Pierre Pevel - By The Alchemist in the Shadows Page 0,102

be used again.'

'Legends have an answer for everything.'

'It seems that these cursed stones also gave rise to the name "Dampierre", although I know nothing of Latin . . .'

As for the musketeer, he possessed only a smattering of church Latin. He pursed his lips and the two men fell silent again.

'Enough lazing about,' Mirebeau suddenly declared. 'Come with me, we need to go to the Chateau de Mauvieres and make sure that everything is ready there to receive monsieur de Chateauneufs entourage.'

'We're not sleeping at Dampierre?'

'In the castle?' the gentleman asked with amusement. 'Tonight, that might be possible. But tomorrow there will be marquises in the servants' quarters, comtesses in the attic and barons sleeping on straw mattresses. Where do you think they would put us? No, trust me, we shall be better off at Mauvieres. And it's close by.'

Leprat regretfully dragged his eyes from the pond and its island. He was following Mirebeau, who had set off at a brisk pace, when he heard the sound of a few notes being played on a jew's harp.

He halted, turned round and saw Rauvin in the shadows.

Mirebeau had told Leprat that the hired swordsman had escaped, but he'd not seen him since the night when Rochefort had laid his trap for them. How long had the other man been standing there, spying on them? And why had he decided to reveal his presence, if not to make Leprat understand that he was still keeping an eye on him?

As he continued plucking notes on his harp, staring directly at the musketeer, Rauvin gave a slow nod of the head.

The barony of Chevreuse had been made a duchy in 1555, as a favour to Cardinal Charles de Lorraine who had just acquired it as his holding. The seigneurial seat at the time was the Chateau de la Madeleine, an austere mediaeval fortress built on a height overlooking Paris and whose only real advantage was its unequalled view of the surrounding countryside. Its lack of comfort displeased the cardinal, who preferred a more elegant manor nestling in the Yvette valley barely a league away from Chevreuse. It had belonged to a royal treasurer who was obliging enough to die quickly, leaving behind him some debts and a widow who posed no objections to selling off the entire domain.

This domain was Dampierre, whose name was perhaps derived from either domus Petri — Peter's dwelling in Latin -or from damnce petrce, meaning cursed stones. Its manor became the new ducal residence. The cardinal transformed it into a castle that was later inherited by the youngest son of the

duc de Guise, who also came from Lorraine, along with the land and title in 1612. This due de Chevreuse did not add any great distinction to the name, as opposed to the woman he wed ten years later. The famed and indomitable duchesse loved Dampierre. She stayed there often and, at her urging, her husband enlarged and embellished the property further.

However, if the domain was vast and prosperous in 1633, its castle, despite acquiring a luxurious steam bath and some other interior improvements, still compared poorly with the magnificence of the Hotel de Chevreuse in Paris. Its roofs were covered with tiles rather than more handsome slate, while the four sides formed by its sandstone towers and pavilions enclosed a rather small courtyard, entered by means of a drawbridge leading from a forecourt lined with the castle's outbuildings.

But the main attractions of Dampierre lay elsewhere.

They included the magnificent forests in the surrounding area; the orchards and splendid flower beds arranged in the Renaissance fashion; the beautiful water-filled moats that encircled the castle and its garden; the canals feeding these moats, lined with leafy walks and bordering the main flower bed; and, lastly, the pond where one could take pleasant boat trips out to the island where the new pavilions were being built.

Pavilions which were being guarded for no reason that Leprat could see.

Mirebeau had not lied. The modest Chateau de Mauvieres — sometimes also called Bergerac —

was located just beyond the outer wall surrounding the domain of Dampierre. It belonged to a minor nobleman, Abel de Cyrano, whose son Savinien was already beginning to make a name for himself in Paris, both as a man of letters and with his sword.

Leprat waited until nightfall before slipping out of his bedchamber, which was fortunately close by the stables. He saddled a horse, and led it out of the manor before mounting and urging it forward with a dig of