The Cardinal's Blades

by Pierre Pevel

  His terrible gaze plunged Guérante into the deepest pit of fear.

  “Well?” he demanded.

  Delormel and his son waited for La Fargue in the courtyard. His wife, pale and worried, watched from the threshold of the main building, Justine pressed against her skirts.

  “Let’s eat,” said the captain, as he returned.

  His rapier had never left its scabbard.

  7

  In the kitchen of the Vaudreuil manor, a woman in an apron and a large serge skirt scrubbed a series of copper saucepans.

  Her name was Marion.

  Sitting at the end of a large oak table worn smooth by old age and hard use, she turned her back to the hearth where small flames gently heated the blackened bottom of a pot. Drying herbs, a string of garlic, and some earthenware pots decorated the chimneypiece. A door which stood open onto the courtyard allowed tiny dust particles to enter which, carried by a light breeze, sparkled in the spring air. Pieces of straw were scattered on the floor as far as the threshold.

  A horse could be heard approaching at a fast trot. It frightened the hens, which squawked and fluttered their wings, and when it neighed a dog responded excitedly, barking from the end of its chain. Iron-shod boots struck the hard earth with a jingle of spurs. Steps approached and Agnès de Vaudreuil ducked her head as she came through the low door.

  Seeing the young baronne arrive, Marion greeted her with a warm smile and a disapproving glance, a subtle combination which she had perfected through long practice over the years. Dressed for riding, her rapier thumping against her thigh, Agnès was covered in dust from her riding boots to the top of her breeches, and she was still wearing that infernal red leather corset which, rough and waxed and buckled on tight like armour, was as much a warrior’s talisman to her as an item of clothing. Her face glistened with sweat. As for the heavy braid which fell from the nape of her neck, it only managed to confine half of her hair, allowing the rest to hang free.

  “I have left Courage tethered outside,” the young woman said ­breathlessly.

  Marion nodded to show that she was listening.

  “I pushed him a little in the lower valley and I really believe he is perfectly recovered from his injury.”

  The maidservant had no reply to that either.

  “Damnation! I’m dying of thirst.”

  Agnès went over to the brass water tank which, set up at an angle, released water through a small tap. She leaned over it, cupping the palms of her hands, and splashing water over the stone floor slabs as she drank. Then she grabbed a crusty heel of bread lying on the sideboard and, ripping it open with her fingers, proceeded to nibble at its soft interior.

  “Have you eaten anything today?” asked Marion.

  “No.”

  “I’ll make you something. What would you like?”

  She was about to rise, but the young woman halted her with a gesture.

  “Don’t trouble yourself. I’m fine.”

  “But—”

  “I said I’m fine.”

  The servant shrugged and returned to her work.

  Standing up, leaning against the door to the salting room, and putting a foot up on a bench, Agnès looked at Marion. She was still attractive, with an ample bosom and small greying locks of hair twisting themselves free between the nape of her neck and her linen bonnet. At one time she had been much courted by men, and she continued to be on occasion. But she had never married, a fact that intrigued other local inhabitants of this area of the Oise valley.

  A silence settled over the room, and lingered.

  Finally, when she could restrain herself no longer, Marion said: “I heard a coach leave early this morning.”

  “Good. Then you’re not deaf.”

  “Who was it?”

  Agnès threw the piece of bread, reduced to no more than an empty crust, onto the table.

  “What does it matter? I remember only that he was well built and knew what he was doing between the sheets.”

  “Agnès!” Marion exclaimed.

  But there was more sadness than reproach in her voice. With an air of resignation, she gently shook her head and started to say: “If your mother—”

  “None of that!” interrupted Agnès de Vaudreuil.

  Suddenly frosty, she became absolutely rigid. Her emerald green eyes gleamed with contained anger.

  “My mother died giving birth to me and it’s futile for you to tell me that she might say this or that. As for my father, he was a pig who shoved himself between every pair of thighs he could snuffle out. Including your own, as I well know. So do not preach to me about the way in which I occasionally fill my bed. It’s only in such moments that I feel even remotely alive, ever since …”

  Trembling, with tears in her eyes, she couldn’t finish the sentence.

  Marion was visibly shaken by this outburst, and returned ashen-faced to her scrubbing with more energy than was strictly necessary

  Now in her forties, Marion had witnessed Agnès’s birth and the accompanying agony of her mother, who had lain in labour for five days. After fighting at the side of the future King Henri IV during the Wars of Religion in France, the baron de Vaudreuil was always too busy serenading the beautiful ladies at the royal court or stag hunting with the French monarch to interest himself in the fate of his spouse. And upon learning that the child was female, he had not even bothered to attend his wife’s funeral. Entrusted—or rather abandoned—to the care of Marion and a rough soldier by the name of Ballardieu, it was seven years before the little girl met her father. This occurred during a brief stay on his domain, when he had also dragged Marion into his bed. Although she might have offered herself freely to him, if she had had any say in the matter. But the baron was not one to brook refusal from a servant, and would have dismissed her without further ado if denied. Marion could not bear the thought of being separated from Agnès, who adored her and had almost no one else in the world to look after her. The baron had been highly amused to discover that his latest conquest, although by no means a young woman, was still a virgin. Delighted, after it was done he left her to go sleep elsewhere, saying that he deserved her gratitude.

  Calmer now and beginning to feel ashamed of herself, Agnès walked around the table to stand behind the woman who had raised her, and bent to embrace her, resting her chin against Marion’s head.

  “Forgive me, Marion. I’m mean and stupid.… Sometimes, I think I’m going mad.… But it’s not you who’s making me so angry. You realise that, don’t you?”

  “Yes. But who is it, then?”

  “I think … I’m angry at myself. All these memories I have, that I would just as soon forget. Things I’ve seen and done.… And things which were done to me.…”

  She straightened up, sighed, and added: “One day, perhaps, I shall tell you all.”

  8

  As they travelled back to Paris by coach, Nicolas Marciac and the vicomte d’Orvand enjoyed a light red wine designed to sharpen their appetites. A wicker basket filled with food and some good bottles of wine stood between them on the bench. They drank from small engraved silver goblets, half filled so that the bumps and jolts of the road, which shook them violently and without warning, soaked neither their chins nor their laps.

  “You hadn’t been drinking,” said d’Orvand, referring to the duel.

  Marciac gave him a wicked, amused glance.

  “Just a mouthful for my breath. Do you take me for a complete idiot?”

  “Then why this comedy?”

  “To make sure Brévaux was overconfident and lowered his guard.”

  “You would have defeated him without that.”

  “Yes.”

  “Moreover, you could have let me in on it—”

  “But that would have been much less fun, wouldn’t it? If you could have seen your face!”

  The vicomte could not help but smile. His friendship with the Gascon had accustomed him to this kind of joke.

  “And who were the two charming ladies whose
coach you borrowed to make your entrance?”

  “Now, vicomte! I would be the very lowest of gentlemen if I told you that.”

  “In any event, they seemed to have a great deal of affection for you.”

  “What can I say, my friend? I am well liked—Since you are so curious, then know that one of them is the very same beauty upon whom the marquis de Brévaux, it seems, has set his sights. I’m sure he recognised her.…”

  “You are reckless Nicolas. No doubt the marquis’s anger grew and his skill as a fencer proportionately decreased when he saw you kiss the woman. But by doing so you gave him a reason to demand another duel. Not content to defeat him, you had to humiliate him. For you it’s a game, I know. But for him …”

  Marciac thought for a moment about the prospect—which had not crossed his mind until now—of a second duel against the marquis de Brévaux. Then he shrugged.

  “Perhaps you’re right.… We shall see.”

  And extending his empty goblet, he added: “Before we start on the pork, it would be my pleasure to drink a little more of your wine.”

  As d’Orvand poured for his friend, risking his clean, beautifully cut breeches in the process, Marciac held the prize he had won from the marquis up to the light. Admiring the ruby, he slid it onto his finger, where it came to rest against a signet ring. But it was the signet ring itself which caught the vicomte’s eye—made of tarnished steel, it was etched with a rapier and a Greek cross capped with fleur-de-lis.

  “There,” said Marciac admiring the shine of the stone, “that should keep Madame Rabier satisfied.”

  “You borrowed money from La Rabier?” exclaimed d’Orvand in a tone of reproach.

  “What else could I do? I have debts and it is necessary that I honour them. I am not the marquis de Brévaux.”

  “Still, La Rabier … borrowing money from her is never a good idea. I would have been happy to advance you a few écus. You should have asked me.”

  “Asked you? A friend? You’re joking, vicomte!”

  D’Orvand slowly shook his head in silent reproof.

  “All the same, there is one thing that intrigues me, Nicolas …”

  “And what would that be?”

  “In the nearly four years during which you have honoured me with your friendship, I have often seen you impoverished—and even that word is a poor description for it. You have pawned and redeemed your every possession a hundred times over. There were times when you were forced to fast for days, and you would doubtless have let yourself die of hunger if I hadn’t invited you to my table under one pretext or another. I even remember a day when you had to borrow a sword from me in order to fight a duel.… But never, ever, have you agreed to be separated from that steel signet ring. Why is that?”

  Marciac’s gaze became vague, lost in the memories of the day when he first received the ring, until a sudden bump in the road jolted the two men perched on their stuffed leather bench.

  “It’s a fragment of my past,” replied the Gascon. “You can never be rid of your past. Not even if you pawn it.…”

  D’Orvand, who found that melancholy did not suit his friend, asked after a moment: “We will soon be in Paris. Where would you like to stop?”

  “Rue de la Grenouillère.”

  The vicomte paused a moment, then said: “Did you not have enough of duelling for one day?”

  Marciac replied with a smile, and muttered, almost to himself: “Bah! … When I die, I want to be certain at least that I have truly lived.”

  9

  Paris at midday was packed with working, bustling, and gossiping people, but in contrast, at the Palais-Cardinal, the guards on duty seemed to be sentries of some luxurious necropolis. Accompanied by his large entourage of advisors and his armed escort, Richelieu was at the Louvre, and in his absence, life at his residence carried on slowly, almost as though it was night. Men in capes were barely to be seen. More lowly servants moved along dark corridors without haste or noise, carrying out routine menial tasks. The crowd of supplicants had thinned out considerably when they heard that the master of the palace had left, and only a few persistent souls decided to wait for his return, making do with an improvised repast on the spot.

  Alone in a small study, Ensign Arnaud de Laincourt made use of this lull in activity to carry out a task which came with his rank: filling out the log-book of the Cardinal’s Guards. The rule was that the officer on duty must scrupulously record all the day’s events, whether they were ordinary or unusual, from the hour when guards were relieved at their posts to possible lapses in discipline, and detailing every occurrence or incident which might affect His Eminence’s security. Captain Saint-Georges consulted the log at the end of each shift, before communicating anything noteworthy to the cardinal.

  “Enter,” said Laincourt, on hearing a knock at the door.

  Brussand entered.

  “Monsieur de Brussand. You’re not on duty.… Would you not be better off at home, resting after your long night on watch?”

  “Of course, but … would you grant me a minute?”

  “Just allow me to finish this task.”

  “Certainly.”

  Brussand sat down in front of the desk at which the young officer was writing by candlelight. The room had only a high, bevelled window opening onto a light well into which the sun barely peeped. There were, without a doubt, dungeons in the Bastille or in the château de Vincennes that were better lit.

  Laincourt finished his report, checked it, wiped his quill on a rag, and then slipped it between the pages of the thick log-book before he closed it.

  “There,” he said. “I’m all yours.”

  And turning his crystal blue eyes upon Broussard, he waited.

  “I have come to assure myself,” said the other, “that you do not hold anything against me.”

  “Regarding what?”

  “Regarding confidences about you that I repeated to young Neuvelle. Concerning your past. And the circumstances under which you joined the Cardinal’s Guards.”

  Laincourt gave an amiable smile.

  “Did you say anything slanderous?”

  “Certainly not!”

  “Anything untrue?”

  “No. At least, not unless I’ve been misled myself.”

  “Then you have nothing to reproach yourself for. And therefore, neither do I.”

  “Of course. But …”

  There was a silence during which the officer’s smile did not waver.

  His courteous mask, ultimately, proved to be a perfect defence. Because it expressed nothing but polite interest it left others to carry the conversation, so that, without any effort on his part, they little by little became less self-assured. Rarely failing, this strategy was proving particularly effective against Brussand, who was growing more embarrassed by the moment.

  But the old guard was a soldier, and rather than remain exposed in this manner, he instead charged forward: “What can I say? There are certain mysteries surrounding you that encourage rumours—”

  “Indeed?”

  “Your famous mission, for example. The one which, it is whispered, detained you for two years in Spain. And for which, no doubt, you were promoted to the Cardinal’s Guards with the rank of ensign.… Well, you can imagine what is said about all that, can’t you?”

  Laincourt waited without making any reply, the same indecipherable smile on his lips.

  Then, a clock sounding half past one, he rose, picked up his hat, and tucked the heavy log-book under his arm.

  “Forgive me, Brussand, but duty calls.”

  The two men walked together to the door.

  As he allowed the officer to go first, Brussand said to him in a conniving tone: “Strange country, Spain, isn’t it?”

  Laincourt walked on, leaving Brussand behind him.

  * * *

  With the air of a man who knows exactly where he is going, Arnaud de Laincourt strode through a series of salons and antechambers, paying no heed to either the servants or
the guards on duty who snapped to attention as he passed. Finally, he entered an empty service corridor and, at its intersection with another, paused a few seconds before turning right toward the cardinal’s private apartments.

  From that point, he moved as quickly and silently as possible, although taking care not to appear furtive: there was no question of making his way on tiptoe, or hugging the walls, or glancing anxiously around. If someone was to surprise him, it was best to behave in a manner unlikely to arouse suspicion. His rank and his cape, certainly, protected him. But then, suspicion was the rule in the Palais-Cardinal.

  He soon pushed open a door which, seen from the room within, merged seamlessly with the decorated wooden panels. This was the study where monsieur Charpentier, Richelieu’s secretary, normally worked. Functionally but elegantly furnished, it was filled to the point of overflowing with papers. Daylight filtered in through the closed curtains, while a candle guttered weakly. It was not there to provide light, but its flame could be transferred to numerous other candles at hand, and thus, in an emergency, fully illuminate the study in the middle of the night if required. Just one of the many precautions taken by those in the service of His Eminence, who demanded readiness at all times of the day or night.

  Laincourt set the log-book down.

  He drew a key from the pocket of his doublet and opened a cupboard. He had to be quick, as every minute now counted. On a shelf, a box sat between two tidily bound manuscripts. This was the object of his search. Another key, a tiny one, opened its secrets to him. Inside were letters waiting to be initialled and sealed by the cardinal. The ensign thumbed through them impatiently, and took out one which he perused more closely.

  “That’s it,” he murmured.

  Turning, he brought the letter closer to the candle and read it twice in order to memorise its every comma. But as he refolded the document, he heard a noise.

  The squeak of a floorboard?

  The ensign froze, heart thumping, with all his senses alert.

  Long seconds passed …

  Nothing happened. No one entered. And, almost as if it had never occurred, the sound was not repeated.