by Kevin Berry
“Now your turn.” The cardinal beckons you. You leave Hubert standing in the waiting room. He hasn’t even acknowledged you.
Once inside the cardinal’s private office, he pauses. You turn to face him. His raven peers at your from his shoulder.
“Give me your hand,” he says.
You offer your hand. Richelieu takes it in his own as if he’s going to shake hands. Without warning, he jerks your arm with a short, sharp motion, catching you off balance. You don’t fall, but you’re disorientated. You feel his other hand on the top of your head, turning it in a tight circle. You’re feeling really dizzy and would probably fall over if he wasn’t supporting you.
“Just relax,” he says. “It’s fine. Relax. There’s nothing to worry about.”
The man who really runs France, the man who solves problems, has made you feel as relaxed as you’ve ever felt before.
“Now, just listen to what I am about to say, because it’s exactly what you want to hear. You want to serve France. And that means serving me. You want to do exactly what I say. You want—”
There’s a loud rapping on the door. The raven caws and flies to the desk.
“Oh, confound it!” the cardinal snaps, stomps over to the door and pulls it open. A subaltern stands there with a written report.
“Not now!” Richelieu huffs and puffs. “Oh, I may as well take it seeing as you brought it.” He shuts the door without a word and puts the report on his desk.
“Now, where were we?”
In the half-minute or so that he was occupied, you’ve regained your senses. Odd, you felt so much under his control for a few seconds, absolutely and totally focused on what he was saying. But the sudden knocking on the door has broken that effect.
Richelieu strides over to you. Hastily, you form the glazed-eye expression you saw on Hubert after the cardinal had conducted his ‘ritual’ on your friend.
He peers at you. You stare into the distance, maintaining a lack of focus. He seems indecisive for a few moments, perhaps wondering if his hypnotic trance had enough time to take effect. You strain not to blink.
Finally, he turns away. “I think we’re finished here. Very good. I will call the other cadet in.”
You breathe a sigh of relief and catch up on a few missed blinks while his back is turned and he summons Hubert from the waiting room.
In a few moments, you’re both standing to attention before him. You’re keeping that same glazed expression that you see on Hubert’s face, but in your case, you’re merely pretending.
“Right, cadets. I will roster you onto palace guard duties and routine patrols next week. In the meantime, I have two special jobs, one for each of you. The first task is to help me investigate a palace official. I’m sure she is up to no good, but I need proof. One of you can help me gather that. The second task is a special duty regarding His Majesty. It only takes a few minutes, but it must be done with discretion every day.”
The cardinal pauses and looks at you both. You don’t move a muscle. He seems satisfied. “You,” he says, pointing at you. “Which task will you accept? Your companion can take the other.”
It’s time to make a decision. Do you:
Investigate the palace official?
Or
Undertake the discreet special duty regarding His Majesty?
Investigate the palace official
“I’ll accept the special duty investigating the palace official, please, Your Eminence,” you say.
“Excellent! Come and see me tomorrow morning at eight. For now, you are dismissed, and your time is your own.”
You bid goodbye and leave, wondering for a few moments how Hubert feels about getting the other task. It seems to you that you’ve chosen the most interesting one.
The rest of the day is yours to spend leisurely in Paris. You stop at a boulangerie and buy a couple of croissants and a half baguette to eat with cheese and ham later. Then you stroll north of the palace along rue Montmartre towards the countryside.
“Buy some lovely flowers?” a young girl says, her grubby face peering up at you. She’s smiling but has barely half of her teeth, and those that are there are yellowish brown. The wilted flowers she’s hawking do nothing to counter her foul breath. Her height suggests she’s about three years younger than you, but she seems much older.
“No, thank you, child,” you say, attempting to step around her, but then you notice her looking intently at your bags of food.
“Hungry,” she says.
She looks it too. “What’s your name? Have you eaten today?”
“I’m Minni. I haven’t eaten since midday yesterday.” She can barely lift her gaze away from your boulangerie purchases.
“Here, have these,” you say, offering her the croissants and half of the ham and cheese.
“Merci.” She accepts them gratefully.
You walk on. After another half mile, outside of the city walls, you stop and sit on an old log to eat what remains of your food. Somehow it is still just as satisfying as if you had not given half of it away. Afterwards, you return to the barracks for the Cardinal’s Guards, which are located by the river next to the Palais des Tuileries.
The next morning, you report to the cardinal as instructed. Though it is early, the cardinal seems to be an early riser as well as a night owl. Perhaps he doesn’t ever sleep.
“Have you had any lessons in accounting?” the cardinal asks.
“No, Your Eminence.” Accounting? You thought you’d be doing investigative work. Now it sounds like you’ll be doing paperwork. Aargh. Maybe you should have picked the other task.
“Right. That’s no problem. A bright cadet like you will learn quickly. Here, take this book and open it to the first page.” He hands you a leather-bound volume etched in gold lettering. Wow. You didn’t think accounting textbooks would be so grand.
You sit where he indicates and open the book on a large table. You’re anticipating a dull read, but the first page reveals a large ink drawing, a spiral of thick lines at the outer edge swirling into thin lines in the center.
The cardinal jolts you from behind. You’re suddenly disorientated.
“It’s all fine, nothing to worry about,” he says. “Focus on the ink drawing in the book. Let it draw you in … deeper and deeper …that’s right, just relax …”
You do as he says. It doesn’t occur to you not to follow his instructions.
“Concentrate only on my voice,” the cardinal continues. “In a few moments, I will tell you to turn the pages of the book one by one. With each page you turn, your concentration, comprehension and memory improve. One glance at each page is enough for you to understand its contents and to recall them at will. Now turn the pages.”
You leaf through the book, your gaze skimming over the material within, sucking in its information. Numbers and ledgers and credits and debits no longer seem mumbo-jumbo, but have clear meaning to you. Almost like magic.
Ten minutes later, you’re finished.
“Right. Now, come back to me when I click my fingers.” Cardinal Richelieu does so, and, with a jolt, you return to your normal conscious state of awareness, feeling somewhat calm, pleasant and crammed with years of accounting knowledge.
“Follow me.” The cardinal leads you out of his offices. His raven flies to perch on his shoulder, peering at you with a beady eye. You go down a few corridors to a part of the palace you’re not familiar with. He stops before an unmarked door. “This is the office of the chancellor. She’s not here at present; I sent her on a fact-finding mission to Lyon and she won’t be back for at least two days.”
“What are we here for, Your Eminence?” you ask.
“The chancellor manages the finances of the palace. We need to check that there have been no … irregularities. Without her knowing that, of course.”
“Very well, Your Eminence.”
Richelieu holds his finger to the lock on the door. There’s a quick flash and the door clicks open. You look quizzically at him.
He shrugs. “I grew tired of carrying a set of keys to all the palace doors,” he said.
Inside, the office is smaller than the cardinal’s. Papers are stacked neatly beside a quill and an inkpot on the desk. Ledger books line a small shelf.
After a few seconds, you become aware that the cardinal has not followed you into the room.
“Look for anomalies, inconsistencies, anything that seems to have been omitted or shouldn’t be there,” he instructs. “Tell me what you find.”
He shuts the door on you, his raven cawing a farewell. Now you understand that when the cardinal said he wanted help with the task, he actually meant he wanted you to do it.
Oh well. You’d best get started. But how?
Automatically, the crammed learning you just had kicks into action. You reach for the two most recent ledgers from the shelf and start scanning the pages, memorizing income and expense entries, looking for something that doesn’t add up.
Hours pass. You’re thirsty and you need the toilet. You leave the room for a few minutes and get a drink of water from the kitchens. As you walk back to the chancellor’s office, you find an empty corridor and pee in the corner, just like you’ve seen other people do. This corner smells like a favorite. For some crazy reason, toilets were overlooked when the palace was built.
After another hour poring over the documents, you find a strange pattern. Four months prior, a new expense appeared in the accounts, simply labelled ‘Misc.’, but you can’t find any paperwork to explain it. It’s the same each month thereafter. The clincher comes when you discover a private diary of the chancellor’s in which she has entered the same amount on the same days. The chancellor is embezzling—stealing the palace’s money!
You put the papers, ledgers and diary back where you found them to leave no trace of having been there. Now you should tell Cardinal Richelieu what you found. He’ll be pleased.
You head to the door, but stop as a thought occurs to you.
What if you don’t tell the cardinal what you found out? He’d never know. You’d be free to make a deal with the chancellor. Get yourself a cut of the money she’s embezzling. Dishonest, certainly … but potentially lucrative. And if the chancellor’s embezzling ever gets discovered, you can deny all knowledge and involvement …
But you’re not a dishonest person … are you?
It’s time to make a decision. Do you:
Tell the cardinal what you found?
Or
Blackmail the chancellor?
Tell the cardinal what you found
Honesty is the best policy. You leave the chancellor’s office and go to the cardinal’s rooms. He’s in his office, his raven sitting on the back of his chair as he reads from a large tome. The cover of the mammoth book is inscribed with gold runes.
He looks up as you enter. “Any progress?”
“Yes, Your Eminence.” You explain the details of the chancellor’s regular stealing from the court finances.
“Seventy-five livres a month, you say? Well, that is a matter I must deal with myself. But you may have the honor of arresting the chancellor. I’ve had word that she will return to Paris the day after tomorrow. In the late afternoon, I want you to arrest her and bring her to me.”
You bow. “Certainly, Your Eminence.”
You leave the cardinal to his work and enjoy the free time you have the following day, though your thoughts keep returning to the task ahead. You’ve never arrested anyone before. Will the chancellor come quietly?
At the time decreed by the cardinal, you arrive at the chancellor’s lavish townhouse and bang loudly on her door. A bushy-eyebrowed servant answers it.
“I am here on the cardinal’s business,” you state, flourishing the deed written and signed by Richelieu.
“Come this way,” the servant says, and takes you to a well-appointed drawing room. A large piano sits at one end, and several poetry books lie upon a small table next to a chaise longue. A coat of arms hangs upon the wall.
“You wish to see me?”
You turn. Madame Chancellor stands before you, still in her travelling clothes rather than in her fancy court costume. She is about fifty, with sharp, intelligent green eyes.
“Yes, Madame Chancellor. I am to take you to Cardinal Richelieu immediately.”
“Immediately? Well, Lieutenant cadet, that is inconvenient. At this very moment, servants are heating water for my annual bath. I do not want it to go to waste. You will have to wait.”
“No, His Eminence was insistent that I escort you to him with no delay. You are under arrest.”
“Surely a misunderstanding. Begone. I intend to have my annual bath first.”
“Very well, madame, I will be happy to arrange an escort of Cardinal’s Guards to carry you in your bathtub to the palace, if that is how you prefer it.”
That settles the matter. Grumbling, but unwilling to submit to your proposal and apparently believing that you would carry it out, the chancellor calls for her carriage, saying she is too tired to walk.
Her carriage is dark red, covered, and could seat six people. You sit on the opposite side to the chancellor as four chestnut horses take you to the palace. The streets have dried, and the horses’ hooves kick up dust as they trot along, scattering townsfolk. The chancellor continues to complain vociferously, but you ignore her.
A few minutes after arriving at the palace, you escort her through the corridors to Cardinal Richelieu’s office.
“Madame Chancellor!” the cardinal exclaims once you have both entered. “We have a lot to talk about. One moment.”
Richelieu hands you a paper and whispers in your ear. “Take three Guards and search her house for the missing money.”
You nod, rather than speak, as clearly this is a duty the cardinal would rather keep secret from the chancellor at the moment. It’s almost dinnertime, but you go to the barracks and enlist the help of three Guards before returning to the chancellor’s house.
When the servant answers the door, you thrust the written order from the cardinal at him, then rush inside. Maybe the servants are under instructions to destroy or hide any evidence of wrongdoing in the event of the chancellor’s arrest. If so, you may already be too late.
“I’ll take upstairs,” you say. “The three of you start downstairs, then try the cellar. This place is bound to have one.”
You bound up the stairs, your boots thumping on the wood. A servant shadows you. “What are you looking for?” she asks.
She seems terrified—perhaps afraid of losing her job if the chancellor goes to the Bastille. “Cardinal’s business,” you say. “Please, gather the other servants and wait in the dining room until we have completed our search.”
The servant obediently goes back downstairs. You turn your attention to the furniture in the main bedroom. A dark walnut dresser stands next to a matching wardrobe, chunky diamond patterns visible in the wood. Not really a style that would last, you think.
There’s a scratching at the window. What was it? You spin to face it, thinking there’s someone there, but you don’t see anything. Then you remember you’re upstairs and feel dumb. It must have been a bird.
You look under the bed, a huge four-poster. There’s an old valise, but nothing inside apart from old clothes, so you turn to the dresser and wardrobe.
You search them thoroughly, rifling through clothes and shoes. Eventually, your hand touches something hard and lumpy. You dig further, revealing a leather bag the size of a small chicken. It clinks as you pull it out for a closer look.
Inside are dozens of silver livres with a few gold louis in the mix. It’s the missing money!
And no one knows that you’ve found it.
You ought to take it back to Richelieu. That’s what he wants you to do. That’s what he expects you to do. But maybe you could keep a little of it for yourself? Maybe ten percent? Or twenty-five? Thirty?
You sit on the floor, thinking. It might look suspicious if you returned only some of the missing money. Bet
ter to hand it all back, or none at all.
But are you a dishonest person? When you discovered the chancellor’s embezzling, you reported it to the cardinal. That was honest. But now you are faced with a bag of money, a small fortune. It’s sitting right there on the floor in front of you. You could take it and run away to England and live the high life for a while, or whatever it is they do over there.
What will you do? Are you a thief? What is the price of your honor?
It’s time to make a decision. Do you:
Keep it?
Or
Hand it in to the cardinal?
Keep the money
It’s too much money for you to resist, so you decide to keep it. That is, to steal it. It’s only a small percentage of the palace finances, you reason. And if it’s already been stolen, is it a crime to steal it from the thief?
The problem for you is how to get it out of the chancellor’s house. The bag is too large for you to conceal, and, besides, the coins would jingle and the other Guards would notice. The chancellor probably took the money a few coins at a time; you want to take all of it at once. You won’t be able to do it, though.
A plan occurs to you. You lug the bag to the window as quietly as you can, and ease the window open. There’s no one nearby to see what you’re about to do.
The chancellor’s bedroom overlooks a small garden. You lift the bag of coins and heave it out of the window. It buries itself in a large shrub with a rustling, clanking thump.
You wait a minute or two. No one leaves the house to check on the noise. If anyone heard it, they must have assumed it was an animal or bird.
You grin. At night, you’ll return and quietly remove the hidden money. Now, you go downstairs and find the other Guards. They’ve looked everywhere on the ground floor and in the cellar.
“Anything?” you ask.