Pierre Pevel - By The Alchemist in the Shadows Page 0,36
I don't know.'
'You've never tasted it?'
'No.'
Not widely known previously in France, chocolate now enjoyed some slight notoriety since Queen Anne d'Autriche, who had acquired a taste for it during her childhood in Spain, asked that it be served to her in the Louvre. Still reserved for the rich elite, chocolate was, curiously enough, sold by apothecaries.
'It's delicious,' murmured Alessandra. With both hands she raised her cup to Leprat's mouth. 'Here, try some . . .'
Their glances met, hers seductive, his troubled.
For an instant that slowly stretched between them, the former musketeer almost gave in to temptation . . .
. . . but the chambermaid — knocking and then immediately entering the room — broke the spell.
She brought La Donna's gloves, cloak, and hat. Having surprised Leprat, who quickly drew back, she acted as if she had seen nothing.
'Bah!' said Alessandra, shrugging and turning away. 'It's gone cold now, in any case . . .'
Leprat found La Renardiere's maitre d'hotel already on the front porch, waiting as usual.
'Monsieur.'
'Good morning, Danvert.'
Together they watched a coach pass over the dry moat and enter the courtyard. Twelve cavaliers escorted the vehicle, all of them Cardinal's Guards armed with swords and short muskets, although they did not wear the cape. Monsieur de La Houdiniere rode at their head. He was the company's new captain and the successor to sieur de Saint-Georges, who had died a month earlier under circumstances which were so infamous that they remained secret, to the satisfaction of all concerned.
The coach drew to a halt at the bottom of the steps. La Houdiniere leapt down from his saddle and went over to Leprat. They shook hands like men who held one another in esteem but who could not permit themselves to fraternise — for the first belonged to His Eminence's Guards, while the second remained, even if he had momentarily hung up his cape, a member of His Majesty's Musketeers.
There was a traditional rivalry between these two corps, and a lively one: it was a rare fortnight which passed without a guard and a musketeer engaging in a duel for one reason or another.
La Houdiniere and Leprat, however, were on good terms.
Their acquaintance had begun when they fought together the previous year, when Louis XIII had marched on Nancy for the second time — and before he had to for a third — at the head of his army to persuade Duke Charles IV of Lorraine to show better sentiments towards the king of France. On the 18th of June, a cavalry regiment from Lorraine had been holding one of the crossings over the Mouse river, close to the
small town of Saint-Mihiel and not far from the king's quarters. Hostilities had not really commenced yet — in fact, Charles IV was continuing to parley — but Louis XIII was determined to strike a lightning blow as a demonstration of force. A unit of elite soldiers drawn from the Navarre regiment, the gendarmerie, the light cavalry, the King's Musketeers, and the Cardinal's Guards had therefore been placed under the comte d'Allais's command. La Houdiniere — who was then still a lieutenant — and Leprat had been among this elite. Surprised, trapped in their trenches, and soon stricken by panic, Lorraine's forces had suffered a terrible defeat. It had been a massacre which few had survived.
Later the two men's paths had often crossed, but they had not worked closely together again until now. They shared the responsibility of guarding La Donna, Leprat here at La Renardiere and La Houdiniere during her daily journeys to Le Chatelet, where the spy was interrogated. They thus met twice a day, when the one relieved the other.
'Is everything all right?' asked La Houdiniere.
'Yes,' replied Leprat. 'Any orders from the Palais-Cardinal?'
'None.'
And that was everything that needed to be said.
Wearing her cloak and hood, Alessandra soon made her appearance, smiling and unruffled. Ever a gentleman, La Houdiniere opened the coach door for her and lent her his hand as she climbed into the passenger compartment. Then he remounted his horse and, after a final salute to Leprat, gave the signal to depart.
The former musketeer stood for a moment watching the coach and its escort move off. He was tired but could not rest just yet.
He turned to Danvert, the maitre d'hotel, who was waiting patiently.
'Let's go,' he said, returning inside. 'We have much to do.'
The old woman was sitting in a peaceful, sunny garden in one of the numerous convents in the faubourg Saint-Jacques.