He wanted to believe it, but the others were less confident. What price did the cardinal currently place on the life of one of his Blades? He had never hesitated to sacrifice them on the altar of political necessity in the past.

"I can arrange a meeting with His Eminence quickly," proposed Saint-Lucq.

"Then let us try that," concluded La Fargue.

They all rose and Marciac took the captain to one side.

"With your permission, I would like to go in search of Cecile."

"Do you know where she went?"

The Gascon smiled.

"If Agnes were here, she would tell you that you do not know women very well, captain."

"That may be. Go ahead, follow your idea. But we will have need of you soon."

"I won't be long."

13.

In 1607 Concino Concini, an Italian adventurer who, together with his wife, enjoyed such influence over Queen Marie de Medicis that she made him marquis d'Ancre and a marshal of France, built a vast mansion on rue de Tournon. Greedy and incompetent, he was hated by the population, who pillaged his mansion for the first time in 1616 and then again, after his death in 1617. Louis XIII resided there from time to time, and then gave it to one of his favourites, only to buy it back later. From then on, and up until 1748, the beautiful house in rue de Tournon became a residence for visiting amba.s.sadors extraordinary.

The creation of permanent amba.s.sadors was not yet a widespread practice. With rare exceptions, European kingdoms only employed amba.s.sadors extraordinary to conduct particular negotiations or represent their monarchs on grand occasions-princely baptisms, betrothals, marriages, and other important ceremonies. These envoys-always great lords expected to maintain appearances at their own cost-would return to their country once their mission was completed. Diplomacy was yet to become a career.

Thus, in Paris, amba.s.sadors and their retinues were the guests of the king in the marquis d'Ancre's former mansion. Having been appointed by King Felipe IV of Spain, the comte de Pontevedra had been lodging there for several days and would no doubt remain there as long as was necessary to ensure the completion of a mission that was surrounded by the greatest secrecy. What were the comte and Richelieu discussing during the course of their long daily meetings-meetings at which even the king himself made appearances? The royal court was filled with rumours on this subject and everyone either claimed to know or made educated guesses. The truth, however, went beyond any of their expectations. It involved nothing less than preparing, if not an alliance, then at least a rapprochement between France and Spain. Was such a thing even possible? If it was, it would represent an enduring upheaval in European politics and would affect the destinies of millions of souls.

On this day, the comte de Pontevedra returned rather earlier than usual from the Louvre. He rode in a luxurious coach, surrounded by twenty gentlemen in arms whose role was both to protect him and to enhance his prestige with their numbers and their elegance. At the mansion in rue de Tournon he hurried alone to his apartments, sent his servants away, and even refused his valet's a.s.sistance to remove his brocade doublet and his gold-trimmed baldric. He poured himself a gla.s.s of wine and settled down in an armchair. He was preoccupied, eaten away by worry. But it was not the difficulty of the delicate diplomatic negotiations he was engaged in that spoilt his days and haunted his nights.

A door creaked.

The amba.s.sador rose, furious, ready to drive away the unwelcome visitor and then suddenly froze. He glanced around for his sword which, unfortunately, he had abandoned out of easy reach.

"That would be suicide, monsieur," said Laincourt, emerging from an antechamber. "I am not an a.s.sa.s.sin. I am a messenger."

"Who sent you?"

"The Black Claw."

In his fifties, tall, dignified, with greying temples and a fine scar decorating his cheekbone, the amba.s.sador was still a handsome man. He was not trembling, but he had grown pale.

"I see," added Laincourt, "that you have guessed the reason for my visit...."

"Speak, monsieur."

"We have your daughter."

Pontevedra remained expressionless.

"You don't believe me," inferred Laincourt after a moment.

"On what grounds should I believe you? I await your proof. Can you show me a jewel that could only belong to her? Or perhaps a lock of her hair?"

"Neither jewel, nor hair. But I could return with an eye...."

There was another silence, during which the two men exchanged stares, each trying to probe the other.

"What do you want? Money?"

Laincourt gave a faint but amiable smile.

"Why don't you sit down, monsieur? In this armchair. That will place you away from the table you are edging toward and the letter opener that rests upon it."

Pontevedra obeyed.

In turn, the Black Claw's envoy also took a seat, but one a good distance from the amba.s.sador, while constantly covering him with his pistol.

"Once upon a time," said Laincourt, "there was an adventurous French gentleman who became a great lord in Spain. This gentleman had a daughter who, one day, wished to remove herself from his company. The gentleman did not want this to happen. So his daughter fled, crossing the border disguised as a cavalier and finding refuge in Paris. The gentleman received word of this. And he soon learned, through his spies, that one of his most powerful enemies was threatening, or at least also pursuing, his daughter. The gentleman, understandably, became worried.... What do you think of my story, monsieur? Is it accurate enough that I should continue?"

Pontevedra nodded.

"In that case, I'll go on.... At the same time, an amba.s.sadorial mission was being prepared in Madrid. Did our gentleman engage in a few little intrigues to have this mission entrusted to him, or did fate serve him by happenstance? It matters little. What does matter is that he was named amba.s.sador extraordinary and came to Paris to negotiate with the king of France and his most eminent minister. His political mission was of the utmost importance, but he merely regarded it as the means of saving his daughter. Using all the influence he was able to wield, he obtained a promise from France, via Cardinal Richelieu, that she would endeavour to search for his daughter. Or rather, to search for the chevalier d'Ireban, since it was under this name and this disguise that she had secretly reached Paris. Our gentleman gave the chevalier prestigious origins, so that the cardinal might believe that he was rendering a service to the Spanish crown rather than to its amba.s.sador.... Does my tale still have the ring of truth?"

"Yes."

"Good.... This gentleman, in fact, did more than simply demand that France search for his daughter. He wanted France to use her best men for this delicate mission. He wanted the Cardinal's Blades.... When Richelieu asked him why, he answered that Spain wished to a.s.sure herself that France was doing everything in her power to succeed: she would therefore show the best possible goodwill by having recourse to the Blades. Careful not to give offence to Spain on the eve of crucial negotiations, the cardinal no doubt agreed to this demand with fairly good grace. After all, for him it was simply a question of recruiting men who had already demonstrated their worth and could soon prove useful once again. And so it was arranged.... But I see with regret that my tale has started to bore you...."

"It is a tale whose subject matter is already familiar to me."

"I am coming now to precisely those elements of which you are perhaps ignorant."

"Very well. Continue."

"I said earlier, our gentleman was worried that a particular enemy of his was pursuing his daughter. He was indeed worried, but was not surprised by this. It must be said that his daughter had become bound by ties of affection to a handsome adventurer who was in the pay of the enemy in question. That is to say, the Black Claw. The daughter was unaware of this fact. But the gentleman knew. And it was no doubt in seeking to separate her from her dangerous admirer that he provoked her anger and subsequent flight. Because the girl was of an age when people are willing to sacrifice everything for love-"

"You promised to speak of developments that are unknown to me."

"And here they are: your daughter's lover is dead, but before he died he told us who she is, which we did not know until then. You must recognise that she const.i.tutes a significant prize for us.... But it remains the case that your manoeuvres have placed the Blades on our trail. This must cease. As of today."

"What guarantees do you offer me?"

"None. You have persuaded Richelieu to deploy his Blades against us. See that he henceforth employs them for another purpose and your daughter shall live."

"Richelieu will refuse if he suspects something."

"Richelieu already suspects something. His suspicions began the instant you demanded he involve the Blades in this matter. Don't forget that he knows who you really are. But does your daughter know? And if she doesn't, do you want her to remain ignorant of the facts?"

14.

Escorted by riders, the coach had all its curtains lowered and was travelling at a rapid pace along a dusty, rutted road that subjected its creaking axles to constant torment. Inside, shaken by the bouncing of the cabin, Agnes did not utter a word. She was sitting in front of the one-eyed victim of the ranse who had abducted her. Savelda pretended to pay her no attention, but he discreetly kept his eye on her, watching her slightest movement.

After surprising her at Cecile's dwelling, Savelda and his henchmen had taken Agnes to the courtyard of a nearby inn where their horses were waiting for them. She was placed on the rump of one of their mounts and, still led by the Spaniard, the riders left the faubourg Saint-Victor at a trot, depriving Saint-Lucq of any chance of following them. Their destination was an isolated house where Agnes was kept under guard for a while, no doubt just long enough for news of her capture to be transmitted and for orders to come back. Finally, she had been forced to embark in this coach, which had been on the move ever since. But where was it going?

No one had questioned her yet. For her part she did not speak, remained docile, and tried to appear anxious and overwhelmed by all these events. She wanted to lull her guardians into a false sense of security until the moment came for her to act and, until then, she did not wish to say or do anything that risked compromising the misunderstanding that had led to her abduction. These men-Savelda at their head-mistook her for Cecile. Agnes wanted that to last until she was able to discover who she was dealing with and what their motivations were. As they seemed to attach great value to their hostage, Agnes did not feel actually threatened. But the problem remained that she herself did not know Cecile's true ident.i.ty. She was playing a dangerous game, trying to impersonate someone about whom she knew almost nothing. The best she could do was to adopt a low profile in order to avoid making any blunders. She didn't fancy her chances if her deception was revealed.

If her story were to be believed, Cecile was an innocent young woman searching for her elder sister who had disappeared at the same time as her lover, the chevalier d'Ireban. Agnes was convinced that she had been lying to the Blades, at least in part. Therefore, Cecile no doubt knew more than she was prepared to say about the hired swordsmen Marciac had saved her from the previous night: she must have some idea what they wanted and why. If it was simply a question of their wishing to eliminate an overly curious sister, then they would have tried to murder her, not abduct her. Rather than merely an awkward witness, she was in their eyes a bargaining token, or perhaps a means of applying pressure on someone.

But for the young baronne de Vaudreuil, the real cause for worry lay elsewhere. She suspected La Fargue knew some of Cecile's secrets. Secrets that he had not shared with anyone.

This was both abnormal and disturbing. It was completely unlike the captain, who, with his frankness and absolute loyalty, had always shown himself worthy of the blind faith invested in him by his Blades. Where had this mistrust come from? Had the years changed him to such an extent? No, time alone did not cause well-tempered souls to bend. But the betrayal of a friend, perhaps ...

Since Saint-Lucq was also in the game, the Cardinal's Blades were now, arguably, complete. Complete except for two, that is. Those two would never return. One of them, Bretteville, was dead. The other, Louveciennes, had betrayed them. He had been La Fargue's companion-in-arms, his oldest and his best friend, with whom he had founded the Blades and recruited all the others. As brutal as it was unexpected, his treason had first led to the death of Bretteville during the siege of La Roch.e.l.le and then brought about the infamous disbanding of the Blades as a whole. La Fargue had witnessed the shattering of his life's work at the hands of a man he had considered as a brother and who, rich from the fortune that this crime had earned him, had found refuge-it was said-in Spain.

The wound was deep. It had probably never healed and no doubt explained why La Fargue distrusted everyone, including the men under his command. Agnes understood this to a certain degree, but her resentment of it remained sincere and profound. The Blades were a citadel in which La Fargue was the central keep. Without the certainty of being able to find refuge there in case of need, Agnes could not imagine herself fighting for long upon the ramparts.

Having almost reached the end of its journey, the coach slowed as it climbed a winding and stony track.

Then it pulled to a halt.

Savelda descended first and, holding the door open, signalled for Agnes to follow him. Beneath a sun which, after the darkness inside the cabin, dazzled her for a moment, she found herself surrounded by the partially crumbled ruins and ramparts of a fortified castle whose imposing keep dominated a courtyard which had long been invaded by weeds and shrubs. Isolated on top of a rocky and wooded height overlooking the Chevreuse valley, the place was a scene of bustling activity at odds with its ancient sleeping stones. Men and dracs were busy planting torches, building woodpiles for bonfires, and erecting three tiers of benches on either side of an open-air stage. Wagons loaded with materials were entering the site. Riders came and went. Overseers gave orders and a.s.signed tasks, hurried by a sense of urgency. A wyvern and its rider circled in the sky. A second, saddled, waited in the shelter of a covered enclosure.

Savelda seized Agnes by the elbow and led her into a small building of which only the exterior walls remained standing, its interior being overgrown with brush. He made her descend a stairway carved into the rock, at the bottom of which a hired swordsman was already posted. Upon seeing them he opened a door and Agnes entered an underground chamber filled with dusty debris. There was an old oven for baking bread in one corner. Daylight entered through a small semicircular window which looked out on the courtyard.

A fat woman rose from her seat, abandoning her knitting.

"Keep an eye on her," Savelda ordered.

Then, turning to the prisoner, he warned her: "Don't try anything. If you obey us, no harm will be done to you."

Agnes nodded and the one-eyed man departed, closing the door behind him and leaving her alone with her female guardian. After a moment, as the fat woman did not seem to be overly concerned about her, she went toward the window, whose bars she gripped with both hands in order to raise herself on tiptoe and, while verifying the solidity of the iron, gazed outside.

Something important was about to happen here and, despite the risks she was taking, Agnes knew she had been right to let herself be brought here.

15.

Because it was designed to take in plague victims, the Saint-Louis hospital had not only been built outside Paris but also resembled a fortress. Its first stone had been laid in 1607, after the serious epidemics which the Hotel-Dieu, the only big hospital the capital possessed at the time, had been unable to cope with. Its four main buildings, each formed of a single storey above a ground floor with taller structures at their centre and extremities, surrounded a square courtyard. Two rings of walls separated it from the rest of the world. Between them, symmetrically distributed, were the dwellings of the employees, nurses, and nuns who worked there. The pantries, kitchens, storerooms, and bakeries were built against the outer wall. Around them spread the gardens, fields, and pastures bordering the faubourg Saint-Denis.

Having shown his pa.s.s several times, Marciac received directions to the immense ward where, among the moans and murmurs of the other patients, he found Castilla lying on one of the beds aligned in rows. Cecile was sitting near him. Pale, her eyes red, she caressed his forehead with a light touch. The wounded man was clean and bandaged, but his face was swollen and horribly deformed. He was breathing but showed no reaction to his surroundings.

"Leave me be," said the young woman on seeing Marciac. "Leave us both."

"Cecile ..."

"That's not my name."

"It's of little importance."

"Oh, but it is ... ! If I wasn't who I am, if he who claims to be my father wasn't who he is, none of this would have happened. And this man here, he would live."

"He isn't dead."

"The sisters say he won't live through the night."

"They don't know anything. I've seen many men survive wounds that were believed to be fatal."

The young woman did not reply, seeming to forget the Gascon and, leaning over Castilla, continued to caress his brow.

"What should I call you?" asked Marciac after a while.

"Ana-Lucia ... I believe."

"You want this man to live, don't you, Ana-Lucia?"

She glared at him with damp eyes, as if this question were the worst possible insult.

"Then you should leave here," Marciac continued in a gentle voice. "The men who tried to abduct you are no doubt still after you. And if they find you here, they'll also find him...."

She stared at him and a new worry caused her drawn features to look even more distraught.

"You ... you really think so?"

"I know so, Ana-Lucia. Please come. You will need to be brave. I promise you that we'll return tomorrow."

Back in Paris an hour later, the beautiful Gabrielle, mistress of a brothel located in rue de la Grenouillere, heard knocking at her door. As no one in the house answered and the knocking continued, she wondered why she bothered paying her porter and, more resigned than angry, leaned from her window.