"What is it?" asked the m.u.f.fled voice of the young woman lying beside him in bed.

"You can't hear it?"

"I can."

"What is it?"

"Nothing. Go back to sleep."

And she turned over, pulling the bedcovers round her.

Having two or three hours to kill during the day, Saint-Lucq had approached her on rue de Glatigny, an alley in the city where ladies of pleasure had plied their trade since the Middle Ages. He had offered to pay her handsomely on the condition that he could also take rest in her dwelling. The deal concluded, she had led him into the little attic room where she lived, close to the law courts. "You're not my first," she had said, on seeing the half-blood's reptilian eyes.

Then she'd undressed.

An hour later, she was asleep. As for Saint-Lucq, he had remained awake for a moment, looking at the stripped plaster ceiling. He had no preference for the company of prost.i.tutes but their bought hospitality had its advantages-one being that, unlike hoteliers, they did not keep a guest register.

The scratching continued.

Saint-Lucq rose, put on his breeches and his shirt, listened carefully, and drew back the nasty brown rag which served as a curtain to the sole window. The sound was coming from there. Daylight entered, and the silhouette of a black dragonnet was clearly visible behind the pane of gla.s.s.

The half-blood was still for a moment.

"Is he yours?"

The young woman-she claimed to be called Madeleine, "like the other Magdalene"-sat up and, squinting in the light, grumbled: "No. But it seems to think so.... I made the mistake of feeding it two or three times. Now it won't stop coming here to beg for more."

Truly wild dragonnets had almost disappeared in France. But those that were lost, had escaped, or had been abandoned by their masters lived in the cities like stray cats.

"Find me something to feed him," ordered Saint-Lucq as he opened the window.

"Oh, no! I want to persuade him to go elsewhere. And it's not-"

"I'll pay for it as well. Surely you have something he'll eat?"

Madeleine rose, naked, while the half-blood watched the dragonnet and the dragonnet watched the half-blood, with equal wariness. The reptile's scales shone in the light of the waning sun.

"There," said Madeleine, bringing in a cloth tied together at the corners.

Saint-Lucq untied the linen and found a half-eaten dried-up sausage.

"That's all?"

"That's all," confirmed the young woman, already back in bed. "But there's a roast-meat seller on the street corner, if you like ..."

Hand held flat, the half-blood presented a morsel of sausage to the dragonnet. The animal hesitated, sniffed, took the food in at the tip of its pointed muzzle, and seemed to chew it with some regret.

"You prefer your victims to be alive and fighting, don't you?" murmured Saint-Lucq. "Well, so do I...."

"What are you saying?" asked Madeleine from the bed.

He didn't reply, and continued to feed the dragonnet.

A wyvern-which, ridden by a royal messenger, was returning to the Louvre-pa.s.sed high above them, giving voice to a hollow cry from the skies. As though responding to the great reptile's call, the black dragonnet suddenly spread its leathery wings and was gone.

Saint-Lucq shut the window, swallowed the remains of the sausage, and finished getting dressed.

"You're leaving?" asked Madeleine.

"So it would seem."

"You have a meeting?"

"Yes."

"Who with?"

The half-blood hesitated, then offered a truth so incredible it might as well be a lie.

"With the Grand Coesre."

The prost.i.tute laughed loudly.

"Oh, really! Say h.e.l.lo for me. And to the entire Court of Miracles, while you're at it ... !"

Saint-Lucq simply smiled.

A minute later, he b.u.t.toned his doublet, hung his sheathed sword from his belt, and fitted his strange spectacles with their crimson lenses. Then, from the attic room's threshold, the door already half open, he turned and threw two pieces of silver on to the bed.

The gesture astonished Madeleine since she had already been paid for her services.

"That's a lot for a little bit of sausage," she teased him.

"The first coin is for you to feed the dragonnet if it returns."

"Done. And the second?"

"It's so you don't forget what the first is for."

19.

Arnaud de Laincourt lived on rue de la Ferronnerie which ran between the neighbourhoods of Sainte-Opportune and Les Halles, extending rue Saint-Honore, skirting the Saints-Innocents cemetery, and linking up with rue des Lombards, thus creating one of the longest routes through the capital. Broad, at almost four metres across, and heavily used, it was a place of sad memories: it was here that Ravaillac had stabbed Henri IV when the royal coach was halted by the busy street traffic. But this detail aside, Laincourt's address was quite commonplace. He rented accommodation in a house similar to many others in Paris: tall and narrow, crammed in between its neighbours, with a small shop on the ground floor-a ribbon seller, as it happened. Next to this establishment, a door for residents opened onto a corridor which pa.s.sed through the building and led to a lightless staircase. From there, the top floors could be reached by following a shaky wooden banister up through the fetid air well.

Laincourt had his foot on the first step when he heard the squeak of hinges behind him in the shadowy corridor.

"Good morning, officer."

It was monsieur Laborde, the ribbon seller. He must have seen him arrive, just as he saw everyone who came and went. In addition to the shop, he rented the three rooms on the first floor for himself and his family, as well as one poor, tiny room on the second floor for their maid. He was the princ.i.p.al lodger in the house. Because of this, he collected the rent and claimed to keep an eye on everything, puffed up with pride, jealous of the trust placed in him by the landlord, and very concerned about the respectability of the place.

Laincourt turned to greet him, suppressing a sigh.

"Monsieur Laborde."

Like most members of the petty bourgeoisie, the ribbon seller evinced a fearful hatred of the popular ma.s.ses, despised anyone poorer than himself, envied his equals and deemed them all to be upstarts, was quick to abase himself before those with power, and always felt he needed to wriggle into the good graces of representatives of authority. He dreamed of being able to count Laincourt, an ensign with His Eminence's horse guards, amongst his customers.

"I invite you to do me the honour of pa.s.sing by my shop sometime, monsieur. I have received some swathes of satin which, if I am to believe my wife, would look quite wonderful on you if made up into a doublet."

"Ah."

"Yes. And you know as well as I do how the ladies have an eye and a taste for such things."

Laincourt could not stop himself from thinking of Laborde's wife and the metres of coloured ribbons which adorned the least of her dresses, although in all honesty none of these could be described as "the least" once one had seen the imposing dimensions of the lady in question.

"True elegance is in the detail, isn't it?" insisted the tradesman.

Detail. Another word which sat poorly with the enormous madame Laborde, who raised her little finger when she sipped her chocolate and gobbled up pastries as though eating for four.

"No doubt," said Laincourt with a smile which said nothing. "Good day, monsieur Laborde."

The ensign climbed as far as the second floor and, pa.s.sing in front of the garret door where the ribbon seller's maid slept, he entered his own rooms. His apartment was made up of two very ordinary rooms, that is to say: cold and gloomy ones, where the air circulated poorly. But he didn't have much reason to complain as each had a window-even if one looked onto a dirty courtyard and the other into an alley so narrow that one could touch the opposing wall with an outstretched arm. His furniture was meagre: a bed and a chest for clothes in the bedroom; and a table, a rickety sideboard, and two chairs in the second room. This furniture, moreover, did not belong to him. With the exception of the chest, they had all been there when he arrived and would remain there when he left.

In order not to compromise the impeccable cleanliness of his rooms, Laincourt's first care was to remove his stained boots, promising himself he would soon clean off the black and stinking muck they had acquired from the Parisian streets. Then he hung his belt from the same nail which held his felt hat with its white plume, and took off his cape.

There were writing implements on the table and Laincourt set to work at once. He had to retranscribe the letter he had read at midday in Charpentier's-Richelieu's secretary-tiny study. He copied it out from memory, only he used Latin vocabulary combined with Greek grammar. The result was a text which, while not entirely undecipherable, could not be read by anyone without a perfect knowledge of both languages-which remained the province of scholars alone. The ensign didn't hesitate even once as he filled a page with lines of cramped writing, and he didn't release the quill until he had penned the final period.

He was waiting, motionless and impa.s.sive, for the ink to dry, when someone knocked on the door. Laincourt turned his head toward it, frowning.

As the knocking was insistent, he resolved to go and open the door. When he did, he saw the Labordes' servant, a nice girl with pink cheeks who nursed a secret crush on the young ensign of the Cardinal's Guards.

"Yes?"

"Good morning, monsieur."

"Good morning."

"I don't know if you know, but a gentleman came here."

"A gentleman."

"Yes. He asked some questions about you."

"Questions to which monsieur Laborde no doubt zealously replied...."

The servant nodded, embarra.s.sed, as if a little of her master's abject nature reflected on her.

"Did he give his name, this gentleman?" asked Laincourt.

"No."

"How did he look?"

"He was tall, slightly handsome, with black hair. And he had a scar on his temple.... He did not give any cause for alarm, but he was ... frightening."

The ensign nodded, inscrutable.

At that moment, madame Laborde called out for her maidservant, who made haste to answer the summons.

"Thank you," said Laincourt, as she took leave with a brief curtsey.

Having closed the door again, he returned to his writing table and slipped the transcription of the letter into a thin leather envelope. He carried it to the chair, lifted the rug, dislodged a floorboard, and hid the secret doc.u.ment before returning everything to its normal place.

Or almost.

As he saw at once, a corner of the rug remained rolled up: an obvious discrepancy which was at odds with the perfect order of the room.

The ensign hesitated for a moment, then shrugged and prepared to leave. He pulled his fouled boots back on, strapped on his belt, took his hat, and threw his folded cape over his shoulder. In the distance, the Sainte-Opportune bell tower tolled the half hour, almost immediately followed by the Saints-Innocents church.

20.

At Les Pet.i.tes Grenouilles, Marciac woke sated and happy in a very rumpled bed, and leaned on an elbow to watch Gabrielle as she brushed her hair, sitting half naked in front of her dressing table. This sight made his joy complete. She was beautiful, the folds of cloth which barely covered her had all the elegance of the drapery of ancient statues, and the light of the setting sun shining through the window made the loose strands of hair at the nape of her slender neck iridescent, flattered her pale round shoulders, and outlined the curve of her satiny back in amber. It was one of those perfect moments when all the harmony of the world is combined. The room was silent. Only the faint sound of the brush caressing her smooth hair could be heard.

After a moment, Gabrielle caught her lover's gaze in the mirror and, without turning, broke the spell: "You should keep the ring."

The Gascon saw the prize that he had won in the duel. Gabrielle had removed it from her finger and placed it near her jewel case.

"I gave it to you," said Marciac. "I shall not take it back again."

"You need it."

"I don't."

"Yes, you do. To repay La Rabier."