Death in Gascony (28 page)

Athos felt his jaw drop open and disciplined it to close. No. This was not the time to stand around gaping and wondering what to do. He didn’t know if there was anything he could do, but he had a feeling…

The murderer had, after all, killed three times, and had attempted over and over to kill again. He’d been responsible for at least two attempts on D’Artagnan’s life, Athos would wager. And now, he knew they were questioning people. They’d alarmed him enough to have a close look at them himself. And since then, there had been Porthos questioning people about the horses, and there had been the scene with Edmond de Bigorre yesterday. If Edmond had not reported, Athos would have been much surprised.

The question was, when would the murderer ready himself to attack next? And whom? And would he do it himself, or send someone to do it?

Without warning, a picture formed in Athos’s mind. D’Artagnan had proved hard enough to kill—and D’Artagnan was no threat, anyway. Having talked to the boy, doubtless the villain understood the boy had come to Gascony with no other aim than to settle down and administer the D’Artagnan lands. No threat in that.

But there was still one person who was a threat, one person who might, on purpose or by design speak of the events eighteen years ago. Athos could not imagine the murderer taking much more time than tomorrow to do it.

Tomorrow everyone would be at the priest’s funeral in the morning, including the house’s faithful servants. All but Marie D’Artagnan. And doubtless, in a place as small as this, everyone knew that someone hated funerals and didn’t attend them. There had been reason enough recently to remember it.

So…The picture formed in Athos’s mind. The deserted house and the murderer coming and executing his victim in bed. He was sure the murderer would come personally. After the failures with D’Artagnan, not to mention the fact that Monsieur D’Artagnan had got up from a supposedly fatal wound and fought again, the creature would be feeling insecure enough he’d want to be sure of things.

There was only one thing that Athos could do. And he would pray that if he was right the creature would indeed make an attempt.

Because, otherwise, he would have no proof at all.

“I
NTO
my mother’s room?” D’Artagnan asked, rubbing his eyes. “Why? What could it possibly serve? And…” He looked around, wild-eyed, sure that his friends had gone insane. “It is not proper.”

Athos, a fully dressed, grave-looking Athos, shrugged imperiously. D’Artagnan had never thought of a shrug as a commanding gesture before, but Athos somehow managed to make it so—like a general, before battle, shrugging away all unnecessary impediments to his mission. “Never mind the propriety of it,” he said. “It might be her life we’re saving. And yours. We pretended to go out to the funeral Mass with all of the servants. In a big group, so I doubt they could tell you weren’t among us. Once away, we doubled back one by one and secreted into the house. Hopefully no one saw us.”

Behind Athos, Porthos and Aramis—also fully dressed and armed—nodded their resolution and agreement.

D’Artagnan was sure he was dreaming. He must be dreaming. Things like this didn’t happen in real life. One’s friends might come into one’s bedroom and wake one—in fact, D’Artagnan was willing to admit this had happened before. But they didn’t, then, lay forth a plan for invading one’s mother’s bedroom.

“Here,” Athos said, and as he spoke, gathered D’Artagnan’s clothes and threw them on the bed, beside him. “Dress yourself. We have not a minute to lose. Though it’s still dark, it’s already morning, and the bell has chimed for the priest’s funeral. We can’t be too late.”

“To the funeral?” D’Artagnan asked, sleepily putting on the venetians that Aramis had persuaded him to buy in Paris, but which had got him some very odd looks here, in the provinces.

“Not the funeral,” Aramis said, in a tone of great exasperation. “D’Artagnan, you’re not attending, and you must. We must go to your mother’s room. Athos has made it all perfectly clear.”

“He has?” D’Artagnan asked.

Sleepily he put on his clothes, and strapped on his sword, when commanded. Sleepily he stumbled out of his room and down the long, still dark corridor to his mother’s room.

The wind carried the sound of the chapel’s bell ringing death, and D’Artagnan felt a shiver. What could Athos possibly mean with all this? Why wasn’t anyone explaining things to him? And why did they want him along if they weren’t willing to explain things?

Well, possibly because breaking into his mother’s room without him would be quite a different plan from breaking into his mother’s room with him. But in that case, why weren’t they explaining to him the necessity of breaking into it at all?

Athos tried the door and whispered, “As I feared.” Then made a gesture.

From the darker shadows of the hallway, the figure of Mousqueton detached. The man got his bits of metal from his sleeve, and did something. The door clicked open, and he nodded.

“Will you be needing my help inside?” he asked Athos.

“I would think not,” Athos said. “I expect that the four of us should be more than equal to the task. But do you and your fellows stay alert, should the murderer try to escape.”

Mousqueton nodded and melted back into the shadows, which D’Artagnan could now see contained, in addition to his quite respectable bulk, the slim figure of Planchet, the silent Grimaud, and the rotund and clerical Bazin—the latter recognizable because he was crossing himself as he stood there.

D’Artagnan cleared his throat. “Athos—” he whispered.

But Athos only put his finger on his lips commanding silence as, with the other hand, he slowly, slowly slid the bedroom door open.

To be greeted with a low canine growl.

“Angel,” D’Artagnan whispered. The shape of the little dog darted towards him in the darkness, growling as he came, only to thump his tail upon catching scent of D’Artagnan.

D’Artagnan petted him absently, then followed Athos’s stern gestures, to melt into the darker parts of the room, the corners where light would not reach, even were the blind open. Not until the sun was quite a bit brighter than it was now.

His mind was a whirlwind that would not stop. Why would his friends not tell him what the necessity was of going into his mother’s room? Even as hurried and incomplete as their warnings normally were, they were more complete than this. There must be some very powerful reason not to have explained everything to him.

Unfortunately, D’Artagnan could only imagine one. And that one made his hair stand on end and sent a cold chill up his spine, as though a frigid finger were running the length of it.

Had his mother killed all these people, and commanded his death too? Did they expect her to rise from her bed and…

His mind beggared for thought. And what? Find him in his bed and kill him? What could they think? Surely if she wanted to murder him, she could have used poison? They’d all been at her mercy every day they’d eaten there.

“Athos,” he started again, in a whisper.

Athos shook his head and again took his finger to his lips, and this time pointed towards the window.

At first D’Artagnan wasn’t sure what the pointing towards the window meant. And then he could hear the scuffing of shoes against the stones of the wall. Someone was climbing the wall. Not a hard feat, since the D’Artagnan house was stone construction and quite old enough to have irregularities and fissures. But that D’Artagnan knew no one had ever climbed the wall. Why was someone doing it now?

Slowly, slowly, the blind creaked open, inward. Fully open, it revealed a man perched on the windowsill. That it was a man there could be no doubt. That he was about some no good pursuit no doubt also.

D’Artagnan thought, suddenly, it was de Bilh, come on a secret assignation with his mother. De Bilh was the murderer for the love of Marie D’Artagnan.

Angel started to stir, and D’Artagnan, kneeling, petted him, silently. He subsided.

The shadow looked around and, seemingly, couldn’t see them, knit as they were with the wall, behind a large wardrobe.

He turned to the bed, where Marie D’Artagnan slept. Though her bed was curtained, she had not closed the curtains. She never did. D’Artagnan could see her head on the pillow, the blond hair spread around it.

So could the intruder, who stepped forward, pulled a dagger from his belt, and raised it over her sleeping, unsuspecting form.

“Monsieur de Comminges,” Athos said, his voice very calm and perfectly conversational from the shadows. “Do you often murder defenseless women? Can you also murder the four men who saw you do the deed?”

Sever de Comminges turned around, and D’Artagnan recognized him. Though the light was still scant, his face was so pale that it seemed to shine with its own light.

Madame D’Artagnan woke up and screamed. Sever turned towards her, dagger raised.

He was so lost to all that he would kill her and damn the witnesses. This wasn’t quite a thought but a feeling that, as it formed in D’Artagnan’s mind, grabbed hold of him and sent him, headlong, towards de Comminges, grabbing at his arm. He would have been a moment too late, hadn’t Angel attacked the intruder’s ankle, growling and biting.

That moment of confusion—of frantically trying to kick the dog away—was enough. Porthos was on him, holding his hand, and D’Artagnan and Athos and Aramis, swords drawn, had taken their places between the madman and Marie D’Artagnan’s bed.

There was a frantic scurry, a scramble, and de Comminges bent and twisted like a heel, managing to draw his sword. Porthos jumped back, his sword in his hand.

De Comminges looked around, at all of them, with their drawn swords. His voice emerged from between his lips like a vicious growl. “What, it takes all four of you to duel me?”

D’Artagnan started to step forward, but felt Athos’s hand on the back of his doublet, pulling him back.

“This is not a duel,” Athos said. “No more than it was when you sent your assassins to dispatch my friend. It’s a pity you were so badly informed you didn’t know two of us were dark-haired. Your henchmen wasted time discussing which of us to murder, and murdered neither.”

“More the fool I,” de Comminges said. “I should have told them to kill you all.”

“Indeed you should, monsieur,” Aramis said. “For so it is always with us, one for all and all for one.”

“Bah,” de Comminges said. “Friendship and its softening ties.” He spit onto the floor and glared at them. “I despise friendship. And I despise you. How do you propose to capture me, now?” he asked.

“There are four of us,” Porthos said, in a low, perplexed tone. “Surely capturing you will not be the problem.”

But he only laughed, a hollow laugh and, suddenly, turned and ran towards the window.

In a leap he was gone over the sill. D’Artagnan had a moment to wonder if they’d ever capture him again—and then he heard the noise of the fall against the stone patio. De Comminges wouldn’t be getting up again.

Porthos looked out. “He broke his neck.”

Athos sheathed his sword and nodded, as if to himself. “I thought he would prefer death to dishonor.”

“Some of us won’t get the choice,” Marie D’Artagnan said in a voice full of tears.

“Maman!”
D’Artagnan said in shock, now thinking that his mother must have been carrying on an affair with Sever de Comminges, but how was that possible?

But Athos, smiling slightly, said, “I don’t think it will come to that, Madame D’Artagnan.” He bowed slightly to her. “We will now leave you to dress yourself, and you can give us an explanation when you’re more composed. We’ll fetch Bayard to remove the body and send word to de Comminges’s house. I pray, do not do anything foolish. I’m sure it is not your fault and you were most terribly imposed upon.”

“Little that will matter to the world, should it all come out,” Marie said, still lachrymose.

“But it won’t madam. He is dead and with him the cause for his crimes. No one need find out.”

“Y
OU
see,” Marie said, speaking almost in a whisper, as she sat at the table. “I was so young and so foolish.”

Her cap was askew and her hair disheveled. She sat facing the four men, pale, as though they were her executioners. That one of them was her son seemed to make no difference. Or perhaps it made it all the worse. She looked at D’Artagnan and blenched more, and her lips half opened but nothing came out of them.

Even in this state of distress, she was a beautiful woman and Aramis could well imagine how much more beautiful she must have been in those days of her youth that she referred to in such pitying terms.

“My mother, you see…” She hesitated. “She died when I was very young. I didn’t know my father, though of course I knew of him. And I knew he was a Gascon.”

“Your mother wasn’t then?” Athos asked.

She shook her head. “No. She was Parisian, born and bred. But I knew my father was Gascon. And he wrote to me sometimes.”

From across the table, Aramis saw D’Artagnan starting to open his mouth, and creasing his forehead, but he must have thought better of speaking. “I was raised by some cousins of my mother’s,” she said. “Until I was six, when I was consigned to a convent with the idea that I would profess when I was old enough. My father was willing to proffer a handsome dowry for that purpose as in the eyes of the world it would be the best of all solutions.”

She lowered her head and colored, then sighed. “Don’t ask me how I met him. He was young and dashing, a Gascon Lord, one with a true patrimony, enjoying his time in the city. They…They let us go to Mass and…” She shook her head. “Oh, I was foolish beyond consent.

“I escaped to meet him, and I allowed him to kiss me and…But to allow him to make me his mistress I would not. I knew how my poor mother’s life was blighted and I was not that foolish. So I told him he could only have me if we married…

“We married late at night in his townhouse. A priest came out and not only made a record of the marriage, but gave me a letter, certifying that I was married. That letter…” She shrugged. “I couldn’t find it.” She looked at D’Artagnan. “Your fath—Monsieur D’Artagnan had it and he…I don’t know where he hid it. I’ve looked all over. And I’m sure Sever did too. It was why I locked your father’s study against you, Henri. In case you should find it, where I’d failed.”

She shook her head and took a deep breath. “I am making a great muddle of it. As I said, I married de Comminges and was installed in his townhouse as his wife, I thought, though I have reason to believe others thought I was only his mistress.”

D’Artagnan across the table made a sound between a sigh and an exclamation of protest. His mother looked at him and shook her head again. “I was very foolish, Henri. I lived with him three months, I think. It took that long for the novelty to wear off. And besides, his mother—who was then still living—was putting pressure on him to marry well. It seems his finances were not, then, all that could be desired. His father was a famous…or perhaps infamous…gambler. He needed to marry an heiress, and his mother stood ready to make sure he did so.”

She took a breath as though it hurt to breathe and looked down at her hands, entwined on the table, as she spoke. “He told me we were never married. Never in fact. That the priest was not a priest at all. That it was all a sham.” She set her chin in a way oddly reminiscent of D’Artagnan. “I took a horse. One of the horses from his stable. It was spring and warm enough. I came towards Gascony on the horse. Slept by the wayside.”

Aramis could easily see her doing that. It was foolish. No, more than foolish, it was insane. But she was D’Artagnan’s mother, and he could easily imagine the very young Marie D’Artagnan galloping across the fields. “Dangerous for a woman,” he said.

She shrugged. “I was just seventeen and I dressed as a boy, in one of de Comminges suits.”

“But what did you expect to find in Gascony?” Athos asked.

“Well…for one thing I expected to find my father,” she said. “Monsieur de Bilh.”

She let that fall into the silence around the table and sighed. “That you didn’t know, did you? Yes, he is my father. I am his daughter by his Parisian mistress. He never had any children by his wife, but I was born where he didn’t want me.

“I said I was young. I had some idea of presenting myself to him and asking him to stand by my rights.” She smiled a little. “Little did I know, his wife being yet living, then, that he would be more likely to turn me out into the cold. But as it chanced, the saints favor the foolish. I stopped in the hostelry outside the bastide, and I changed into my female attire, thinking it more likely I would earn my father’s support that way. And then I rode…Only there was a storm, and I got soaked to the skin, and so confused I didn’t know south from north…Instead of going to Monsieur de Bilh’s, I ended up here, at my husban—At Monsieur D’Artagnan’s doorstep.”

She looked up, a light color tinging her cheeks. “I don’t know why he took me in, but he did, and he was perfectly gentlemanly and protective. Marguerite, too, she fussed over me and took care of me. And Monsieur D’Artagnan and I fell in love. It turned out, you know, that when I went to the priest and he sent enquiries abroad, he could find no sign of the marriage being real. But I know just before his death my husband told me he had shown the marriage letter to the young de Comminges and that made him give my husband several horses. Oh, if only that wasn’t what caused him to kill my husband and the priest and…”

“It wasn’t,” Athos said, kindly. “I have, I think, pieced together the whole as well as it could be pieced together. Seeing the letter might have caused him to kill your husband, but I think your husband only showed him the letter because he had already mentioned the marriage. You see, madam, if it were just your husband showing him the letter, he’d have sent enquiries to Paris, and it would have come back negative. If he’d talked to the priest—and perhaps he did—that too would have reassured him. He could have told your husband to divulge; the old intrigue would only have hurt you and not him. No. I think what happened…

“Is that his father, on his deathbed—and I don’t know if his death was natural or not, but I would bet you it was a prolonged death.”

“Oh yes,” Madame D’Artagnan said. “The poor man lay in his deathbed for days and days and he refused to call the priest, having reverted, in his agony, to the Protestant faith of his youth.”

“Ah,” Athos said. “And yet in those conditions men want to confess. I will wager that he confessed to his older son. Told him the truth.”

“He did,” a voice said, from the doorway to the room. Looking up, they saw Geoffroi de Comminges on the threshold. “Your servant came to tell me my brother had met with an accident…I’m sorry, I did not mean to intrude, but I heard what you said.”

Aramis looked up for a moment, but there didn’t seem to be anything for it. All the others being silent, he said, “Well, the harm is done, then. You might as well come in and speak to us. How do you know your father told your brother about the marriage?”

Geoffroi approached, hesitantly, to sit at the table. “Because there is a secret passage, behind the room. I used to hide there when my father wanted to be alone with Sever. Sever was not…good. He was not even an honorable person. He killed dogs, you know…and…and cats and birds. Ever since he was a boy. His pleasure was to wound and kill. And I was afraid what he might do to our father, defenseless as our father was. So I heard. He told…Father told Sever that we were…bastards. That he’d married before he married our mother, and the lady, still living, was living as Madame D’Artagnan.”

“What purpose can there be to having told him?” Porthos asked. “Seems a very foolish thing to do.”

Geoffroi shook his head. “He wanted Sever to promise that he would look after his son…Henri D’Artagnan. That he would do what he could to advance the boy in his career.”

“His son?” D’Artagnan asked, half shocked, half outraged.

“I am afraid so,” Geoffroi said. “You are my father’s son and my older brother.” A bitter smile twisted his lips. “You are also the legitimate heir to de Comminges and I hope you will be kind to me.”

“I don’t think so,” D’Artagnan said. “It can’t be.”

“Unfortunately,” his mother said, “I must tell you it’s true. I was with child before I ever lay with your fath—with Monsieur D’Artagnan.”

“Don’t be absurd,” D’Artagnan said. “I’m a D’Artagnan.”

“Indeed, D’Artagnan, you can’t be,” Athos said. “You see that your mother has blue eyes, and so did Monsieur D’Artagnan. Take it from one that has seen countless family galleries, two blue-eyed parents have never yet had a dark-eyed son.”

D’Artagnan looked from Athos to his mother, and finally to Geoffroi. “I say I’m Monsieur D’Artagnan’s son.” He raised his hand. “I understand all your protests, but these old intrigues are best left buried. I do not have proof that my mother was ever married to your father, and I choose instead to assume the identity her lawful husband endowed me with.”

“I am sure,” de Comminges said, miserably, “the letter will surface sooner or later, and if you looked through the various parishes in Paris, and if you were to exert enough force, you’d find the priest who performed the marriage or some record of it.”

“I’m sure I would,” D’Artagnan said. “If that letter wouldn’t, unfortunately, fall in the fire as soon as it is found.”

It took Geoffroi de Comminges a moment to realize what he was saying. “You mean it?” he asked, at last.

“Of course,” D’Artagnan said. “I would not trade my honored name for yours. No offense meant.”

“None taken,” Geoffroi said. “But you must know there are lands and…”

“All the lands in the world are nothing next to a respected name,” he said.

Athos cleared his throat. “So I assume,” he asked the young de Comminges, “that it was your brother who killed the priest? And Monsieur D’Artagnan? And who sent ruffians to kill D’Artagnan?”

“Yes. I have no proof of it, but I am sure it was him. Once he knew he was not legitimate, his goal would be to eliminate everyone who could have testified to this. I’m sure to his feverish mind, the fact that Monsieur Henri D’Artagnan came to Gascony meant he was going to contest Sever’s position. It’s why he wanted to marry Irene as soon as possible, so that Monsieur Henri would scruple to overset his cousin of whom he was so fond.”

“I realized the danger you must be in,” Marie said. “It took me a while to remember it, in the confusion of the death. And even longer to feel uneasy about your father dying so soon after de Comminges. I’ve been looking over my shoulder this while,” she said. “And looking for the letter.”

“I’m sure the only thing that tempted him was the circumstances of your being, as he thought, alone in the house,” Athos said. “And the fact that he had already killed twice, undetected. And I’m sure he only came because Edmond told him he’d confessed to losing the dagger to him.”

“Poor Edmond,” D’Artagnan said. “Now…the question is, how do I give him his true inheritance?”

“His true inheritance?” Aramis asked, in some confusion.

“Well,” D’Artagnan said, and a bit of his old roguish self crept into his smile. “The thing is, if I’m not truly my father’s blood son, then I have no right to the D’Artagnan house. Edmond should have it by rights, and I can go back to Paris and resume my life.” He sounded like a man freed from jail.

“But…Henri,” his mother said. “Far be it from me to hold you to a duty you find distasteful but…what’s to become of me?”

D’Artagnan stopped for only a moment, then shrugged. “Well, since I can’t tell Edmond the truth, I’ll have to tell him I’m giving him the lands. I’ll make it so on condition he provide for you.”