by Pierre Pevel
‘Naïs has turned in her apron,’ he said tonelessly. ‘André was seriously burned while saving the horses. And Guibot is dead, and buried somewhere underneath this rubble.’
The louve crossed herself.
‘Paris is saved,’ she said. ‘Order will soon be restored in the city and we’ll rebuild.’
‘But the dead won’t come back to life, will they?’
Agnès did not reply.
A silence settled over them.
La Fargue had not washed or changed his clothes since the night’s battle. His clothing was encrusted with dirt and blood, and his face was smudged with soot. His head was bare and his wrinkles had deepened.
‘What have you come to tell me, Agnès?’ he asked.
‘The truth. You deserve to know. The Blades have paid a heavy enough price for it …’
‘I’m listening.’
‘The Arcana’s Grand Design was to seat a dragon on the throne of France. A dragon who would be born to the queen, thanks to a draconic seed planted within her, without her knowledge. They did it when she still the infanta of Spain, after she was promised to Louis XIII.’
‘A draconic seed?’
‘Her physician was a member of the Arcana. When she manifested the initial symptoms of the ranse, he performed various rituals which saved her. But he also used the opportunity to ensure that any children she carried would be transformed, becoming dragons.’
‘This member of the Arcana, it was the Heresiarch.’
‘Yes.’
‘But weren’t the Chatelaines supposed to prevent such things from happening? And besides, didn’t they subject the queen to tests? Such scrupulous ones that she still nurses an enduring grudge against them?’
‘Yes, indeed. But they failed to detect this seed, and when they finally realised their error, it was too late. They could not acknowledge their mistake without discrediting themselves. And what a scandal it would have created! What an insult to Spain! What a humiliation for France! It was lucky that the queen had not yet given birth to a child.’
‘So the Chatelaines kept silent. And what else did they do, other than protect their secret?’
‘Whatever they could …’
La Fargue frowned and then he understood.
‘They encouraged the king’s disenchantment with the queen?’
‘They provoked it with certain powders.’
‘And the queen’s miscarriages?’
‘Those children’s births had to be prevented at all costs, captain. And each time, when they were examined, they revealed that the draconic transformation had begun …’
‘The king, the queen, the cardinal, none of them know of this?’
‘The cardinal knows.’
La Fargue kept silent, thinking, considering certain mysteries in a new light. Such as the fertility ritual the Alchemist had wanted the queen to undergo, no doubt to counter the Chatelaines’ manoeuvres and allow her to give birth to a child. And the assassination of Henri IV, which La Donna had told him was the Arcana’s work: unlike his wife, the good king Henri had firmly opposed a marriage between his son and the infanta …
‘And now?’ asked the captain of the Blades. ‘The Chatelaines can’t deprive France of an heir forever … Are you going to bring about the repudiation of the queen?’
Agnès hesitated.
‘We will find a solution. Perhaps we will have to be content with second-best.’
Second-best? La Fargue wondered.
Only to realise that he couldn’t care less what their second-best solution was. There was almost nothing he could care about now … except, beneath his shirt, the leather wallet Pontevedra had given him. It contained documents about his daughter’s disappearance who, to regain her freedom, had escaped the Guardians’ surveillance and fled.
La Fargue had sworn to find her again.
‘I have decided to move Ballardieu’s body,’ announced Agnès suddenly. ‘I will dig him a grave at Vaudreuil, at the bottom of the garden, under a tree by the river. He liked to rest there.’
‘That would please him,’ said the captain. A memory came back to him. ‘One day, when Ballardieu had been drinking …’
‘Yes,’ said the young woman ironically, but giving a sad smile. ‘I remember that day …’
‘One day, when he had been drinking,’ continued La Fargue, ‘Ballardieu told me he had spent the happiest years of his life at Vaudreuil, with you. Indeed, he made no mystery of the fact.’
Sœur Marie-Agnès de Vaudreuil nodded.
With a heavy heart and tears in her eyes, she turned to leave, leading her horse by the bridle.
‘Goodbye, Agnès.’
‘Goodbye, captain.’
The Gentleman and the Enchantress watched Paris from the heights of the village of Montmartre, seated on horseback and draped in large cloaks that protected them from the rain. Flames still danced here and there in the city, but mostly they could see thick columns of black smoke rising toward the low sky. After the riots, order had still not been completely restored in the capital. Refusing to lay down their weapons, the renegade dracs had built barricades which companies of the Gardes-Françaises were seizing and dismantling one by one. Drac corpses hung from every gallows in the city. And it would be unwise for those dracs remaining to leave Les Écailles for quite some time …
‘Will we ever come back?’ asked the Enchantress.
‘I am sure of it.’
Laincourt brought Clotilde back home but did not stay to watch her tearful reunion with her father. As soon as the girl found refuge in her father’s arms, he withdrew.
You’ll miss them, won’t you? said the hurdy-gurdy player walking beside of the young man.
Yes.
You can always write to them.
It would be best if they forgot all about me.
And me?
I know you’re never going to leave me.
Having found La Donna and Valombre safe and sound, Marciac went to rue Grenouillère. A few houses had burned there and Gabrielle, with her frogs, was helping the owners recover anything that could be salvaged from the rubble.
Gabrielle abandoned her task when she saw the Gascon approaching. Smiling and almost crying, she walked towards him, then hurried and ran to throw herself in his arms, before breaking into gentle sobs.
‘I love you,’ she murmured, embracing him with all her might. ‘Oh, how I love you …’
He smiled, exhausted but happy, and breathed in the fragrance of her hair.
‘Tell me again about this estate in Touraine,’ he said. ‘And tell me again about this child you are carrying. I want to know what my life is going to be like.’
The next day the king returned to Paris by coach, so that he could show himself to his people and reassure them. On the way he asked:
‘What was the name of that captain again?’
‘La Fargue, Sire,’ replied Cardinal Richelieu.
‘We will have to reward him one day, won’t we?’
‘Yes, Sire.’
‘La Fargue … La Fargue … I recall that my father had a great esteem and friendship for a La Fargue …’
‘They are one and the same, Sire.’
And as the king said nothing more the cardinal imitated him, while reflecting on the ingratitude of princes.
Searching for his daughter, La Fargue, alone and penniless, embarked at Dieppe on 27 September 1633 aboard La Bienfaisance, bound for La Nouvelle-France. The adventures and events that marked his life in America remain to be told.
Marciac lived happily with Gabrielle until his heart failed him during a game of cards. He was seventy-nine years old and was teaching his granddaughter how to cheat.
A viewing was organised for Leprat at monsieur de Tréville’s mansion in rue du Vieux-Colombier. For three days and three nights the King’s Musketeers watched over his mortal remains. He was buried with full honours and still lies in his family’s tomb at the Château d’Orgueil.
Laincourt disappe
ared on the road to Lorraine, and was never heard of again.
Nor was any more ever heard of Saint-Lucq.
As for Agnès …
4
On 5 September 1638, at the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Anne d’Autriche gave birth to twin boys in secret … twins who could in no way be considered identical.
Mère de Vaudreuil was immediately consulted.
‘Which one?’ asked Louis XIII, looking down at the two newborn babies in their swaddling clothes.
‘This one,’ replied the White Wolves’ mother superior.
‘I want him to live!’ cried the queen from her bed. ‘I will bear the sorrow of his being torn from me, but he must live!’ she insisted between sobs.
‘Madame, I have promised you this,’ said the king gravely.
Shortly after, Mère de Vaudreuil galloped away into the night carrying the child.
And so the Masque de Fer was born …
Also by Pierre Pevel from Gollancz:
The Cardinal’s Blades
The Alchemist in the Shadows
Copyright
A Gollancz eBook
Original text copyright © Pierre Pevel/Editions Bragelonne 2011
English translation copyright © Tom Clegg/Editions Bragelonne 2011
Map copyright © Pierre Pevel/Editions Bragelonne 2009
All rights reserved.
The right of Pierre Pevel to be identified as the author of this work and of Tom Clegg to be identified as the translator of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in Great Britain in 2011 by
Gollancz
The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
Orion House
5 Upper Saint Martin’s Lane
London, WC2H 9EA
An Hachette UK Company
This eBook first published in 2011 by Gollancz.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978 0 575 10795 3
All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
www.orionbooks.co.uk
