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It could have been midnight, it could have been three in the morning, what was important was, that it was dark outside and any normal person was asleep. And maybe that was why there was only one window in the Palais Cardinal, that was illuminating the dark of the night.
There in the middle of the night, under one of two candles was a man working. Quill was scratching the paper, leaving dark blue ink behind, forming sentences that would change the lives of hundreds. Without a moment of hesitation, without a moment of a second thought.
And scratching stopped and the man in red raised his head and took a look around his room for the first time in a few hours. Shadows lingered in the corners, danced on the walls. Everything felt so huge and so small at the same moment and Richelieu closed his eyes.
No one was there.
He was alone.
As alone as he always was. The only breathing person in the whole room.
A lid of a small box with various papers with information shut down and the quill he was using for writing found its home among other quills.
Richelieu shook his head and looked around again, this time inspecting the shadows closely, feeling the room rather than seeing, leaning back in his chair and in the end closing his eyes again.
And there it was. The smell of old books and gunpowder, faint creaking of a chair, rustle of clothes.
She was here. With him. And stayed once Richelieu opened his eyes.
She was sitting in the chair opposite him, her hair long and blue as ink, her eyes dark, cautious, black clothes feeling familiar and completely strange and unknown at the same time.
This was not the first time Richelieu had met History. And he doubted it would be the last one.
“To what do I owe the pleasure?” he asked and History just smiled, eyes looking down and Richelieu had the feeling that she was remembering something painful yet sweet and happy.
“Can’t I just check on my favourites from time to time?”
“Am I your favourite?”
“One of few,” she said and leaned back in the chair, making it seem like something from a different world. Everything around her always was. Old and new, familiar and strange. She was thousands of years old, yet looked like a young girl and had smiles that looked like they were full of happiness and pain all the same.
“I was gone for some time. But then you and others like you decided there should be something big happening in Europe.”
“The war.”
“Why do you people have to cause so many conflicts over something so small,” she asked, but Richelieu knew he wasn’t supposed to answer. He wasn’t even sure he knew the answer and if anyone did, it was probably her. She was just a bit sad that it kept happening.
“At least you will remember it. Maybe even learn from it. We will have to see.”
“It is complicated,” Richelieu said and History smiled again, nodding her head.
“It always is, isn’t it. There is no true good, no true evil, and people rarely ever truly talk. They rarely ever truly learn. If they did, do you think I would be so tired all the time?” she asked and Richelieu thought for a little while.
“I think that people would find a different thing to tire you with.”
“It’s your greatest virtue at this point. You always surprise me. At one moment I think that after a few thousands of years there can be nothing new, and the other I am taken aback, watching everything, holding my own breath.”
“One would wonder if you even like us, humans,” Richelieu said and History just shook her head.
“You make me so much more than I would be without you. If I want the reward of being me, I have to submit to the mortifying ordeal of you being a part of me. Someone will once write,” she said calmly and quietly with such a conviction in her voice that Richelieu felt she must have seen the future too, not just the past. And after that, she looked up, smiling as if she wasn’t being melodramatic for the past few minutes.
“Sometimes it’s better to let it go. I will have to go soon. But I have few questions.”
“In exchange for answers to some of mine,” Richelieu suggested.
“But of course, it wouldn’t be a good deal if only one of us gained anything by it. My question. Do you ever think about what you’re doing? Do you know what you are doing? Do you realize that what you are writing will be history one day? Do you think of all the consequences, all the little details, all the whirls that it will make in the future?” she asked and curiously watched Richelieu as he leaned back and thought for a moment.
“Sometimes. Many times. More times than others probably do. I have to know what will happen.”
“Of course you do. But you think in the span of a few years, maybe decades. Do you think about it more?”
“Like how?”
“Centuries?”
Richelieu stopped and looked at History whose eyes watched him curiously, older than anyone’s he ever saw.
“I must say no.”
“You shouldn’t. It will only distract you from now. Now is important. Not what will people think of you in a few centuries. You will be happy if they even think of you. Do you know that I usually remember very different people than you would think I would remember?”
“I will be happy enough if you remember me for at least some time.”
“Don’t you worry. I think I will remember you for some time.”
“Glad to hear that. My question, what will be with France in the future?”
“Depends on what time you ask,” she chuckled and pulled up her leg, hugging it to her chest. “But you have answered your own question already?”
“Did I?” Richelieu asked and History nodded.
“You said it yourself. It’s complicated. It always is, believe me. There is no time when things aren't complicated.”
“Really? Why does it feel that everything used to be simpler?”
“Because things got complicated in different matters. They always do. If the world was simple, would you have wars?” she asked and Richelieu shook his head. “Exactly. Past seems simple, because you know why things happened. Now? Now you don’t know. You have to find out.”
“It would certainly be easier if I knew at least something.”
“But that would be cheating. And I don’t let people cheat like that. It ruins the fun,” History explained and stood up, slowly crossing the room towards the door. “My other question. How do you want people to remember you?”
“They will remember me as a tyrant,” Richelieu answered automatically. He knew what people thought of him. He knew all the hate, all the venom they had for him. If he wasn’t protected by the king himself, he would end up torn apart, broken down and pulled into pieces. He would be not.
“That’s what you think. But what you want?” She looked at Richelieu, her dark eyes soaking into him as if she was reading him as an open book. He sighed and lowered his head, thinking.
“As someone who loved France. As someone who did all he could to help it survive and strive. As one of its most devoted servants,” he said in the end and History nodded slowly.
“I like it when people are realistic and optimistic at the same time. It makes them so… powerful,” she smiled and turned towards the door, taking the handle and opening them slowly.
“Wait,” Richelieu stopped her and stood up. “Answer for an answer, you remember?”
“Of course. I was wondering.”
“Will they remember me? Will there be someone who will remember me, not as a tyrant, but as a human person. As a devoted servant?” he asked and realized he dreaded the answer. History stopped and thought for a while.
“They will. Some. Not many, rather few actually. But they will love you in their own way. Which is more than many will ever get.”
Richelieu sat down and nodded looking at History. Her common but bit off clothes, her hair that was blue, but one wouldn’t really notice, her eyes, nothing like anyone else’s on the entire Earth, young but millenniums old. Why would someone like her ever choose Richelieu to watch, to talk to, he never knew, but he was sure, he was about to lose that little bit of good nights sleep he was planning on getting, thinking about it.
“Now I bid you goodbye, Your Eminence. I have elsewhere to be. And so do you,” he heard History stating, not from the door, but rather from the whole room. She wasn’t there with him. She disappeared and he was left alone.
He took the quill again.
He had a future to write.