Alchemist in the Shadows

by Pierre Pevel

  La Fargue spared a thought for the servants housed in the outbuildings. Were any of them still alive?

  ‘All of the windows within a man’s reach are solidly barred,’ Leprat indicated. ‘And only the main pavilion, where we are now, is occupied. Elsewhere, the doors are locked and the rooms are empty.’

  Of the three of them, he was the only one who knew the place well.

  ‘In fact,’ replied La Fargue, ‘right here in this front hall is where we stand the best chance of defending ourselves, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. And from here we can guard the main stairs.’

  ‘There are others. There are service stairs. And the hidden ones.’

  ‘To be sure, but the dracs won’t know where to find them. Whereas this one . . .’

  In French chateaux the main staircase was always found near the entrance of the central pavilion, of which it formed the backbone.

  ‘Then let’s barricade ourselves,’ decided the captain of the Blades, already pushing a bench into place. ‘God only knows when the dracs will make their assault.’

  Shots were suddenly fired, and the window panes by the main door shattered. The horses that La Fargue and Almades had left outside whinnied. Almost immediately, the three men heard a dull thud from above, the sound of a body falling heavily.

  ‘Hold them back!’ exclaimed La Fargue as he rushed to the staircase.

  Already, other shots resounded and more musket balls came crashing into the walls.

  The captain of the Blades climbed the steps two at a time, crossed the antechamber in La Donna’s apartments, and ran into a locked door.

  He swore, striking his fist against the panel, calling:

  ‘Open up! It’s La Fargue!’

  Receiving no response, he moved back a pace, lifted a knee, and sent his foot crashing against the door. It shook on its hinges without giving way. He swore even louder, took a running start, and threw himself forward shoulder first. The wood split, the lock broke and the door flew open as if it had been hit by a battering ram. La Fargue stumbled into the bed chamber. But he managed to keep his balance and unsheathed his sword by reflex when he saw what awaited him inside.

  The chambermaid was lying unconscious on the floor, next to the scattered keys from her bunch. At the rear of the room a wall tapestry was folded back, caught in a door that had been shut too quickly. But above all, there was a black drac who had just entered by the wide-open window.

  From the yellow patterns decorating his facial scales, La Fargue identified him as the chief of the drac mercenaries who had been sent after La Donna by the Black Claw. As for Kh’Shak, he recognised the old gentleman soldier who had barred his way in Artois with surprise and pleasure.

  The captain of the Guards immediately placed himself en garde.

  His opponent smiled and, instead of a sword, brandished a pistol.

  ‘I promised you we would meet again, old man,’ he said taking aim.

  The very same moment the shot rang out, the entire building was rocked by an explosion.

  On the ground floor, the main door had just been blown into pieces, destroyed by the explosion of a black powder charge. Thick smoke invaded the front hall and, dazed, Leprat and Almades painfully picked themselves up from the floor, coughing amidst the last bits of debris that were raining down.

  His ears ringing, Leprat thought he could hear drakish war cries. Tottering on his feet, he had just realised that he’d managed to keep hold of his pistol when he saw a silhouette outlined in the gaping frame of the doorway. He took a very approximate aim and missed his target by a fraction. The drac rushed him. Still shaken by the explosion, he was late in comprehending what was happening. And he was only starting to draw his rapier when the drac struck.

  Too slow to react, the musketeer saw his death rushing towards him . . .

  . . . when he heard another loud blast.

  Leprat quickly recovered his wits upon seeing the drac’s head burst. His face spattered with black blood, he turned to see Danvert armed with a smoking arquebus. Other dracs were pushing their way into the building and Almades had already engaged two of them.

  His white rapier clenched in his fist, Leprat dashed forward to lend him a hand.

  Kh’Shak had aimed for the head and had scored a hit. But his arm had wavered at the last moment due to the explosion, so that the pistol ball had merely cut deeply into La Fargue’s brow as it skidded over the bone, rather than penetrating his brain.

  His hat torn away, the Blades’ captain reeled. His vision was blurred and his ears rang as blood dripped down into his eyes. He thought he was going to collapse yet, somehow, he remained standing. But the floor seemed to be swaying beneath his feet.

  Kh’Shak, still brandishing his smoking pistol, struggled to understand how his adversary could still be alive and on his feet, face bloodied, after receiving a ball in the middle of his forehead. Then he pulled himself together, threw his pistol away and drew his sword as he marched toward La Fargue.

  The latter, half-stunned, saw the drac coming as if through a veil. He parried as best he could one, two, three successive attacks with the wild gestures of a drunken man, and attempted a riposte that the other easily countered.

  The drac started to play a cruel game with him.

  ‘You’re no longer up to this, old man.’

  He lunged, bypassing La Fargue’s uncertain parry, and plunged the point of his blade into the captain’s right shoulder. The old gentleman moaned as he retreated, bringing his hand up to the wound. The keen pain aroused him somewhat from his torpor. But the floor continued to move beneath him and his buzzing temples continued to deafen him.

  ‘You should have hung up your sword long ago.’

  Another lunge and this time La Fargue felt two inches of steel penetrate his left thigh. His leg faltered beneath his weight and almost gave way beneath him. He only just succeeded in remaining on his feet. Still retreating, he wiped a sleeve across a brow that was sticky with blood and sweat. He blinked several times. And with an immense effort of will he managed to focus on the blurred silhouette that was tormenting him.

  ‘It’s too late for regrets now, old man. Goodbye,’ said Kh’Shak, as he prepared to deliver the fatal stroke to his exhausted opponent.

  But it was La Fargue who attacked.

  Dropping his sword and roaring like a savage beast, he rushed at the drac, grappling with him and shoving him backwards. Wide, massive, and solid, the captain of the Blades was a force of nature despite his age. And as strong and vigorous as he was, the huge drac was unable to halt the old gentleman’s momentum. Benefiting from the element of surprise, the man was also powered by an overwhelming rage born of desperation. Kh’Shak felt himself being lifted off the floor. And he realised too late that La Fargue was propelling them both towards the open window.

  ‘You old fool. You’re going to—’

  His teeth red with blood, La Fargue wore an evil smile of triumph and rancour as they toppled together into empty space.

  With Charybdis flying ahead and Scylla right behind him, Alessandra moved away as quickly as possible from La Renardiere and into the surrounding forest. After stunning her chambermaid and stealing the key to the small hidden door, she had descended a damp, narrow stairway. Then, taking advantage of the confusion that reigned at the hunting lodge, she had discreetly made her escape.

  Scylla gave a raucous cry: they had arrived.

  And, indeed, La Donna soon saw the clearing ahead of her where Aubusson, her friend and accomplice, was waiting with (wo horses he had hired that day from the master of the staging post at Dammartin.

  They exchanged a long embrace.

  ‘At last!’ said the painter. ‘You did it!’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘What? You’re free, aren’t you?’

  ‘I shall never be entirely free as long as that sorcerer lives.’

  ‘Don’t tell me you intend to—’

  ‘Don’t worry, just return home. The cardinal’s me
n will soon be asking you numerous, pressing questions.’

  ‘No. I’ll come with you.’

  ‘Don’t. You’ve done enough already. We’ll meet again soon, my friend.’

  And hitching up her skirt to reveal the breeches and boots she had donned before leaving her apartments at La Renar-diere, she mounted a horse and dug her heels into its flanks.

  ‘Captain! Captain!’

  La Fargue slowly regained consciousness. The last thing he remembered was the sound of the drac’s ribs cracking as they hit the ground.

  Moaning, the old gentleman discovered innumerable pains as he sat up to see Leprat descending into the moat.

  ‘Captain! Are you all right?’

  ‘I’ll live. And him?’

  He leaned on one elbow and pointed to the drac stretched out beside him.

  ‘Dead,’ replied the musketeer.

  ‘Good. And the others?’

  ‘Also dead. But there were only five of them. Six, with this one.’

  ‘So there’s one still missing. That’s too bad . . . And La Donna?’ La Fargue asked as Leprat helped him to his feet.

  ‘She’s nowhere to be found.’

  At the home of the cardinal’s master of magic, Agnes and Laincourt were drowsily waiting in an antechamber, one on a bench and the other in a chair, when the sound of a door being flung open roused them.

  It was Teyssier, coming in search of them.

  His face looked drawn, there were rings under his eyes and his hair was dishevelled. His fingers were ink-stained and in his hand he held dog-eared sheets of paper, covered with cramped writing and many crossings-out. Unshaven, he had spent the entire night studying the documents La Donna had stolen from the Black Claw.

  ‘I need you to escort me to the Palais-Cardinal,’ he said in an urgent voice. ‘I must see the cardinal as soon as he wakes.’

  Laincourt turned to the window.

  The night was just starting to grow pale.

  Dawn was breaking over Paris and the He Notre-Dame-des-Ecailles.

  Down in the cellar that stank of rotting remains, his ritual staff across his thighs, the old drac was crouched in a meditative posture. He did not make the slightest gesture and kept his eyes closed when he heard steps behind him.

  ‘I’ve been waiting for you,’ he said in the drakish tongue.

  ‘Pray to your gods one last time,’ replied La Donna, unsheathing a dagger.

  The sorcerer stood up and faced her.

  Dressed in a sturdy leather hunting outfit, she was alone. She had preferred not to bring her two small companions out of fear of being recognised at the gates of Paris. A pretty young red-headed woman with two dragonnets would not go unnoticed, and she had excellent reasons to believe that all of the cardinal’s informers — although they might not know why had received instructions to keep a lookout for her. Besides, even without Scylla and Charybdis, returning to Paris was imprudent on her part.

  But Alessandra di Santi knew there was still an act to be played out in this story, before she disappeared for good.

  The old drac gave her his toothless smile.

  ‘What is it, sorcerer? Do you think I will hesitate to stab you if you stare at me? Then you do not know me . . .’

  La Donna, however, was about to fall victim to her pride.

  Too sure of herself, she did not see the danger coiled in the shadowy corners of the cellar, which was already creeping out to surround her. Silent and deadly, tendrils of black mist snaked towards her, licking her boots, winding around her ankles.

  ‘Your little dragonnets, they would have sensed it—’ said the drac.

  ‘Sensed it? Sensed what?’

  ‘This—’

  The sorcerer’s eyes sparkled. His fists clenched around his staff and he suddenly brandished it in the air. Instantly, the tongues of black mist rushed to attack the young woman, like a vine suddenly wrapping itself around a column. They seized her and pinned her arms against her body. Incapable of making the slightest movement, she felt herself lifted from the floor.

  ‘I understood too late,’ said the old drac. ‘I realised too late that you had stopped running. I saw, too late, that you were only hiding for long enough to discover my lair . . . Indeed, how did you manage that? Your cursed little dragonnets, no doubt . . .’

  He shook his staff and rattled the talismans — little bones, scales, beads, claws — that hung from it. La Donna stiffened, her body paralysed. She tried to speak, but could only manage a hiccup. Like a vice, the wisps of mist were now crushing her chest. She was starting to lack for air.

  ‘But it wasn’t enough for you to draw my warriors into a trap. Even once you were rid of them, you knew your flight would never be complete as long as I held within me that small shred of your soul which I stole from you. You needed to kill me. And that’s why I was waiting for you.’

  The sorcerer shook his staff again. Alessandra gave a jolt. Her eyes round with fear, she felt the black mist running fine, agile fingers over her throat towards her face, her lips, and her nostrils.

  If this horror reached inside her . . .

  ‘Dying of the sudden ranse is extremely painful, did you know that?’

  La Donna gathered her last strength to tear herself away from the mist that threatened to invade her nose, her mouth, her throat, and her entire being. In vain. She gave a long painful moan in supplication. Tears welled up at the corners of her eyes.

  The worst thing was that she and the sorcerer were not alone in the cellar. La Donna had seen someone slowly emerge from the shadows behind the drac’s back. But why didn’t he act? Why wouldn’t he help her? Was he content to watch her die? Why? What had she done to deserve such indifference?

  Do something . . . For pity’s sake do some—

  She was losing consciousness when the mist suddenly relaxed its embrace. The young woman collapsed on the dirt floor and, through a veil, saw the sorcerer frozen in shock, a blade pointing at his chest. Then the blade disappeared with a sound of steel clawing at scales and bone, and the old drac fell down dead. First to his knees. And then on his belly.

  The black mist dissipated.

  Coughing and spluttering but quickly regaining her wits, La Donna dragged herself backwards away from the body and the pool of blood spreading beneath it.

  “Wh . . . What were you waiting for?‘ she finally asked, between two great gulps of air.

  ‘I was waiting to hear the full story,’ replied Saint-Lucq.

  ‘You bastard.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  The half-blood crouched to wipe his blade on the sorcerer’s filthy, stinking rags. Then he stood up, re-sheathed his sword and, from behind his red spectacles, watched La Donna struggle to her feet, one hand seeking support from the wall.

  ‘You’d better hurry, madame,’ he said in a voice that betrayed no emotion. ‘As perhaps you would like to rest for a little while, before your next appointment with monsieur de Laffemas at Le Chatelet.’

  4

  Rue Saint-Thomas-du-Louvre was located in a neighbourhood that stretched from the palace of the Louvre in the east to that of the Tuileries in the west, and between rue Saint-Honore to the north and the Grande Galerie to this south. This old neighbourhood had undergone various upheavals over the centuries, to the point of now finding itself curiously embedded in the royal precinct, after the Grande Galerie -also known as ‘Gallery on the shore’ — was built to link the Louvre to the Tuileries along the bank of the Seine. But whatever its changed circumstances, it had kept its mediaeval appearance. Dirty, cramped, and populous, it offered an unfortunate contrast with the royal buildings that surrounded it on three sides.

  Running north from the quays, rue Saint-Thomas-du-Louvre ended at rue Saint-Honore, opposite the Palais-Cardinal. It took its name from a twelfth-century church dedicated to Saint Thomas of Canterbury, and had acquired a certain notoriety due to the two adjoining mansions of Rambouillet and Chev-reuse. The first was the Parisian residence of the marquise
de Rambouillet, who hosted a famous literary salon there. The second belonged to the duchesse de Chevreuse, whose reputation as a lover, schemer, and woman of the world needed no further embellishment.

  This evening, the duchesse was receiving guests.

  Torches burned at the monument gates of her mansion, lighting up the street in the gathering dusk. Other torches illuminated the courtyard. The guests were already arriving in coaches, in sedan chairs, on horseback. But also on foot, escorted by lackeys who carried lights and who, once they reached their destination, helped their masters change their shoes or even their stockings. Groups were forming at both ends of rue Saint-Thomas. And people were almost jostling one another before the mansion itself. They conversed gaily, already pleasantly anticipating the excellent evening they would be spending. The jesting of men and the laughter of women rose from the scene, disturbing the night’s nascent tranquillity.

  In the courtyard, the chairs hindered the carriages as they made the turn to deliver their occupants to the front porch. Made nervous by the agitation, the horses held by their bits whinnied and threatened to rear up between their traces. Lackeys and coachmen did their best to prevent any mishaps. For their masters, it was a question of making the most noteworthy appearance thanks to the splendour of their team and the magnificence of their attire.

  There was, however, one guest who — although he came unaccompanied by any servant and descended from a simple hired chair — inspired a certain amount of awe. Thin and pallid, with icy grey eyes and bloodless lips, he was dressed in the austere black robes of a scholar and did not exchange glances with anyone.

  ‘Who is that?’ some of those present asked in hushed voices.

  ‘That’s Mauduit.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Mauduit. Madame de Chevreuse’s new master of magic!’

  ‘The one they say is a sorcerer?’

  Mauduit.

  That was how he was known here. But he had borne and still bore many other names.

  And, to a few people only, he was known as the Alchemist of the Shadows.