Paris
September 1743
It was a comparatively short time after I first reached Paris that my interest in alchemy began in earnest. I had always been curious about the subject, but with Andrew's arrival on the scene my own curiosity had to be put on the back burner, at least for a little while. I only had time to study for my Doctorate and be a father at once, rather than add anything new to my workload, and it wasn't until I had reached Europe after 1730 that I had the opportunity to pursue the matter of alchemy further.
During my travels, I ran across a friend from university - I think it was in the autumn of 1733 - and he remembered that I had expressed an interest in the subject back at Cambridge. We travelled together for a while, and when we were next in Paris he arranged an introduction for me with Beverly Sattin, an English alchemist who was based in the city. My interest and skill grew from there.
I don't know if it was my aptitude for magic that helped me, or just my very nature, but I soon found that I had a flair for the subject. By the time I properly entered Parisian high society in 1735 my studies had progressed far beyond what Sattin had expected, given the length of my experience, and I believed that I had found the means of prolonging my own life indefinitely. Sattin was dubious, of course, and never tried to emulate the feat - or, to my knowledge, steal the formula I had devised.
Of course, there were those within the alchemist's circle - they called themselves sorcerers, but that wasn't exactly true in any of their cases except my own - who were more interested in the power that alchemy could bring them, rather than the science behind it. Hessayon, especially, was in the game for personal gain. Because of this, Sattin and I by mutual consent decided to be somewhat vague on how well my studies were progressing as far as the others of the circle were concerned. It gave us a fallback position, just in case they decided to move against him for any reason. Therefore, by 1743 most of them had me down as a keen amateur with no real skill, who played at alchemy because he had nothing better to do when he wasn't travelling.
Thinking about it, they weren't entirely wrong about my motivations, either. I did then, and still do to some degree, consider alchemy to be a hobby while sorcery is my profession, and after my father died in 1740 and I inherited the Duchy my duties back at home kept me out of Paris for a couple of years. For Sattin's sake, though, they again admitted me to their circle once I returned to France in the summer of 1743. He may have been English, but they seemed to have a certain degree of respect for him.
However good as they were, and some of them were very good, especially the two Spaniards, there were certain processes which eluded them. Therefore, it was not really a surprise that when a foreign alchemist came to them offering to show them how to create precious and semi-precious stones, they were willing to give him a hearing. Sattin's opinion was that it could not be done, and while it was something I had experimented with myself, I had had little success either. l was more than a little curious to see what the man had to say.
Hessayon named this unexpected beneficiary as Prinz Ragoczy of Transylvania, although as far as I knew there had been no royal family in that corner of Balkans for several decades, and that in itself got me worried and curious. The name was familiar, and while I could not place it I had half a memory of having heard it used in connection with some of the more unpleasant excesses of a certain section of the Parisian nobility of some years earlier, before I had ever crossed the Channel.
I awaited the meeting with a combination of interest and wariness, and on the appointed evening we assembled shortly after eleven to await Ragoczy. Moments before the clock began to strike midnight, the inn door opened, and our guest entered.
Without a doubt, the man who stepped into the darkened tap room was the most dangerous man I had ever met. He had an air about him that I had never encountered before, even among the more powerful practitioners of my primary profession. He strode in and greeted us with an almost unnatural confidence.
"Good evening, Brothers."
As he spoke I detected an accent to his voice. Whoever and whatever he was, he certainly wasn't a native Frenchman. He stepped inside and glanced around, obviously to get the measure of the place and the people in it. He was not an imposing man, being somewhat shorter than myself, although he appeared stockily built - not fat, but powerful. Most arresting, however, were his eyes and I saw a number of my fellows flinch as his gaze met theirs.
When my turn came, I managed to meet his eyes without quailing, and saw something within them that supported my initial reaction to the man. Whatever it was, though, it was concealed behind shields of iron. He nodded slightly to me, and then returned his attention to the group. I, in turn, looked around at my companions, but I had no feeling that any of them had reacted to our guest in the way that I had. Looking back on it now, I would guess that my own far from human heritage probably gave me the clue that pointed to Ragoczy's own. Then, however, things were less clear.
The mood was broken as Hessayon stepped forward and started interrogating the Prinz about the secret he was offering to the circle. I decided to stay back in the shadows and observe, and was surprised when a few moments later our guest began speaking to Sattin in excellent, but once again accented, English. The foray into that language unfortunately lasted as long as it took for one of the others to complain, whereupon Ragoczy reverted back into French and continued to speak in that language - except for a short diversion into Spanish - for the rest of the meeting.
The exchange did not take long. He was offering information to the circle, in return for which he wanted some favours doing for him. However, when Le Grâce challenged the veracity of Ragoczy's claim that the diamonds he showed us were real, while at the same time pocketing one of the jewels himself in his usual two-faced manner, the Prinz demonstrated that the French fool was in error in a somewhat dramatic way. He gave Le Grâce a count of ten in which to produce both the real diamond and the counterfeits he also had in his possession, and the intensity with which he did so again added weight to my assessment of the man. I knew then that Ragoczy was a bad man to cross.
The Frenchman gave in of course, throwing the pouch of gems and pseudo-gems on the table. That, in itself was not that startling, especially as Le Grâce scornfully told Ragoczy to work out which of the seven pieces in the pouch was the real one. What really brought home the man's power was the fact that he sorted the wheat from the chaff easily, and then brought hand down hard on the six he had chosen as being made of glass, and smashed them to powder. To say I was startled would be to dramatically understate the case. I had always been stronger than those around me, and until that moment I had never met anyone whose physical strength was on a par with mine - with the exception of my father and his friend Brand. Looking at the powder I was suddenly no longer sure.
After the French idiot had been detained - on Ragoczy's orders, as it no longer seemed to occur to any of them to disobey him - the Prinz proved that the surviving stone was the real one by bringing his hand, admittedly wrapped in a napkin, down upon the diamond with enough force to leave the stone buried in the table. Once the men escorting Le Grâce were gone, the Prinz turned to the rest of us and gave us his instructions. Then he turned back to the door, opened it and strode off into the night, leaving a handful more of the gems on the table, along with the one that would need prizing out of the wood. I watched him go with a combination of fear and curiosity. There was far, far more to Prinz Ragoczy than met the eye. Never before - again, with the exception of Father and Brand - had I met someone who was potentially my equal in personal power.
About three nights later, I had the pleasure of escorting Anne-Marie Breuil, the Comtesse d'Urvand - a friend of several years' standing - to the Hotel de Ville. She wanted to meet up with some others of her social circle, while I was looking forward to a game of cards with Harry Collier, who had also made his way to Paris by then.
Anne-Marie and I circulated for a while, renewing old acquaintances from my previous visits, as well as speaking with various mutual friends, and then adjourned to the supper room. I paused for a moment by the door to see who of those present I recognised and as I scanned the room from my vantage point by the door, I was startled to see a man who I thought I recognised as Prinz Ragoczy, serving lobster to his companion, the Comtesse de Clare.
What would he be doing here?
As if he realised that he was being observed, he looked up and glanced in my direction. I was not mistaken. I was definitely looking at the man who had hammered a diamond into a heavy wooden table with his fist three days before. Our eyes met, and I thought I saw a flash of recognition from him also, before he turned his attention back to the food he was getting for la Comtesse.
"Anne-Marie," I asked my companion, "who is Alice de Clare's escort this evening?"
"My dear, you mean you haven't come across him before?" she replied, with unexpected enthusiasm, "that is le Comte de Saint-Germain."
The name was completely unfamiliar to me, which was obviously apparent from my expression.
"My dear Robert, I am surprised. Le Comte is the most interesting newcomer on the scene this season. He arrived back in May and has been very visible ever since. Opinion is divided on whether he is truly a foreign noble, or the greatest fraud Paris has seen for years."
"Saint-Germain doesn't sound particularly foreign."
"No, but le Comte obviously isn't French - he speaks with the most delightful accent that no-one has yet managed to place. To add to the mystery, he claims to be over a thousand years old and incredibly wealthy," she replied, the words coming out in a torrent. "Do you know, he even says that he makes his own diamonds. Isn't that preposterous?"
I managed to nod in agreement, but the scene from a few days before replayed itself in my mind. No, he wasn't a fraud in that regard, I suspected, but as to his identity I was less sure. With two such different masks, it was quite likely that there were more.
When I looked back at Anne-Marie, however, I was surprised. The expression in her eyes was something akin to that of a young woman contemplating a new and mysterious lover, and looked strangely out of place in a woman in her late thirties.
"Which way does opinion seem to be dividing?" I asked, curious.
"If you want the honest answer," interrupted the Chevalier du Près, as he walked past us into the supper room, "the women seem to want to believe everything he says, while we gentlemen remain sceptical."
"Perhaps I should introduce you, so that you can make up your own mind," said Anne-Marie, and taking my arm she led me towards le Comte's table.
"Saint-Germain," she said, brightly, as we approached. He looked up at us and I thought I saw a frown crease his brow. However, it was gone momentarily.
"Comtesse, how may I be of service?" he asked. His voice had a somewhat softer edge to it than it had in the tap room of the Red Wolf, but it was without a doubt the same man.
"I merely wanted to introduce you to an old friend of mine - Robert de Lacy, the Duke of Worcester."
Saint-Germain got to his feet in one fluid motion, and extended his hand towards me. "A pleasure," he said, in the same excellent English with which he had addressed Sattin.
"The pleasure is mine," I replied.
"Perhaps we can speak later," he continued.
"Certainly. I will be in the games room after dinner if you wish to play a hand or two."
"Excellent," he said, almost convincingly, "until later then."
"Indeed," I replied.
With that he sat once more, and returned his attention to his companion. Accepting the obvious dismissal, I slipped my arm through Anne-Marie's, and escorted her towards the supper buffet.
After we had eaten, I escorted my companion back into the main salon, and then went looking for Harry. I found him watching a hand of rouge-et-noire being played by the Chevalier du Près and the Duc du Champs-Mars. He joined me and we adjourned to one of the tables off to one side. We played piquet for a couple of hours, until he decided to turn in at around one-thirty. I was standing looking out of the French windows and considering doing the same when I heard footsteps coming up behind me. I spun around, to see Saint-Germain approaching me.
"Your Grace," he said in his near-perfect English as he joined me.
"Monsieur le Comte."
"I think that we had better talk."
"I think you could be right. Shall we adjourn, or would you rather stay here?"
"There is a certain anonymity to be found in a crowd," he replied, indicating the table that Harry and I had just vacated. I sat down first, and he joined me, picking up one of the two decks of cards and starting to shuffle them absently.
"Then allow me to make it a little more so."
I concentrated for a couple of minutes, and an illusion came up around us that showed Saint-Germain and myself playing piquet and nothing more.
"That should do it," I said, once I was certain, and he nodded his approval. From his expression I could tell that he was not surprised to discover that I was a sorcerer.
"You did not admit to your rank when I asked your guild brothers if any of you had dealt with the nobility before," he commented as he dealt the first hand of cards.
"Under the circumstances, do you really blame me?" I replied, picking up the ones he had laid out for me.
"No, I do not. I was merely curious," he answered, shrugging, "you strike me as an unusual person to be a member of such a guild."
"And you, Prinz, Comte or however you wish to style yourself, are any different?"
"Touché," he acknowledged, "but I am not used to encountering another with similar skills and interests to myself in the kind of circle that I met earlier this week. Usually so many of them are merely interested in personal advancement that they forget the pleasure of actually practising the Great Art. You, I suspect, treat it more in the latter manner - the Spaniards and the other Englishman are the same, I think, but the four of you are in the minority."
"You are very astute."
"I have lived long enough that I like to think that I can read a person with some degree of accuracy," he replied and lapsed into silence until we had completed the first hand. I dealt the second and that, too was played in near silence.
"What brings you to Paris?" I finally asked.
"I was here some years ago, and have been travelling since. I felt it was time to return," he replied, "and yourself? I do not recall seeing you when I first returned."
"I had to go back to England in 1740, and my duties have only just allowed me to travel again. I spent quite some years here in the last decade, though."
"After I had moved on," he stated, quietly. The nagging suspicion I had felt before concerning another Ragoczy in Paris returned to me briefly. I looked across at him, and it almost felt as if he could understand what I was thinking. "You seem concerned, Worcester."
"The name you used when you came to the guild seems familiar to me, and I was trying to recall where I had heard it before."
"You are probably thinking of a namesake of mine, Franz Leopold Ragoczy, who stayed in Paris in the early years of this century."
"A namesake," I replied, cautiously.
"Of course," came the answer, and he dropped his eyes down to study the cards he was holding long enough to choose one and lay it on the table. "My piquet, I believe."
Once the hand was ended, he gathered the cards together once more, then left them in two neat piles in the centre of the table. Then he looked directly at me and met my gaze.
"I assume I can trust you to be discreet about my dealings with the guild," he said, finally.
"Of course," I replied, "and I hope the same can be asked of you."
"Naturally. After all, if one of us was to betray the guild, then I am sure the other would implicate him to the authorities also."
"That is a logical conclusion."
"I thought as much. So we appear to understand each other," he replied, resting his elbows on the table and placing his hands together so the forefingers were steepled, "but be assured, if you betray me, I will kill you."
"There is nothing like laying your cards on the table, is there Comte?"
"It is not a threat, mon Duc, it is a statement of fact and you would do well to remember that," came his answer, and enough of the presence he had displayed in the Red Wolf was in his voice and expression that I did not doubt him for a moment.
"Believe me, I will," I replied, as seriously as he had spoken, but then I smiled, "however, let us hope that it will not come to that. I think I would prefer to count you as friend rather than enemy."
"Then we are in agreement, Your Grace."
"Robert," I replied, offering him my hand. He took it and smiled.
"For the most part Saint-Germain should suffice, at least for the present. As for the future? We shall see, although I have the feeling that the future might be longer than both of us anticipates," he answered, and then changed the subject. "Now, if you will excuse me I have another appointment and I am afraid I should be leaving." With that, he stood up and I ended the illusion that had been surrounding us. "Thank you...Robert...this conversation has been most illuminating."
"Likewise, Saint-Germain," I replied, also getting to my feet, "until the next time."
"Indeed," he finished. Then, with a nod of his head, he turned away and headed for the door.