The vampire Amon's words made the Duke of La Rochefoucauld hesitate. He had already put on his coat, draped himself in a cloak, and donned his hat—he looked every inch the dashing, handsome knight, but the sorrow and unease on his face ruined it all. He was not a timid man. More precisely, most young men of this time were combative and skilled in battle, especially nobles, who were no strangers to war. Even kings and dukes often fell upon the battlefield—even duels fought to the death over no more than a word or a glance, like several days ago, when two of Prince of Condé's subordinates dueled at the instigation of Gaston, Duke of Orléans, and one of them died.
If there was anything that could make them hesitate, it was either God or the Devil—or their ambitions.
When the Duke of La Rochefoucauld first met the Duchess of Chevreuse, he had still been a youth. It was hard to say whether there had been any sincerity in their dealings, but the Duke of La Rochefoucauld certainly had been sincere. Otherwise, he would not have joined the court coup against Richelieu. But the exile that followed taught him a harsh lesson. It was also then that he met Amon. Though the duke had not known Amon's true identity at first, to the young man, Amon had been a somewhat gloomy, extreme, yet extraordinarily knowledgeable teacher. Amon had personally torn away the beautiful, affectionate veil worn by the Duchess of Chevreuse, allowing him to see the ugly truth beneath. It was also Amon who freed him from love and threw him into a new pursuit that filled him with greater excitement and satisfaction.
Amon's medicine—though naturally, the duke had not known then that it was Amon's blood—ensured that when he