The Church saw this as clear proof that dragons were evil incarnate, to the extent that they could not even be approached without mortal danger. As for seventeenth-century medicine, it was impotent to either fight or prevent the ranse, whether great or small. Remedies were sold, to be sure, and new cures appeared in the apothecaries’ dispensaries and the smooth-talking vendors’ stalls almost every year. But most of these were nothing but the work of more or less well-intentioned charlatans or practitioners. As for allegedly more serious medications, it proved impossible to measure their effectiveness objectively because those afflicted were not all equally susceptible to the ranse. Some passed away after two weeks, while others lived for a long time after the appearance of the first symptoms and suffered little. Meanwhile, you could still encounter other unfortunate victims in the final stages of the disease who, having been transformed into pitiable monsters, were reduced to begging on the streets to survive. They were obliged to wear a red robe and announce their presence by shaking a rattle, when they were not forcibly incarcerated in the recently founded Hospice des Incurables in Paris.
Shrugging away her bad memories, Genevieve helped Leprat remove his doublet. Then she unwound the bandage he had hastily wrapped around his bicep, over his shirt sleeve.
“Your shirt now, monsieur.”
“Rip the sleeve, that will suffice.”
“The shirt is still good. You just need to have the tear sewn up.”
Leprat reflected that the price of a new shirt was not the same for a gentleman as for a countrywoman forced to make economies.
“It is,” he admitted. “But please, close the door.”
The woman hesitated, with a glance at her pistol, but finally went to shut the door which still stood open to the yard. Then she lent a hand to the musketeer, who was stripping to the waist, and understood immediately when he bared his muscular back.
Large, coarse, and purplish splotches of the ranse spread across it.
“Do not fear, madame. My illness has not yet reached a point where it could affect you. But it’s a sight that I’d rather spare your son.”
“Do you suffer?”
“Not yet.”
23
Sitting at a table in an empty tavern whose keeper was sweeping the floor at the end of a very long day, the Gascon was glowering into the bottom of his glass when he realised someone was standing nearby.
“Captain.”
“Good evening, Marciac.”
“Please, take a seat.”
“Thank you.”
La Fargue pulled a chair toward him and sat down.
A second glass, as clean as one might hope for in such an establishment, was placed on the table. Marciac took and filled it for the old man.
It was the dregs of the jug. Barely a mouthful.
“Sorry, captain. It’s all that’s left.”
“It will do.”
La Fargue didn’t touch his glass and, while the silence stretched out, noticed the crumpled letter which the Gascon had received in rue de la Grenouillere.
“The Blades are recalled to service, Marciac.”
The other nodded, pensive and sad.
“I need you, Marciac.”
“Mmh.”
“The Blades need you.”
“And who are they?”
“The same as before. Other letters have been sent. They will be arriving soon.”
“The same as before. That’s to say: those who still live.”
“Yes.”
The silence fell again, thicker than before.
Finally, Marciac burst out: “I have a life now, captain.”
“A life which pleases you?”
They exchanged a long glance.
“Which pleases me well enough.”
“And where is it leading you?”
“All lives lead to the cemetery, captain. What matters is to make the path pleasant.”
“Or useful.”
“Useful? Useful to whom?”
“We serve France.”
“From the sewers.”
“We serve the king.”
“And the cardinal.”
“It’s the same thing.”
“Not always.”
Their conversation, sharp and delivered like a lethal clash of blades, ended with these words. Averting his eyes, Marciac drained his glass and asked: “Will we be justly rewarded?”
“With neither honour nor glory, if that’s your idea. In that respect, nothing has changed.”
“Let us speak of finances instead. If I accept I want to be paid handsomely. Very handsomely. On the day and hour specified. At the first delay, I hang up my sword.”
La Fargue, intrigued, blinked slowly.
“Agreed.”
The Gascon allowed himself a few moments of further thought while he examined his steel signet ring.
“When do we start?” he asked.
24
There were a dozen courts of miracles in Paris. All of them were organised according to the same hierarchy, inherited from the Middle Ages: they consisted of an enclosed area where the communities of beggars, criminals, and other marginal elements could congregate. Scattered through the capital, they took their name from the professional mendicants-the kind with fake diseases and fake mutilations-who were “miraculously” restored to good health after a hard day of begging, once they were far from the inquisitive eyes of outsiders. Cour Sainte Catherine was one such refuge, situated in the Saint-Denis neighbourhood; another was to be found on rue du Bac; and a third near the Saint-Honore market. But the most famous court, the one which had earned its status as the Court of Miracles-with capital letters and without further reference-was the one on rue Neuve-Saint-Sauveur, near the Montmartre gate.
According to a chronicler of the times, it was located in “the worst-built, the dirtiest, and the most remote district of the city” and consisted of a vast courtyard dating from the thirteenth century. It was rank, muddy, surrounded by sordid, rickety buildings, and hemmed in by the tangled and labyrinthine alleys behind the Filles-Dieu convent. Hundreds of beggars and thugs lodged here with their women and children, so that there were at least a thousand inhabitants in all, ruling as absolute masters over their territory, permitting neither intrusions nor strangers nor the city watch, and ready to repel them all with insults, thrown stones, and bludgeons. When, eight years earlier, a new street was supposed to be laid nearby, the workers were attacked and the project had to be abandoned.
Jealous of its independence, the insubordinate little world of the Court of Miracles lived according to its own laws and customs. It was led by one man, the Grand Coesre, who Saint-Lucq was waiting to meet this afternoon. Through the slimy glass of a first floor window, from behind his red spectacles, he observed a large, sorry-looking, and at this hour almost deserted cul-de-sac-it would only become animated at nightfall when the thugs and beggars returned from their day of larceny and mendicity in Paris. The decor had something sinister and oppressive about it. Those who ventured here unawares would sense that they were in enemy territory, and being spied upon, just before the inevitable ambush.
The half-blood was not alone.
An old woman dressed entirely in black kept him company. Sitting in her corner she nibbled on a wafer like a rabbit chewing a chicory leaf, clasping it between the fingers of her emaciated hands, her eyes lost and vague. Tranchelard was there too, the thug Saint-Lucq had threatened earlier. The man endeavoured to make the atmosphere as unpleasant as possible with a heavy silence and a fixed black glare directed against the visitor, his hand on the pommel of his sword. Back turned, Saint-Lucq was unaffected. Minutes passed in this room, where the mottled and stained appearance of the floor, the walls, and the door frames contrasted with the motley collection of luxurious furniture and carpets stolen from some mansion or wealthy bourgeois house. Nothing but the old woman’s chewing disturbed the silence.