Dropping the soiled corpse, Saint-Lucq rewound his garrotte and pushed His red spectacles further up his nose before going to look outside.
The brigand on guard duty was still at his post. Legs stretched out and ankles crossed, fingers interlaced over his stomach, and his hat covering his eyes, he was dozing in a chair, its back tipped against the wall of the house.
The half-blood drew his dagger and, advancing with a determined step which he meant to be heard, walked toward the man. The other heard his approach but mistook it for the return of his companion.
"So? Feeling better?" he asked without raising his nose.
"No."
The Corbin jumped with a start and dropped the pistol resting across his thighs. Swiftly, Saint-Lucq slapped a hand against his mouth to both silence him and force him back down into his chair, and struck with his dagger, upward from beneath his chin. The blade went home with a dry thump, pierced the brigand's palate, and dug deep into his brain. He died in an instant, his eyes wide-eyed and full of pain.
The half-blood dried the dagger on the Corbin's shoulder and left the body slumped limply on the chair, its arms hanging. He had counted six horses in the woodshed. Six minus two. Four men remained.
He went to the front door and pressed an ear to it before gently pushing it open, Inside, two brigands who had just risen were talking while eating a frugal meal. Both had their backs turned to him, with one sitting on a small upturned barrel and the other on a wobbly stool.
"We'll be running out of wine soon."
"I know."
"And bread. And you wanted to feed him—"
"I know, I know. . . . But we'll be finished with this business today."
"You said that yesterday."
"Today, I tell you. They can't be much longer."
Saint-Lucq entered silently. As he passed, he picked up a poker which had been abandoned on the mantelpiece above a long-unused fireplace.
"In any case, I'm not spending another night in this ruin."
"You'll do as you're told."
"We'll see about that!"
"No, you'll see. You remember Figard?"
"No. I never knew him."
"That's because he disobeyed an order before you arrived."
Saint-Lucq was on them quicker and more silently than any ordinary assassin. The first collapsed, his skull split by the poker. The second only just had time to rise before falling in turn, his temple shattered.
Two seconds, two blows. Two deaths. No cries.
The half-blood was on the point of letting the bloody poker fall onto the stomach of one of the dead bodies when he heard the squeak of hinges.
"So, lads?" someone said. "Already busy stuffing your faces, are you?"
Saint-Lucq about-turned and flung out his arm.
The poker hummed as it whirled through the air and drove itself, hook first, between the eyes of the Corbin who, hatless and dishevelled, had so casually entered the room. Stunned, the man staggered backward and crumpled onto the floor.
Four and one made five—the count was still short.
His right hand tightening around the hilt of his sheathed rapier, Saint-Lucq slipped into the room the dead brigand had just come from.
Makeshift beds had been set up in there, and Saint-Lucq found the last surviving Corbin lying on one of them, paralysed by absolute terror. He was young, an adolescent of perhaps fourteen or fifteen years old. His lip sported no more than blond fuzz and bad acne ate at his cheeks. Woken with a start, he seemed unable to tear his gaze from the corpse and the wrought-iron rod embedded in its face. The poker began to tip over very slowly, its point spattered with viscous fluid and lifting up a piece of skull bone which tore through the skin. With a final cracking sound, it toppled and fell to the floor with a clatter.
The sound made the adolescent quiver all over and he suddenly directed his attention toward the half-blood wearing red spectacles. Looking deathly pale and distraught, his eyes already filled with tears, he vainly tried to force out a few words, vigorously shaking his head—a quiet, desperate supplication. Rising from his bedcovers, he retreated until his hands and heels touched the wall. He wore nothing but a shirt and a pair of breeches, breeches that were now stained with urine.
"Mer . . . Mercy—"
Saint-Lucq took a slow step toward him and drew his sword.
Lucien Bailleux shook with fear, cold, and exhaustion. He wore nothing but a nightshirt and the hard ground on which he was lying proved as chilled as the stones against which he sometimes leaned.
It had been three nights since he had been surprised, unsuspecting, in his sleep at home, in the apartment where he lived above his notary's office. They had gagged him before pulling a hood over his head and knocking him senseless. What had they done with his wife, who had been sleeping at his side?