Leprat could not afford to wait for them.
He altered his guard slightly, pretending to attack the adversary to his left and thereby offering an opening to the one on the right, only to abruptly change his target. The ivory caught a ray of moonlight before slicing cleanly through a fist which remained clenched around a sword hilt. The amputee screamed and beat an immediate retreat, clutching his stump which was bleeding in vigorous spurts. Leprat promptly forgot him and pivoted in time to deflect a sword thrust aimed at his face. Parrying twice, he seized an over-extended arm, pulled the man toward him, and head butted him full in the mouth, then followed it with a blow of the knee to his crotch and finally delivered a reverse cut with his sword that slit the man’s throat.
Letting the body fall into the blood-soaked mud, the chevalier snatched a dagger from its belt and made ready to face the three latecomers. He deflected the first thrust with his white rapier, the second with the dagger, and dodged the third which, rather than slicing through his eye as far as his brain, merely left a scratch across his cheek. Then he shoved one brawler away with a blow from his boot, succeeded in stopping the blades of the two others with a high parry, and with the ivory grating beneath the double bite of steel, heaved them both back and to the side, forcing their blades downward. His dagger was free: he stabbed it into one assailant’s exposed flank three times. Pressing his advantage, Leprat planted a foot firmly on a boundary stone and, spinning into the air, decapitated the man he had just kicked away before the latter managed to fully recover his balance. A bloody scarlet spray fell in a sticky rain over the chevalier d’Orgueil and his third, final opponent. They exchanged a number of attacks, parries, and ripostes, each advancing and retreating along an imaginary line, mouths drawn into grimaces and exchanging furious glares. At last the assassin made a fatal error and his life came to a swift end when the slender ivory blade slid beneath his chin and its stained point exploded from the back of his head.
Drunk from exhaustion and combat, weakened by his wounds, Leprat staggered and knew he was in a bad way. A violent retch doubled him over and forced him to lean against a door as he vomited up long strands of black ranse phlegm.
He believed the fight was over, until he heard a horse approaching at a slow walk.
Keeping one hand against the wall at whose foot he had vomited, Leprat peered to one side, his tired eyes straining to make out the rider advancing toward him.
He was a very young and very elegant gentleman with a blond moustache, mounted on a lavishly harnessed horse.
“My congratulations, monsieur Leprat.”
All his limbs in agony, the chevalier made an effort to straighten up, although he felt as if even a breath of wind would knock him over.
“To those with whom I am unacquainted, I am ‘monsieur le chevalier d’Orgueil.’”
“As you wish, monsieur le chevalier d’Orgueil. I beg your pardon.”
Leprat spat out the remains of blood and bile.
“And you. Who are you?”
The rider offered a sympathetic smile and levelled a loaded pistol at the chevalier.
“It is of very little importance, monsieur le chevalier d’Orgueil, if you carry my name with you to your grave.”
The chevalier’s eyes flared.
“A man of honour would face me with his feet on the ground and draw his sword.”
“Yes. No doubt he would.”
The marquis de Gagniere took aim and shot Leprat with a pistol ball straight to the heart.
2
In bed a little earlier than usual, Armand Jean du Plessis de Richelieu was reading when he heard the scratch at the door. Candles were burning and on this cold spring night a huge, greedy log fire burned in the hearth. Of the three secretaries who shared the cardinal’s chamber, always ready to take down a letter by dictation or to provide the care which their master’s failing health required, two slept on trestle beds arranged against the walls while the third stayed awake on a chair. This one rose, and after a nod from His Eminence, opened the door slightly, then wider still.
A Capuchin monk in his fifties entered. Dressed in a grey robe and shod in sandals, he silently approached the grand four-poster bed in which Richelieu was sitting, his back propped up against pillows to allay the pain in his back.
“This missive has just arrived from Ratisbonne,” he said, presenting a letter. “No doubt you would like to read it before tomorrow.”
Born Francois-Joseph Leclerc du Tremblay, and known to the world as Pere Joseph, he was of a noble family and had received a solid military education before joining the Capuchins at the age of twenty-two, by religious vocation. A reformer of his order and also founder of the Filles du Calvaire congregation of nuns, he had distinguished himself through his zeal and his sermons to the royal court. But above all, he was the famous “Grey Eminence,” the most intimate and influential of Richelieu’s confederates, to whom His Eminence was prepared to entrust certain affairs of state. He sometimes took part in the deliberations of the king’s Council and later became a minister of the Crown in his own right. A sincere friendship, a mutual high esteem, and a shared view on the policies needed to counter Habsburg influence in Europe united the two men.
Closing his copy of Plutarch’s Lives, the cardinal took the missive and thanked him.
“There is one other thing,” said Pere Joseph.
Richelieu waited, then understood and ordered his secretaries out. When the one who was on duty had wakened and accompanied his colleagues into the next room, the monk took a chair and the cardinal said: “I’m listening.”
“I would like to speak to you again about your… Blades.”
“I thought this matter was settled between us.”
“I yielded to you without being persuaded by all of your arguments.”
“You know that men of such temper will soon be necessary to France-”
“There are other men beside these.”
Richelieu smiled.
“Not so many. And when you say ‘these,’ you’re thinking ‘him,’ aren’t you?”
“It is true that I have little love for monsieur de la Fargue. He is inflexible and has disobeyed you too often.”
“Really?”
Pere Joseph launched into a rapid inventory, ticking each item off on his fingers.
“To refresh your memory: in Cologne, in Breda, and in Bohemia. And I’ve not even mentioned the disaster at La Rochelle-”
“If La Rochelle was torn from the bosom of France to become a Protestant republic, I do not think that the responsibility can be laid at Captain La Fargue’s door. After all, if the dam we built had resisted the force of the ocean tides for a few more days, the outcome would be quite different today… As for the other events you mention, I believe that La Fargue only ‘forgot’ his orders when doing so increased the chances of his mission’s success.”
“He will always be headstrong. He is one of those men who never change.”
“I certainly hope so.”
Pere Joseph sighed, reflected a moment, and then returned to his argument: “And what do you think will happen when La Fargue uncovers the secret motives behind the task we are about to confer on him? He will feel deceived and, in view of his grievances against you, he could be tempted to ruin everything. If he stumbles across the comte de Pontevedra’s true identity-!”
“He would have to stumble across the comte’s existence first.”
“He will, without question. Your Blades are spies as much as they are soldiers. They have no end of craftiness and imagination, and we have seen them unravel far more complicated knots than this.”