Pierre Pevel - By The Alchemist in the Shadows Page 0,65

Golden Hart. Laconic as always, he added:

'Four riders. One of them comes in advance as a scout. I cannot make out his face.'

'Rochefort,' surmised the captain of the Blades. 'Or La Houdiniere.'

'La Houdiniere. He has just dismounted,' said the Spanish fencing master.

Laincourt joined him to take a look outside.

'The cardinal is waiting on his horse,' he reported. 'The other two are gentlemen from his entourage.

I have met them before at the Palais-Cardinal—'

'So, no sign of Rochefort,' La Fargue concluded.

As usual he was wearing a sleeveless black leather vest over a doublet of the same red as the sash that was tied about his waist, with his Pappenheimer at his side. His close-cropped white beard was neatly trimmed, but his face was drawn, betraying the strain of the recent fight at La Renardiere and his desperate fall from the window. Although he tried not to let anything show, he still experienced some pain when he moved.

'No,' confirmed Laincourt. 'No sign of Rochefort.'

'We serve the same master, he and I. And yet I must confess I always feel more at ease when I know where he is and what he is doing. He is a little like a ferocious dog. I do not like to imagine him roaming about freely in the garden . . .'

Arnaud de Laincourt nodded and then turned his head towards Saint-Lucq when the latter said:

'Perhaps Rochefort is too busy with La Donna . . .'

The half-blood was lying stretched out on the bed away from the others, in the shadows. Remaining perfectly still, hat over his eyes and fingers crossed on his chest, he had appeared to be napping until now. With Laincourt and Almades to accompany La Fargue, his presence here was useless and he knew it. But the cardinal had specifically asked that he came. He did not know why.

At the mention of the Italian lady spy, La Fargue pursed his lips doubtfully.

The Blades had been without news of Alessandra since Saint-Lucq had laid hands on her once again. They only knew

that she had since been incarcerated in the Bastille and later transferred elsewhere. If monsieur de Laffemas was still interrogating her, he was no longer doing so at Le Chatelet.

'You can be certain,' said Laincourt in a grave voice, 'that La Donna has not spent more than two or three nights in a gaol cell. And if the cardinal is keeping you in the dark as to where she is being detained, it may be because she is no longer being detained anywhere.'

Saint-Lucq sat up suddenly and pivoted to perch on the edge of the bed.

'Are you saying that she is now free?' he asked in surprise, pushing his red spectacles up to the bridge of his nose.

'I'm saying I would not be too surprised to learn that she was . . .'

'And how the devil—?'

Laincourt admitted his ignorance with a shrug. But then he added:

'La Donna never plays a card without having another one up her sleeve. By returning to Paris after her escape from La Renardiere, thanks to the drac attack, she knew she risked being recaptured.

And no doubt she made some arrangements to protect herself in this event.'

La Fargue and Saint-Lucq exchanged a look while the cardinal's former spy remained deep in his own thoughts. As for Almades, he continued to keep his silent vigil upon the courtyard.

'They're coming inside,' he announced.

Then he looked out at the horizon where clouds darker than night were massing. He saw the first flickers of lightning from the storm which was now looming over Paris.

Leaning from a third-storey window, Marciac twisted himself around in order to expose his face to the welcome rain which, after a prolonged heat spell, was now pouring down upon the capital. Eyes closed, he smiled and breathed in deeply. The blowing wind and rumblings of thunder did not bother him in the least.

'Great God, that feels good!' he exclaimed; 'Sometimes there's nothing better than a storm . . .'

'A powerful thought,' retorted Agnes, hauling him back inside by the collar. 'Now, if you could just avoid revealing yourself to the whole world . . .'

She closed the window.

'No need to worry on that account,' said the Gascon wiping his face with a hand. 'The hosteller swore to me our man would not be back till midnight.'

He was soaked, dishevelled and delighted.

And how does he know that, your hosteller?' asked the baronne de Vaudreuil.

Marciac shrugged blithely.

'I didn't think to ask,' he confessed. 'But he seemed particularly sure of himself on this