Pierre Pevel - By The Alchemist in the Shadows Page 0,12

indignity, but that meant ringing the bell and waiting for someone to come open up one of the great studded doors of the carriage gate. She preferred to push open the smaller, inset pedestrian door that was only locked at night and, leading her horse by the bridle, entered the paved courtyard where the iron-clad hooves clattered and echoed like musket shots.

Coming from the stable, Andre hurried to greet the baronne de Vaudreuil, respectfully taking the reins from her hands.

'You should have rung the bell, madame,' said the stableman. 'I would have opened for you.'

There was a touch of both reproach and regret in his voice.

A very dark-haired man who was going prematurely bald on the top of his head, although sporting a tremendous moustache on his upper lip, he had the frustrated look of someone who was prevented from doing the right thing but had decided to bear with this in silence.

'It's quite all right, Andre . . . Thank you.'

While Andre took her tired, muddy horse to the stable, Agnes removed her gloves and looked at her surroundings with a resigned air.

She sighed.

The Hotel de l'Epervier was a decidedly sinister place. Austere and uncomfortable, it was a vast residence with thick walls and narrow windows which had been built for a Huguenot gentleman after the Saint-Barthelemy massacre. Now it served as headquarters for the Cardinal's Blades, a clandestine elite unit commanded by Captain La Fargue under direct orders from Cardinal Richelieu. Agnes de Vaudreuil didn't like this mansion, where the nights seemed longer and darker than elsewhere. But she had no choice. Lacking lodgings of her own in Paris, she was obliged to live here, immediately available for the service of His Eminence. An order for an urgent mission could arrive at any time from the Palais-Cardinal.

Ballardieu, coming out onto the front steps of the main building, interrupted Agnes's train of thought. Massively built, with greying hair, he was a former soldier who had put on weight over the years thanks to his fondness for food and drink. His cheekbones were reddened by broken veins but his eye remained sharp and he was still capable of felling a mule with one blow of his fist.

'Where on earth have you been?' he demanded.

Restraining a smile, Agnes walked up to him.

Having raised her as best he could, dandled her on his knee, and taught her how to use her first rapier, she was always prepared to forgive Ballardieu's tendency to forget that she was a baronne and no longer eight years old. She knew he loved her, and that he was still awkward when it came to showing his affection. She also knew that he disliked it if she was absent for too long and fretted until she returned. As a child she had once disappeared for several days in troubled circumstances she no longer recalled, but it was an incident which had evidently marked Ballardieu for life.

'I went as far as Saint-Germain,' she explained nonchalantly as she passed him and went into the front hall. 'Any news from La Fargue?'

'No,' replied the old man from the porch. 'But it might interest you to hear that Marciac has returned.'

She halted and turned round, now wearing a radiant smile.

Marciac had been sent off alone on a mission to La Rochelle three weeks earlier and had stopped sending news soon after. The Gascon's silence had been worrying her for several days now.

'Really?'

'God's truth!'

Marciac was bent over a basin of cold water, splashing his face and neck with both hands, when he heard a voice behind him:

'Good morning, Nicolas.'

He interrupted his ablutions, blindly grabbed a towel, then stood up and turned towards Agnes as he dried his cheeks. She stood on the threshold of his bedchamber, with her arms crossed, one shoulder leaning against the wall, eyes shining and a faint smile on her lips.

'Welcome home,' she added.

'Thank you,' Marciac replied.

He was still wearing the boots and breeches in which he had ridden, but he had stripped down to his shirt and rolled up his sleeves in order to wash. His doublet — an elegant blood-red garment cut from the same embroidered cloth as his

breeches — lay on the bed next to an old leather travelling bag. His hat was hanging on the wall, along with his rapier in its scabbard and his baldric.

'How are you?' asked Agnes.

'Exhausted.'

And as if to prove these words, he fell into an armchair, with the towel still around his neck and damp locks clinging to his brow.