by Pierre Pevel
‘Down below. He’s the one who saw the riders coming.’
‘Damn it all!’
Leaving the Spaniard standing there, he returned to the chamber at the end of the corridor.
It was empty.
‘Merdel’
But the little door at the rear was standing half-open.
Behind it, some very steep stairs led to the attic. La Fargue climbed them and, pushing through a trap door, he rose up into the deafening fury of the storm. As he had guessed, a portion of the roof was missing leaving the attic open to the sky, directly exposed to the weather. And there he saw Alessandra, already in the saddle, struggling to force a wyvern to turn towards this exit. Its wings spread to keep its balance, the great reptile was resisting, digging its two clawed feet into the floor. It was frightened by the storm.
‘This is madness!’ the old gentleman shouted.
Keeping a firm grip on the reins that ran along the wyvern’s neck to the bit in its mouth, the young woman smiled confidently at the captain.
‘Worry instead about the plot and plead my case with His Eminence! You must believe me and, in turn, the cardinal must believe you ... Be persuasive! The future of France depends on it!’
‘Renounce this matter, madame!’ La Fargue insisted, just before a blast of wind almost knocked him over.
Lightning was striking ever closer. Not far from the inn, a tree had burst into flame.
‘Inform the cardinal. We shall meet again soon, in Paris.’
‘Where? How?’
They could barely hear one another, even shouting at the top of their lungs.
‘Tomorrow evening. Don’t worry. I know how to find you.’
‘Madame!’
Alessandra’s wyvern launched into the air and was already flying away into the storm, trailed by the fluttering silhouettes of the twin dragonnets.
La Fargue cursed, powerless to stop her. Then, remembering the riders, he went back down into the inn. Almades followed in his wake as he passed. They reached the ground floor and emerged into the courtyard that was now one immense, slippery mud puddle beneath the deluge of rain.
His back to the door, Saint-Lucq was facing seven horsemen who, forming an arc, had dismounted and drawn their swords. Clearly expecting trouble, they were dressed for combat, wearing wide hats, thick leather doublets, rough breeches, and riding boots.
Beyond that, they were not human.
They were dracs, La Fargue realised, as a flash of lightning gave him a glimpse of the nightmarish scaly, jowled faces beneath the dripping brims of their hats. Worse still, they were black dracs.
Dracs had been created long ago by the Ancestral Dragons to serve and fight for them. In time they had freed themselves from the tutelage of their creators, but they remained cruel, brutal beings who were rightly to be feared. Dracs enjoyed violence. They were stronger and tougher than men. And black dracs were even stronger and tougher than the ordinary kind.
‘We’re here, Saint-Lucq,’ said La Fargue from the doorway, moving forward.
Without turning round or looking away from the dracs, the half-blood took two steps to his right. The captain occupied his place while Almades covered their left. The trio had their swords in hand, but still waited before placing themselves en garde.
La Fargue noticed that the dracs stood in a pool of black mist that rose to their ankles and did not disperse.
Sorcery, he thought to himself.
‘The woman!’ the drac facing him snarled in a hoarse whistling voice. ‘We want the woman!’
He was the biggest and most muscular of the seven, which had no doubt earned him the right of command. His face was marked with bright yellow lines that followed the contours of certain facial scales to form complex, symmetrical patterns that La Fargue recognised.
‘Impossible,’ he declared. ‘She is no longer here.’
‘Where is she?’
‘Gone. She flew away.’
‘What?’
While La Fargue devoted his attention to the leader, Saint-Lucq and Almades were watching the six others. The dracs were tense and nervous, obviously making an effort to contain the desire for battle that consumed them. They were almost quivering, like starved dogs forbidden from throwing themselves upon a scrap of bloody meat. Only their fear of their chief held them back. They waited for the order, gesture, or pretext that would unleash them.
‘She had a wyvern,’ La Fargue explained. ‘You brought the wrong mounts.’
‘Who are you?’
‘Someone hunting the same game as you. But I arrived too late.’
‘You he!’
Saint-Lucq had his eye on one drac - younger and more impetuous than the rest — who was struggling to control his aggressive impulses and twitched with each peal of thunder. The half-blood imagined the desire to hurt and to kill eating away at him like acid. The tiniest thing, probably, would suffice to . . .
‘Do you really think so?’ La Fargue replied to the drac leader. ‘Do you believe this woman only has one enemy?’
‘Who do you serve?’
‘That’s none of your business. Even so, I could answer if you tell me who your master is . . .’
The young drac who had attracted Saint-Lucq’s attention could by now barely contain himself. His head was drawn in, his jaws were clenched, and he was breathing hard. His glance crossed that of the half-blood, who, with a thin smile on his lips, dipped his own head slightly to stare directly at him above his red spectacles.
‘There are seven of us, old man,’ the drac leader observed. ‘And only three of you. We can kill you all.’
‘You can try, but you shall be the first to fall. And for what? For a woman who is long gone, if the storm hasn’t already brought her wyvern down . . .’
As if hypnotised, the young drac couldn’t take his eyes off Saint-Lucq. He was filled with a boiling rage and the dracs to either side of him were aware of it. They didn’t understand the cause but they, too, started to become agitated.
Then the half-blood supplied the final trigger: a discreet wink and a blown kiss.
The young drac screamed with rage and attacked.
Saint-Lucq easily dodged him, inflicting a nasty sword cut to the face as his opponent charged past. That could have been the signal all had been dreading or hoping for. La Fargue and Almades took a step back and placed themselves en garde, while the dracs were about to launch forward when their chief barked out an order that froze them in place:
‘Sk’ersh!’
For a few long seconds, no one dared to move. Bodies remained fixed in martial stances beneath the pitiless downpour. Only eyes shifted, looking left and right, watchful for the first threatening gesture.
‘Sk’ersh!’ the drac leader repeated in a lower tone.
Little by little, muscles relaxed and breathing resumed.
Blades were not replaced in their scabbards, but they were pointed back down at the sodden ground. His mouth bloody, the drac Saint-Lucq had wounded ruefully regained his place among his comrades.
Then their leader advanced slowly but resolutely towards La Fargue, who had to wave Almades back before he intervened. The black drac drew so close that they touched chests, allowing him to sniff at the captain’s face from below.
He did so for some time, with a mix of avid hunger and animal curiosity.
La Fargue endured this examination without flinching.
Finally, the drac stepped back and promised:
“We shall meet again, old man.‘
*
The dracs retreated in good order and soon vanished at a gallop into the night and the howling rain, taking their black mist with them.
‘What now?’ Saint-Lucq asked after a moment.
‘We return to Paris,’ the captain of the Cardinal’s Blades replied. ‘I don’t know what’s going on, but His Eminence must be warned without delay. The king’s life may be in danger.’
2
Cardinal Richelieu was preparing to take his leave wi
th the other members of the Council when King Louis XIII called him back:
‘Cardinal.’
‘Yes, Sire?’
‘Stay for a moment.’
Lifting a red-gloved hand to his chest, Richelieu indicated his obedience with a silent nod and drew away from the door through which ministers and secretaries of state were departing. They passed one by one, without lingering or looking back, almost cringing as if they feared the sudden touch of an icy breath on the back of their necks.
Draughts were not uncommon in the Louvre, but in this warm month of June 1633 the only ones to be truly feared were the result of a royal cold spell. Such cold spells did not cause noses to drip, aggravate rheumatism, or force anyone to stay in bed, but they could provoke an illness serious enough to ruin destinies and finish careers. The members of the Council were well aware of this and were particularly wary of contagion. And they had all felt a distinctly wintry blast this morning when His Majesty had joined them with a brisk step and, upon sitting down and without greeting anyone present, curtly demanded that the order of the day be read.
The king held his Council every morning after breakfast and did not hesitate to summon its members again later in the day if the affairs of the realm warranted further attention. In this he followed the example of his father. But in contrast to Henri IV, who conducted his meetings so freely that they sometimes took place during strolls outside, Louis XIII — more reserved, more cautious, and more attached to proper etiquette — required formal deliberations, around a table and behind closed doors. At the Louvre, the Council met either in the chamber on the ground floor traditionally reserved for its use, or — as today — in the Book Room. This was no less formal a setting than the Council chamber but, as Richelieu had noticed, the king preferred its use whenever he was anxious to ensure the complete confidentiality of debates or foresaw the need for a discreet one-to-one conversation at the conclusion of the Council’s session. Then he only needed to detain the person with whom he desired to speak for a few moments, and everything could be said in the time it took the other Council members to reappear in public.
The cardinal had therefore guessed that something was in the air when he arrived at the Louvre and was directed to the Book Room. The slight delay in His Majesty’s arrival, and his manifest dissatisfaction during the meeting, had confirmed his suspicions and forced him to ponder. He was obliged to pay careful heed to the moods of the man who had raised him to the heights of power and glory, as the same man could just as easily precipitate his fall. No doubt Armand-Jean du Plessis, Cardinal Richelieu, deserved to exercise the immense responsibilities that Louis XIII conferred upon him. And no doubt he had demonstrated his exceptional abilities as a statesman over the past ten years since his recall to the Council and appointment as chief minister. But personal merits and services rendered counted for little without royal favour, and the cardinal could not afford to let the favour he enjoyed run cold. He had far too many enemies for that — ambitious rivals who were jealous of his influence and adversaries hostile to his policies alike — and all of them, in France and elsewhere, were eager to see his star wane.
To be sure, the king’s esteem and affection for his chief minister were not likely to disappear overnight. As close as the Capitol might be to the Tarpeian Rock, Richelieu did not believe himself likely to fall victim to a royal whim. Nevertheless, Louis XIII was a grim, temperamental, and secretive monarch, who suffered from an inability to express his emotions and was often difficult to understand. The cardinal himself was often forced to make concessions to appease his authoritarian master whose reactions could still surprise him on occasion. Taciturn by nature, the king would spend much time ruminating over his decisions which he would then divulge suddenly and without explanation, or else explain badly. He was also rancorous in more private matters. Sensitive, he never forgave a slight completely and would nurse grudges that ripened, quietly and patiently, without the knowledge of those close to him. Then came the clumsy word, the indelicate gesture, the ingratitude, or some other small fault that finally proved too much for him to bear. When this occurred, Louis XIII gave way to cold angers which he expressed by way of stern reproaches, cruel humiliations, or even brutal punishments and disgraces.
It was one of these angers that the members of the Council sensed was imminent, and which — despite being great lords and high officials of the Crown for the most part — they had each dreaded they would bear the brunt of, right up until the moment when, to their immense relief, His Majesty had finally released them.
All in all, notwithstanding the king’s awful mood, the Council meeting had proceeded almost as usual. Louis XIII had sat alone at the head of the long rectangular table around which the others had taken their places, ready to explain official business or read dispatches. Then the moment had arrived for debate and deliberations, during which each member had to defend or justify his advice. These deliberations were often fairly free discussions, which would become lively when views diverged, with the king insisting that everyone should express their convictions within his Council. This morning, however, no one really desired to stand out, to such a degree that Louis XIII soon became irritated and, wishing to have an opinion on a precise point, he questioned one secretary of state rather sharply. Muddling his papers in surprise, the man had stammered out a confused answer that the king had received with arctic coldness: he himself was afflicted with a slight stammer that he controlled by force of will. At that
V
instant, all those present believed that the king’s wrath would fall unjustly upon the poor man, but nothing ensued. After a long silence, a semblance of debate resumed and the king dismissed the Council an hour later.
But not before asking the cardinal to remain behind.
If Richelieu had only lent a distracted ear to the actual debates, he had been observing the proceedings closely, waiting to see which matter, when it was presented, would provoke a reaction — however restrained or disguised — from the king.
In vain.
Yet there was no lack of reasons for concern. There was the war being prepared against Lorraine, the hegemonic ambitions of Spain and its Court of Dragons, the intrigues of England, and the string of military successes by Sweden in its campaign within the Holy Roman Empire which risked upsetting the fragile balance of power in Europe. Within France’s borders there were rumblings from the people due to the crushing weight of taxes, the Catholic party showed no signs of disarming, several Protestant towns were demanding the same privileges as La Rochelle, which the city had only obtained by victoriously withstanding a siege five years earlier, and plot after treasonous plot continued to be hatched, even in the very corridors of the Louvre. Lastly, in Paris itself, churches were burning and there was an increasing threat of rioting against the Huguenots and the Jews, who were blamed for starting the fires.
But none of the foreign or domestic affairs that the Council had discussed appeared to be the cause of the rage Louis XIII was struggling so hard to contain. Since the king was very pious, could it be those reports, still confidential, indicating a disturbing revival of sorcerous activity in the capital? Did the king know something that his chief minister did not? The very idea was enough to worry the cardinal, who endeavoured to know everything in order to foresee everything and, if necessary, to prevent anything from happening.
The last Council member to leave was the marquis de Chateauneuf, Keeper of the Seals. Carrying with him the finely wrought casket containing the kingdom’s seals which he never let out of his sight, he bade farewell to Richelieu with a respectful nod of the head.
A footman shut the doors behind him.
Agnes de Vaudreuil returned from her morning ride in the outskirts of Paris at around ten o’clock.
Travelling along rue du Chasse-Midi at a fast trot, she barely slowed when she reached the Croix-Rouge crossroads, despite the fact that it was very busy at this hour. The young baronne expected people to make way for her and make way they did, som
etimes grumbling and more often railing after her. She followed rue des Saints-Peres as far as rue Saint-Dominique and — now in the heart of the faubourg Saint-Germain, a few streets away from the magnificent abbey which gave it its name — she turned into the very narrow rue Saint-Guillaume. Here she was finally forced to slow her horse to a walk to avoid bowling over some innocent passerby, street hawker, trader at his stall, goodwife haggling over the price of a chicken, or miserable beggar shaking his bowl.
People watched as she came to a halt before the Hotel de I’Epervier. She had a wild, austere beauty that was striking to behold, with a slender figure, a proud bearing, a pale complexion, green eyes, full dark lips and long black hair whose heavy curls inevitably escaped from her braid. But the observers were even more surprised by her thigh boots, black breeches, and the red leather corset she wore over a white shirt. It was a daring outfit, to say the least. And not content with publicly displaying herself in this manner, without even covering her head, she also wore a sword and rode her horse like a man. It was scandalous . . .
Indifferent to the discreet commotion she was causing, Agnes swung down from her horse and into the noxious mud that covered the streets of Paris. She would have liked to spare her boots this indignity, but that meant ringing the bell and waiting for someone to come open up one of the great studded doors of the carriage gate. She preferred to push open the smaller, inset pedestrian door that was only locked at night and, leading her horse by the bridle, entered the paved courtyard where the iron-clad hooves clattered and echoed like musket shots.
Coming from the stable, Andre hurried to greet the baronne de Vaudreuil, respectfully taking the reins from her hands.
‘You should have rung the bell, madame,’ said the stableman. ‘I would have opened for you.’
There was a touch of both reproach and regret in his voice.
A very dark-haired man who was going prematurely bald on the top of his head, although sporting a tremendous moustache on his upper lip, he had the frustrated look of someone who was prevented from doing the right thing but had decided to bear with this in silence.