eminence. Is that understood?’
‘Thank you, captain.’
As Laincourt went on his way and Marciac made a detour to the kitchen, La Fargue and Saint-Lucq entered the main building.
All residences of a certain social standing had at least one room large enough to hold a reception. It was called the hall, the other rooms being known as chambers and not having any specific purpose. The Hôtel de l’Épervier had such a hall, but the Blades had converted it into a fencing room where they trained, and as the place where they gathered together when they could not use the garden.
As Guibot had already informed them, the marquis d’Aubremont was waiting there. Like La Fargue, he was about sixty years of age, and was an elegant grey-haired gentleman with a dignified air, who still wielded a sword confidently and had an unwavering gaze.
When the Blades’ captain entered, the two men exchanged greetings and, without further ado, La Fargue said:
‘Welcome. I must tell you that the cardinal has just granted me an interview, for which I have been waiting some t
ime now. I’m sincerely sorry about this, but I can only spare you a moment.’
He pointed his friend to an armchair, took another himself, and they sat facing one another in the sunlight from a window looking out over the garden.
‘You needn’t apologise,’ replied the marquis. ‘I did not take the trouble to warn you of my visit.’
La Fargue and d’Aubremont were not only friends, but also brothers-in arms. They had fought together during the civil and religious war that had ravaged France, and helped Henri IV seize his throne. They had since drifted apart. Unlike La Fargue, the marquis had a name, a title, lands and a fortune to look after. All the same, their friendship had remained intact.
In the large, silent fencing room, d’Aubremont leaned forward and La Fargue did likewise, as the marquis said in a low tone of voice:
‘You will have guessed what has brought me here, Étienne. But before I say anything else, I would like to offer my condolences. I’m afraid I received your letter announcing Almades’ death too late, and I regret not having attended his funeral.’
‘Thank you.’
‘He was a brave man. A man of integrity.’
‘He saved my life. If not for him—’
‘What happened, exactly? Is it true, what they are saying?’
The captain of the Blades nodded sadly.
‘Le Châtelet was attacked by a great black dragon,’ he explained.
‘In broad daylight? Completely out of the blue?’
‘Yes. It came to destroy the Alchemist. It was only by chance that Almades and I happened to be there.’
‘So the Alchemist is to blame for this death as well?’
La Fargue understood what his friend was trying to say and met his sorrowful gaze.
‘Yes. In a manner of speaking.’
The Alchemist of the Shadows. He had been the Black Claw’s agent and an old adversary of the Blades. Five years earlier, in 1628, when the town of La Rochelle was besieged by the French royal armies, La Fargue had believed they were on the point of eliminating him, but the operation had become a terrible fiasco during which a Blade had lost his life. A young gentleman named Bretteville, the marquis’ eldest son. D’Aubremont mourned him deeply but had never said a word of reproach to La Fargue who, for his part, was keenly aware of his responsibility for the young Blade’s death.
There was a knock at the door and fair-haired Naïs, no doubt sent by Guibot, came in bearing a bottle and two glasses upon a tray. Sweet and self-effacing, she moved silently, her eyes lowered, as if she feared being noticed. She left almost immediately and La Fargue poured the wine. As brief and as discreet as it had been, the servant girl’s interruption had brought the two men back to the present.
And to the reason for the marquis’ visit.
‘Have you discovered anything about François?’ he asked.
Recently, d’Aubremont had requested the Blades’ assistance in the matter of his second son, the chevalier d’Ombreuse. He served with the Black Guards of the Sisters of Saint Georges, the religious order that had defended France and the crown against the dragons for the past two centuries. The Black Guards were charged with protecting the Chatelaines whenever they weren’t carrying out secret missions or military operations. But the chevalier d’Ombreuse seemed to have disappeared following a mysterious expedition to Alsace, and his father was desperate for news of him. So far all of his enquiries to the Chatelaines, as the Sisters of Saint Georges were commonly called, had been in vain.
‘It’s always the same closed doors, the same silences, and the same damned lies,’ declared the marquis. ‘I know they’re lying to me. Or, at least, they’re hiding something … But don’t I have the right to know what has happened to François?’
La Fargue had agreed his friend had the right, as had Agnès. She was the one person who could help d’Aubremont, having once been on the point of taking her vows with the Chatelaines. She had reluctantly agreed to renew contact with the community which, except for a few friends, had left her with bitter memories.
‘Agnès had a meeting with Mère Emmanuelle de Cernay,’ explained La Fargue as he poured another glass of wine for the marquis.
‘The former Mother Superior General of the Sisters of Saint Georges,’ d’Aubremont said in a hopeful tone. ‘And so?’
‘Mère Emmanuelle could shed little light on our affair. But as discreet as she was, the visit that Agnès paid her had an almost immediate effect: she provoked the interest and perhaps even some anxiety on the part of the present Mother Superior General, Mère Thérèse de Vaussambre.’
‘And what happened?’
‘You are aware that the queen detests the Chatelaines so much that she deliberately makes matters difficult for the sisters within her entourage, who are charged with ensuring her safety. Using this information, the Mother Superior General persuaded the Cardinal to assign Agnès to the queen’s service: as Agnès had been initiated into certain secrets of the Order during her novitiate, she would be able to protect the queen. As she is not one of the Chatelaines, she could do so without arousing her mistrust. And in order to lend a note of urgency to the Superior General’s argument, the head of the Chatelaines claimed there was an increased threat to the queen, justifying extra precautions.
‘But this threat was actually merely a means of preventing the baronne de Vaudreuil from investigating further.’
‘No doubt,’ said La Fargue.
Privately, he thought, however, that Mère Thérèse de Vaussambre may have been killing two birds with one stone. Of course, by assigning Agnès to the service of Anne d’Autriche, she could keep Agnès away from other sensitive matters. But subsequent events demonstrated that the queen had indeed been facing a grave threat. Had the Superior General got wind of the plot that the Blades had thwarted in the days that followed?
‘Be that as it may,’ resumed the captain of the Blades, ‘Agnès was very speedily admitted into the regular household of Her Majesty. Later, however, at the end of a course of events about which I’m afraid I can say nothing, Agnès received a letter from Mère Emmanuelle. I don’t know what the letter said, but Agnès left immediately, escorted by Ballardieu. That was a week ago, and we’ve had no news of them since.’
‘What?’ exclaimed d’Aubremont.
‘After François, now Agnès and Ballardieu have disappeared. Given the circumstances, I can scarcely believe it is a coincidence.’
In the modest room that he rented on rue Cocatrix, Antoine Leprat, the chevalier d’Orgueil, examined his reflection in the cheval glass that the tailor and his apprentice had left, at Leprat’s request, after his last fitting. The tailor had agreed politely, with a smile that failed to mask his unease.
So Leprat had hastened to reassure him:
‘You can send someone to fetch your mirror in an hour. I simply want to make sure that no further alterations are needed.’
He was lying.
Leprat was not a vain man, and he had no doubts about the cut or about the quality of the clothes he had ordered: the doublet and breeches suited him perfectly, and the shade of grey the tailor had recommended was both elegant and discreet. But as soon as he was alone, he put on a cape that he kept in a chest. Then, not without some apprehension, he turned towards his own reflection.
It was an old blue cape, with a white cross and silver braiding, which had been carefully washed and pressed. The cape of the King’s Musketeers.
Standing gloved and booted in this small room that was already growing quite warm, his famous white rapier at his side, Leprat needed to reassure himself that the musketeer’s uniform did not look incongruous upon his shoulders.
Not in his eyes, at least.
For being one of the King’s Musketeers was no small thing. Led by the comte de Tréville, the company formed part of the king’s military household. They were an elite body of gentlemen, all of whom had proved their quality through some bold action or several years of service in another corps. One did not become a King’s Musk
eteer through favouritism. It was an honour that was earned, and even then, one had to go on proving oneself worthy of wearing the coveted cape.
The chevalier d’Orgueil adjusted his.
Admitted to the Musketeers shortly after his twentieth birthday, he had distinguished himself in their ranks before he was recruited by La Fargue. But then the La Rochelle fiasco occurred, with the death of Bretteville and the inglorious disbanding of the Blades, sacrificed by Cardinal Richelieu on the altar of political expediency. Leprat had returned to the Musketeers and had served five more years there, until La Fargue re-formed the Blades and recalled him. He had accepted out of a sense of duty, but during his latest mission he had been forced to make intolerable moral compromises. And since Tréville had sworn, many times, that the door would always be open for him …
Leprat took a deep breath, straightened up and gave his reflection a determined look. After long deliberations he was left with one conviction, one which held no appeal for him: he had lost faith in La Fargue’s methods and would never again be a Cardinal’s Blade.
La Fargue accompanied the marquis d’Aubremont back to his coach, then watched as the team passed through the carriage gate and turned into the narrow rue Saint-Guillaume.
Saint-Lucq joined him.
‘What did you tell him?’ asked the half-blood.
‘The truth,’ replied La Fargue as he walked towards the stable.
Saint-Lucq followed him.
‘And?’
‘And then I had to dissuade him from appealing directly to the king.’
In the warm dimness of the stable, André was already saddling two horses for them. They waited for him to finish.
‘The marquis has a name, a title and a fortune,’ said the half-blood, cleaning the red lenses of his spectacles with a handkerchief. ‘He is a knight of the Order of Saint-Michel and the king honours him with his trust. Since this concerns his son, why hasn’t he appealed to His Majesty before now?’
