Death in Gascony (12 page)

I
T
was at the moment of the elevation of the Host that D’Artagnan noticed Aramis.

He should have seen him earlier. After all, early Mass in the small church near D’Artagnan’s house was usually attended only by those retainers of the house—Bayard and Marguerite and one or two of the men and women who came for the day—who felt particularly religious that early in the morning.

Even Mass at the larger church, in the center of the town, was sparsely attended, early morning on a weekday. For one, this was Gascony, where enough people remained who weren’t exactly good Catholics. And tired of the continuous fighting over the last century, their Catholic neighbors often pretended not to notice that they didn’t attend church. As long as a man didn’t cause trouble, his neighbors tried not to noticed what faith he believed in.

So the churches were sparsely attended, and at that, attended mostly by local peasants: a short, stocky, dark-haired breed. All of which should have made the tall, slim, blond Aramis very visible.

But the church was dark in the early morning. A Roman church, with its small, arched windows far up enough on the walls to allow the church to be turned into a fortress, it was dark at the best of times. Early morning it was darker than that, the dim light scarcely enough to see the pews, and the vague shadows of the other people at Mass—and the figure of the priest at the altar.

And then, D’Artagnan had been preoccupied with what brought him here—not a startle of sudden piety, but the need to ask the priest how his father had died.

His mother’s behavior was so odd that D’Artagnan had spent half the night running away in his own mind from unfilial thoughts that his mother had engineered the death of his father.

And now he was here, hoping to lay the matter to rest.

So, when the priest lifted the Host, and people knelt for the adoration, was the first time he caught sight of Aramis in the front pew. The light had glinted briefly on the musketeer’s hair as he knelt.

What was Aramis doing here? Was he here on the same errand D’Artagnan was? And if so, why had he come? Had he—also—suspected D’Artagnan’s mother? And if he did, why? Could his mother be truly culpable?

In a worry that mimicked the effects of fever to an amazing extent, D’Artagnan had gone through the movements of the rest of the Mass in a confusion of suspicion and fear—and guilt at suspecting his own mother.

And after the Mass, as he got up to follow the priest into the sacristy, he found himself a step behind Aramis. “Father, please,” he said, just echoing Aramis.

The priest was old. He’d been old ever since D’Artagnan remembered. In fact, D’Artagnan couldn’t approach him without feeling as though he were again a small boy coming to him for lessons on the first letters or for instruction in doctrine.

Small, bent over, the priest had skin the color of old clay—the sort of skin of someone who started out olive skinned and then spent most of his life outdoors, in all weather. He’d seen the priest, often enough, cross the fields in the full heat of day to take the last sacraments to some peasant that lie dying in some hovel far from the bastide.

The younger priest who ministered at the larger church was not so devoted. But this man was. His name was Father Ustou, and the peasants hereabouts whispered that he was a saint.

He now turned his heavily lined face to them, looking first at Aramis, and then at D’Artagnan, with small, dark eyes that shone from amid the wrinkles. “Ah, my sons,” he said, clearly confused. “How may I help you?”

Aramis started to open his mouth, but then bowed slightly to D’Artagnan as if to indicate that the younger man had a greater right to ask questions.

D’Artagnan bowed in turn, to thank him for the courtesy, all the while wondering if Aramis suspected D’Artagnan’s mother, and if so, why. Of course, Aramis knew a lot about women. He could read their minds and hearts like other men could read books.

“Father,” D’Artagnan said, rushing, afraid of losing his courage if he waited. “My mother says you were one of the witnesses at my father’s duel, and I wanted to know…I wanted to know what you remembered.”

The priest squinted, “Henri? Is that you? I didn’t recognize you in those clothes.” He smiled a little, vaguely. “So sad that you had to come back for such a reason.” He sighed. “Yes, yes, your father…I was there, when your father died.” Another sigh. “Such a strong man, you know, and in general a very good man. So sad for him to die like that, over such a foolish thing.”

“What foolish thing?” D’Artagnan asked. “Why did they fight?”

The priest made his way fully into the sacristy and put away the vessels of the Mass in a cabinet, which he locked. “No one knows that, my son. Not even Monsieur de Bilh, who I think would give something to know it.”

“How is it possible then,” D’Artagnan asked, “for two men to fight to the death without any idea of the reason for fighting?”

The priest shook his head. “It wasn’t a fight to the death. Not from where I was standing. It was more…well…Monsieur de Bilh was defending himself from your father’s mad attack. The poor man laments every day that an unlucky thrust killed his friend.”

“But—Why was my father attacking him?”

“We don’t know. This is what happened.” The priest, his cleanup after Mass done, turned around to face them. “I was talking with Monsieur de Bilh and your cousin, Edmond de Bigorre. Edmond was telling me the story of a saint, that he heard from his fiancée, and asking if I’d ever heard the like, and Monsieur de Bilh was waiting by. He wanted to speak to me of some of the poor I’ve been helping. He proposed to give employment to the man, if your father would consent to let him take it outside his lands. And as this was going on, I heard your father roar.

“We all turned to see him running through the fields towards the threshing floor where we were…” The priest frowned. “He ran…erratically. As if he’d had too much to drink. Not straight, you know, but stumbling a little and veering now this way and now that way. I remember thinking it very odd, because here we were, and not noon yet, and I’d never seen your father drunk, your know.”

“No,” D’Artagnan said, and his voice echoed hollow in his own ears. “Nor have I.”

The priest nodded and his bald head shone like cured leather under the light from the sad single candle in front of the sacrarium. “But he was drunk, Henri. Drunk or…” The priest crossed himself hastily. “In the grip of an unholy spirit.” He looked up at D’Artagnan as though afraid of the response. When that didn’t come he continued. “He didn’t seem to recognize any of us who were before him—not one of us—and he came charging at Monsieur de Bilh, sword in hand, and called him a villain.” From the depths of his sleeve, the priest extracted a handkerchief, with which he mopped his glistening forehead. “It was a close-in fight, Monsieur Henri. Close fought. And then, while de Bilh tried to fend him off, your father charged blindly. He impaled himself on that sword, Monsieur Henri, and that’s the truth. So much so that I was not sure I was within the rights of the church to give him a Christian burial.”

“You mean…” D’Artagnan said, his legs going weak, his knees losing their steadiness. “That my father committed suicide? That he killed himself?”

The priest sighed. Again the hand with the kerchief mopped at his brow. “I don’t know. I don’t think so—or not on purpose. Had I thought so, I’d never have given him Christian burial on consecrated land. I do not mock the rules of the holy church.”

“No,” D’Artagnan said, but in his mind he could see it all too well—the bright sunlight on the threshing floor, and his father running into a sword. He thought of that dress and the uniform under the table, on the chest his father used to rest his feet upon. If a man had left behind everything he prized, and love besides…

Perhaps his father had held onto life and forged on so long as he had to bring up an heir to the name. But now D’Artagnan was grown, and had gone to Paris to seek his fortune. Perhaps his father thought himself exonerated of the duty to keep going now.

But no. D’Artagnan thought of his father as he’d last seen him. He thought of his father having a mock duel with him in the broad yard of their house, just the day before D’Artagnan had left for Paris.

His father had danced and jumped, and laughed with delight both at outwitting D’Artagnan and when D’Artagnan outwitted him. He’d been happy. Very happy. And it was hard to think of it as the happiness of a man who had finally discharged his duty and who could now put a period to his life.

Besides, his father had been ever mindful of how what he did affected others. He’d been the most attentive of fathers, the most considerate of husbands. Had he indeed been so pained at having to leave his Parisian life and perhaps his Parisian love behind, he wouldn’t have forced his son to do the same.

And he would never use Monsieur de Bilh to put an end to himself. The two of them were friends when they weren’t raging enemies, but on the whole the friends had lasted longer than the enemies. And besides…And besides even had Monsieur de Bilh been his father’s heartfelt foe, it would be an injustice to implicate him in a death he hadn’t intended. And D’Artagnan’s father wasn’t an unjust man.

“I think he was drunk, Monsieur Henri,” the priest said, as though reading D’Artagnan’s mind. “Or…not himself.”

“There is an illness…” Aramis said. “That sometimes comes on men, particularly older men. Something happens in the brain. One of my teachers, who was learned in such things said that something burst in their brain. It made them…strange. Like a man who’s been hit a blow to the head.”

“Of course that might be it too,” the priest said. “Perhaps his horse tossed him. They found his horse, you know, much later. It had run free. He didn’t look…” He looked at D’Artagnan. “Your father didn’t look as though he had fallen from the horse, but you never know. Perhaps he had. That would explain his behavior.

“But you need not be afraid he died a suicide. I’m sure in his heart of hearts your father could never have meant such a thing; could never have done it. I’m sure of it, Monsieur Henri. So sure that I have said all the Masses I can for his soul. And he was a good man, you know?” The priest’s old, shriveled hand rested on D’Artagnan’s arm, like a claw, but a benevolent claw. “He had his foibles, as who doesn’t, all of us being fallen men. But in all that, and for all that, he was a good man and I’m sure when you and I, at last, come to the heavenly mansion, we’ll find him there waiting for us.”

D’Artagnan nodded, but his heart felt tight, tight, as though deep inside a hand were squeezing it. Yes, yes, he’d suspected something wrong with his father’s death since he’d first heard of it. But now he could not doubt that something untoward and underhanded had happened. He could not doubt his father had met with foul play of some sort.

Either that…Either that or he’d gone mad.

And it fell to his son—his only son—and heir to find out exactly what that untoward something might be. It fell to his son, his only heir, to find out the reasons for his death, and who might have caused it.

“I’m sorry to pain you with the description of what happened, my son,” the priest said in an almost whisper. “But I thought it best if you knew the truth.”

“It is,” D’Artagnan said. “And I thank you, Father.” He bent to kiss the man’s ring, then walked out into the sunlight.

He’d been so absorbed in his own misery he didn’t realize Aramis had walked out with him till he heard the musketeer say, “I’m sure it wasn’t a suicide, D’Artagnan. I wouldn’t worry on it. Pere Ustou impressed me as a most careful man, and if there had been the slightest chance—”

D’Artagnan shook his head. “I never thought there was. Not of suicide,” he said. He sighed deeply. “If it were…while I would worry about his eternal fate, I would no longer need to worry about how he died. No, Aramis. What I’m worried about is that I’m sure—almost absolutely sure—someone murdered him.”

Aramis seemed taken aback. He leaned backwards a little, managing somehow to make himself appear more detached and superior. “What mean you? How can you be sure of such a thing, when Father Ustou just told us—”

“That my father acted drunk—which I know he could not be. Or in the grip of demons—which you know few of us are bad enough to warrant. Or had gone mad. You say it is possible to go mad from a blow to the head. And there’s poison, you know.” He shook his head. “I’m not doubting that my father attacked Monsieur de Bilh or instigated the duel. I’m not even doubting that he ran himself into a sword. But what I’m wondering is what happened before to cause him to act that way. And who brought it about.”

Aramis frowned at him. Not with displeasure, but more as though D’Artagnan were the obscure text of a forgotten book, which Aramis was having trouble reading. “Perhaps,” he said at very long last. “And if that’s the case, who can it be? What enemies did your father have?”

“True enemies?” D’Artagnan asked. “Very few. Those he fought with, and made up with to fight with again? Almost everyone in the neighborhood. But he was not less than friendly with anyone, most of the time. The only family in the region with whom we did not speak was de Comminges, and, frankly, they are so far above us that…” He shrugged and permitted himself a small smile. “Not all high noblemen are like you and Athos, who will speak even to plebeians and associate with people like me, only one step above commoners.”

Aramis smiled a little, in turn, a wan smile, embarrassed and indulgent in one. “Athos perhaps,” he said. “Myself, I’m not that far above anyone. But I know what you mean. There are those who are…more blood proud.”

“Yes.”

Silence fell for a little while. D’Artagnan tried to order in his mind what he must do next. He did not doubt Father Urtou. In fact, he could not. The old man who’d taught him his first letters and his religion might have some price—some way by which someone could buy his testimony and with it his soul. But if so, D’Artagnan could not imagine it, much less name it.

But a man was just a man and, as Aramis and Pere Urtou would say, a fallen creature. Many was the time, in Paris and here, even, when D’Artagnan had heard someone give witness to an event which he had also seen. The differences in accounts were often so marked—even from honest people and where nothing could be gained by lying—that it seemed to have taken place in a different world altogether.