The Cardinal's Blades

14

“He no longer lives here, messieurs.”

“Since how long?”

“Some time.”

La Fargue and Leprat were questioning the owner of an inn on rue de la Clef, in the faubourg Saint-Victor. While Almades guarded the horses outside, the other two had taken a table, ordered wine, and invited the innkeeper to bring a third glass for himself.

“Have a seat, monsieur. We’d like to talk to you.”

The man hesitated for a moment. Wiping his big red hands on his stained apron, he looked around the room, as if making sure that he had nothing better to do. Then he sat down.

La Fargue knew that Castilla, the chevalier d’Ireban’s companion in debauchery, had been lodging here. Unfortunately, that was no longer the case.

“Be more precise, if you please. When did he leave?”

“Let me see… It was about a week ago, I think. He took his things one night and never returned.”

“In a hurry, then.”

“I believe so, yes.”

“Had he been lodging here long?” asked Leprat.

“About two months.”

“Alone?”

“Yes.”

“No visitors?”

Suddenly wary, the innkeeper moved back in his chair.

“Why these questions, messieurs?”

The other two exchanged a look and La Fargue spoke again.

“Castilla has debts. He owes money, lots of money, to certain people. These people wish to recover what is owed them. They would prefer that their names not be mentioned but they are willing to be most generous. You understand?”

“I understand. Gambling debts, is it?”

“Indeed. How did you guess?”

The innkeeper had the satisfied smile of one who, without saying anything, wants to give the impression of knowing much.

“Bah… Just an idea, like that-”

“His room,” Leprat interrupted. “We want to see it.”

“Well…”

“What? Have you let it to someone else?”

“No, but Castilla has paid for the month. Whether he uses the room or not, it is still his. Would you be happy to think I had opened the door to your room for strangers?”

“No,” conceded La Fargue.

“So what do I tell him if he returns tomorrow?”

“You shall tell him nothing. And what’s more, you shall send word to me at the address that I shall indicate to you shortly…”

The captain drew from his grey doublet a purse-small but full-which he pushed across the table to the innkeeper. It was swiftly snatched up.

“Follow me, messieurs,” said the man as he rose.

They accompanied him upstairs where the innkeeper unlocked a door thanks to a ring of keys attached to his belt.

“This is the room,” he announced.

He pushed the door open.

The room was modest but neat, with walls daubed in beige and an unpolished wood floor. The sole furniture consisted of a stool, a small table upon which was placed a water pitcher and a basin, and a stripped bed whose straw mattress was folded back. A chamber pot was turned over on the sill of the window that opened onto the street.

The place had been tidied up and, perfectly anonymous, awaited a new lodger. The two Blades exchanged glances and sighed, doubting that they would find much of interest here.

Nevertheless, to allow Leprat a chance to inspect the room in peace, La Fargue kept the innkeeper busy in the corridor.

“You didn’t tell us if Castilla had any visitors…”

“Only one, in truth. A very young cavalier, another Spaniard like him. Castilla addressed him as ‘chevalier,’ but they seemed to be close friends.”

“Do you remember his name?”

“Something like… Oberane… Baribane…”

“Ireban?”

“Yes! The chevalier d’Ireban. That’s it… Does he also have debts?”

“Yes.”

“That doesn’t surprise me. Between those two, it was often a question of whether to visit madame de Sovange. And why would they go to see madame de Sovange, if not to gamble?”

“What did he look like, this Castilla?”

Without shutting it completely, Leprat pushed the door until it was ajar, under the pretext of looking behind it. He then conducted a thorough search of the room.

He did not know what he was looking for, which didn’t make the task any easier. He knocked on the walls and floor, looked in corners, prodded the straw mattress, and examined its seams closely.

In vain.

The room concealed no secret. If Castilla had ever possessed anything of a compromising nature, he had taken it with him.

The former musketeer was about to give up when by chance he looked out the window and down into the street. What he saw there or rather who he saw there-made him instantly go still.

Malencontre.

Malencontre who, wearing his leather hat and a bandage on his left hand, was being directed toward the inn by a passerby. He gazed up toward the room’s window, stiffened in surprise and promptly turned tail.

“Merde!” swore Leprat.

He knew that he would never catch the hired assassin if he took the stairs. He shoved open the window, causing the chamber pot to smash on the floor, and jumped out into the air just as La Fargue-drawn by the noise-came into the room.

Leprat landed near Almades in front of the inn. But he had forgotten the wound to his thigh. Pain shot through his leg and he crumpled with a loud yelp that alarmed people in the street. Unable to stand, grimacing, and cursing at himself, he nevertheless had the presence of mind to point out Malencontre to the Spanish master of arms.

“There! The leather hat! Quick!”

Malencontre was moving away, almost running, jostling people as he went.

As he set off in pursuit, Almades heard Leprat yelling at him from behind: “Alive! We need him alive!”

The Spaniard had already lost sight of the assassin when he arrived at the corner of rue de la Clef and rue d’Orleans. He climbed onto a cart that was being unloaded and, paying no heed to the protests he was raising, looked further down the street. He spotted the leather hat just as Malencontre was turning into an alley. He leaped into the crowd, banging his hip into a stall which tipped and spilled its vegetables onto the paving stones. He did not stop, pushing aside anyone who did not get out of his way quickly enough, provoking shouts and raised fists in his wake. Finally, he reached the alley.

It was deserted.

He drew his sword.

La Fargue left the inn with his rapier in his fist, only to find Leprat twisting in agony on the ground, clenching his teeth and holding his thigh with both hands. Some kind souls came over to help him, but they hung back upon seeing the captain.

“Blast it, Leprat! What the hell…?”

“Malencontre!”

“What?”

“Leather hat. Bandaged hand. Almades is after him. I’ll explain later. That way! Quick!”

La Fargue took a pistol from the saddle of his horse and dashed off down the street.

Step by cautious step, Almades inched his way through silent alleys as narrow as corridors in a building. He had left the noises of the crowded streets behind him and he knew his prey had stopped running. Otherwise he would have heard his footsteps. The man was hiding. Either to escape from his pursuer, or to set an ambush for him.

Careful…

The attack came suddenly, from the right.

Emerging from a recess, Malencontre struck with a log he had taken from a woodpile. Almades raised his sword to protect himself. The log hit the rapier’s hilt violently, dislodging the weapon from the Spaniard’s grip. The two men immediately shifted to hand-to-hand fighting. Each held the right wrist of the other, grunting as they wrestled, bouncing off the walls of the alley, both of them receiving jarring blows as their backs collided with the rough stone. Then Almades drove his knee hard into the assassin’s side. Malencontre lost his hold but succeeded in landing a sharp blow with the log to the temple of his opponent. Stunned, the Spaniard reeled and then stumbled backward. His vision blurred while his ears filled with a deafening buzz. The universe seemed to lurch dizzily about him.

Dimly, he perceived Malencontre unsheathing his rapier.

Dimly, he perceived him preparing to deliver the fatal stroke while he himself slid down the wall to a sitting position on the ground, vanquished.

And as if wrapped in some woolly dream, he scarcely heard the detonation at all.

Malencontre fell in a heap.

At a distance of ten metres, La Fargue was pointing a pistol with a smoking barrel.