Chapter 36

The three men stepped out into the pouring rain. It took Stephane's eyes a moment to adjust to the twilight.
With a single wave of his hand he instructed Christian and Philippe to move out along the eastern and western border walls, while he headed straight for the stables.

His eyes scanned his surroundings but he couldn't detect anything unusual. Thus he pushed open the heavy wooden door and stepped inside the stable. The first thing he saw was a motionless and blood-soaked figure lying directly in front of him on the floor.
"Fabrice?!" Stephane cried out the name of his lifelong friend. But before he could take another step the sharp blade of a sword was pressed against his neck.
"It's like a dovecote in here. Esteban, we have another visitor!"

Alarmed but without moving, Stephane's eyes wandered over the two men, who kept him at bay with their swords and scowling glares. Both wore black, worn-out clothes that smelled of wet dogs and body odour. The taller one kept on keeping him in check with his blade against his throat, while the smaller one disarmed him and searched him for any hidden weapons.

"What's going on?" An authoritarian, deep voice came of the other end of the aisle and Narcisse saw a tall and slender man approaching him angrily. His facial expression was rigid and his eyes were hard and cold as polished stone. The closer this Esteban person came, the more certain the Lord Chancellor was that he has met this man before.

"Well, if this isn't the Lord Chancellor himself?!" A threatening undertone lay in these words. "I think I found something pretty that might belong to you. I assue you have already missed it?!" The smile that lay itself on his lips was dangerous, smug and calculating.

"I don't know who you are but I can recognize a man being guilty of treason a mile away!" Stephanes outburst was acknowledged with an uncomfortably growing pressure against his throat.
"I am the man who will go down in history as the one who has eradicated the reign of the Valois line," the dark-haired man replied sardonically and motioned for him and his men to follow him. A second later the Lord Chancellor was rudely pushed forward.
"Move!"

Esteban signaled them to stop in the middle of the aisle. He covered the last few meters on his own with a spring in his step and disappeared into the tack room. It took him less than two seconds to appear again.
He wasn't alone but dragged a struggling Catherine behind. The sight of her and the wild look in her eyes made Stephane's blood run cold.

"That's what I thought," the man triumphed with a dangerous smile on his face. He stopped directly in front of the Lord Chancellor and violently threw Stephanes wife against one of the wooden stalls. Catherine gave a startled cry, but what shocked Stephane the most were her bloody hands and dress.

The hostage-taker buried his fist in Catherine's hair and rudely pulled her head closer to grab her chin.
"Maybe you can shed some light on this. Do tell Lord Chancellor, is this..."
But before he could finish his sentence, she interrupted him.
"Stephane, denial is pointless. I have already told him that I am not Catherine de Medici."

Her statement irritated Stephane, but the intensity of her gaze prevented him from questioning what had just been said. So he just nodded silently, hoping not only to convince the other man but also trying to make his wife understand that he was playing along. He could only hope that Catherine knew what she was doing.

All of a sudden the wiry man let go of his wife. Stephane saw his eyes lighten up with something cold-blooded and dangerous a second before he struck off and knocked his wife down with a brutal punch in her face without warning.
"Shut the fuck up, whore," Esteban screamed at her and Stephane rushed forward, out of his mind with rage and worry. But he was pulled back by the two men behind him before he could reach Catherine.

"And you'd better watch out. No woman is worth losing ones life because of her." Esteban threatened him and slowly walked towards the Lord Chancellor.

Stephane shook his head in refusal and tried to break free while his gaze anxiously rested on his beat wife, who crouched on the floor and carefully examined her chin. Fresh blood was trickling from the corner of her mouth.
"Let's go back to my question. Is this woman your wife, Lord Narcisse?"
"I've already told you that I'm not Catherine de Medici, but her doppelganger."
Catherine's words drew their enemies attention back to her. A development that was anything but comforting for Stephane.

"She speaks the truth. She is not Catherine." He had no idea why his wife wanted to keep the men in the dark about her true identity, but he trusted her instincts and could only hope that his confirmation was enough to convince them. "She's my mistress," he added, trying to make it clear that she belonged to him nevertheless. Catherine answered his claim with an annoyed roll of her eyes.

"Now we finally know for whom she was waiting for, Esteban. Just look how he stares at her. Like a lovesick fool. Clearly our fine Lord Chancellor cheats on his wife with her own doppelganger." A sturdy man who had held himself in the background until now chuckled with amusement and stepped out of the shadows.

"Maybe," Esteban answered, still looking anything but convinced. "We saw two people getting into the carriage. Who accompanies the queen mother?"
"My very own doppelganger," Stephane lied promptly whereupon the other man nodded, absorbed in his thoughts.

"Are you in cahoots with Lord Lelange?" Stephane asked to distraction him further from his wife. But his question just coaxed a mirthless laugh out of the hostage-taker.
"That simple-minded galoot? Certainly not. But one single conversation with him and his dreary wife was all it took for them to hunger for the prestige a visit of the Lord Chancellor and his wife at their autumn ball would grant them."
Esteban snorted contemptuously.

Then, completely unpredictable, he turned his attention back to Catherine and barked at her. "Get up!"

When she didn't react immediately, the second man leaned down, grabbed her upper arm and pulled her up.
"What are you trying to accomplish here?" Stephane asked, still trying to keep their attention away from his wife.

"A strong France, if that's what you're asking, Lord Narcisse. A France that is no longer subject to mockery or ridicule. Freed from childish and feeble Valois brats. Freed from greedy Medicis who have plunged my country into ruin.
Don't get me wrong, I don't blame you, Lord Chancellor. You are trying to contain the damage, but it's about time that someone takes tough action."
"You want to overturn the King," Stephane answered in understanding, but Esteban shook his head and a diabolical smile appeared on his face.

"No, we want to kill the King."

The cold determination of his words was terrifying. Slowly as if taking a leisure walk the dark-haired man walked over to Catherine.
When he reached her, he wiped the blood from her lip with his index finger in an almost tender touch. Narcisse could read in his wife's mask-like mien that this action was pushing her to the limit of her self-control. He could only admire her for neither pushing away his hand nor flinching in pain.

"And if you don't want me to speviscerate your whore right in front of you to bleed out slowly, you'd better get Charles Valois here at this instant."

Esteban looked at Catherine's blood on his finger for a moment. Then he raised his hand to his lips and licked it off, his eyes closed with relish.

Udate time!

I'm sorry, it's a out of the frying pan into the fire kind of update. But I still hope you like it.

Many many thanks for reading my story, for leaving your reviews, for still being on board. You're the best. Seriously!