by Pierre Pevel
“True.”
“Which gentleman?”
“A very good question.”
“The cardinal’s agents will not make the distinction. For them, you belong to the Black Claw.”
“That only increases the value of my modest person, wouldn’t you say?”
“You will never see the light of day again.”
“That remains to be seen.”
The musketeer sighed, searching for some means of gaining the upper hand with a man who had already lost everything and to whom he had nothing to offer. If he failed to make Malencontre speak of his own free will, the only solution that remained revolted him.
But the life of Agnès was at stake.
“The cardinal knows nothing of your visit to me, is that not so?” the prisoner remarked. “So tell me, what brings you here?”
“I am going to offer you a deal that you cannot refuse.”
Outside, in front of Le Châtelet, La Fargue and Almades were waiting. They were on foot, the other Blades guarding the horses a short distance away at the entrance to rue Saint-Denis.
“Do you think Leprat will succeed?”
“Let us hope so.”
Those were the only words they exchanged, both of them anxious as they remained there, keeping track of the time and observing who was coming out of the enormous, sinister-looking building.
As the half hour tolled, they saw the large felt hat and cape of a limping musketeer appear at last.
“He’s favouring the wrong leg,” noticed Almades.
“What does it matter?”
They hastened to flank Malencontre as closely as possible on either side, without attracting attention.
“You will not be set free until you have told us everything we wish to know,” La Fargue told him in a firm voice.
“And who says that you won’t do me an evil turn afterward?”
“I do. But if you try anything at all …”
“I understand.”
They moved quickly toward the other Blades and their horses, fearing that at any moment someone would call after them from the doors of Le Châtelet.
“Who are you?” asked Malencontre. “And how did you manage this?”
“We took advantage of the changing of the guards,” explained La Fargue taking a discreet look all around them. “Those who saw Leprat enter were not the guards who let you leave. The hat, the musketeer’s cape, the pass from Tréville, and the white rapier did the rest. You will return that rapier to me, by the way.”
“And Leprat? Aren’t you worried about him?”
“Yes.”
“How will he be freed?”
“It’s possible he never will be.”
19
It must have been around eight o’clock in the evening and night was falling.
Still held prisoner, Agnès had seen enough to understand what was going on in the great fortified castle. The preparations were now complete. On either side of the open-air stage, the three tiers of benches had been erected and covered with black cloth. On the stage itself, an altar had been placed before a thick velvet cushion. Tall banners had been raised that now floated in the wind, bearing a single golden draconic rune. Torches already illuminated the scene and bonfires waited to be lit. The men and dracs who had installed everything were not workers but hired swordsmen commanded by Savelda and under the direction of a very young and very elegant blond cavalier whom Agnès did not know but who was addressed as marquis: Gagnière. Their task finished, the swordsmen who were not on watch were now gathered around campfires, away from the stage they had set up, near the makeshift stable and the enclosure for the wyverns, and at the foot of the partly collapsed ramparts.
For the past hour, the places along the benches had been filling with men and a few women, most of them sumptuously dressed, whose horses and coaches had been left by the main castle gates. They wore black eye masks embellished with veils of red lace covering their mouths and chins. They waited, visibly anxious and saying little to one another.
Agnès realised why.
She had never taken part in the ceremony that was about to occur, but she had learned something of its nature during her years as a novice with the White Ladies, the religious order devoted to preserving the French kingdom from the draconic contagion. The Black Claw—whose sinister emblem decorated the banners and was even carved into the wood of the altar—was no mere secret society. Led by dragon sorcerers, its power was founded upon ancient rituals that ensured the unfailing loyalty of its initiates by spiritually uniting them with a superior awareness: that of an Ancestral Dragon who came to impregnate their being. A Black Claw lodge was much more than a meeting of conspirators avid for wealth and power. It was the product of a rite that permitted a fanatical assembly to offer itself as the instrument and receptacle of an Ancestral Dragon’s soul—thus bringing the dragon back to life through those who had sacrificed a part of themselves, and allowing it to once again exercise power over a land it had been driven from in the distant past. The ceremony could only be performed by a dragon—one who was thoroughly adept in the higher arcana of draconic magic. In addition, it required an extremely rare relic, a Sphère d’me, from which the Ancestral Dragon’s soul would be freed at the most propitious moment.
A little while before, Agnès had seen a black coach arrive. An elegant woman in a veil, wearing a red-and-grey gown, had descended from it in the company of a gentleman. The latter had paused for a moment to adjust his mask and Agnès, incredulous, had the time to catch a glimpse of his face. It was Saint-Georges, the captain of the Cardinal’s Guards. He and the woman had watched the completion of preparations before being joined by Gagnière and Savelda, with whom they exchanged a few words before turning toward the ruin in whose cellar Agnès was being held captive. The prisoner quickly withdrew from the window where she was spying on them and feared for a moment that they would come to see her, but the coach left with all of them except Savelda, driving off in the direction of the keep, which it entered by means of a drawbridge over a ditch filled with bushes.
As she knew that the ceremony would not take place until night, Agnès had resolved to wait until dusk before acting, and thus take advantage of the evening shadows.
The moment had come.
In the now darkened cellar, she turned toward the dirty obese woman charged with keeping watch over her, but who in fact almost never lifted her nose from her knitting. The fat woman was the first obstacle Agnès needed to overcome. The next was the closed door and the sentry that Savelda had prudently left behind it.
“I’m thirsty,” she complained, having noticed her guard’s red nose, a clear sign of a fondness for drink.
The fat woman shrugged her shoulders.
“Can’t we even have a pitcher of wine?” Agnès wheedled in an innocent voice.
The other woman reflected, hesitated, thought about the pitcher, and ran the tip of her tongue over her lips, eyes filled with longing.
“I’d give anything for a cool glass of wine. Here, this is for you if you want it.…”
Agnès removed one of her rings and held it out. In the fat woman’s eyes, greed was now combined with longing. But still she hesitated.
“We deserve a little wine, don’t you think? After all, we’ve been shut away down here for hours now.”
Narrowing her eyes, the fat woman licked her lips, her mouth dry. Then she set down her knitting, murmured something that sounded like assent, stood up, and went to knock on the door.
“What is it?” ask the sentry on the other side.
“We’re thirsty,” grumbled the woman.
“So what!”
“Go find us a bottle.”
“Out of the question.”
“Then let me go find one.”
“No.”
Although furious, the fat woman was about to give up when Agnès approached and showed her the ring again.
“The girl can pay.”
“With what?”
�
��A ring. Made of gold.”
After a short instant, Agnès heard the bar blocking the door being removed.
And smiled to herself.
“Let me see,” said the man as he opened up.
A few minutes later, Agnès came out beneath a sky of ink and fire, wearing the sentry’s clothes and equipped with his weapons. Their owner was lying in the cellar, a knitting needle planted in his eye as far as his brain. The fat woman was stretched out nearby, a second needle sticking out of the back of her neck.
Agnès carefully surveyed the surroundings, pulled the hat down on her skull, and, keeping her head slightly lowered, moved away praying that no one would hail her. She saw a masked rider approach who spoke with Savelda without descending from his mount and then spurred the horse toward the keep.
She went in the same direction.
20
Arriving as night fell, Laincourt discovered the old castle lit by torchlight and lanterns. He observed the stage where the first initiation ceremony would take place, had a look at the future initiates—wearing masks like him—waiting there, saw Savelda, and directed his horse toward him.
“You’re late,” said the Spaniard upon recognising him.
“They must be waiting for me.”
“Yes, I know. Over there.”
Savelda pointed at the impressive keep and Laincourt thanked him with a nod of the head before continuing on his way, not noticing that he was being followed.
If he was late it was because he had, after presenting the conditions set by the Black Claw to the ambassador of Spain, waited in vain for his contact to show up. The hurdy-gurdy player had not appeared at the miserable tavern in the oldest part of Paris where they ordinarily met and, running short of time, Laincourt had been finally forced to leave. Consequently, no one at the Palais-Cardinal knew where he was at present.
The castle keep was in fact made up of three massive towers, joined by ramparts as high as they were and enclosing a steep-sided, triangular courtyard. It was a castle within a castle, to which one gained access by means of a drawbridge, and where there was an immediate feeling of oppression.
Leaving his horse in the courtyard near a harnessed black coach, Laincourt entered the only tower whose embrasures and openings were illuminated. The marquis de Gagnière was waiting for him.
“So the grand evening is here at last,” he said. “Someone wishes to see you.”
Laincourt still did not know whether or not he was going to be initiated in accordance with his demands.
He nodded before following Gagnière up a spiral staircase that rose up into the tower, its bare walls illuminated by the flames of a few torches. They climbed three storeys filled with flickering shadows and silence to arrive in a small windowless room lit by two large candelabras standing on the floor. The marquis knocked on a door, opened it without waiting, and entered ahead of Laincourt. Located at the very top of the tower, the hall within had two other doors and three arched windows looking out over the inner courtyard far below. A curtain closed off an alcove to one side and on a chair in front of more large candelabras sat a young blonde woman, wearing a mask and a red-and-grey gown. She had a superb black dragonnet with golden eyes with her, sitting on the back of her chair. Richly attired, Captain Saint-Georges was standing to her right and Gagnière placed himself to her left, while Laincourt instinctively remained near the closed door at his back, between the two swordsmen on duty as sentries.
He removed his mask in the hope that the woman would imitate him, but she chose not to do so.
“We meet for the first time, monsieur de Laincourt,” declared the vicomtesse de Malicorne.
“No doubt, madame,” he replied. “I can only say that the sound of your voice is unfamiliar to me.”
“It is rather unfair,” she continued without acknowledging his remark, “because I know how highly I should regard you. At least if I am to believe monsieur de Saint-Georges.… And even monsieur de Gagnière, normally so circumspect, tells me that you are, shall we say, a rare find.”
On hearing the compliment, Laincourt placed his left hand on his chest and bowed slightly. But this preamble did not sit well with him. He sensed a threat coming.
“However,” said the vicomtesse, “your ambitions might seem overweening. Because you are demanding nothing less than to become an initiate, aren’t you?”
“My situation is extremely delicate, madame. I believe I have always displayed perfect loyalty and I must now count on the help of the Black Claw against the cardinal.”
Laincourt knew he was risking his all at this precise instant.
“So in a manner of speaking, monsieur, you now wish to be repaid.…”
“Yes.”
“So be it.”
The vicomtesse made a sign with her hand and Saint-Georges threw open the curtain that had hidden the alcove from view, revealing the hurdy-gurdy player. He was half naked, covered in blood, and possibly even dead. Chained to the wall, his head slack, the old man in his rags was slumped in a squatting position, suspended by his arms.
This vision transfixed Laincourt. In a fraction of a second, he understood that he had been unmasked, that the hurdy-gurdy player had confessed under torture, and that the Black Claw no longer believed in the deception Richelieu had created to counter its activities.
A deception of which Laincourt had been the instrument, and now risked becoming the victim.
He smashed the throat of one of the swordsmen with a violent blow of the elbow and suddenly spun to drive his knee into the crotch of the other, then took the man’s head between both hands and broke his neck with a brusque twist. Saint-Georges drew his sword and lunged at him. Laincourt avoided his rapier, ducked under his other arm, rose and seized the captain’s wrist to bring it high up behind his back, then finished immobilising him by placing a dagger against his throat. The vicomtesse had stood up by reflex and Gagnière protected her with his own body, brandishing a pistol. Irritated, the dragonnet spat and flapped its wings, still gripping the back of the chair.
“I will slit his throat if either of you makes the slightest move against me,” Laincourt threatened.
The young woman stared at him …
… then invited Gagnière to take a step back. Nonetheless, he continued to keep his pistol aimed at Laincourt and his human shield.
Saint-Georges sweated, trembled, and hesitated to swallow. On the floor, the swordsman with the smashed throat finished choking out his series of horrible death rattles. By a common accord, everyone waited for him to die and for silence to settle over the scene.
It seemed to go on for an eternity.
It had all started in Madrid where, already in the service of the cardinal, Arnaud de Laincourt had been appointed private secretary and trusted aide to an expatriate aristocrat through whom France had unofficially communicated with the Spanish crown. An agent of the Black Claw had approached him during this two-year mission and, understanding with whom he was dealing, Laincourt had informed Richelieu immediately by secret dispatch. The cardinal had ordered him to let matters take their course, without compromising himself too seriously: it was better at this stage to let the adversary keep the initiative and move his pieces as he saw fit. Laincourt thus gave a few tokens of goodwill to the Black Claw which, for its part, no doubt out of fear of discouraging a potential and very promising recruit, did not ask him for much. Things hardly went any further until his return to Paris.
Having entered the service of His Eminence’s Guards, Laincourt very soon rose to the rank of ensign. He never entirely knew if this swift promotion rewarded his loyalty or was destined to excite the interest of the Black Claw. Whatever the case, after a long silence, the organisation contacted him again through an intermediary: the marquis de Gagnière. The gentleman told him—as if it were a revelation—the nature of those who had been receiving the small bits of information he had shared in Spain. He’d led Laincourt to understand that he had already done too much to back out now. He must continue to
serve the Black Claw, but henceforth in full knowledge of his actions. He would not regret it, and he only had to say the word.
With Richelieu’s accord, Laincourt pretended to accept and for months thereafter had provided his so-called masters with carefully selected intelligence, all the while gaining their trust and rising within their hierarchy in the shadows. His objective was to uncover the person behind this dangerous embryo of a Black Claw lodge in France. He was to prevent them from succeeding and also unmask another spy, one who seemed to be working at the highest level within the Palais-Cardinal. As a precaution, Laincourt did not communicate with Richelieu through the habitual secret channels—even Rochefort did not know about him. His only contact was an old hurdy-gurdy player whom he met in a shabby tavern and about whom he knew almost nothing, except that he was trusted by the cardinal.
But this comedy could not continue. Because he was sharing information that always turned out to be less pertinent than it seemed at first, or which hurt France less than it did her enemies, the Black Claw would eventually work out that he was playing a double game. He needed to hurry matters along, and all the more quickly as the French draconic lodge was on the point of being born.…
Together with Père Joseph, who was also in on the secret, Richelieu and Laincourt sketched out a bold plan. They arranged for the ensign to be caught in the act of spying, and, after that, they allowed a carefully prepared scenario to unfold. Convicted of treason, Laincourt was captured, locked up, and then freed on the pretext that he had threatened to reveal explosive documents. These documents did not exist. But they seemed to have enough value to convince the Black Claw to grant Laincourt what he demanded: to become an initiate, as the reward for his work and skills.
The plan, however, did not expect him to actually go this far. The important thing was to identify the true master of the Black Claw in France and learn the date and place of the grand initiation ceremony. He would inform the cardinal as soon as possible, via the hurdy-gurdy player, to allow His Eminence to organise a vast operation to haul in all the conspirators.
