The Cardinal's Blades (33 page)

The same men who had tried to abduct Cécile, no doubt.

Makeshift as it was, the cache in the floor was not large and offered no clues as to what it had contained. The best thing to do, therefore, would be to seek information from the principal interested party, Cécile herself. In any case, Agnès felt that the Blades—at La Fargue’s request—had been too gentle with her. Granted, the young woman had been the victim of a brutal attempt to kidnap her and she did not seem prepared to face this sort of adventure. But the gratitude which she displayed toward her new protectors did not extend as far as laying her true cards on the table. Now convinced of Cécile’s duplicity, Agnès was determined not to tolerate it any longer.

To set her mind at rest, she continued to search the entire house. In vain. And when she pushed open the little door leading to the garden, Agnès suddenly found herself standing nose-to-nose with an armed, one-eyed man in black who—initially as surprised as Agnès—smiled at her in a sinister manner.

“Well, well!” he exclaimed with a strong Spanish accent. “So the little bird has returned to its nest.…”

Agnès immediately understood.

She wore a plain dress, a thin brown coat, and a matching short cape with a hood. The modesty of her attire had been calculated: not knowing that she would have the luxury of making her journey in a sedan chair, the young baronne had left the Hôtel de l’Épervier thinking that she would have to walk to her destination, then loiter near the house while she scouted the surroundings. She had thus wished to go unnoticed and, to that end, the best thing was to seem neither too rich nor too poor. But Cécile could very well have been dressed in similar fashion. She and Agnès also had their beauty, their long, dark hair, and their youth in common, being only a few years apart. If the one-eyed man had never met either of them and had been given only a brief description of Cécile, he was entirely likely to mistake one woman for the other.

Agnès promptly adopted a fearful attitude, as one would expect of a defenceless young woman who had just fallen into the hands of a menacing enemy. Besides, the one-eyed man was not alone. Some hired swordsmen with an evil look accompanied him.

“As Heaven is my witness,” said the Spaniard, exhibiting the cruel signs of the ranse that had destroyed his eye and was ravaging his cheek, “I could never have hoped for so much in coming here.… My name is Savelda, Cécile.”

“What do you want from me?”

“I don’t know what’s wanted of you and it isn’t for me to decide. I can only promise that no harm will come to you if you follow us without making a struggle or noise. So, Cécile? Will you be reasonable?”

“Yes.”

A few minutes later, Agnès found herself back on rue de la Fontaine, closely hemmed in by the hired swordsmen, with Savelda leading the way. It was there that she saw and recognised Saint-Lucq; wearing dark clothing and a sword at his side and discreetly positioned at the entrance to an alleyway, he observed the scene from behind his ever-present red spectacles.

Agnès’s astonishment was such that she almost betrayed her emotion. All they needed was the half-blood for the Cardinal’s Blades to be complete, but La Fargue had not announced his recruitment to anyone. Yet … his presence here could not be mere chance? No doubt he was watching the house. Perhaps it had even been Saint-Lucq who had searched the premises and emptied the cache inside. It was ironic that it was her own fault they had missed one another: he could not have guessed that she was in the sedan chair that had passed by in the street and then she had entered the house by the rear while he had been keeping his eye on the main façade out front.

Seeing Agnès being led away, Saint-Lucq was already taking a step toward her and reaching for his sword—if he hadn’t lost any of his skills the matter would doubtless be quickly settled. Only Savelda could perhaps pose a problem. But the false captive stopped the half-blood in his tracks with a glance that she hoped he would comprehend.

Sometimes, throwing yourself into the lion’s jaws was the only means of finding its den.

10

La Fargue and Almades returned around noon covered in sweat, soot, and blood, the hooves of their horses suddenly filling the walled, cobbled courtyard with loud echoes that woke the Hôtel de l’Épervier from its sad torpor. They turned the care of their mounts over to old Guibot, who came hurrying as quickly as his wooden leg would allow, while they dashed up the front steps.

“War council, now!” shouted the captain as he burst into the main room of the house.

Leprat, trapped in his armchair by his wounded leg, was already there. Marciac joined them and for a brief moment there was expectant silence. Obviously, there had been an urgent new development, about which Leprat and the Gascon were both anxious to learn the nature, while La Fargue paced back and forth before finally asking: “And the others?”

“Agnès has gone out,” said Marciac.

“Ballardieu?”

“Here,” announced the old soldier, entering the room.

He had just arrived himself—he had even seen La Fargue and Almades pass him in the street at a rapid trot as he was returning from Palais de la Cité, where Saint-Lucq had shaken him off his tail.

“‘Gone out’?” asked the captain, thinking of Agnès. “Gone out where?”

Receiving the same questioning look as Marciac, Leprat shrugged his shoulders: he didn’t know anything about it.

“She’s gone to search Cécile’s house,” explained the Gascon.

“Alone?” inquired Ballardieu in a worried tone.

“Yes.”

“I’m going over there.”

“No,” ordered La Fargue, visibly upset. “You stay.”

“But, captain …”

“You’re staying right here!”

Ballardieu was going to protest further but Almades placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

“Agnès knows what she’s doing.”

Reluctantly, the old man subsided.

“Marciac,” said La Fargue. “The doors.”

Nodding, the Gascon closed all the exits to the room and when he finished the captain announced: “We found Castilla. Tortured and left for dead.”

“Is he dead now?” Leprat wanted to know.

“No. But he’s hardly better off for being alive. His tormenters spared him nothing. Almades and I rescued him at the last minute from a fire set to make him vanish. We took him straight to the Saint-Louis hospital which, fortunately, was close by.”

“Did he speak?”

“Two words only,” interjected Almades. “
Garra negra
. The Black Claw.”

Everyone went quiet: they all knew what that meant.

The Black Claw was a secret society that was particularly powerful in Spain and its territories. It was not secret in the sense that its existence was unknown, but in that its members did not reveal their identities. And for good reason. Directed by dragons who were avid to acquire power, the society stopped at nothing to further its ends. For a time, it had been thought to serve Spain. However, even though its most active and influential lodge was to be found in Madrid, its ambitions were not always in harmony with those of the Spanish crown. Sometimes they were even opposed. The masters of the Black Claw in truth wanted to plunge Europe into a state of chaos that would aid their plans to institute an absolute draconic regime. A state of chaos that, in the end, would not spare the Spanish Court of Dragons.

Tentacular in nature, the Black Claw was nowhere as powerful as it was in Spain. It was nevertheless at work in the Netherlands, in Italy, and in Germany where it had established lodges which remained subordinate to the oldest and most dreaded of them all, the Grand Lodge in Madrid. As for France, so far she had eluded the society’s clutches. Although the Black Claw sometimes hatched schemes within the French kingdom, it had never succeeded in implanting a lodge there.

“If the Black Claw is involved,” said Leprat, “it explains why the cardinal suddenly called us back to service. It also means that the danger is great. And imminent.”

“So this whole affair could just be a pretext to put us on the trail of the Black Claw?” ventured Marciac.

“I doubt that,” answered La Fargue. “But the cardinal may know more than he has let on.”

“So what are we to believe? And who?”

“Ourselves. We only believe in ourselves.”

“That’s a tune I’ve heard sung before.…”

“I know.”

“Back to the matter at hand,” prompted Leprat, seeing that the company was rehashing its shared bad memories. “If the Black Claw is, like us, searching for the chevalier d’Ireban, it is no doubt because he is something more than the debauched son of a Spanish grandee.”

“That much, we already guessed,” interjected Marciac.

“So then, who is he?”

“Perhaps he and Castilla belonged to the Black Claw. If they betrayed it, they had every reason to flee Spain and seek refuge in France, where the Black Claw still enjoys little influence.”

“If the Black Claw were after me,” observed Almades in a grim tone, “I would not stop running until I reached the West Indies. And even then, I would stay on my guard.”

“Castilla and Ireban might have less good sense than you, Anibal.…”

“I’ll grant you that.”

“We still need to know,” said Leprat, “what information the Black Claw wanted from Castilla and whether or not they obtained it.”

“If he hadn’t talked we would have found a dead body,” asserted La Fargue. “Judging by his sad state, he resisted as long as he could. He therefore had some important secrets to hide.”

“Perhaps he was trying to protect Ireban.”

“Or Cécile,” suggested Ballardieu, who until then had remained quiet.

His remark gave rise to a pause. To some degree or other, all of them had noticed the curious attitude La Fargue seemed to have adopted with regard to the young woman. Anyone else in similar circumstances would have been closely questioned by the Blades. But it was as if the captain wished to spare her for some obscure reason.

La Fargue understood the silent reproach being directed at him by his men.

“Very well,” he said, assuming his responsibilities. “Where is she?”

“As far as I know,” said Marciac, “she’s still in her room.”

“Fetch her.”

The Gascon was leaving by one door when Guibot knocked at another. Almades opened it for him.

“Monsieur de Saint-Lucq is waiting in the courtyard,” said the old man.

11

There was a coach in the courtyard of the Hôtel de Malicorne, waiting to depart, when Gagnière arrived at a gallop.

“Madame!” he called out as the vicomtesse, dressed in a travelling cloak with a short cape, was about to climb through the coach door held open for her by a lackey. “Madame!” Surprised, the young woman paused. She had the casket containing the Sphère d’Âme under her arm. She proffered it to a man sitting inside the vehicle, of whom the marquis saw no more than his gloved hands, saying: “Don’t open it.”

Then turning to Gagnière, she asked: “Where are your manners, marquis … ?”

The gentleman dismounted, and unsure who was inside the coach, said in a confidential tone: “I beg you to forgive me, madame. But circumstances demand that I forgo the usual formalities.”

“I am listening, monsieur.”

“We have Pontevedra’s daughter.”

Gagnière’s eyes shone with excitement. The vicomtesse, on the other hand, manifested nothing more than a cautious wariness.

“Really?”

“She fell into our hands by returning to her home at the very moment when Savelda happened to be there as well. The souls of the Ancestral Dragons are watching over us, madame!”

“No doubt, yes.… Where is she at present?”

“With Savelda.”

The vicomtesse winced.

As the ambassador extraordinary of the king of Spain, the comte de Pontevedra was negotiating a rapprochement with France which the Black Claw opposed. With that in mind, his daughter constituted a choice prey. A prey that should be preserved intact.

“When the Grand Lodge of Spain learns that Pontevedra’s daughter is in our hands,” said the young woman, “it will lay claim to her. We must therefore hide her in a secure place, outside Paris; somewhere no one will be able to reach her without passing through us.”

She thought for a moment and decreed: “Have Savelda conduct her without delay to the Château de Torain.”

“Today?” asked Gagnière, alarmed. “But, madame—”

“Do it.”

The man in the coach then spoke up, still without revealing himself: “It was at Pontevedra’s express request that the cardinal called up the Blades.…”

The vicomtesse smiled.

She privately reflected that it was in her power to, sooner or later, wreck Pontevedra’s diplomatic mission by threatening his daughter’s life. But the same means could be used to a different, more immediate, end. It would, moreover, be an opportunity to measure the depth of the ambassador’s paternal feelings.

“Let us send word to Pontevedra that we hold his daughter and that if he wishes to see her again alive, he must provide us with some tokens of his good will. The first is to persuade Richelieu to recall his Blades as of today. That will remove a thorn from our foot.”

“And who shall carry this news to Pontevedra?” asked Gagnière.

The vicomtesse thought for a moment and an idea came to her.

“Monsieur de Laincourt wishes to be initiated this evening, does he not? Well, let him show his mettle. If he carries out this mission successfully then he shall have what he wants.”

After Gagnière’s departure, the vicomtesse climbed into the coach, which immediately set out. She sat facing the person the marquis had been unable to see and to whom she had entrusted the precious reliquary.

“It’s the Sphère d’Âme, isn’t it?” asked the man as she took the casket from him.

“Yes. Without it, nothing that will take place this evening would be possible.”

“I am anxious to see that.”

“I believe you. But the experience is painful. And sometimes, fatal.”

“I don’t care!”

Full of confidence in him, the young woman smiled at monsieur Jean de Lonlay, sieur de Saint-Georges … and captain of the Cardinal’s Guards.

If he survived, there was no question at all that he would become an initiate of the first order in the Black Claw’s French lodge.