The Cardinal's Blades

2

“It’s me,” announced Leprat after knocking on the door to Agnes’s bedroom.

“Come in.”

The young woman was still in her bed, more out of laziness, however, than necessity. She looked well and the scratches on her face would not spoil her beauty. The platter Ballardieu had brought her was set down next to her. Leprat noticed with satisfaction that it was almost empty.

“I came to see how you were feeling,” said the musketeer.

Then pointing to a chair: “May I?”

“Of course.”

Agnes closed her book, looked at Leprat as he sat down, taking care with his wounded leg, and waited.

“So?” he asked after a moment.

“So what?”

“Are you feeling well?”

“As you can see… I’m resting.”

“You deserve it.”

“I believe I do, yes.”

There was an awkward silence during which Agnes became amused by Leprat’s embarrassment.

But she finally took pity on him and said: “Go ahead. Say it.”

“You were reckless in letting yourself be abducted by those men.”

“I didn’t know who they were, in fact, and that was precisely what I was counting on finding out. Furthermore, there were five or six of them and I was unarmed.”

“Nevertheless. When you saw Saint-Lucq in the street, you could have… Between the two of you, with surprise on your side…”

“I know.”

“Things could have turned out very badly.”

“Yes. The Black Claw could have established a lodge, here, in France.”

“That’s one way of looking at it. But why did you go there, to begin with?”

“To Cecile’s house?”

“Yes.”

“You know very well. To find out what she was hiding there. To find whatever Saint-Lucq managed to find before me, acting on his secret orders from the captain. If I had known that…”

Leprat nodded, with a distracted gaze.

Agnes narrowed her eyes and leaned forward to look at him squarely.

“That’s what you’ve come to speak to me about, isn’t it?”

“He’s changed. He’s not the same as he was… I… I think he’s distrustful of us.”

And with an ill-tempered gesture, his voice vibrant with impotent anger, Leprat added: “Of us, damn it! Of his Blades!”

The young woman, sympathising with him, laid her hand upon his wrist.

“We have Louveciennes to blame for that. When he betrayed us at La Rochelle, he might as well have stabbed La Fargue in the heart. He was his best friend. His only friend, perhaps… And that’s not even including the death of Bretteville and the shameful dissolution of the Blades. That memory must be branded by a red-hot iron in his mind, and it burns him still.”

Leprat stood up, limped toward the window, and let his gaze wander over the rooftops of the faubourg Saint-Germain.

“The worst part…” he finally admitted, “the worst part is that I think he’s right to be wary of us.”

“What?”

“Of one of us, in any case.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know.”

He turned toward Agnes and explained: “We were the only ones to know that we were holding Malencontre. But that didn’t prevent Rochefort from coming to claim him after a few hours. So the cardinal knew we had him as well. Who told him?”

Sensing a feeling that she did not like at all come over her, the young baronne played devil’s advocate: “There’s Guibot. And Nais, who we don’t know from Adam and Eve, after all.”

“And you really believe that?”

“Do you suspect me?

“No.”

“So then, who? Saint-Lucq? Marciac? Almades? Ballardieu…? And why couldn’t it be you, Leprat?”

He stared at her without anger, looking almost hurt: “It’s anyone’s guess…”