The Cardinal's Blades

by Pierre Pevel

  “I know.”

  “And bread. And you wanted to feed him—”

  “I know, I know.… But we’ll be finished with this business today.”

  “You said that yesterday.”

  “Today, I tell you. They can’t be much longer.”

  Saint-Lucq entered silently. As he passed, he picked up a poker which had been abandoned on the mantelpiece above a long-unused fireplace.

  “In any case, I’m not spending another night in this ruin.”

  “You’ll do as you’re told.”

  “We’ll see about that!”

  “No, you’ll see. You remember Figard?”

  “No. I never knew him.”

  “That’s because he disobeyed an order before you arrived.”

  Saint-Lucq was on them quicker and more silently than any ordinary assassin. The first collapsed, his skull split by the poker. The second only just had time to rise before falling in turn, his temple shattered.

  Two seconds, two blows. Two deaths. No cries.

  The half-blood was on the point of letting the bloody poker fall onto the stomach of one of the dead bodies when he heard the squeak of hinges.

  “So, lads?” someone said. “Already busy stuffing your faces, are you?”

  Saint-Lucq about-turned and flung out his arm.

  The poker hummed as it whirled through the air and drove itself, hook first, between the eyes of the Corbin who, hatless and dishevelled, had so casually entered the room. Stunned, the man staggered backward and crumpled onto the floor.

  Four and one made five—the count was still short.

  His right hand tightening around the hilt of his sheathed rapier, Saint-Lucq slipped into the room the dead brigand had just come from.

  Makeshift beds had been set up in there, and Saint-Lucq found the last surviving Corbin lying on one of them, paralysed by absolute terror. He was young, an adolescent of perhaps fourteen or fifteen years old. His lip sported no more than blond fuzz and bad acne ate at his cheeks. Woken with a start, he seemed unable to tear his gaze from the corpse and the wrought-iron rod embedded in its face. The poker began to tip over very slowly, its point spattered with viscous fluid and lifting up a piece of skull bone which tore through the skin. With a final cracking sound, it toppled and fell to the floor with a clatter.

  The sound made the adolescent quiver all over and he suddenly directed his attention toward the half-blood wearing red spectacles. Looking deathly pale and distraught, his eyes already filled with tears, he vainly tried to force out a few words, vigorously shaking his head—a quiet, desperate supplication. Rising from his bedcovers, he retreated until his hands and heels touched the wall. He wore nothing but a shirt and a pair of breeches, breeches that were now stained with urine.

  “Mer … Mercy—”

  Saint-Lucq took a slow step toward him and drew his sword.

  Lucien Bailleux shook with fear, cold, and exhaustion. He wore nothing but a nightshirt and the hard ground on which he was lying proved as chilled as the stones against which he sometimes leaned.

  It had been three nights since he had been surprised, unsuspecting, in his sleep at home, in the apartment where he lived above his notary’s office. They had gagged him before pulling a hood over his head and knocking him senseless. What had they done with his wife, who had been sleeping at his side? He had woken here, bound hand and foot, in a location he could only guess at due to the hood. He was attached to a wall by a short, heavy chain that ran around his waist. He had no idea on whose authority he was held. All he knew for sure was that he was no longer in Paris, but somewhere in the countryside. The noises from his present surroundings, which also allowed him to keep track of the passing days, had made that much clear to him.

  Initially believing he had been abandoned he had chewed away his cloth gag and shouted, yelling until his voice broke. He’d finally heard a door open, the footsteps of several men in boots approaching and a voice, at last, saying to him: “It’s just you and us, here. No one else can hear you. But your shouting annoys us.”

  “What … what do you want with me?”

  Rather than answering him, they had beaten him. In the stomach and kidneys. A kick had even dislodged one of his teeth. He’d swallowed it, as his mouth filled with blood.

  “Not the head!” the voice had said. “We must deliver him alive.”

  After that, the notary had done nothing to draw attention to himself. And the hours and the nights had dragged by, filled with anguish and uncertainty about his fate, and without anyone troubling to give him something to eat or drink.…

  Someone pushed the door open and entered.

  Bailleux cowered reflexively.

  “I beg you,” he mumbled. “I will give you everything I have.”

  His hood was removed and, once he grew used to the light, he saw a man squatting close beside him. The stranger was dressed as a cavalier, with a sword at his side and strange red glass spectacles covering his eyes. Something dark and threatening emanated from him. The notary grew even more frightened.

  “Don’t hurt me, please …”

  “My name is Saint-Lucq. The men who abducted you are dead. I’ve come to free you.”

  “Me.… To free me.… Me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who … who sent you?”

  “It’s not important. Did you talk?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “You’ve been beaten. Was it to make you talk? Did you tell them what you know?”

  “Good Lord! What is this all about?”

  The half-blood sighed and patiently explained: “You recently discovered and read a forgotten testament. The testament indicated where a certain document could be found.”

  “So, this is about … that?”

  “Well?”

  “No. I didn’t say anything.”

  Saint-Lucq waited.

  “I swear to you!” the notary insisted. “They didn’t ask me a single question!”

  “Good.”

  Only then did the half-blood unfetter Bailleux, who asked: “And my wife?”

  “She is well,” replied Saint-Lucq, who in truth had no idea.

  “Thank God!”

  “Can you walk?”

  “Yes. I am weak but—” There was the sound of a horse neighing in the distance and they heard hoofbeats approaching. Leaving the notary to complete the task of freeing his ankles, Saint-Lucq went to the door. Bailleux took note of his surroundings. They were on the ground floor of a disused, dusty old water mill, close to the enormous grindstone.

  Having risked a glance outside, the half-blood announced: “Six horse­men. No doubt those to whom you were to be delivered.”

  “Lord God!”

  “Do you know how to fight? Or at least how to defend yourself?”

  “No. We are lost, aren’t we?”

  Saint-Lucq spotted an old, worm-eaten wooden staircase and raced up the steps.

  “Up here,” he said after a brief moment.

  The notary followed him to the next floor, where the central driveshaft, attached to the hub of the huge waterwheel, joined the vertical axle which, passing through the floor, had formerly powered the grindstone.

  The half-blood forced open a skylight.

  “We have to slip out through here and let ourselves drop into the river. The current will carry us away. With a little luck, we won’t be seen. Although it’s a shame, because I had horses waiting for us in the wood.”

  “But I can’t swim!”

  “You’ll learn.”

  5

  That morning, reclining on a long, low seat, the vicomtesse de Malicorne was savouring the tranquillity of her flowering garden when the marquis de Gagnière was announced. The strange globe filled with its shifting darkness was next to her, on its precious stand, and she caressed it nonchalantly—as she might have stroked the head of a sleeping cat. The turbulent interior of the Sphère d’me seemed to respond to each stroke. Gagnière, arriving on the terrace, made a c
onscious effort to look elsewhere. He knew the dangers that the soul sphere represented. He also knew the use to which it was destined to be put, and the casual manner with which the young woman was treating this relic, entrusted to her by the Masters of the Black Claw, both worried and astonished him.

  “Good morning, monsieur le marquis. What have you come to tell me at such an early hour?”

  “Leprat is dead.”

  “Leprat?”

  “The messenger Malencontre and his men failed to stop between Brussels and Paris. Using your information I laid an ambush for him yesterday evening, near the Saint-Denis gate.”

  “Monsieur Leprat …” sighed the young woman with a thoughtful look. “Is that so?”

  “One of the King’s Musketeers,” Gagnière hastened to explain.

  “And formerly one of the Cardinal’s Blades. I told you you would be hearing more about them, didn’t I?”

  “Indeed. However—”

  “You killed him?”

  “Yes. With a pistol ball to the heart.”

  “My congratulations. And the letter?”

  The elegant marquis took a deep breath.

  “He didn’t have it.”

  For the first time since their conversation began, the vicomtesse lifted her gaze to look at her visitor. Her angelic face remained unreadable, but her eyes burned with fury.

  “Excuse me?”

  “He did not have it on him. Perhaps he never had it at all.”

  “So he was simply playing with us while the true messenger travelled discreetly, by a different route and without mishap?”

  “I believe so.”

  “Yes,” said the vicomtesse de Malicorne, contemplating her garden anew. “It’s certainly possible, after all …”

  They were silent for a moment and Gagnière did not know what to do with himself; his perfect manners forbade him from taking a seat without invitation so he was forced to remain standing, ill at ease, his beige deer-skin gloves in his hand.

  “If the letter is at the Louvre—” he began.

  “That indicates that the king and the cardinal now know we represent a threat to France,” finished the pretty young woman. “I’ll wager that the prospect of facing the Black Claw within their kingdom does not enchant them.”

  From the little smile she displayed, however, one could guess that this development, upon reflection, did not truly displease her.

  “It’s no use crying over spilt milk,” she concluded. “For the moment we have other matters to attend to.…”

  She suddenly rose and, taking the arm of the marquis, asked him to stroll with her in the garden. This initiative surprised Gagnière, until he realised that the vicomtesse wished to be out of range of any listening ears. Even here, in her own home.

  “You will recall,” she said at last, “that our Spanish brothers and sisters promised to send us a trustworthy man. And so they have: Savelda is here in Paris.”

  “I still think we should not let him know of our plans.”

  “Impossible,” interrupted the vicomtesse. “On the contrary, give him a warm welcome. Do not hide anything from him and employ him as usefully as possible. If it is understood, between you and I, that Savelda’s mission is to keep us under surveillance, then we should not reveal our suspicions. We must show ourselves to be grateful of the honour the Grand Lodge of Spain does us by placing a man of his worth at our disposal.…”

  “Very well.”

  This matter being settled, the vicomtesse turned to another subject: “When will you capture Castilla?”

  “Soon. Tonight, even.”

  “And the girl?”

  “Castilla shall lead us to her and we will abduct her.”

  “Charge Savelda with the task.”

  “What—!”

  “It will keep him busy. And that will leave us with a freer hand to prepare our first initiation ceremony. Once that has taken place, a Black Claw lodge shall exist in France and our Spanish brothers, jealous as they may be, shall not be able to do anything against us.”

  “You will then take the rank of Master.”

  “And you, that of First Initiate … but do not cry victory just yet. Many have failed because they were too quick to believe they had succeeded and did not see danger coming. In our case, I do foresee that there is danger.”

  At the bottom of the garden, in a verdant nook, was a stone bench. The vicomtesse took a seat, and indicated to Gagnière that he should join her.

  “There is one matter,” she murmured, “about which Savelda and our masters must be kept in ignorance: one of our agents at the Palais-Cardinal was caught yesterday.”

  “Which one?”

  “The best. The oldest. The most precious.”

  “Laincourt!”

  “Yes. Laincourt.… I still don’t know how it was done, but it has happened. Monsieur de Laincourt was unmasked. He is under arrest now, no doubt waiting to be interrogated.”

  “Where?”

  “Le Châtelet.”

  “Laincourt won’t talk.”

  “That remains to be seen. You will need, perhaps, to make sure of it.”

  6

  Along night had gone by since Captain Saint-Georges had solemnly requested his sword and in so doing indicated to Laincourt that he was under arrest for treason. The prisoner had then been led to Le Châtelet under a firm escort, where his last personal effects were removed before he was anonymously locked up. In the eyes of the world, he might just as well have vanished into the bowels of the earth.

  He no longer existed.

  In 1130, Louis VI had ordered a small fortified castle—or châtelet—built to defend the Pont au Change, which connected the Right Bank of the Seine to Ile de la Cité. Rendered useless by the construction of King Philippe Auguste’s ramparts, the Grand Châtelet—as it was sometimes called to distinguish it from the Petit Châtelet built on the Left Bank at the mouth of the Petit Pont—lost its military function. But King Louis IX enlarged it, Charles IV remodelled it, and Louis XII restored it. In the seventeenth century, Le Châtelet was the seat of the legal courts under the jurisdiction of the provost of Paris, while its dungeon housed the prison cells. These cells, located on various levels, were given nicknames. On the upper level were the common halls where prisoners were packed together: Beauvoir, La Salle, Barbarie, and Gloriette; below that, there were three areas with individual cells: La Boucherie, Beaumont, and La Griesche; lower still: Beauvais, another communal hall; and finally, in the very foundations of the place, were the worst of all, without air or light: La Fosse, Le Puits, La Gourdaine, and L’Oubliette.

  Laincourt had been accorded the honour of La Gourdaine, where he was forced to endure its rotting straw overrun with vermin. At least he had been spared the horror of La Fosse, a pit into which the prisoner would be lowered through a trap door, on the end of a rope. The bottom of that most infamous gaol cell was swimming in stagnant water and took the shape of an inverted cone, so that a prisoner could neither lie nor sit down, and was even denied the relief of something to lean against.

  Since the door had been closed on Laincourt, the hours had passed, stretched out and silent, in absolute darkness. In the far distance he heard the echo of a scream, that of a prisoner gone mad in solitude or of some poor wretch being subjected to torture. There was also the sound of water falling slowly, drop by drop, into deep brackish puddles. And the scratching of rats against the damp stone.

  And then suddenly, in the morning hours, a key scraped in the lock. A gentleman with a greying moustache entered, with whom the gaoler left a lit lantern before closing the door again.

  Laincourt stood and, blinking his eyes, recognised Brussand.

  “You shouldn’t be here, Brussand. I’m in solitary confinement.”

  “For you,” replied the other, handing him a flask of wine and a piece of white bread. The former ensign of the Cardinal’s Guards gladly accepted the victuals. He tore into the bread but forced himself to chew slowly. Then, having swallowed a
mouthful of wine, he asked: “How were you able to get in here?”

  “The officer in charge of admissions owed me a favour.”

  “Was the favour you did him as big as this one?”

  “No.”

  “So now you are in his debt.… That is regrettable and entirely unnecessary on your part. Nevertheless, you have my thanks.… Now go, Brussand. Go before you compromise yourself completely.”

  “Our time is short, in any case. But I want you to tell me something.”

  Beneath his unshaved cheeks and drawn features, Laincourt gave a faint, pale smile.

  “I owe you that much, my friend.”

  “Just tell me that all this is untrue,” the old guard demanded. “Tell me they’ve made a mistake on your account. Tell me that you are not the spy they accuse you of being. Tell me that and, in the name of our friendship, I will believe you and defend you!”

  The prisoner stared at the old guard for a long time.

  “I don’t want to lie to you, Brussand.”

  “So it’s true?”

  Silence.

  “My God!” Brussand exclaimed. “You … ? A traitor … ?”

  Demoralised, disappointed, misled, and still incredulous, he retreated a step. Finally, like a man resigned to facing the inevitable, he took a deep breath and cried out: “Then talk! Talk, Laincourt! Whatever happens, you will be judged and condemned. But spare yourself being subjected to questioning.…”

  Laincourt searched for the right words and then said: “A traitor betrays his masters, Brussand.”

  “So?”

  “I can only swear to you that I have not betrayed mine.”

  7

  He woke up washed and bandaged in the room that he rented under the eaves of a house on rue Cocatrix, and he recognised the familiar décor as soon as he opened his eyes.

  “So you have finally returned to us,” said a deep male voice.

  Although he was rather modestly dressed, the gentleman sitting at his bedside had a natural elegance that signalled his superiority to common mortals from a hundred paces. He carried a sword, had laid his hat down close to hand, and was holding a book which he now closed. He looked to be forty years old and he served in the King’s Musketeers.