After a palate cleansing Victorian monster hunting game, I have started a short campaign of Captain Treville’s Daughter – a swashbuckling historical game set in the reign of Louis XIII of France. These are 1 GM – 1 Player games I run for my wife Alison. Her PC is Elodie Josephine Treville, daughter of the Captain  of the King’s Musketeers.
 
She works as an ‘Agent of the Realm’ and last year (1629) she was created Milady de Callian by Richelieu for service as an agent for him personally in matters of a delicate nature. At Christmas last year she returned with her partner (and lover) Eric Gallet to her family home in the town of Trois-Ville in the Pays-Basque. She and Eric were tasked by the Cardinal in identifying to identify the Spanish agent ‘Herisson’ (Hedgehog). This was a very exciting game with a breakneck ride at the end to unmask the villain and save a young servant girl who was being used as a hostage.
 
Since then, her duties had been less taxing, and it wasn’t until the beginning of June that she was pulled from her usual duties for the Provost of Paris and once again asked to perform a discrete task for Cardinal Richelieu. The War of the Mantuan Succession was still ongoing, and the  Spanish Army of Lombardy was besieging a French garrison which was holding the north Italian city of Casale. An intercepted document had revealed that a young  officer of the garrison – Phillippe Breson, Baron d’Aumale was part of a conspiracy of French nobles who are raising a secret army aiming to dispose the King.
 
Richelieu wanted Elodie and Eric to quietly remove the Baron from Casale on the excuse that the King himself has granted him permission to leave his post as his young son and heir is seriously ill. The Cardinal wants the Baron brought back to Paris believing this fiction and with his co-conspirators also believing it. Using the leverage of his son’s right to inherit Barony, Richelieu aims to turn Baron d’Aumale to work for him and so destroy the conspiracy.
 
The old Duke of Savoy has died, and the new Duke is pro-French. So, travel from France through Savoy was easy. In the city of Pinerolo they met their contact, a Savoyard smuggler called Neso. He had good relations with the Spanish besiegers and the French garrison and provided both with little treats for the officers. He could get them in and out of the city by them posing as his packhorse men. He told the French agents that the Spanish had taken the city itself but that the citadel still held out.
 
On the journey to Casale they discovered that plague had run riot in northern Italy. Neso explained that this meant that the Spanish were not pursuing the siege with any urgency, as they were more concerned with keeping the army free of the plague. In the siege lines Neso was greeted as an old friend and one packhorse was swiftly denuded of supplies. An Italian corporal of the Army of Lombardy said to Neso that there were rumours that orders were about to come through to assault the city gate of the citadel very soon, so he had better conclude his business with the French quickly and get back out on road as soon as he could.
 
Later that night the Spanish allowed Neso to contact the French and the party were let into the citadel with no problems. Following them was a man in a crimson cloak who was also admitted to the citadel. He ignored them and he disappeared into the gloom as soon as they were inside the citadel.
 
Elodie and Eric found the Baron, who turned out to be quite young to already be a widower, and it transpired that he was in command of the guard at the city gate of the citadel. If he was a traitor this was not a good idea! On hearing the news of his son’s illness, he was very distressed as he said that his infant son was the last of his line. Therefore, he was eager to return to Paris. Richelieu had chosen his target well.
 
After they left the Baron, Elodie looked back and noticed that the man with the crimson cloak was now speaking to the Baron and had passed him a letter. The Baron read it and then threw it into a nearby fire. She lost track of the crimson cloak – he just seemed to melt into the shadows. She then heard the Baron issue orders to an officer the guard, saying that the numbers of men on duty could be reduced tomorrow night as the Spanish were clearly not actively seeking to attack anytime soon, and the men needed their sleep.
 
The Cardinal had impressed upon both Eric and Elodie that they were to keep the details of their real mission secret from any French officers, but Elodie was convinced that Baron d’Aumale  had deliberately weakened the guard at the gate as he had been given news of a Spanish attack the next night. So, the next morning she approached the garrison commander, showed him her warrant as an Agent of the Realm, and said that the Baron was a traitor. He was sworn to secrecy and agreed to say nothing but to re-enforce the guard as soon as they left with the Baron. [He did this and so foiled the surprise Spanish attack.]
 
After a night and a day in the citadel, Neso lead them out to the Spanish lines the next evening. As they passed through the Spanish lines, they could see the assault force assembling for the attack in the coming hours. They left the city of Casale before the attack went in and travelled for an hour before making camp for the few hours before dawn. 
 
A day later, on the road, they were attacked by bandits. These were dealt with swiftly and after half the bandits were killed the rest fled. The young Baron fought bravely and showed himself skilled with a sword and a good horseman. One advantage they had was Eric opening the ball by shooting the bandit leader dead – while negotiating with him – with a shot from his wheellock rifle, from the saddle! The bandits never really recovered from the loss of their leader.
 
In case the bandits wanted revenge, they set a watch that night. The next day would see them in Savoy, so everything was going to plan. On their watch Elodie and Eric had a whispered conversation about delivering the Baron to the Cardinal without arousing his suspicion. Unfortunately, though they thought the Baron and Neso were asleep, Neso wasn’t.
 
Neso had no idea why they wanted the Baron – the Cardinal was paying him well so what did he care. But now his greedy nature came to the fore, and he thought the nobleman would pay well to evade the Cardinal’s clutches. And if he said that the bandits killed Eric and Elodie and that the Baron abandoned him, well, he could still work for the French in future. When he and the Baron took their watch, he whispered the truth of the agents mission to him.
 
Unfortunately, Elodie and Eric were asleep.
 
Neso and Baron d’Aumale made their move at breakfast. A frantic fight ensued. Eric had no time to reach his beloved firearms and fended off the Baron’s sword with difficulty. Sadly, he was wounded. Elodie made short work of the untrustworthy smuggler and was able to engage the Baron as Eric fell back. A fight using the duelling rules (both Pulse Pounding Pulp and The Sword & Sorcery Codex feature these) resulted in Elodie achieving ‘Overwhelming Dominance’. This meant that Alison could narrate the end of the fight without the Baron doing anything to amend or nullify her desired result.
 
Elodie finally found a way past the Baron’s blade after driving him back and forcing him to an ever more desperate defence. She cut off the Baron’s sword arm at the wrist and then forced his stump into the breakfast fire to seal the wound!
 
Back in Paris the Baron sang like a canary to save his son’s inheritance after his own (probable) execution. He remains a prisoner for now.
 
This resulted in the Cardinal having another task for Elodie. Using the information provided by the Baron, Elodie and Eric must work with Milady de Winter and former Huguenot spymistress  Camille Suchet (a woman Elodie has sworn to kill) to uncover the three noblemen behind the raising of the secret army and expose the conspiracy to the light of day.
 
But that was the next game (which we played last Sunday).