Pierre Pevel - By The Alchemist in the Shadows Page 0,81

a month ago, in fact.'

'I didn't know . . . Are you still under the command of that old gentleman?'

'Captain La Fargue, yes.'

'And are you happy?'

'My word . . .' replied Agnes with a somewhat guilty smile.

'Then that's all right, that's all right . . . Just don't find yourself on the receiving end of a sword stroke that will make you regret not having taken the veil!'

'It would have to be a very nasty sword stroke, indeed, mother . . .'

The abbess took Agnes by the arm and they walked together beneath the gallery of the cloister. Shaking her head resignedly, the old woman said:

'Intrigue. Racing about on horseback. Sword play . . . You have always loved all that, Marie-Agnes .

. .'

'And the boys. You're forgetting the boys, mother superior.'

The abbess chuckled.

'Yes. And the boys . . . Did you know that the ivy on the north wall is still called "Agnes's ivy" by some of the older nuns?'

'I didn't climb it that often . . .'

'Let's say rather that you weren't caught every time you climbed it . . .'

Still talking in this relaxed manner, they left the cloister for a garden at the entrance to which the mother superior asked the two nuns trailing them to wait behind. And once she and Agnes had moved out of earshot, she confided:

'One of those two is spying on me. I don't know which one. But what can I do? The Mother Superior General continues to be suspicious of me, after all these years . . .'

Mere Emmanuelle had previously been the head of the Sinters of Saint Georges. But following some dark dealings, she had been ousted in favour of the current Superior General, who happened to be part of the Richelieu family. Since then, the Order had become a more or less blatant instrument of the cardinal's policies, to the great displeasure of Rome. The concordat of Bologna, however, had granted the king the right to appoint the recipients of the Church's major benefices in France, including the abbesses and abbots of the religious orders.

'But what can 1 do for you, Marie-Agnes? I imagine that you have not come to tell me that you wish to complete your novitiate . . .'

The young baronne smiled as she thought of how very close she had come to taking the veil, then she spoke of the fears of the marquis d'Aubremont, his approach to the Blades and the promise she had made to him.

The mother superior thought for a moment.

'An expedition to Alsace, you say . . . ? Yes, I think I did hear something about that. Its goal, I believe, was the destruction of a powerful dragon. And as is proper in such cases, a louve was leading the hunt.'

Among the Chatelaines, there existed a small number of exceptional sisters who, thanks to a papal dispensation, were allowed to wield magic as well as the sword to fight the draconic menace. They were nicknamed the louves, or she-wolves, because their headquarters were located in the Chateau de Saint-Loup, not far from Poitiers. But also, and above all, because they were solitary and merciless huntresses. If Agnes had come close to pronouncing her own vows, it had been with the sole intention of becoming a louve herself.

'But I don't know the details of this affair,' Mere Emmanu-elle was saying. 'And, inr particular, I don't know what success the expedition had . . . But if you like, I can make enquiries and let you know what I discover.'

'Thank you, mother superior.'

'Nevertheless . . . Nevertheless, be very careful, Marie-Agnes. It won't take the Superior General long to learn of the reasons for your visit, and I doubt she will take a kind view of your becoming mixed up in the Order's business . . .'

In the office of magic at the splendid Hotel de Chevreuse, in rue Saint-Thomas-du-Louvre, the man bent forward to examine the painted portrait the duchesse was showing him. Tall, thin and pale, he appeared to be about fifty-five years in age. He was wearing the black robes of a scholar and a cloth beret, also black in colour, with a turned-up, crenelated edge.

'Do you see, master?' asked madame de Chevreuse.

He was her master of magic and exercised an insidious but immense influence over her. She believed he was called Mauduit, was of Italian origin and had spent long years studying and practising the occult arts abroad. In truth, he was a dragon as well