A/N: Felix goes to meet with the surely most enigmatic nobleman at court: the Count d'Auberie. What will happen? We shall see, reader mine, we shall see.





Disclaimer: The usual. *adopts John Cleese-like English accent* And now for something completely different.





Chapter Three -

The Question

The young courtier silently but ceremoniously led Felix into the castle, taking him down several corridors, through a good many doorways, and up two flights of stairs to the third floor of the castle. Finally, they seemed to have reached their destination: a cavernous, completely darkened drawing room of sorts, with a vaulted ceiling and rows of leather-bound books in shelves that towered over the marble floor. The curtains about the windows were drawn, emitting only a thin, weak stream of pale moonlight into the chamber, and the coals in the fireplace were burned low: glowing ruby and tangerine.

Felix stood at the door, holding his by then removed mask in two hands, feeling ill at ease and foolish. He felt eyes upon him: eyes which watched him from the darkness. His escort stepped forward, bowed gracefully, and announced, "Monsieur Felix Boisvert, milord," and with that, noiselessly disappeared.

A voice came from the general vicinity of one of the tall, wing backed armchairs that had been drawn up before the fire, their backs almost completely turned on the doorway. It was the voice of the Count d'Auberie.

"Ah, yes - welcome, monsieur."

The Count's voice was somewhere between a high baritone and a low tenor, and it was everything that a nobleman's ought to be: cultured and elegant, with a volume of sincerity and emotion in it, velvety and musical: almost hypnotic. A voice of gold. Whether its owner was a young man or an older man, Felix could not quite yet tell.

"Please," the voice of his unseen host continued, "Have a seat."

A hand - or the darkened outline of a hand - emerged from the depths of the armchair and waved the merchant towards a low velvet-upholstered settee with incredible fluid grace. Felix obeyed, sitting as straight as he might had there been a ramrod up his back. There was a long pause from the shadowy figure in the armchair.

Then, contemplatively, "I do not doubt that you are wondering why I have called you here tonight, monsieur."

Felix hesitated, uncertain of how to begin the conversation.

"Yes, Monseigneur le Comte," he finally replied.

Yet another long pause.

"Have you enjoyed the masque, Monsieur Boisvert?"

The sudden irrelevancy of this question startled Felix, and after scrambling to recover his wits once more, he answered, nervously.

"Yes, Monseigneur le Comte."

"That was the intention."

Those seemingly simple words somehow managed to be incredibly enigmatic. Felix couldn't comprehend where the conversation was heading - or what the Count's other intentions happened to truly be.

"You have a family estate near Rouen, haven't you, monsieur?"

Again, Felix was startled by the suddenness of the inquiry.

"Yes, milord."

A soft musing sound from the elusive Count.

"And yours is a business in.?"

"Cargo shipping, milord."

"Ah yes - candles, silks, and other fine items from the Far East.among other things." After this, the terrible silence stepped into the room again.

Then, the Count spoke once more.and his words vastly unnerved Felix.

"You have.a niece, Monsieur Boisvert? Clarice Gisèle Violette Marie Boisvert, daughter to the late Alain and Yvette Boisvert?"

Now what possible interest could the Count d'Auberie have in Clarice?, was the question that raced through Felix's mind. How could he know of her? If it was surprising that he had known of the Boisvert family in its entirety, how much more of a shock it was that he knew of its obviously most insignificant member - the orphaned, sixteen-year-old near-recluse of a niece! Then Felix became guarded: careful.

"Yes, milord."

"She.she is an artist, is she not?"

There was more than a slight overtone of contemplation in the Count's mellifluous, sphinx-like voice. Felix began to say yes, for he had had the question put to him many times before, but then he stopped himself.

"No." he said, abruptly; then, he laughed, trying to brush off the thought that Clarice could be anything of the sort. "What time would she have for such things, what between her schooling and running a shop with her aunt?"

The Count's silence became cold: fraught with the deadly kind of iciness that pierced the heart of anyone who was in its proximity like a razor- sharp dagger. When he spoke next, his voice was low - dangerously soft, calm, and even.

"You may find it in your best interests if you do not lie to me, monsieur."

Felix felt his blood run cold at those words, and the tone in which they were said, but - like all archetypical merchants, hagglers, and barterers - he knew exactly what course he must now take. If the Count wanted what Felix thought he wanted.it was going to take some doing. So he adopted his most persuading manner and spoke.

"Milord, please - lend me your ear now. I am a man who thinks only of his niece's benefit: his niece, the only memory left of a younger brother long dead, tragically taken from this earth in a riding accident some near seventeen years a-gone now. You can understand that, can't you.? For the sake of a dead brother, I must guard my dear, sweet little niece."

"From what?"

The question was pointe-blanc, without ceremony or preamble, and terse.

Felix smiled slyly, as a fox would when confronting its defenseless prey, and told him, "Oh, monsieur! - from anything! I cannot simply tell you - even you, milord! - everything about her. No, I could certainly do no such thing."

He shook his head, in false contrite humility and concern.

The hands of the figure within the armchair before him flexed and then gripped the arms of the chair, but otherwise, the Count gave no reaction to this.

"You speak as if you have already fathomed my purpose," the Count said then, his voice as blank and give-nothing as a field blanketed in untouched snow. "I called you here tonight in order to present an offer to you.and your niece."

Felix's crafty grin widened even more.

"Well, my lord - she is young.and the arrangement of such connections does come with a price."

There, the conversation took a nasty turn. The Count stood, sweeping to his feet, and glowered in rage at the merchant who sat across the room from him.

"And you thought that I would impeach my honour and that of an innocent young girl, all for the sake of illicit wrongdoing? For you to make money off of?"

The question was uttered in more of a shout than a regular inquiry, and Felix became terrified. The Count was, at full height, very tall: certainly taller than anyone else he had ever seen before, and the rage in his air seemed to tingle in the air like a bolt of lightning. He opened his mouth to interject, to justify his words, but d'Auberie silenced him with a irate swipe of one arm.

"Silence!"

He called out to the attendants who stood at the doors, Felix now saw, through a blur of terror, "Get this sneaking, flesh-mongering scoundrel out of my sight immediately!" But there was no need for the attendants' help in this - Felix had already bolted for the door. Just as he reached it, however, he rashly decided to make one last appeal to the Count's ears.and discovered the price of doing so.

"My lord, please-"

The Count stepped forward, advancing towards him, incensed.

"GET OUT!!!"

And that was all it took.

Felix fled from the room, as if all of the devils in Hades had been released from their fiery bonds and had set upon him. He didn't stop running until he somehow found his way back outside; then, he forced himself to a halt and bent over, gasping for breath and trying desperately to calm himself. Never before had any circumstance - any nightmare - given him cause for so much absolute, abject terror!

Moments later, a voice hailed him: the courtier from earlier that evening.

"Monsieur?"

Felix started and put a hand over his wildly beating heart, immensely relieved to see that the person who now approached him was not the Count d'Auberie - bent on revenge, or worse. "Yes?" he croaked.

The courtier approached and held out a small object to him.

"Monsieur, you dropped this on your way out."

Felix took the proffered object from the young man and looked at it: it was a miniature portrait of Jacqueline, which Clarice had painted a year or so before, giving it to her uncle as a birthday present. Because Jacqueline would have scorned him in indignant, righteous anger if he didn't appear to appreciate his niece's gift, he carried it with him always in his waistcoat pocket.

"Oh.Jacky's miniature by Claire." he said, bemusedly.

Suddenly, the air felt fraught with ice and menace.

Felix sensed a pair of eyes burning into his skull, at the top of his head; he looked up, to a window three floors above him.

And saw a tall, threatening figure staring down at him: the figure of a man dressed in a robe of crushed scarlet velvet, trimmed with gold, with a hood that had a wide, cowl-like draping over the face.which was completely hidden by a Pharaoh-like mask of pure gold. From behind it, two Hadean eyes of yellow glared down into his.

The Count.

The window was open.

He had heard everything; he knew of Boisvert's lie.

For the second time that night, Felix felt his blood run cold.

And freeze.

* * *

A/N: And now we see rule #1 of this story - avoid making the royalty angry at all costs. R&r, if you would be so kind.