The Cardinal's Blades

19

It must have been around eight o’clock in the evening and night was falling.

Still held prisoner, Agnes had seen enough to understand what was going on in the great fortified castle. The preparations were now complete. On either side of the open-air stage, the three tiers of benches had been erected and covered with black cloth. On the stage itself, an altar had been placed before a thick velvet cushion. Tall banners had been raised that now floated in the wind, bearing a single golden draconic rune. Torches already illuminated the scene and bonfires waited to be lit. The men and dracs who had installed everything were not workers but hired swordsmen commanded by Savelda and under the direction of a very young and very elegant blond cavalier whom Agnes did not know but who was addressed as marquis: Gagniere. Their task finished, the swordsmen who were not on watch were now gathered around campfires, away from the stage they had set up, near the makeshift stable and the enclosure for the wyverns, and at the foot of the partly collapsed ramparts.

For the past hour, the places along the benches had been filling with men and a few women, most of them sumptuously dressed, whose horses and coaches had been left by the main castle gates. They wore black eye masks embellished with veils of red lace covering their mouths and chins. They waited, visibly anxious and saying little to one another.

Agnes realised why.

She had never taken part in the ceremony that was about to occur, but she had learned something of its nature during her years as a novice with the White Ladies, the religious order devoted to preserving the French kingdom from the draconic contagion. The Black Claw-whose sinister emblem decorated the banners and was even carved into the wood of the altar-was no mere secret society. Led by dragon sorcerers, its power was founded upon ancient rituals that ensured the unfailing loyalty of its initiates by spiritually uniting them with a superior awareness: that of an Ancestral Dragon who came to impregnate their being. A Black Claw lodge was much more than a meeting of conspirators avid for wealth and power. It was the product of a rite that permitted a fanatical assembly to offer itself as the instrument and receptacle of an Ancestral Dragon’s soul-thus bringing the dragon back to life through those who had sacrificed a part of themselves, and allowing it to once again exercise power over a land it had been driven from in the distant past. The ceremony could only be performed by a dragon-one who was thoroughly adept in the higher arcana of draconic magic. In addition, it required an extremely rare relic, a Sphere d’Ame, from which the Ancestral Dragon’s soul would be freed at the most propitious moment.

A little while before, Agnes had seen a black coach arrive. An elegant woman in a veil, wearing a red-and-grey gown, had descended from it in the company of a gentleman. The latter had paused for a moment to adjust his mask and Agnes, incredulous, had the time to catch a glimpse of his face. It was Saint-Georges, the captain of the Cardinal’s Guards. He and the woman had watched the completion of preparations before being joined by Gagniere and Savelda, with whom they exchanged a few words before turning toward the ruin in whose cellar Agnes was being held captive. The prisoner quickly withdrew from the window where she was spying on them and feared for a moment that they would come to see her, but the coach left with all of them except Savelda, driving off in the direction of the keep, which it entered by means of a drawbridge over a ditch filled with bushes.

As she knew that the ceremony would not take place until night, Agnes had resolved to wait until dusk before acting, and thus take advantage of the evening shadows.

The moment had come.

In the now darkened cellar, she turned toward the dirty obese woman charged with keeping watch over her, but who in fact almost never lifted her nose from her knitting. The fat woman was the first obstacle Agnes needed to overcome. The next was the closed door and the sentry that Savelda had prudently left behind it.

“I’m thirsty,” she complained, having noticed her guard’s red nose, a clear sign of a fondness for drink.

The fat woman shrugged her shoulders.

“Can’t we even have a pitcher of wine?” Agnes wheedled in an innocent voice.

The other woman reflected, hesitated, thought about the pitcher, and ran the tip of her tongue over her lips, eyes filled with longing.

“I’d give anything for a cool glass of wine. Here, this is for you if you want it…”

Agnes removed one of her rings and held it out. In the fat woman’s eyes, greed was now combined with longing. But still she hesitated.

“We deserve a little wine, don’t you think? After all, we’ve been shut away down here for hours now.”

Narrowing her eyes, the fat woman licked her lips, her mouth dry. Then she set down her knitting, murmured something that sounded like assent, stood up, and went to knock on the door.

“What is it?” ask the sentry on the other side.

“We’re thirsty,” grumbled the woman.

“So what!”

“Go find us a bottle.”

“Out of the question.”

“Then let me go find one.”

“No.”

Although furious, the fat woman was about to give up when Agnes approached and showed her the ring again.

“The girl can pay.”

“With what?”

“A ring. Made of gold.”

After a short instant, Agnes heard the bar blocking the door being removed.

And smiled to herself.

“Let me see,” said the man as he opened up.

A few minutes later, Agnes came out beneath a sky of ink and fire, wearing the sentry’s clothes and equipped with his weapons. Their owner was lying in the cellar, a knitting needle planted in his eye as far as his brain. The fat woman was stretched out nearby, a second needle sticking out of the back of her neck.

Agnes carefully surveyed the surroundings, pulled the hat down on her skull, and, keeping her head slightly lowered, moved away praying that no one would hail her. She saw a masked rider approach who spoke with Savelda without descending from his mount and then spurred the horse toward the keep.

She went in the same direction.