Marciac remained pensive and still for a moment.
Then he asked: "What do you make of that?"
Agnes emerged from behind the door where she had been standing for some time now. She had witnessed the conversation without being seen or heard by Cecile. But the Gascon had noticed her presence, she knew.
"She almost tried everything," Agnes said. "For a moment, I even thought you might fall for it."
"You do me an injustice."
"Nevertheless, the demoiselle seems most promising."
"What do you think she wants to collect from her home?"
"I don't know, but I shall go and see."
"Alone?"
"Someone needs to stay here, and neither Leprat nor old Guibot will prevent Cecile from giving us the slip."
"At least take Ballardieu with you."
"He's not here."
"Wait for him."
"No time."
8
Wearing a blue silk and satin gown, with a grey mother-of-pearl unicorn pinned close to her neckline, the vicomtesse de Mal-icorne was amusing herself by feeding her dragonnet. From a vermilion and silver plate, she was tossing bloody shreds of meat one by one to the little reptile, who plucked them out of the air from his perch and gulped them down. It was a superb animal with gleaming black scales and shared an intimate bond with its mistress. She had sometimes been seen talking to it as if it were an accomplice, a confidant, perhaps even a friend. But the strangest thing was that the dragonnet understood her; a glow of intelligence would pass through its golden eyes before it flew off with a flap of its wings, usually on some nocturnal mission.
When the marquis de Gagniere entered the salon, the young and pretty vicomtesse set down the plate of meat, licking—delicately but with relish— the tips of her slim fingers. She did not accord much attention to the visitor, however, pretending to be interested only in her sated pet.
"Savelda has just returned from the little house in the orchard," Gagniere announced.
"The refuge of the so-called chevalier d'Ireban?"
"Yes. Castilla finally talked."
"And?"
"Our Spanish brothers were mistaken."
The young woman's glance shifted from the dragonnet to the elegant marquis. The news he had just delivered obviously delighted him: a satisfied smile caused his thin lips to quirk upward.
Among all the more or less well-intentioned individuals who served the Black Claw, rare were those who did so knowingly. Those who did were known as affiliates. But, generally unaware of the exact nature of their missions, they took their orders from initiates, who occupied the highest rank to which anyone without the blood of dragons running in their veins might aspire. An aristocratic adventurer without land or fortune, Castilla was one of these affiliates whose loyalty had not yet been firmly established. Therefore he had hitherto only been given missions that one wished not to see fail, but which did not require full knowledge ol their purpose to be carried our. Intel-
ligent, competent, and capable of taking initiatives, he had never given cause for complaint.
At least until he had suddenly gone missing.
"'Mistaken,' marquis? What do you mean by that?"
"I mean that Castilla was not running away from the Black Claw."
Castilla's disappearance had been worrying. Had he betrayed them, and if so, had he taken with him enough secrets to harm the Black Claw? They needed to find him in order to shed light on this affair and, if need be, eliminate him. Their spies discovered that Castilla had left Spain by ship and that he had disembarked at Bordeaux in the company of a certain chevalier d'Ireban—or at least the latter had signed the ship's register under that name. Had they met during the crossing or were they fleeing together? It mattered little in the short run, for the Black Claw then lost trace of them. From Bordeaux, they could just as easily have travelled by sea to another continent as gone by road to a neighbouring country. But they were soon seen again in Paris. Without delay, the Black Claw in Spain had demanded that madame de Malicorne do everything in her power to track them down. In a capital of five hundred thousand souls, that was all the more difficult as she had other business at hand. Nevertheless, she was in no position to refuse and, against all expectations, she had succeeded where some had perhaps hoped she would fail, her first exploits in France having already provoked jealousy in Madrid.