Pierre Pevel - By The Alchemist in the Shadows Page 0,4
the haloes cast by the lanterns hanging from their saddles. These did not shed much light, but at least, between the flashes of lightning, allowed them to make out the puddles disturbed by their horses' heavy hooves.
Saint-Lucq led the way. Behind him, Captain Etienne-Louis de La Fargue endured the rain with perfect stoicism, as it spattered his aging, patriarchal features: pale eyes, handsome wrinkles, martial bearing, grim mouth, closely trimmed beard, and firm jaw. Tall and solidly built, he was wearing a sleeveless vest over his doublet, which was made of leather thick enough to stop a musket ball fired from a distance, or even deflect a clumsy sword stroke. It was black, as were this old gentleman soldier's breeches, boots, gloves and hat. As for the doublet, it was the same dark red as his baldric and the sash tied around his waist, knotted over his right hip.
Black and red . . .
They were, once again, the colours of the Cardinal's Blades, now they had been secretly recalled to service by Cardinal Richelieu.
'Are we even still in France?' Almades asked, with a trace of a Spanish accent.
Anibal Antonio Almades di Carlio, to give him his full name, rode slightly behind and to La Fargue's left, ready to draw level with a dig <>l his spurs and protect the flank that a right-handed cavalier would have difficulty defending. Thin and austere-looking, he sported a fine greying moustache that he occasionally wiped dry — always thrice each time — with his thumb and index finger. He sat straight in the saddle, his waist snugly fitted into a red-slashed black leather doublet, and he was armed with a Toledo rapier whose guard consisted of a full hemispherical shell and two long straight quillons. Made of tarnished steel, this duelling sword offered no concessions to aesthetic values whatsoever.
'I doubt it,' La Fargue said to the Spanish fencing master. 'What do you think, Saint-Lucq?' he enquired in turn, raising his voice against the din of the wind and the rain in the branches.
He knew the young man had heard him despite the distance between them. Saint-Lucq took the lead precisely because he heard — and saw — better than any common mortal.
Because he was no common mortal.
Saint-Lucq was a half-blood. The blood of dragons ran in his veins. With his slender, supple figure, smooth cheeks and shoulder-length hair, his ancestry endowed him with enhanced senses, superior athletic abilities, and a personal charm that was both seductive and disturbing. He certainly had an allure, but there was also something dark emanating from him, with his silences, his long stares, his slow measured gestures and his proud reserve. This darkness was heightened by the fact that he only wore black and, on him, the colour was associated more than ever with death. He only permitted two exceptions: the thin red feather in his hat and the lenses — also red — of the small round spectacles which hid his reptilian eyes. Otherwise everything, even the fine basket guard of his rapier, was black.
'We are in Spain,' the half-blood declared without turning round.
They were five leagues from Amiens and had already reached the Spanish Netherlands, which began just beyond Picardy, comprising the ten Catholic provinces that had remained loyal to the Spanish Crown when the lands further north controlled by the Calvinists seceded to form the Dutch republic. The province of Artois, along with the towns of Arras, Cambrai, Lille, Brussels, Namur, and Antwerp were thus all part of the territory of Spain, a power that was hostile to France and jealous in her exercise of full sovereignty. Spanish troops were garrisoned there and guarded the border, only a few days' march from Paris.
'This storm works in our favour,' said La Fargue. 'Without it our lights might be seen by a Spanish wyvern rider. They fly over this area every hour, when weather permits.'
'So all we have to do is avoid the ordinary patrols,' Almades observed wryly.
'Let's hope the person waiting for us had the same bright idea,' the old captain replied in a more serious tone. 'Or else we'll have come all this way for nothing.'
Ahead of them, Saint-Lucq slowly turned his head to the left as his horse advanced at the same steady pace. He'd just spotted the dragonnet spying on them from the shadows, and he wanted to leave it in no doubt as to the fact. Intrigued at first, the young female craned her neck to peer out at him from her tree