“Yes, and how many times has the unlikely happened? In this kingdom, as it is, with that man that is almost a dark sorcerer behind the throne . . .” He stopped.
Monsieur de Treville nodded. He retreated behind his desk, as though talk of that powerful personage brought about a need to interpose a solid object between himself and the world. His desk, such as it was, was a broad, huge table, at which—so far as Athos knew—he never did any writing beyond the occasional order and the even more occasional safe conduct. The unblemished reddish leather surface had a stack of paper to the right and a pen and ink well to the left. And nothing else. But Monsieur de Treville stood behind his desk, and put his hands on it as if it were the physical center of his power.
“Still, I am loath to part with you for what . . . a week?”
Athos nodded.
“With Aramis already gone, if you leave, our guard rosters at the palace will be sorely depleted. Besides, if you must know, two of our musketeers have suffered grievous wounds in duels defending Aramis’s honor. I don’t know how to make up their numbers enough for a guard rotation. You,” he looked at D’Artagnan. “Has my brother-in-law, des Essarts, consented to part with you with no complaint?”
D’Artagnan shrugged. “He said he would let me go, Monsieur, if you let Athos go.”
Athos could see the captain’s mouth shaping itself to say no, could tell by the glint of his eyes, by the frown that brought his eyebrows low over his dark eyes, that Monsieur de Treville had already made up his mind that Aramis was guilty and, as such, found the idea of trying to save Aramis ridiculous.
Much as Athos despised the idea of admitting weakness, there was but one gambit for him to play now. Not that he, himself, was convinced of Aramis’s innocence. But he was sure that Aramis, one of his oldest friends who had seen him through countless scrapes, deserved, at the very least, the benefit of the doubt. “There is something else,” he said, just as Monsieur de Treville opened his mouth to deny them their leave.
And, as the captain turned to look on him, Athos sighed, still despising himself for what he had to say. “I received a wound on my arm, in duel over access to Aramis’s lodgings. If I should stay in town, others will challenge me. I doubt I can fend off the next one, in this condition. A week from now, though, I should be able again.”
Monsieur de Treville’s eyes widened. “Wounded?” he said. “May I see the wound?”
Athos recoiled, feeling his heart contract and blood flee his head, as if he’d been slapped. “Do you doubt me, sir?” he asked, his hand going to his sword immediately.
Monsieur de Treville might be the captain, and in this office Athos had heard lectures and rebukes that could skin an elephant without making any move to avenge his injured honor. But this was too much. To doubt Athos when he’d gone so far as to admit to a weakness . . .
But Monsieur de Treville shook his head. “My dear Athos, it would never cross my mind to doubt you on anything you stated. But if you’re admitting to the wound, it must be grievous indeed, and I’m not sure I should let you leave without the services of my surgeon.”
Athos relaxed, letting his hand fall from the sword, as though it had never been there. “There is no need,” he said, drawing himself up. “I was seriously wounded and lost a great deal of blood. But D’Artagnan has the recipe for a miraculous salve, which he consented to let me use. He tells me it shall be healed in three days. I’m not sure it will be that fast, as it had reached bone. But I do believe it will heal by the time we return.”
Monsieur de Treville evaluated both men with a weary eye, then sighed. “I see I cannot dissuade you from this travel into Dreux. Very well.” He sat down, reached for his pile of papers and wrote rapidly, “This is in case anyone tries to stop you. Let it be known you’re on a mission for the King’s musketeers.”
“It is hardly likely someone will try to stop us,” Athos said.
But Monsieur de Treville only cocked his head to one side. “Only if Aramis is truly guilty and there is no conspiracy to account for it. Otherwise, Athos, the murderer will know that his friends will try to clear his name. And he will try to stop the friends.” He shrugged. “Since we don’t know who the murderer is, we will not know what lengths he’ll go to just to put a stop to yours and D’Artagnan’s journey. And we have to fear that he has great means indeed and will go to great lengths.”
Athos considered this a moment and realized he could not argue with Monsieur de Treville’s words. If it was true that someone had been so powerful as to strike Madame de Dreux through such underhanded means, surely he would be able to dispose of a musketeer and a guard traveling with their servants along country roads. He bowed to Monsieur de Treville’s superior wisdom and took the proffered leather purse as well. His funds were low, since he’d had a run of damnable luck at cards. “I will pay it back,” he said.
Monsieur de Treville allowed a smile to slide across his lips. “Athos, I would never doubt it.”
They bowed to their captain, and left, to the stables at the back where Grimaud and Planchet already waited with four horses.
No more than a breath later, they were crossing Paris, towards the road to Dreux. Newly awakened to the dangers of their journey, to the fact that if Aramis was innocent, then perforce someone else must be guilty, someone capable of great cunning and greater ruthlessness, Athos scanned the road and the upper stories.
And bridled, reigning in his horse as he noticed a knot of people ahead of him. There was a great press of apprentices and women, and others who could either legitimately be idle at this time of day or else who could legitimately be outdoors, pretending to be busy. At the edges of the crowd, at the back, street urchins pushed and shoved trying to get in.
One of those urchins noticed the two men on horseback, and came running back, to Athos’s horse. “I’ll show you a way around through the backstreets Monsieur.”
“Thanks,” Athos said. “But I know my way around Paris.” And, seeing the urchin’s great disappointment, he fished for a small coin from his sleeve pouch, and threw it at the boy. “What is the disturbance?”
The boy caught it midair, and looked at it, glinting in his palm, then flashed Athos a brief, feral grin. “It’s the acrobats,” he said. “Somersault artists and jugglers and tightrope walkers.”
Athos blinked. Such troupes were a nuisance. They came from who knew where and they left without warning. And their acrobatic abilities were often put to the use of cunning thefts. But the people would like them.
Looking attentively, he could see, ahead, the briefest glimmer of cloth, the slightest shimmer of silk. They dressed like kings and queens, too, these street performers, though often their clothes were threadbare and the supposed gold only so much painted glitter.
“Come D’Artagnan,” he told his friend. “I know a way around.”
D’Artagnan shook himself, as though waking. He’d been staring mesmerized into the crowd and Athos wondered if the young man wanted to watch the performers. D’Artagnan was, after all, little more than a boy and had come from some miserably forsaken village in Gascony. For him this poor show might be as entrancing as a royal ball.
But Athos could not find a way to ask his friend if he wanted to stay and watch without insulting the youth. So, he made sure that D’Artagnan was following, and then rode his horse apace through a maze of narrow streets, until they’d done a full circle and emerged again on the relatively large main street which had the width to allow two carriages to pass one by the other.
There, Athos spurred his horse to a trot and heard D’Artagnan catch up, behind him. Planchet and Grimaud’s horses’ hooves echoed still farther behind.
Cooks and Maids and the Secrets of the Fire; The Distinct Advantages of an Abundant Moustache and an Appreciation for Simple Pleasures
P
ORTHOS startled at the cook’s yell at him. He blinked at her, surprised, not used to being addressed by women in anything but an endearing tone. “I came,” he said, as the lie occurred to him almost without his thinking. “In search of my servant, a thieving scoundrel, about this size.” He pantomimed with his hand. “And about this wide, with abundant moustaches and a talent for the fast hand swipe.”
“Ah,” the cook said. “Mousqueton. He’s a scoundrel that one. Faster than a cat and twice as sneaky, for all his size. Why, just last week he made off with a whole chicken, freshly roasted.”
There was something Porthos—who had enjoyed the chicken quite well and thought of it with only the slightest hint of remorse—knew well enough from observing those around him. And that was that two people with a common grievance about the same person would soon find themselves on the way to friendship. And from what he could see, from the way the kitchen noises seemed to have hushed up at the woman’s speaking, this was the person in whose graces to be in the kitchen. Either she was the head cook or the one who had seized the authority in the absence of any other contender. In either case, it mattered not. In this kind of environment she would be the sole authority and appeased as such.
He removed his hat and bowed to her, trying to look meek and yet roguish for it was his experience that meek men never interested women very much, while roguish ones never had their full confidence. Trying to strike a happy medium, he held his plumed hat to his chest and bowed. “Ah, madame,” he said. “You have my condolences, for it’s not the first time the rascal has made away with my own belongings. Surely you noted how he wore gold buttons and lace. Well, such disappear from my chests all the time.”
The cook nodded. “And how come you tolerate the rascal?”
“Ah,” he lied happilly. “It was a promise I made his mother who was my mother’s favorite maid. I told her I would look after Mousqueton and keep him from the gallows.” He sighed, one of his big, contrite sighs.
The woman’s eyes softened. “I have a brother,” she said. “Who is exactly like that. And I wish I could find him as kind a master.”
“So my rascal comes here often?” Porthos said.
“Often and often.” The woman nodded. “He always says he needs the food for his master.” She ran her gaze appreciatively across the breadth of Porthos gold-cloak bedecked shoulders and down his silk-bedecked muscular chest. “As if you’d need it.”
Porthos shook his head in empathy.
“Come on down,” the cook said. “Sit down with me, and we’ll talk about it.”
Porthos walked down the stairs, and, with the cook, sat at a broad table far from the fire and near the door. The cook twitched and made minimal gestures and in no time at all a fresh-faced country wench deposited two mugs of red wine in front of them.
It occurred to Porthos that this cook, like Athos, had worked out a system of signals by which means she commanded her subordinates. But then, he thought, listening to the din of knives and spits, of roaring fire and screaming women, how else was she to command them, but with gestures?
He sipped the wine, as the cook spoke again. “I don’t suppose you have a friend looking for a servant? One who would use the same consideration to my brother that you use for your Mousqueton? My brother he’s not bad you see . . . he’s only . . . well, he doesn’t understand why he shouldn’t have the finer things of life that others have, and it upsets him. He’s a good boy, but weak.”
Porthos nodded and sighed. “So is Mousqueton,” he said. Though his conscience reproached him for telling a falsehood. Truth be told, with his servant it was always more a matter of seeing what he could possibly get away with, what he could abscond with right from beneath observer’s noses. Meanwhile Porthos, taking a sip of the wine and finding it of better quality than he expected, was trying to frame a way to ask the woman about secret passages in the palace.
His instinct was to come right out and blurt it, of course, ask her about the famed secret passages of the palace. But even Porthos was not so direct or so trusting in the simplicity of life as to plunge headlong into that subject.
Instead, he chose to take a detour and approach it by degrees. “Unfortunately,” he said. “My friend who is best connected and who knows his way around every great house in Paris . . .” He stopped and sighed and drank his wine. He could feel the cook’s beady eyes fixed on him. “Well, his name is Aramis and—”
The cook gasped and took her large capable hand to her mouth. “Not that Aramis. Not the blond musketeer who was the lover of Madame Ysabella de Yabarra y Navarro de Dreux?”
Porthos sighed and did his utmost to look grieved at having to mention this sad fact. Truth was, he knew people well enough. A friend who might be a murderer was even better than a thieving servant to buy him time and the attention of the cook.
“Aramis loved her well, it’s true,” he said. “He told us she was a seamstress, the niece of his theology professor . . . He called her Violette.”
The cook smiled at the idea of the duchess being the niece of a theology professor. “He seemed so nice,” she said. “The musketeer, not the theology professor. Always talking about doctrinal stuff and theology. He said he meant to be a priest one day.” She sighed. “But I guess that is all over now.”
Here Porthos stirred. “Why?”
“Well, having killed the Duchess de Dreux.” The cook shrugged her capable shoulders, muscular from years of lifting pans and turning spits loaded with game. Her gesture, with no words, seemed to imply that Aramis’s life was as good as over.