"I'll make a note of it."
Then Leprat quickly outlined the ambush on rue Saint-Denis and the mysterious gentleman who had shot him down without a second thought. When he finished his recital the captain rose and, hands behind his back, turned toward the window. It offered a view of the courtyard of his private
mansion, a courtyard full of the musketeers he adored, protected, and scolded like a father. As undisciplined and unruly as they were, there was not one of them who was not prepared to risk a thousand dangers and give his life for the king, for the queen, or for France. Most of them were young and, like all young men, they believed they were immortal. But that was not enough to explain either their fearlessness or their extraordinary devotion. Although they might not look like much, they were an elite force equal to the Cardinal's Guards.
"You should know, Leprat, that the Louvre is well pleased with you. I saw His Majesty the king this morning. He remembers you and sends his compliments. . . . Your mission has been a success."
Turning his gaze from the courtyard, Treville faced Leprat again.
"I have been charged with sending you on leave," he said in a serious tone.
"Thank you."
"Don't thank me. It is to be an unlimited leave of absence."
The musketeer stiffened in shock and disbelief.
A few days or weeks of leave were a reward. But unlimited leave signified that, until given new orders, he was to hang up his cape.
Why?
8
Entering Paris through the Richelieu gate, a two-horse coach descended the street of the same name between the Palais-Cardinal gardens and Saint-Roch hill, followed the quays of the Seine, and crossed the river over a recently built wooden toll bridge: the Pont Rouge, so-called because of the red lead paint with which it was daubed. And so the coach reached the faubourg Saint-Germain which was prospering in the shadow of its famous abbey and almost constituted a city in its own right.
A new neighbourhood had sprung up, just at the far end of the Pont Rouge. Before Queen Marguerite de Navarre decided, at the beginning of the century, to make the Pre-aux-Clercs her domain the area had been nothing but a muddy riverbank and a vast empty ground. Now it comprised a new quay, a luxurious mansion, a large park, and the convent of Les Augustins Reformes. The queen, who was Henri IV's first wife, had borrowed money to finance her projects and had even gone as far as to misappropriate funds—from which, it was said, came the name of Malaquais quay, meaning "badly acquired." Upon her death in 1615 she left behind a magnificent property, but also 1,300,000 livres in debts and a host of creditors who were still anxious to collect. To satisfy them, the domain was put up for auction and sold off in lots to various entrepreneurs who laid out new streets and started building.
Guided by the sure hand of a solidly built grey-haired coachman who chewed at the stem of a small clay pipe, the coach followed the Malaquais quay and then took rue des Saints-Peres. At Hopital de la Charite he turned the coach onto rue Saint-Guillaume and soon came to a halt before a large and sombre looking nail-studded door.
Within the coat of arms, worn away over time, a bird of prey carved from dark stone presided on the pediment above the gate.
Sitting at the bottom of the steps to the Hotel de l'Epervier, Marciac was bored and playing dice against himself when he heard the heavy thud at the coach door. He lifted his head to see monsieur Guibot hobbling on his wooden leg across the courtyard to see who was knocking. At the same time, Almades leaned out of an open window.
A moment later a woman entered through the pedestrian gate. Very tall,
slender, dressed in grey and red, she wore a dress whose skirt was hitched up on her right side to reveal male hose and the boots of a cavalier beneath it. Her wide-brimmed hat was decorated with two large ostrich feathers—one white and the other scarlet—and a veil which hid her face while protecting it from the dust to which anyone undertaking a long coach journey on the terrible roads was exposed. But the shape of her mouth could be discerned: pretty, with full, dark lips.
Without taking any interest in Marciac, who approached her, she looked up at the private mansion as if she were considering buying it.
"Good day, madame."
She turned toward him, looking at him haughtily without replying.
But her mouth smiled.
"How may I help you?" the Gascon tried.
From the window, Almades chose that moment to intervene.
"You have a very poor memory, Marciac. You don't even recognise your friends."
Disconcerted, Marciac shrugged and wrinkled his brow, then went from puzzlement to sudden joy when the baronne de Vaudreuil lifted her veil.
"Agnes!"
"Hello, Marciac."
"Agnes! Will you permit me to embrace you?"
"I will allow that."