They hastened to flank Malencontre as closely as possible on either side, without attracting attention.
"You will not be set free until you have told us everything we wish to know," La Fargue told him in a firm voice.
"And who says that you won't do me an evil turn afterward?"
"I do. But if you try anything at all . . ."
"I understand."
They moved quickly toward the other Blades and their horses, fearing that at any moment someone would call after them from the doors of Le Chatelet.
"Who are you?" asked Malencontre. "And how did you manage this?"
"We took advantage of the changing of the guards," explained La Fargue taking a discreet look all around them. "Those who saw Leprat enter were not the guards who let you leave. The hat, the musketeer's cape, the pass from Treville, and the white rapier did the rest. You will return that rapier to me, by the way."
"And Leprat? Aren't you worried about him?"
"Yes."
"How will he be freed?"
"It's possible he never will be."
19
It must have been around eight o clock in the evening and night was falling.
Still held prisoner, Agnes had seen enough to understand what was going on in the great fortified castle. The preparations were now complete. On either side of the open-air stage, the three tiers of benches had been erected and covered with black cloth. On the stage itself, an altar had been placed before a thick velvet cushion. Tall banners had been raised that now floated in the wind, bearing a single golden draconic rune. Torches already illuminated the scene and bonfires waited to be lit. The men and dracs who had installed everything were not workers but hired swordsmen commanded by Savelda and under the direction of a very young and very elegant blond cavalier whom Agnes did not know but who was addressed as marquis: Gag-niere. Their task finished, the swordsmen who were not on watch were now gathered around campfires, away from the stage they had set up, near the makeshift stable and the enclosure for the wyverns, and at the foot of the partly collapsed ramparts.
For the past hour, the places along the benches had been filling with men and a few women, most of them sumptuously dressed, whose horses and coaches had been left by the main castle gates. They wore black eye masks embellished with veils of red lace covering their mouths and chins. They waited, visibly anxious and saying little to one another.
Agnes realised why.
She had never taken part in the ceremony that was about to occur, but she had learned something of its nature during her years as a novice with the White Ladies, the religious order devoted to preserving the French kingdom from the draconic contagion. The Black Claw—whose sinister emblem decorated the banners and was even carved into the wood of the altar—was no mere secret society. Led by dragon sorcerers, its power was founded upon ancient rituals that ensured the unfailing loyalty of its initiates by spiritually uniting them with a superior awareness: that of an Ancestral Dragon who came to impregnate their being. A Black Claw lodge was much more than a meeting of conspirators avid for wealth and power. It was the product of a rite that permitted a fanatical assembly to offer itself as the instrument and recep-
tacle of an Ancestral Dragon's soul—thus bringing the dragon back to life through those who had sacrificed a part of themselves, and allowing it to once again exercise power over a land it had been driven from in the distant past. The ceremony could only be performed by a dragon—one who was thoroughly adept in the higher arcana of draconic magic. In addition, it required an extremely rare relic, a Sphere d'Ame, from which the Ancestral Dragon's soul would be freed at the most propitious moment.
A little while before, Agnes had seen a black coach arrive. An elegant woman in a veil, wearing a red-and-grey gown, had descended from it in the company of a gentleman. The latter had paused for a moment to adjust his mask and Agnes, incredulous, had the time to catch a glimpse of his face. It was Saint-Georges, the captain of the Cardinal's Guards. He and the woman had watched the completion of preparations before being joined by Gagniere and Savelda, with whom they exchanged a few words before turning toward the ruin in whose cellar Agnes was being held captive. The prisoner quickly withdrew from the window where she was spying on them and feared for a moment that they would come to see her, but the coach left with all of them except Savelda, driving off in the direction of the keep, which it entered by means of a drawbridge over a ditch filled with bushes.
As she knew that the ceremony would not take place until night, Agnes had resolved to wait until dusk before acting, and thus take advantage of the evening shadows.
The moment had come.