Agnes was passing in front of a famous bronze horse-which, standing on its marble pedestal, would wait almost two centuries before being finally mounted by Henri IV-when she realised she was walking on her own. Retracing her footsteps, she found Ballardieu halted before a Gypsy woman playing a tambourine and dancing lasciviously with a metallic wriggling of her sequined skirt. Agnes dragged the old man away by his sleeve. He followed her backward at first and tripped on the scabbard of his sword, before pricking up an ear at the calclass="underline" “Hasard a la blanque! With three tries, you can’t miss! For one sou, you’ll get six! Hasard a la blanque!”
The fellow who was shouting this at the top of his lungs was luring passersby to place bets on the game of blanque, that is to say, the lottery. He was turning a wheel, while the prizes to be won were spread before him: a comb, a mirror, a shoehorn, and other ordinary bric-a-brac which wouldn’t be nearly so attractive if anyone looked them over twice. Ballardieu tried his luck, won, and took away a snuffbox with a lid that was only slightly chipped. He was endeavouring to show this prize to the increasingly impatient young baronne when a fanfare of trumpets resounded.
Intrigued and murmuring, the people in the crowd craned their necks uncertainly, seeking the source of the noise.
On the Left Bank, soldiers belonging to the regiment of French Guards were arriving to clear the bridge. They herded coaches and horse riders from the road across the bridge, pushed the pedestrians back onto the pavements, and formed three rows on the steps, standing to attention with their pikes held straight up or with muskets on their shoulders. A line of drummers beat out a steady rhythm as the regiment’s vanguard marched forward, followed by a group of elegant riders-officers, lords, and courtiers. Pages dressed in royal livery came next on foot, while the famous hundred Swiss mercenaries with their halberds accompanied them on either side. Then came the golden royal coach, drawn by six magnificent horses and surrounded by an escort of gentlemen. Was it really the king whose profile could be glimpsed as it passed? Perhaps. Kept at a distance by the hedgerow of pikes and muskets, the people did not applaud or cheer. They remained respectful and silent, with bared heads. Other coaches went by. One of them lacked any coat of arms, and was pure white, like the team of horses harnessed to it. This coach belonged to the abbess of the Order of the Sisters of Saint Georges-the famous “White Ladies” who for the past two centuries had protected the French royal court from the draconic menace.
Agnes had stopped, like everyone else on the bridge, standing speechless and hatless as the procession went by.
But the royal coach interested her far less than the immaculate white one from which she was unable to tear her eyes the moment she saw it. When it drew level with her, a gloved hand lifted the curtain and a woman’s head appeared. The abbess did not need to search for what she sought. She immediately found Agnes’s eyes and stared straight into them. The moment stretched out, as if the white coach had somehow slowed down, or time itself was reluctant to interrupt the silent exchange going on between these two beings, these two souls.
Then the coach passed on.
Reality reasserted itself and the procession moved away with a clattering of hooves on paving stones. In perfect order, the French Guards relinquished control of the pavements and marched off the bridge. The usual frantic activity resumed on the Pont Neuf.
Only Agnes, looking toward the Louvre, remained still.
“Now that was a pair of eyes I would not like to have staring at me,” said Ballardieu from nearby. “And as for staring right back…”
The young woman gave a fatalistic shrug.
“At least now I don’t have to go to the Louvre.”
“You won’t speak with her?”
“Not today… What would be the point? She knows I’m back. That’s enough.”
And determined to put the matter behind her, Agnes smiled at the old soldier.
“So?” she asked him. “Shall we go?”
“Where?”
“But to listen to Tabarin and Mondor, of course!”
“Are you sure?”
“I made you a promise, didn’t I?”
12
They arrived at the chapel in the middle of the afternoon.
It sat in the middle of the countryside at a spot where a deserted road crossed a pebble-strewn track. A flock of sheep grazed nearby. A windmill whose sails turned slowly in the breeze looked out over a landscape of green hills.
“Here we are,” said Bailleux from the edge of the wood.
He and Saint-Lucq were side by side on horseback, but rather than watch the chapel the half-blood watched their surroundings.
He had just caught sight of a cloud of dust.
“Wait,” he said.
The cloud was approaching.
He could just make out riders trotting up the road. There were four, or perhaps five, of them, all armed with swords. It was not the first time that Saint-Lucq and the notary had spotted them since leaving the inn. Them, or others like them, in any case. But all of them had only one thing in mind: laying their hands on Bailleux and ripping his secret out of him.
“We’ll let them go by,” said the half-blood, very coolly.
“But how could they know…?” Bailleux worried.
“They don’t. They’re searching, that’s all. Calm yourself.”
The riders halted for a moment at the crossing with the track. Then they split up into two parties, each taking a different direction. A short while later they had all disappeared off into the distance.
“There,” said Saint-Lucq before spurring his mount.
Bailleux caught up with him as they descended a grassy slope at a slow trot.
“I think the baptism was held here. That’s why-”
“Yes, of course,” the half-blood interrupted.
They soon dismounted on a patch of ground in front of the chapel and then entered the building. It was low-ceilinged, cool, bare of decorations, and the air was laden with dust. No one seemed to have visited for quite some time, although perhaps it served occasionally as a refuge for travellers caught in bad weather.
Saint-Lucq took off his spectacles in the dim light and rubbed his tired eyes with his thumb and forefinger before surveying their surroundings with a slow circular gaze. Almost at once, the notary pointed to a statue of Saint Christophe standing on a pedestal, in a niche.
“If the testament speaks truly, it’s there.”
They approached and examined the statue.
“We’ll need to tilt it,” said Bailleux. “It won’t be easy.”
The weight of the painted statue would indeed have posed a difficulty if Saint-Lucq had desired to preserve it intact. But he braced himself, pushed, and simply tipped the effigy of Saint Christophe over, to fall heavily onto the flagstones and break into pieces. Bailleux crossed himself at this act of sacrilege.
Someone had slipped a slender document pouch beneath the statue, and the cracked leather now lay exposed on the pedestal. The notary took it, opened it, and carefully unfolded a page torn from an old register of baptisms. The parchment threatened to come apart at the folds.
“This is it!” he exclaimed. “This is really it!”
The half-blood held out his hand.
“Give it to me.”
“But will you tell me, finally, what this is all about? Do you even know?”
Saint-Lucq considered the question, and reached the conclusion that the notary had a right to this information.