The Cardinal's Blades

19

Arnaud de Laincourt lived on rue de la Ferronnerie which ran between the neighbourhoods of Sainte-Opportune and Les Halles, extending rue Saint-Honore, skirting the Saints-Innocents cemetery, and linking up with rue des Lombards, thus creating one of the longest routes through the capital. Broad, at almost four metres across, and heavily used, it was a place of sad memories: it was here that Ravaillac had stabbed Henri IV when the royal coach was halted by the busy street traffic. But this detail aside, Laincourt’s address was quite commonplace. He rented accommodation in a house similar to many others in Paris: tall and narrow, crammed in between its neighbours, with a small shop on the ground floor-a ribbon seller, as it happened. Next to this establishment, a door for residents opened onto a corridor which passed through the building and led to a lightless staircase. From there, the top floors could be reached by following a shaky wooden banister up through the fetid air well.

Laincourt had his foot on the first step when he heard the squeak of hinges behind him in the shadowy corridor.

“Good morning, officer.”

It was monsieur Laborde, the ribbon seller. He must have seen him arrive, just as he saw everyone who came and went. In addition to the shop, he rented the three rooms on the first floor for himself and his family, as well as one poor, tiny room on the second floor for their maid. He was the principal lodger in the house. Because of this, he collected the rent and claimed to keep an eye on everything, puffed up with pride, jealous of the trust placed in him by the landlord, and very concerned about the respectability of the place.

Laincourt turned to greet him, suppressing a sigh.

“Monsieur Laborde.”

Like most members of the petty bourgeoisie, the ribbon seller evinced a fearful hatred of the popular masses, despised anyone poorer than himself, envied his equals and deemed them all to be upstarts, was quick to abase himself before those with power, and always felt he needed to wriggle into the good graces of representatives of authority. He dreamed of being able to count Laincourt, an ensign with His Eminence’s horse guards, amongst his customers.

“I invite you to do me the honour of passing by my shop sometime, monsieur. I have received some swathes of satin which, if I am to believe my wife, would look quite wonderful on you if made up into a doublet.”

“Ah.”

“Yes. And you know as well as I do how the ladies have an eye and a taste for such things.”

Laincourt could not stop himself from thinking of Laborde’s wife and the metres of coloured ribbons which adorned the least of her dresses, although in all honesty none of these could be described as “the least” once one had seen the imposing dimensions of the lady in question.

“True elegance is in the detail, isn’t it?” insisted the tradesman.

Detail. Another word which sat poorly with the enormous madame Laborde, who raised her little finger when she sipped her chocolate and gobbled up pastries as though eating for four.

“No doubt,” said Laincourt with a smile which said nothing. “Good day, monsieur Laborde.”

The ensign climbed as far as the second floor and, passing in front of the garret door where the ribbon seller’s maid slept, he entered his own rooms. His apartment was made up of two very ordinary rooms, that is to say: cold and gloomy ones, where the air circulated poorly. But he didn’t have much reason to complain as each had a window-even if one looked onto a dirty courtyard and the other into an alley so narrow that one could touch the opposing wall with an outstretched arm. His furniture was meagre: a bed and a chest for clothes in the bedroom; and a table, a rickety sideboard, and two chairs in the second room. This furniture, moreover, did not belong to him. With the exception of the chest, they had all been there when he arrived and would remain there when he left.

In order not to compromise the impeccable cleanliness of his rooms, Laincourt’s first care was to remove his stained boots, promising himself he would soon clean off the black and stinking muck they had acquired from the Parisian streets. Then he hung his belt from the same nail which held his felt hat with its white plume, and took off his cape.

There were writing implements on the table and Laincourt set to work at once. He had to retranscribe the letter he had read at midday in Charpentier’s-Richelieu’s secretary-tiny study. He copied it out from memory, only he used Latin vocabulary combined with Greek grammar. The result was a text which, while not entirely undecipherable, could not be read by anyone without a perfect knowledge of both languages-which remained the province of scholars alone. The ensign didn’t hesitate even once as he filled a page with lines of cramped writing, and he didn’t release the quill until he had penned the final period.

He was waiting, motionless and impassive, for the ink to dry, when someone knocked on the door. Laincourt turned his head toward it, frowning.

As the knocking was insistent, he resolved to go and open the door. When he did, he saw the Labordes’ servant, a nice girl with pink cheeks who nursed a secret crush on the young ensign of the Cardinal’s Guards.

“Yes?”

“Good morning, monsieur.”

“Good morning.”

“I don’t know if you know, but a gentleman came here.”

“A gentleman.”

“Yes. He asked some questions about you.”

“Questions to which monsieur Laborde no doubt zealously replied…”

The servant nodded, embarrassed, as if a little of her master’s abject nature reflected on her.

“Did he give his name, this gentleman?” asked Laincourt.

“No.”

“How did he look?”

“He was tall, slightly handsome, with black hair. And he had a scar on his temple… He did not give any cause for alarm, but he was… frightening.”

The ensign nodded, inscrutable.

At that moment, madame Laborde called out for her maidservant, who made haste to answer the summons.

“Thank you,” said Laincourt, as she took leave with a brief curtsey.

Having closed the door again, he returned to his writing table and slipped the transcription of the letter into a thin leather envelope. He carried it to the chair, lifted the rug, dislodged a floorboard, and hid the secret document before returning everything to its normal place.

Or almost.

As he saw at once, a corner of the rug remained rolled up: an obvious discrepancy which was at odds with the perfect order of the room.

The ensign hesitated for a moment, then shrugged and prepared to leave. He pulled his fouled boots back on, strapped on his belt, took his hat, and threw his folded cape over his shoulder. In the distance, the Sainte-Opportune bell tower tolled the half hour, almost immediately followed by the Saints-Innocents church.