Because it was designed to take in plague victims, the Saint-Louis hos-pital had not only been built outside Paris but also resembled a fortress. Its first stone had been laid in 1607, after the serious epidemics which the Hotel-Dieu, the only big hospital the capital possessed at the time, had been unable to cope with. Its four main buildings, each formed of a single storey above a ground floor with taller structures at their centre and extremities, surrounded a square courtyard. Two rings of walls separated it from the rest of the world. Between them, symmetrically distributed, were the dwellings of the employees, nurses, and nuns who worked there. The pantries, kitchens, storerooms, and bakeries were built against the outer wall. Around them spread the gardens, fields, and pastures bordering the faubourg Saint-Denis.
Having shown his pass several times, Marciac received directions to the immense ward where, among the moans and murmurs of the other patients, he found Castilla lying on one of the beds aligned in rows. Cecile was sitting near him. Pale, her eyes red, she caressed his forehead with a light touch. The wounded man was clean and bandaged, but his face was swollen and horribly deformed. He was breathing but showed no reaction to his surroundings.
"Leave me be," said the young woman on seeing Marciac. "Leave us both."
"Cecile . . ."
"That's not my name."
"It's of little importance."
"Oh, but it is . . . ! If I wasn't who I am, if he who claims to be my father wasn't who he is, none of this would have happened. And this man here, he would live."
"He isn't dead."
"The sisters say he won't live through the night."
"They don't know anything. I've seen many men survive wounds that were believed to be fatal."
The young woman did not reply, seeming to forget the Gascon and, leaning over Castilla, continued to caress his brow.
"What should I call you?" asked Marciac after a while.
"Ana-Lucia ... I believe."
"You want this man to live, don't you, Ana-Lucia?"
She glared at him with damp eyes, as if this question were the worst possible insult.
"Then you should leave here," Marciac continued in a gentle voice. "The men who tried to abduct you are no doubt still after you. And if they find you here, they'll also find him. . . ."
She stared at him and a new worry caused her drawn features to look even more distraught.
"You . . . you really think so?"
"I know so, Ana-Lucia. Please come. You will need to be brave. I promise you that we'll return tomorrow."
Back in Paris an hour later, the beautiful Gabrielle, mistress of a brothel located in rue de la Grenouillere, heard knocking at her door. As no one in the house answered and the knocking continued, she wondered why she bothered paying her porter and, more resigned than angry, leaned from her window.
Outside, Marciac lifted a grave-looking face toward her, which worried her because the Gascon tended to be one who smiled in the face of adversity.
"I need you, Gabrielle," he said.
He was holding a tearful young woman's hand.
16
The coach picked Rochefort up at Place de la Croix-du-Trahoir and, after
a short conversation with the comte de Pontevedra, it left him in front
of the scaffolding covering the facade of the Palais-Cardinal. The ambassador
extraordinary of Spain had demanded this discreet meeting urgently. He had
promised that he had important news and he had not been lying.
La Fargue and Saint-Lucq were waiting in an antechamber of the Palais-Cardinal. They were silent and pensive, aware of what was at stake during the interview His Eminence was about to grant them. Their chances of rescuing Agnes lay with Malencontre, a man Richelieu was keeping locked away and was not likely to give up to them easily—and they had no guarantee of success if he did.
After some considerable hesitation, Saint-Lucq rose from a bench and went to join La Fargue, who stood gazing out a window.
"I found this at Cecile's house," he said in a confidential tone.
He held out an unsealed letter on a yellowed piece of paper.
The old gentleman lowered his eyes to the missive and finally took it with a doubtful air.
"What is it?"
"Read it, captain."
He read, looking stiff and grim, haunted by old torments that he refused to show on his countenance. Then he refolded the letter, slipped it into his sleeve, and said: "You also read this."
"It was open and I had no way of knowing its contents."
"Indeed."
"I haven't said anything to the others."
"Thank you."
La Fargue resumed looking out at the cardinal's gardens, where workers were finishing digging the basins. Trees rooted in large sacks of earth were arriving in carts.
"Captain, did you know you had a daughter?"
"I knew it."
"Why did you hide it?"
"To protect her and safeguard her mother's honour."
"Oriane?"
Oriane de Louveciennes, the wife of the man who—until his act of treason at the siege of La Rochelle—had been La Fargue's best friend.
Saint-Lucq nodded, impassive behind his spectacles' round, red lenses.
"Why do you think Oriane wrote this letter so many years ago?"