"We'll see."

Delighted by this prospect, Tonin left the house.

"You have a lovely little boy," said Leprat.

"Yes. He's at that stage where they dream of nothing but glory and adventure."

"It is a stage which does not always pa.s.s with the coming of manhood."

"And thus his father died."

"I'm sorry to hear that, madame. He fell in battle?"

"Soldiers are quicker to die of hunger, cold, or disease than a thrust from a sword.... No, monsieur, it was the ranse which took my husband during a siege."

"The ranse," Leprat murmured, as though evoking an old and dreaded enemy....

It behaved like a virulent disease, and originated from dragons and their magic. The dragons-or more accurately their distant descendants of human appearance-suffered little from it, but the men and women who frequented their company for too long a period were rarely spared. The first symptom was a small mark on the skin, scarcely more alarming than a beauty spot, and which often went unnoticed in an age when people did not wash and never took off their shirts. The mark grew, becoming purplish in colour and rough to the touch. Sometimes it would slowly develop black veins and begin to crack open, oozing pus, while deeper tumours would develop underneath. This was known as the "Great ranse." Then the patient became contagious and felt the first pains, the first lumps, the first deformities, and the first monstrosities....

The Church saw this as clear proof that dragons were evil incarnate, to the extent that they could not even be approached without mortal danger. As for seventeenth-century medicine, it was impotent to either fight or prevent the ranse, whether great or small. Remedies were sold, to be sure, and new cures appeared in the apothecaries' dispensaries and the smooth-talking vendors' stalls almost every year. But most of these were nothing but the work of more or less well-intentioned charlatans or pract.i.tioners. As for allegedly more serious medications, it proved impossible to measure their effectiveness objectively because those afflicted were not all equally susceptible to the ranse. Some pa.s.sed away after two weeks, while others lived for a long time after the appearance of the first symptoms and suffered little. Meanwhile, you could still encounter other unfortunate victims in the final stages of the disease who, having been transformed into pitiable monsters, were reduced to begging on the streets to survive. They were obliged to wear a red robe and announce their presence by shaking a rattle, when they were not forcibly incarcerated in the recently founded Hospice des Incurables in Paris.

Shrugging away her bad memories, Genevieve helped Leprat remove his doublet. Then she unwound the bandage he had hastily wrapped around his bicep, over his shirt sleeve.

"Your shirt now, monsieur."

"Rip the sleeve, that will suffice."

"The shirt is still good. You just need to have the tear sewn up."

Leprat reflected that the price of a new shirt was not the same for a gentleman as for a countrywoman forced to make economies.

"It is," he admitted. "But please, close the door."

The woman hesitated, with a glance at her pistol, but finally went to shut the door which still stood open to the yard. Then she lent a hand to the musketeer, who was stripping to the waist, and understood immediately when he bared his muscular back.

Large, coa.r.s.e, and purplish splotches of the ranse spread across it.

"Do not fear, madame. My illness has not yet reached a point where it could affect you. But it's a sight that I'd rather spare your son."

"Do you suffer?"

"Not yet."

23.

Sitting at a table in an empty tavern whose keeper was sweeping the floor at the end of a very long day, the Gascon was glowering into the bottom of his gla.s.s when he realised someone was standing nearby.

"Captain."

"Good evening, Marciac."

"Please, take a seat."

"Thank you."

La Fargue pulled a chair toward him and sat down.

A second gla.s.s, as clean as one might hope for in such an establishment, was placed on the table. Marciac took and filled it for the old man.

It was the dregs of the jug. Barely a mouthful.

"Sorry, captain. It's all that's left."

"It will do."

La Fargue didn't touch his gla.s.s and, while the silence stretched out, noticed the crumpled letter which the Gascon had received in rue de la Grenouillere.

"The Blades are recalled to service, Marciac."

The other nodded, pensive and sad.

"I need you, Marciac."

"Mmh."

"The Blades need you."

"And who are they?"

"The same as before. Other letters have been sent. They will be arriving soon."

"The same as before. That's to say: those who still live."

"Yes."

The silence fell again, thicker than before.

Finally, Marciac burst out: "I have a life now, captain."

"A life which pleases you?"

They exchanged a long glance.

"Which pleases me well enough."

"And where is it leading you?"

"All lives lead to the cemetery, captain. What matters is to make the path pleasant."

"Or useful."

"Useful? Useful to whom?"

"We serve France."

"From the sewers."

"We serve the king."

"And the cardinal."

"It's the same thing."

"Not always."

Their conversation, sharp and delivered like a lethal clash of blades, ended with these words. Averting his eyes, Marciac drained his gla.s.s and asked: "Will we be justly rewarded?"

"With neither honour nor glory, if that's your idea. In that respect, nothing has changed."

"Let us speak of finances instead. If I accept I want to be paid handsomely. Very handsomely. On the day and hour specified. At the first delay, I hang up my sword."

La Fargue, intrigued, blinked slowly.

"Agreed."

The Gascon allowed himself a few moments of further thought while he examined his steel signet ring.

"When do we start?" he asked.

24.

There were a dozen courts of miracles in Paris. All of them were organised according to the same hierarchy, inherited from the Middle Ages: they consisted of an enclosed area where the communities of beggars, criminals, and other marginal elements could congregate. Scattered through the capital, they took their name from the professional mendicants-the kind with fake diseases and fake mutilations-who were "miraculously" restored to good health after a hard day of begging, once they were far from the inquisitive eyes of outsiders. Cour Sainte Catherine was one such refuge, situated in the Saint-Denis neighbourhood; another was to be found on rue du Bac; and a third near the Saint-Honore market. But the most famous court, the one which had earned its status as the Court of Miracles-with capital letters and without further reference-was the one on rue Neuve-Saint-Sauveur, near the Montmartre gate.

According to a chronicler of the times, it was located in "the worst-built, the dirtiest, and the most remote district of the city" and consisted of a vast courtyard dating from the thirteenth century. It was rank, muddy, surrounded by sordid, rickety buildings, and hemmed in by the tangled and labyrinthine alleys behind the Filles-Dieu convent. Hundreds of beggars and thugs lodged here with their women and children, so that there were at least a thousand inhabitants in all, ruling as absolute masters over their territory, permitting neither intrusions nor strangers nor the city watch, and ready to repel them all with insults, thrown stones, and bludgeons. When, eight years earlier, a new street was supposed to be laid nearby, the workers were attacked and the project had to be abandoned.

Jealous of its independence, the insubordinate little world of the Court of Miracles lived according to its own laws and customs. It was led by one man, the Grand Coesre, who Saint-Lucq was waiting to meet this afternoon. Through the slimy gla.s.s of a first floor window, from behind his red spectacles, he observed a large, sorry-looking, and at this hour almost deserted cul-de-sac-it would only become animated at nightfall when the thugs and beggars returned from their day of larceny and mendicity in Paris. The decor had something sinister and oppressive about it. Those who ventured here unawares would sense that they were in enemy territory, and being spied upon, just before the inevitable ambush.

The half-blood was not alone.

An old woman dressed entirely in black kept him company. Sitting in her corner she nibbled on a wafer like a rabbit chewing a chicory leaf, clasping it between the fingers of her emaciated hands, her eyes lost and vague. Tranchelard was there too, the thug Saint-Lucq had threatened earlier. The man endeavoured to make the atmosphere as unpleasant as possible with a heavy silence and a fixed black glare directed against the visitor, his hand on the pommel of his sword. Back turned, Saint-Lucq was unaffected. Minutes pa.s.sed in this room, where the mottled and stained appearance of the floor, the walls, and the door frames contrasted with the motley collection of luxurious furniture and carpets stolen from some mansion or wealthy bourgeois house. Nothing but the old woman's chewing disturbed the silence.

Eventually, preceded by a severe-looking individual with a noticeably receding hairline, the Grand Coesre arrived.

Slender and blond, the Grand Coesre was no more than seventeen years old, an age when one was already reckoned an adult in these times, but he seemed rather young to be leader of some of the toughest and most frightening members of the Parisian underworld. He nevertheless displayed all the self-a.s.surance of a feared and respected monarch, whose authority was never disputed without blood and tears flowing from the challenge. His right cheek carried the scar from a badly healed gash. His clear eyes shone with cynicism and intelligence. He was unarmed, certain that no harm would befall him in his own stronghold where a mere glance on his part could condemn another to death.

While the Grand Coesre settled himself comfortably on the high-backed armchair reserved for his use, the man who had held the door for him moved to his side, standing straight and expressionless. Saint-Lucq knew him. His name was Grangier and he was an archisuppot archisuppot. Within the strict hierarchical organisation of the Cour des Miracles, archisuppots ranked just below the Grand Coesre, along with the cagoux cagoux. The latter were responsible for organising the troops and training new recruits in the arts of picking pockets and eliciting compa.s.sion-and money-from strangers. The archisuppots, in contrast, were often highly educated judges and advisors. A defrocked priest, Grangier had his master's ear due to his formidable perspicacity.

Saint-Lucq bowed his head, but did not remove his hat.

"I must admit you're not lacking in courage," the Grand Coesre observed without preamble. "If anyone but you behaved like this, I would think I was dealing with a cretin."

The half-blood didn't respond.

"To come here after having manhandled two of my men and threatened to cut poor Tranchelard's throat-"

"I had to be sure he would not forget to pa.s.s on my message."

"You realise that he now speaks of nothing but disembowelling you?"

"He's of no importance."

Tranchelard bristled, visibly itching to draw his sword. As for his undisputed master, he burst out laughing.

"Well! You can always boast later of how you piqued my curiosity. Speak, I'm listening."

"It concerns the Corbins gang."

At hearing these words, the Grand Coesre's face darkened.

"And?"

"Recently, the Corbins have seized certain goods. Precious, fragile merchandise. Merchandise of a kind which, up until now, had never interested them. Do you know what I am referring to?"

"Perhaps."

"I would like to find out where they stash their goods. I know the place is not in Paris, but nothing more than that. You, on the other hand ..."

The master of the Cour des Miracles paused for a moment without speaking. Then he leaned toward Grangier and said a few words to him in narquois narquois, a language which was incomprehensible to the uninitiated. The archisuppot replied in the same idiom. Without reacting, Saint-Lucq waited for their secretive discussion to end. It was brief.

"Supposing I have the information you seek," the Grand Coesre said to him. "Why should I tell you?"

"It's information for which I'm willing to pay full price."