The Cardinal's Blades

10

La Fargue and Almades returned around noon covered in sweat, soot, and blood, the hooves of their horses suddenly filling the walled, cobbled courtyard with loud echoes that woke the Hotel de l’Epervier from its sad torpor. They turned the care of their mounts over to old Guibot, who came hurrying as quickly as his wooden leg would allow, while they dashed up the front steps.

“War council, now!” shouted the captain as he burst into the main room of the house.

Leprat, trapped in his armchair by his wounded leg, was already there. Marciac joined them and for a brief moment there was expectant silence. Obviously, there had been an urgent new development, about which Leprat and the Gascon were both anxious to learn the nature, while La Fargue paced back and forth before finally asking: “And the others?”

“Agnes has gone out,” said Marciac.

“Ballardieu?”

“Here,” announced the old soldier, entering the room.

He had just arrived himself-he had even seen La Fargue and Almades pass him in the street at a rapid trot as he was returning from Palais de la Cite, where Saint-Lucq had shaken him off his tail.

“‘Gone out’?” asked the captain, thinking of Agnes. “Gone out where?”

Receiving the same questioning look as Marciac, Leprat shrugged his shoulders: he didn’t know anything about it.

“She’s gone to search Cecile’s house,” explained the Gascon.

“Alone?” inquired Ballardieu in a worried tone.

“Yes.”

“I’m going over there.”

“No,” ordered La Fargue, visibly upset. “You stay.”

“But, captain…”

“You’re staying right here!”

Ballardieu was going to protest further but Almades placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

“Agnes knows what she’s doing.”

Reluctantly, the old man subsided.

“Marciac,” said La Fargue. “The doors.”

Nodding, the Gascon closed all the exits to the room and when he finished the captain announced: “We found Castilla. Tortured and left for dead.”

“Is he dead now?” Leprat wanted to know.

“No. But he’s hardly better off for being alive. His tormenters spared him nothing. Almades and I rescued him at the last minute from a fire set to make him vanish. We took him straight to the Saint-Louis hospital which, fortunately, was close by.”

“Did he speak?”

“Two words only,” interjected Almades. “Garra negra. The Black Claw.”

Everyone went quiet: they all knew what that meant.

The Black Claw was a secret society that was particularly powerful in Spain and its territories. It was not secret in the sense that its existence was unknown, but in that its members did not reveal their identities. And for good reason. Directed by dragons who were avid to acquire power, the society stopped at nothing to further its ends. For a time, it had been thought to serve Spain. However, even though its most active and influential lodge was to be found in Madrid, its ambitions were not always in harmony with those of the Spanish crown. Sometimes they were even opposed. The masters of the Black Claw in truth wanted to plunge Europe into a state of chaos that would aid their plans to institute an absolute draconic regime. A state of chaos that, in the end, would not spare the Spanish Court of Dragons.

Tentacular in nature, the Black Claw was nowhere as powerful as it was in Spain. It was nevertheless at work in the Netherlands, in Italy, and in Germany where it had established lodges which remained subordinate to the oldest and most dreaded of them all, the Grand Lodge in Madrid. As for France, so far she had eluded the society’s clutches. Although the Black Claw sometimes hatched schemes within the French kingdom, it had never succeeded in implanting a lodge there.

“If the Black Claw is involved,” said Leprat, “it explains why the cardinal suddenly called us back to service. It also means that the danger is great. And imminent.”

“So this whole affair could just be a pretext to put us on the trail of the Black Claw?” ventured Marciac.

“I doubt that,” answered La Fargue. “But the cardinal may know more than he has let on.”

“So what are we to believe? And who?”

“Ourselves. We only believe in ourselves.”

“That’s a tune I’ve heard sung before…”

“I know.”

“Back to the matter at hand,” prompted Leprat, seeing that the company was rehashing its shared bad memories. “If the Black Claw is, like us, searching for the chevalier d’Ireban, it is no doubt because he is something more than the debauched son of a Spanish grandee.”

“That much, we already guessed,” interjected Marciac.

“So then, who is he?”

“Perhaps he and Castilla belonged to the Black Claw. If they betrayed it, they had every reason to flee Spain and seek refuge in France, where the Black Claw still enjoys little influence.”

“If the Black Claw were after me,” observed Almades in a grim tone, “I would not stop running until I reached the West Indies. And even then, I would stay on my guard.”

“Castilla and Ireban might have less good sense than you, Anibal…”

“I’ll grant you that.”

“We still need to know,” said Leprat, “what information the Black Claw wanted from Castilla and whether or not they obtained it.”

“If he hadn’t talked we would have found a dead body,” asserted La Fargue. “Judging by his sad state, he resisted as long as he could. He therefore had some important secrets to hide.”

“Perhaps he was trying to protect Ireban.”

“Or Cecile,” suggested Ballardieu, who until then had remained quiet.

His remark gave rise to a pause. To some degree or other, all of them had noticed the curious attitude La Fargue seemed to have adopted with regard to the young woman. Anyone else in similar circumstances would have been closely questioned by the Blades. But it was as if the captain wished to spare her for some obscure reason.

La Fargue understood the silent reproach being directed at him by his men.

“Very well,” he said, assuming his responsibilities. “Where is she?”

“As far as I know,” said Marciac, “she’s still in her room.”

“Fetch her.”

The Gascon was leaving by one door when Guibot knocked at another. Almades opened it for him.

“Monsieur de Saint-Lucq is waiting in the courtyard,” said the old man.