He removed his mask in the hope that the woman would imitate him, but she chose not to do so.

"We meet for the first time, monsieur de Laincourt," declared the vicomtesse de Malicorne.

"No doubt, madame," he replied. "I can only say that the sound of your voice is unfamiliar to me."

"It is rather unfair," she continued without acknowledging his remark, "because I know how highly I should regard you. At least if I am to believe monsieur de Saint-Georges.... And even monsieur de Gagniere, normally so circ.u.mspect, tells me that you are, shall we say, a rare find."

On hearing the compliment, Laincourt placed his left hand on his chest and bowed slightly. But this preamble did not sit well with him. He sensed a threat coming.

"However," said the vicomtesse, "your ambitions might seem overweening. Because you are demanding nothing less than to become an initiate, aren't you?"

"My situation is extremely delicate, madame. I believe I have always displayed perfect loyalty and I must now count on the help of the Black Claw against the cardinal."

Laincourt knew he was risking his all at this precise instant.

"So in a manner of speaking, monsieur, you now wish to be repaid...."

"Yes."

"So be it."

The vicomtesse made a sign with her hand and Saint-Georges threw open the curtain that had hidden the alcove from view, revealing the hurdy-gurdy player. He was half naked, covered in blood, and possibly even dead. Chained to the wall, his head slack, the old man in his rags was slumped in a squatting position, suspended by his arms.

This vision transfixed Laincourt. In a fraction of a second, he understood that he had been unmasked, that the hurdy-gurdy player had confessed under torture, and that the Black Claw no longer believed in the deception Richelieu had created to counter its activities.

A deception of which Laincourt had been the instrument, and now risked becoming the victim.

He smashed the throat of one of the swordsmen with a violent blow of the elbow and suddenly spun to drive his knee into the crotch of the other, then took the man's head between both hands and broke his neck with a brusque twist. Saint-Georges drew his sword and lunged at him. Laincourt avoided his rapier, ducked under his other arm, rose and seized the captain's wrist to bring it high up behind his back, then finished immobilising him by placing a dagger against his throat. The vicomtesse had stood up by reflex and Gagniere protected her with his own body, brandishing a pistol. Irritated, the dragonnet spat and flapped its wings, still gripping the back of the chair.

"I will slit his throat if either of you makes the slightest move against me," Laincourt threatened.

The young woman stared at him ...

... then invited Gagniere to take a step back. Nonetheless, he continued to keep his pistol aimed at Laincourt and his human shield.

Saint-Georges sweated, trembled, and hesitated to swallow. On the floor, the swordsman with the smashed throat finished choking out his series of horrible death rattles. By a common accord, everyone waited for him to die and for silence to settle over the scene.

It seemed to go on for an eternity.

It had all started in Madrid where, already in the service of the cardinal, Arnaud de Laincourt had been appointed private secretary and trusted aide to an expatriate aristocrat through whom France had unofficially communicated with the Spanish crown. An agent of the Black Claw had approached him during this two-year mission and, understanding with whom he was dealing, Laincourt had informed Richelieu immediately by secret dispatch. The cardinal had ordered him to let matters take their course, without compromising himself too seriously: it was better at this stage to let the adversary keep the initiative and move his pieces as he saw fit. Laincourt thus gave a few tokens of goodwill to the Black Claw which, for its part, no doubt out of fear of discouraging a potential and very promising recruit, did not ask him for much. Things hardly went any further until his return to Paris.

Having entered the service of His Eminence's Guards, Laincourt very soon rose to the rank of ensign. He never entirely knew if this swift promotion rewarded his loyalty or was destined to excite the interest of the Black Claw. Whatever the case, after a long silence, the organisation contacted him again through an intermediary: the marquis de Gagniere. The gentleman told him-as if it were a revelation-the nature of those who had been receiving the small bits of information he had shared in Spain. He'd led Laincourt to understand that he had already done too much to back out now. He must continue to serve the Black Claw, but henceforth in full knowledge of his actions. He would not regret it, and he only had to say the word.

With Richelieu's accord, Laincourt pretended to accept and for months thereafter had provided his so-called masters with carefully selected intelligence, all the while gaining their trust and rising within their hierarchy in the shadows. His objective was to uncover the person behind this dangerous embryo of a Black Claw lodge in France. He was to prevent them from succeeding and also unmask another spy, one who seemed to be working at the highest level within the Palais-Cardinal. As a precaution, Laincourt did not communicate with Richelieu through the habitual secret channels-even Rochefort did not know about him. His only contact was an old hurdy-gurdy player whom he met in a shabby tavern and about whom he knew almost nothing, except that he was trusted by the cardinal.

But this comedy could not continue. Because he was sharing information that always turned out to be less pertinent than it seemed at first, or which hurt France less than it did her enemies, the Black Claw would eventually work out that he was playing a double game. He needed to hurry matters along, and all the more quickly as the French draconic lodge was on the point of being born....

Together with Pere Joseph, who was also in on the secret, Richelieu and Laincourt sketched out a bold plan. They arranged for the ensign to be caught in the act of spying, and, after that, they allowed a carefully prepared scenario to unfold. Convicted of treason, Laincourt was captured, locked up, and then freed on the pretext that he had threatened to reveal explosive doc.u.ments. These doc.u.ments did not exist. But they seemed to have enough value to convince the Black Claw to grant Laincourt what he demanded: to become an initiate, as the reward for his work and skills.

The plan, however, did not expect him to actually go this far. The important thing was to identify the true master of the Black Claw in France and learn the date and place of the grand initiation ceremony. He would inform the cardinal as soon as possible, via the hurdy-gurdy player, to allow His Eminence to organise a vast operation to haul in all the conspirators.

But the hurdy-gurdy player had not shown up for the final meeting.

And with good reason....

The vicomtesse lifted an indifferent gaze from the dead body of the swordsman and smiled at Laincourt.

"And now?"

Still threatened by Gagniere's pistol, the cardinal's spy hesitated, tightening his hold on Saint-Georges, and then motioning toward the hurdy-gurdy player with his chin.

"Is he dead?"

"Perhaps."

"Who betrayed him?"

This question haunted Laincourt. Except for himself, only Richelieu and Pere Joseph were supposed to know of the role played by the hurdy-gurdy player in this affair. Even the traitorous Saint-Georges had been kept in the dark.

"No one did," replied the young woman.

"Then how-?"

"I'm not as naive as you seem to believe, monsieur. I simply had you followed."

Laincourt frowned.

"By whom?"

"Him." She pointed to her dragonnet. "I saw your most recent meeting with the old man. Through his eyes. You can guess the rest.... By the way, I must thank you for persuading the comte de Pontevedra to keep the Cardinal's Blades away from us. But I'm afraid it will be the last service you ever render us...."

Understanding that he could do nothing but try and save his own life, Laincourt used his heel to hook his hostage's ankles out from under him and abruptly shoved him. Saint-Georges tripped forward and collapsed in Gagniere's arms. But the marquis fired at the same time and hit the cardinal's spy in the shoulder as he was rushing out of the room and slamming the door behind him.

Gagniere took some time in untangling himself from his burden and the door resisted him when he sought to launch himself in pursuit of the fugitive. He turned around to address a helpless look at the vicomtesse.

Very calmly, she ordered: "Let Savelda take charge of searching for monsieur de Laincourt. We three have better things to do. The ceremony cannot be delayed any longer."

21.

Holding a lantern in one hand and his sword in the other, Savelda kicked open the door to an empty, dusty room, dimly lit by the nocturnal glow coming from its sole embrasure. He examined the premises from the threshold, while hired swordsmen came and went behind him on the stairway.

"No one here!" he called out. "Keep looking. Search the keep from top to bottom. Laincourt can't be far."

Then he closed the door.

Silence returned and a moment went by before Agnes let herself drop from the ceiling beams she had been clinging to. Stealthily, she went to press her ear to the door and, rea.s.sured, returned to place herself at the embrasure. She did not know who this Laincourt was and the news that Savelda was hunting for someone other than her was only a small comfort. Granted, her escape had so far gone undiscovered. But the freebooters combing through the keep were still very much a threat to her.

Outside, in the lower part of the ruined castle, about fifty metres from the keep, the ritual was proceeding.

It had started at moonrise, led by Gagniere, who officiated bare-headed, dressed in a ceremonial robe. He chanted in the ancient draconic tongue, a language which his audience did not understand but whose power, beyond its actual meaning, resonated in the depths of their being. Their souls aquiver, the candidates for initiation listened, taken over by a sacred fervour.

Then the vicomtesse, still masked, solemnly entered the pool of warm light from the torches and bonfires, and took up her place behind the carved altar. There was a heavy silence while Gagniere stepped back to her side and, with lowered head and hands crossed upon his belly, adopted a meditative pose. She then began, also using the draconic tongue, the long litany of Ancestral Dragons, invoking their true names and asking for their protection. This took some time, as each Ancestral Dragon had to be addressed by its t.i.tle and its closest family ties. And the names she p.r.o.nounced before each panegyric were moreover repeated by Gagniere in his role as First Initiate, and then taken up in chorus by the entire audience.

Finally, the vicomtesse opened a casket placed on the altar and took out the Sphere d'ame which she brandished in her outstretched arms. Still speaking in the draconic language, she called upon Sa.s.sh'Krecht, the Ancestral Dragon whose primordial essence haunted the globe with its black turmoil. Now, she recited all of Sa.s.sh'Krecht's parents and descendants, t.i.tles, legendary exploits, and, as she declaimed them, the atmosphere around her filled with a presence that was as exalting as it was frightening, originating from the beginning of time and soon to be resurrected in defiance of the laws of nature.

At this point, beginning with Gagniere and with Saint-Georges just behind him, the faithful filed past the altar in good order, each knelt at the vicomtesse's feet, placed their lips upon the Sphere d'ame which she had lowered to their height, and then went to stand in a long row. By their kiss, they had signified their a.s.sent. Ready to sacrifice a part of themselves, they waited for Sa.s.sh'Krecht to manifest itself and impregnate their soul.

In a trance, the vicomtesse de Malicorne raised the globe toward the moon. She shouted a command. Whirlwinds lifted around her. Above the castle, the clouds in the sky suddenly dispersed, as if driven away by a centrifugal force. Black and grey plumes escaped from the paling Sphere d'ame. They rose in long ribbons as a dull noise filled the night and, little by little, they formed the shape of a giant spectral dragon which reared up, deployed its wings, and occupied an immense span of the sky. Sa.s.sh'Krecht had survived death for centuries now, a prisoner of the Sphere d'ame where all of its power had been concentrated. It gloried in the freedom which it had now almost completely recovered, only its tail still attached to the relic the vicomtesse gripped in her hands, her body traversed by ecstatic shivers. It simply needed to take possession of the souls that its disciples were offering freely.

No one heard the shot, but all of them saw the Sphere d'ame, now milky white, burst into shatters.

The vicomtesse screamed and collapsed. The entire gathering suffered an enormous shock that left it reeling and Sa.s.sh'Krecht emitted a cavernous howl that shook the members of the Black Claw to the core. Detached from the Sphere d'ame before it had managed to become fully incarnate, the Ancestral Dragon contorted like an animal trapped in a blazing fire that was devouring it.

Gagniere was the first to react.

He rushed over to the unconscious vicomtesse, crouched down, lifted her up slightly, saw that she was still breathing, and, at a complete loss, looked about him in an effort to comprehend.

Had the ritual failed?

The skies grew dark. Still howling, the spectral dragon twisted in pain as shreds were torn from its ghostly silhouette like wisps of mist. Stormy rumblings were heard. Gold and crimson flashes ripped through the night sky as Sa.s.sh'Krecht liberated energy that had to find an outlet.

Gagniere saw the vicomtesse's dragonnet flapping in the air around them. It hissed at him furiously, and then flew off toward the keep. He followed it with his eyes and saw the thin stream of smoke that filtered from an embrasure.

Pistol still smoking in her hand, Agnes dashed down the steps of the tower from where, both hidden and able to observe every detail of the ceremony, she had opened fire. Aware of what was at stake and doubting she would live to see the dawn, she had resolved that as she had nothing to lose. She would wreak as much havoc as possible and wait for the ritual to reach its critical point before she intervened.

Now, she had to make an effort to survive and, perhaps, even to escape.

She descended one floor, then two, and had reached the first floor when she heard hurried steps climbing toward her from the ground floor below. She cursed, tore down an old drapery from a wall, and hurled it like a fishing net over the first swordsman who presented himself, delivering a kick that broke his jaw. Her victim fell backward, toppling his comrades who became tangled up with him and the dusty piece of cloth, which they ripped at without managing to free themselves. Those jostling with one another behind them were forced to retreat back down the stairs and Savelda's angry voice could be heard shouting.

Agnes immediately reversed course and climbed the steps two by two. Her only hope was to reach the top of the tower and the walkway along the keep's ramparts. She suddenly came face-to-face with a lone freebooter. She drew her sword to block his blade, violently drove the b.u.t.t of her pistol upward into his crotch, and sent her opponent tumbling down the stairs, breaking his neck in the process.

With Savelda's men now at her heels, she arrived on the last floor of the tower when a hand on her shoulder drew her behind a wall hanging and through the little doorway which it hid. Agnes found herself in a narrow, shadowy corridor, pressed up against someone who murmured to her: "Silence."

She closed her mouth and remained still, while on the other side of the door, the Black Claw's hired swordsmen ran over to the keep's walkway without stopping.

"My name is Laincourt. Don't be afraid."

"And of what would I be afraid?

At which point, Laincourt felt the nip of a dagger that had reached high up between his thighs.

"I am in the cardinal's service," he whispered.

"They are searching for you, monsieur."

"So we have something in common. What's your name?"

"Agnes. I thought I heard a shot just before the ceremony began. Was that you?"

"In a manner of speaking. Come, it won't take them long to figure things out."

They advanced silently down the dark corridor, pa.s.sing before a triple-arched window.

"You're wounded," said Agnes noticing the Laincourt's b.l.o.o.d.y shoulder.

"I didn't fire the shot."

"Can you move it?"

"Yes. It's not broken and the pistol ball pa.s.sed clean through. Nothing serious."

They pushed a little door open and then followed a pa.s.sage lit in the distance by some square openings looking out into the courtyard. The ceiling was so low that they could only progress bent double.

"This pa.s.sage runs beneath the walkway. It will take us to the next tower. They're probably yet not looking for us there."

"You seem to know the premises well...."

"My knowledge is newly gained."

At the end of the pa.s.sage they came to another door.

They listened, opened it cautiously, and emerged behind a sentry. Laincourt slit his throat and held him as he sagged. They heard a great commotion on the lower floors, found only locked doors, and were forced to climb some very steep steps in order to raise a hatch that gave them access to the roof.

They were fortunate it was deserted, although they could see torches and silhouettes moving about on one of the other towers, the one where Savelda and his men were finishing their search. Beyond, in the tormented sky, the spectral dragon had been replaced by a fury of uncontrolled magical energy. The red and golden flashes had redoubled in intensity. Interspersed by thunderclaps, a deep roar rumbled above them that could be felt in the gut and increasingly threatened to unleash itself upon the castle itself.

"Quick!" yelled Laincourt.

Seeking cover behind the crenellations, they took the walkway toward the third tower. They went as fast they could without running upright and started to believe that they might make good their escape when a strident cry rang out nearby: the vicomtesse's dragonnet was beating its wings level with them and giving away their position. Heads turned their way. A hue and cry was raised.

Laincourt brandished his pistol and shot the reptile down with a single ball that ripped off its head.

"A wasted shot," commented Agnes.

"Not entirely," replied the cardinal's spy, thinking of the hurdy-gurdy player who had been captured thanks to the dragonnet.

They were halfway between the second and the third towers, toward which Savelda's swordsmen were already hurrying. They ran under sporadic and badly aimed fire, reached the tower before their enemies, and tried to open the hatch.

Locked.

"Merde!" Laincourt swore.