The Cardinal's Blades

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 identity. 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 Rochelle 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 assigned 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.