Dragon Arcana

by Pierre Pevel

  And rightly so.

  For if this went wrong, then although he himself would not be spared, others would be the first to pay the price.

  Night was falling as they landed nimbly at the foot of the wall. Saint-Lucq went first, followed by Laincourt and Marciac, the latter coiling the rope and hooking the grapple onto his belt after they had climbed the high crenelated barrier. They were in the main garden of the Enclos du Temple. With a gloved finger, the half-blood pointed to the three sentries who were patrolling the grounds, muskets on their shoulders, then indicated the door set in the inner wall, which they needed to pass to reach the Grande Tour. Laincourt and Marciac nodded.

  Thanks to his dragon eyes, Saint-Lucq could see better than the others in the dark. He went first. Bent over, they reached the door in long silent strides, hugging first the outer wall, then the inner one. They huddled for a moment behind a hedge, holding their breath, but the sentry passed without spotting them, his regular steps gradually moving away from them. The door was locked, as they had anticipated, so while Saint-Lucq kept watch, Laincourt brought forth some fine tools in a leather case and, with Marciac looking on in admiration, he proceeded to attack the lock. It soon gave way. The three passed through and hurriedly shut the door behind them: another guard was approaching.

  The Grande Tour du Temple was a solid square keep, flanked by round turrets at each corner, and measuring fifty metres tall. The structure was capped by a pyramidal roof surrounded by a terrace walkway. More slender and lower in height, a secondary building – the Petite Tour – was attached to the northern façade. To enter the Grande Tour it was first necessary to cross the ground floor of the Petite, where two members of the Black Guards were standing watch by the door.

  The guards were quite astonished to see Marciac coming towards them, and especially to see him smiling as if it were the most natural thing in the world. This momentary distraction sufficed, before both guards felt the barrel of a pistol pressed to their temples, one to the right and the other to the left. As Saint-Lucq and Laincourt held them at gunpoint the Gascon disarmed them, throwing their swords and muskets aside, but keeping their pistols.

  ‘If you call out, who will answer?’

  ‘The porter.’

  ‘Then call him.’

  The man shook his head.

  ‘Please,’ Marciac insisted, jamming the the barrel of the guard’s own pistol into the man’s nostril, to painful effect.

  Standing on tiptoe, the guard rapped three times on the door.

  After few seconds, someone asked:

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s me,’ replied the guard. ‘Louvet. Open up.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Open up!’

  The door opened a fraction and Marciac forced his way through, quickly subduing the porter while Saint-Luc and Marciac followed, shoving the two guards before them. The ground floor of the Petite Tour was dark and silent. Frightened, the porter was eager to tell them that the prisoner who had arrived earlier that day could be found in the basement of the Grande Tour. He went on to explain that she had been treated very well, but that did not save him from being knocked unconscious with a pistol butt. As soon as they were securely bound and gagged, the two guards were subjected to a similar fate.

  ‘And now?’ Laincourt enquired.

  Marciac gave him the pistols taken from the enemy and instructed him:

  ‘You guard the door. We’ll go find Agnès.’

  The young man nodded.

  ‘Don’t take too long. Time is short.’

  Upon leaving the queen’s apartments, the Mother Superior General of the Sisters of Saint Georges found the captain of her Black Guards in the Louvre courtyard. He immediately summoned the white coach that was waiting nearby, and Mère de Vaussambre watched her team draw up in the torchlight with a thin smile of contained satisfaction, knowing that the sight attracted surprised and envious gazes from those observing the scene. Entering the Louvre in a carriage was a rare privilege, and the fact that the king had granted it to her was a public mark of his esteem. After the welcome the queen had given her, this evening was her moment of triumph. All that was left was her admittance to the Council, and the Order of the Sisters of Saint Georges would be fully restored to its former glory. And that would happen soon.

  ‘The baronne de Vaudreuil arrived today,’ the comte d’Orsan informed her discreetly.

  ‘Without mishap?’

  ‘None, mother superior.’

  ‘That’s very good news. I will speak to her tomorrow and I have no doubt I can bring her back to her senses. She cannot remain deaf to the call of her destiny much longer.’

  Drawn by four horses, the coach came to a halt before them. A footman jumped down to open the passenger door, while another pulled the steps down. The captain of the Black Guards presented his arm and, with his support, the Chatelaines’ Mother Superior General climbed into the cabin. Then, d’Orsan having closed the door, she settled herself as comfortably as possible, closed her eyes and waited to be rocked by the movements of the coach.

  In order to leave the central courtyard of this former medieval fortress that had become the Louvre, one needed to traverse an archway measuring a dozen metres in length. It ran through the eastern wing of the palace and, passing between two round towers, opened onto a drawbridge that crossed the moat. Beyond that, there was an imposing fortified gate – known as the Bourbon gate – which defended the access from rue d’Autriche. The passage was narrow, particularly dark beneath the archway, and perilous as it crossed the moat, where carriages always ran the risk of tipping over the side.

  The coachman advanced at a walk. The archway filled with the echoes of hooves striking the pavement, after which the team passed beneath the raised portcullis and started over the small drawbridge. That was where a Swiss mercenary sergeant, breathless from the chase, caught up with the coach and stopped it.

  ‘Halt!’ he ordered. ‘In the name of the king!’

  The Tour du Temple’s ground floor consisted of a great hall that gave access to a spiral staircase housed in one of the corner turrets and smaller rooms located in the three other turrets. There were a few lamps burning dimly in the silent darkness of the hall, as well as in the stairwell that Saint-Lucq and Marciac descended quietly, swords in hand. They knew the general layout of the floors above, but had no idea what to expect below. They only knew that Agnès was being held prisoner down there somewhere.

  After opening a door at the bottom with only the slightest of creaks, they discovered a large chamber that resembled a cloister. Bordering a flagstone gallery, a series of columns surrounded a square space with a sunken dirt floor six steps down and a vaulted ceiling whose fan of arching curves was supported by a central pillar. The gallery was plunged into darkness, but some oil lamps shed a weak light in the middle of the room, where they could make out a table, a rack, chains and shackles, a suspended cage, and various instruments of torture.

  Without consultation, Marciac and Saint-Lucq split up, the first taking the gallery to the right, and the second the one on the left. Soon, the Gascon froze and listened carefully. He seemed to hear … was that snoring? He turned round, seeking Saint-Lucq, but could not see the half-blood. So, alone, he approached a small door and pressed his ear to its surface. Yes, the snores were coming from within. Loud snores, the kind that only a man stupefied by drink could produce without waking himself up.

  Marciac’s sense of curiosity was too strong to resist.

  Softly, carefully, he opened the door.

  In a narrow, stinking cubby-hole, a forgotten candle was on the point of consuming itself in a saucer placed on the floor. Its flickering glow barely revealed a human form lying entwined in a blanket upon a straw mattress pressed against the wall. But it was also just enough to perceive the gleam from a ring of keys that hung from a nail near the sleeper, as well as an iron bar similar to those used by torturers to break the limbs of the poor wretches who were condemned to the Catheri
ne wheel.

  Marciac only had eyes for the keys. They had to be the prison cell keys, since the man snoring like a bear could only be the gaoler. Neither he nor Saint-Lucq had Laincourt’s skill in picking locks. If they wanted to open the door to Agnès’ cell quietly, they would need this set of keys.

  The Gascon held his breath and entered the cubby-hole on tiptoe.

  The clicking of the chain alerted him, but he perceived his danger too late and barely had time to raise his arm for protection when a syle leapt for his throat from a shadowy corner. As large and as agile as a cat, the black salamander closed its jaws on Marciac’s hand. He threw it off by reflex, its sharp teeth tearing away a strip of his skin. The syle struck the wall and fell, tangling itself up in the chain attached to its neck. But it was already spinning around to attack again when the Gascon planted his rapier in its skull.

  Marciac had no time to ponder who would be mad enough to keep a syle on a leash. The snoring behind him had ceased, and he turned slowly towards the now-empty mattress. His injured hand forgotten, his gaze shifted upward with growing dread to see a colossal drac, massively built, whose enormous muscles were flexing beneath his black shiny scales.

  Strangely fascinated, the Gascon gulped in awe.

  He had never seen a drac like this, and it wasn’t his size that made him so extraordinary. Nor the yellow, pointed fangs, wet with thick saliva. Nor the sharp claws on his powerful hands. Nor even the bestial glow in his reptilian eyes.

  This drac had two heads.

  That explains why the snoring was so loud, Marciac couldn’t help thinking.

  ‘Uhh … friends?’ he ventured.

  The monster emitted a dull roar.

  Recalled by the king just as she was about to leave the Louvre, Mère de Vaussambre was forced to abandon her coach on the drawbridge, which the coachman had already started to cross, making it impossible for him to either turn around or to back up. Leaving her captain in charge, she followed the Swiss sergeant who had been sent after her and was soon admitted into His Majesty’s apartments.

  Louis XIII was waiting for her with Cardinal Richelieu and a dignified gentleman whom she recognised as the marquis d’Aubremont. The cardinal was standing slightly to the rear, while the king and the marquis sat next to one another and were conversing in front of an empty chair when the Mother Superior General entered, more puzzled by her summons than worried. Louis XIII invited her to sit and apologised for having recalled her in this fashion, without respect for etiquette and at such a late hour.

  ‘Sire, I am at Your Majesty’s service,’ said Mère de Vaussambre occupying the armchair provided for her.

  She greeted d’Aubremont with a nod of her head, and he responded in the same manner. Then she met Richelieu’s gaze, without being able to read any clues at all in his eyes.

  But the king was speaking:

  ‘I have called you before me to quickly clear up an affair which is of little consequence, but which I should like to see settled before my departure for Saint-Germain. The marquis d’Aubremont, whom you know, is one of my friends. It seems he harbours some anxiety concerning a person dear to him, someone he believes you hold prisoner.’

  She turned to the marquis and, without betraying any emotion, waited.

  ‘I’m concerned about the baronne de Vaudreuil,’ he explained in a cold tone of voice.

  La Vaussambre withstood his accusing glare without blinking.

  So that’s what it was about: with no other recourse, La Fargue had turned to his friend d’Aubremont and persuaded him to appeal to the king.

  ‘Really?’ she said.

  ‘Do you know her?’ asked Louis XIII.

  ‘Yes, Sire. I know her. She was one of our most promising novices, but she turned away from her divine calling to enter the cardinal’s service.’

  Richelieu leaned over the king’s shoulder and whispered in his ear:

  ‘Agnès de Vaudreuil is one of those who, under the command of Captain La Fargue, recently served you so well, Sire.’

  Louis XIII nodded.

  ‘Mother superior,’ d’Aubremont resumed, ‘I have a report that says the baronne de Vaudreuil is being held against her will in a cell at Mont-Saint-Michel. Is that true?’

  ‘No, monsieur. That is not true.’

  It wasn’t a lie, since Agnès was now held in the Tour du Temple. La Fargue, once again, was a step behind her.

  The Superior General’s nerve troubled the marquis.

  ‘Neither there, nor in any of your other gaols?’ he insisted.

  ‘Nor in any other,’ replied Mère de Vaussambre with bland assurance.

  She even permitted herself to display a hint of a benevolent but saddened smile, as if to apologise for being unable to assist him, despite her willingness to do so.

  Marciac burst through the small door as if he had been shot out of a cannon. He crashed into a column and fell heavily to the flagstones. Grimacing from the excruciating pain in his back, he tried to get up but failed. He lost consciousness just as he saw the drac ducking both heads beneath the lintel to emerge from his lair.

  Armed with the hefty iron bar that he kept by his bed, the colossus straightened up and contemplated the Gascon, who was still breathing. Then his attention was drawn by another intruder. Saint-Lucq was advancing sideways towards him, prudently but resolutely, his rapier pointed in a straight line from its tip to his shoulder, the axis of his gaze matching that of his blade. The half-blood halted before he came into range of the iron bar. Without lowering his guard, he took three steps to one side, drawing the drac away from Marciac.

  And then waited.

  The monster growled and struck.

  Saint-Lucq evaded the attack, then a second and a third. There was no question of parrying or even deflecting a blow from that iron bar. They were delivered with such vigour that they could easily break his sword or tear it from his grasp. Concentrating, the half-blood leapt, stepped aside, and ducked, barely managing to avoid the bar as it slashed through the air. He was waiting for the drac to tire, but he was the one growing exhausted.

  Beating a retreat, Saint-Lucq left the gallery and backed into the central space of the chamber, where the equipment and instruments of torture were laid out. The colossus followed him. The half-blood attempted to take advantage of the furnishings, but if the drac was too stupid to develop a strategy or predict the dodges and ruses of his adversary, his strength and speed more than made up for the shortcomings of his bestial intelligence. Nothing could stand against him. He overturned effortlessly the torture table, swept aside a heavy brazier with the back of his hand, and struck a powerful blow at the suspended cage, which began to swing slowly back and forth. The movement temporarily distracted him from his blind fury.

  Saint-Lucq chose that moment to risk it all and lunged, forgetting any notion of caution. He scored a hit, but the point of his sword simply skidded across the black scales. Even worse, as he lurched forward, an enormous fist closed around his exposed wrist, and it felt as though the drac was about to rip his arm off. Lifted from the floor by a prodigious strength, he flew towards a wall and struck it with full force. The impact knocked the wind out of him, and he dropped his rapier. His legs gave way beneath him. He tried to stand up, leaning clumsily against the stone wall. As if in a drunken stupor, he watched the drac approach out of the corner of his eye, then raise the iron bar and prepare to strike a blow that would smash the half-blood’s skull. Turning to one side to disguise what his right hand was doing, Saint-Lucq seized the dagger tucked inside his boot. Perhaps he still had a chance. One. But no more than that. He waited until the last moment and made a desperate leap. The iron bar whistled past him, just before he plunged the dagger into the drac’s scaly flank. And again. And again.

  The drac moaned, staggered and dropped his weapon which bounced with a clear ringing tone on the flagstones …

  … and then he closed his clawed hands around the half-blood’s throat.

  Saint-Lucq gurgled. His
feet left the ground. He risked less choking to death than having his neck broken and his windpipe crushed by the fists strangling him. He stiffened his neck muscles as best he could, thrashed his legs and seized those powerful wrists, seeking to loosen their grip. He scrabbled for any hold, any weak point, any hope.

  In vain.

  Then a steel grapple dropped between the drac’s two heads, hung for a moment against its chest, and abruptly began to be pulled up. It was the tool the Blades had used to climb over the outer wall of the Enclos du Temple, the one that Marciac had placed on his belt. The one whose rope Marciac now held.

  The grapple caught in the V between the two thick necks and the Gascon, giving it a swift jerk, drove the metal hooks into the creature’s throats on either side. Black blood spurted from the wounds. Releasing Saint-Lucq, the colossus tried to pull the grapple free. But Marciac had braced himself at the other end of the rope and the hooks worked themselves in deeper. The drac was pulled backwards but it refused to fall. The Gascon pulled harder, groaning as the hand bitten by the syle throbbed with pain, but he didn’t give up. He heaved again, arching his back, grimacing, his soles slipping on the flagstones until the monster toppled over backward and the grapple was torn from the scaly flesh, ripping bloody shreds with it as it came loose with a sound like a chicken carcass being torn apart, when the bones and cartilage suddenly separate. A double sticky spray accompanied it.

  The reptilian colossus died quickly, on his back, and the silence that returned to the devastated chamber seemed like a roar to the ears of the two breathless men.

  ‘Are you all right?’ asked Marciac after a moment.

  Saint-Lucq, sitting with his back against the torture table, still needed time to recover.