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Excerpt from
by
Sarah D'Almeida
The Many Inconveniences Of A Sin Of Vanity; Flying and Fighting; Murder Done
Up and Down The Staircase; Alarm and Peril; The Demands of Friendship
Monsieur de Treville’s Displeasure; Secrets Kept; Where Plots and Treason Lurk in Every Corner
hg
Monsieur Pierre Du Vallon – a huge man with broad
shoulders and a wealth of red hair and beard – knew that his besetting sin was
vanity.
Oh, he wouldn’t put it that way, though his friend,
Aramis often put it just that way. If pressed, Monsieur du Vallon, whom the
world had known for years as the Musketeer Porthos, would say that he knew
himself to be a well set man, twice as broad, twice as strong, twice as valiant
as all others. Pushed further, he might admit he had a fine taste in clothes
and that his sword play was the best ever seen. This he did not consider
vanity, as such, but a mere statement of facts. It only seemed to him odd that
most people refused to acknowledge these truths.
That this made him particularly vulnerable to the
admiration of those who did know Porthos’s true worth, Porthos would be the
first to admit. It had been Aramis’s admission that Porthos was the best
fencing master in Paris which had caused Porthos to try to teach the effete
young man – then known as Chevalier D’Herblay – how to fence in time for an
impending duel. It had, however, been Porthos’s real worth as a teacher that
had allowed Aramis to kill his opponent in that duel – in direct violation of
the king’s edict against dueling. And this in turn had forced both D’Herblay
and Du Vallon – his second in the duel – to go into hiding, as Aramis and Porthos
in the king’s musketeers.
None of which, Porthos thought, as he stood in the
middle of the vast, empty room, explained why he found himself now waiting for
a student who was a good two hours late.
The student, Guillaume D’Jaucourt had approached Porthos
a month ago and had told Porthos that he knew Porthos’s secret. He knew
Porthos’s true identity. Porthos had shrugged this off, because who would
listen to a son of minor nobility, a young boy just turning twelve. And
besides, Porthos was fairly sure that the king and Monsieur de Treville,
captain of the musketeers, knew his identity. He was fairly sure, even, that
it was an open secret in the court. It was only that – Porthos thought – as
long as no one could prove it, the king didn’t need to punish Porthos for Du
Vallon’s trespass.
But then the young man – who had begged Porthos to
teach him fencing – had said that Du Vallon had been universally acknowledged
as the best fighter and sword master in all of Paris – which is to say in all
the world.
Porthos’s inability to resist hearing the truth thus
stated, had made him agree to teach the boy to fence. And he’d done just that
for weeks. The youth – a stripling promise of future manhood – had proven deft
with the sword, capable of parrying and thrusting with the best of them, and
with fast and deceptive enough footwork to rival Porthos’s own.
Not that Guillaume was ready to fight duels. He was
all of twelve, with dark read auburn hair, grey eyes and an intent, serious
expression. He’d listened most attentively to Porthos instructions not to
duel. After all, the Musketeers didn’t take boy recruits. But he’d proven a
willing student, ready and capable of great work.
He’d always been in time. Punctual like an
Englishman. It was only today that he was late. Very late. And Porthos found
himself worried against his wishes.
The room where Porthos stood was in the bottom of
floor of the lodgings he rented. Situated at the back, it faced the garden and
the back gate. It had been – in the distant past when the house had been built
and when this area of Paris had still held fields and farmers – the loggia of
the building, the place where harvest was brought in and fruits and vegetables
stored.
Vast and cool and windowless, it got all its light
from the door when it was opened. Why the landlord hadn’t converted it into
rooms to rent, Porthos didn’t know nor care. But when he’d found out that this
room sat here, unused, at the back and bottom of the house, he’d made it his
business to ask the landlord for the use of it.
Given the musketeer’s size and girth, few men of
normal size thought to say no to him. And so Porthos, and his friends –
Aramis, Athos and D’Artagnan – had for some time commanded the use of this room
for their sword practices. Musty and smelling of long-disuse and dried apples,
it was nonetheless broad enough and secret enough they could have mock duels
without calling on them the wrath of the Cardinal Guards with their fanatical
enforcement of the prohibition on duels. And here they didn’t have to listen
to comments and heckling from other musketeers as they did when they practiced
at Monsieur de Treville’s residence.
Aramis had snickered and said it was vanity that had
led Porthos to line the narrow space with many mirrors. And though Porthos
felt aggrieved by the accusation, he did not know how to defend himself.
For there was this in Porthos, able, accomplished
giant that he was – that words scared him more than any foe might whom he could
meet in field of battle or duel. Words slipped through his mind, where sounds
and sights and senses resounded as clearly as church bells on a silent summer
afternoon.
So he lacked the words to explain to Aramis the
mirrors were there for two reasons – one to propagate what little light came
through the open door. And another, to allow him to study his movements and
those of his opponents when they practiced sword play. If it allowed him to
examine the excellent cut of his doublets, the fullness of his hat plume and the
way his broad, ankle-long venetians molded his muscular legs, so much the
better.
But now he looked in the mirror and did not see
that. Instead, above the worn linen pants and tunic, in which he’d dressed for
the lesson, he saw a pale, intent face with dark blue eyes staring in puzzled
wonder.
Because Guillaume hadn’t come.
And this, he told himself, might not mean anymore
than that the boy had been stopped by a zealous father or an officious mother.
From things the boy hadn’t said, from hints and notions and occasional mentions
of his family, Porthos understood they didn’t mean for him to learn to fight.
Why, Porthos couldn’t hazard to guess. Who
understood parents, anyway? Porthos’s own father hadn’t wanted his son to learn
to read, being fully convinced that learning to read would soften and feminize
his huge son. Porthos hadn’t been able to master reading until he’d come to
Paris in search of his fortune.
Perhaps Guillaume’s father intended the boy for the
church and perhaps he subscribed to the – not particularly popular – notion
that churchmen should be men of peace. In which case, Porthos should introduce
him to Aramis, who had once been a seminarian and who still considered himself
in training for the habit, but who could wield the sword with murderous skill
and intent.
Still, Porthos told his very worried-looking
reflection – Guillaume’s absence meant nothing. Absolutely nothing. Just that
his family had caught him sneaking out of their lodgings. Or perhaps that the
boy had changed his mind about wanting to learn sword play. Which meant
Porthos should never have agreed to teach him in the first place. Or not for
free. At least if he’d demanded money the boy might have taken the whole thing
more seriously.
The Porthos in the mirror ignored these rational
reassurances. He bit worriedly at the corner of his lip. Porthos grumped, and
smoothed his moustache out of his mouth and glared at his reflection.
The reflection glared right back, his eyes full of
worry. Worry for what? The boy was fine. He’d missed one lesson. What was
there to that?
Porthos’s thick fingers pulled and stroked
frantically at his luxuriant red moustache. What was there to it? Only this.
That the boy had been so intent, so decided, so capable of hard work, that
Porthos refused to believe he would give up on his lesson so easily.
And because Porthos had made sure the child
understood that he wouldn’t continue teaching him unless he showed for every
lesson punctually, Guillaume would know that this one miss could mean the end
of his apprenticeship.
The Porthos in the mirror looked triumphant,
justified in his worry. And Porthos stomped. God’s Blood! So, the boy was
late. And so, perhaps something had happened to him. What was Porthos to do
to that? He was not the boy’s father.
And on this there was a sharp feeling of something
that inarticulate Porthos would never find the words to describe. He had the
sudden forlorn feeling that, had life been different – had his family lands not
been poor and forsaken and inhabited by peasantry just as poor and forsaken;
had his father known how to plant the land with newer, more fashionable crops –
he would now be married and have a half a dozen children clustering around him.
The longing for that life that had never happened surprised him. He would have
liked half a dozen broad shouldered sons, clustering around him, learning sword
fighting and horseback riding from him, and admiring their father’s strength
and courage.
He growled at the Porthos in the mirror, whose image
was giving him these ideas and, removing his hat, flung it with force to the
dusty stone floor of the room. Oh, curse it all. God’s Death! What was he to
do about this? And what did Guillaume have to do with these children that
Porthos had never had and would probably never have?
What he had to do, the frowning, worried reflection
seemed to tell Porthos, is that Porthos had enjoyed Guillaume’s company as if
Guillaume were a replacement for those sons Porthos would never have. And the
boy had responded to Porthos that way too. He’d listened to him with full
attention and learned to repeat his movements faultlessly.
No. Nothing short of a major disaster would have
prevented such a determined and cunning boy from coming to his lesson.
Slowly, Porthos picked up his hat and dusted its
plume. The devil of it was that he had no idea at all where the boy came
from. Oh, the child had told him his name, but D’Jaucourt was not a name that
Porthos knew. It must be the name of a family recently come to Paris from the
provinces and probably renting lodgings meaner than Porthos’s own from some
landlord, in some part of town. What part of town, only God himself knew.
That is, if He had paid any attention to such an unimportant matter.
Porthos hadn’t bothered to find the family home
because the child was clearly coming to his lessons in secret – but
assiduously.
As a huge sigh escaped his lips, Porthos wondered
how to track someone – how to find them and discover if a mishap had befallen
them when you didn’t know where they were coming from or what their route was
to get here?
He walked to the door and looked down at the garden,
slumbering in the early morning cool soon to turn into heated midday of very
late summer. Very well. So, he knew that the child came in through the garden
gate at the back.
Without much thought, without much more than a need
to move, a need to do something, Porthos walked impatiently down the garden
path, past the kitchen garden with its parched-looking rows of herbs, and down,
past an area where trees shaded the path, to the unpainted, rickety gate at the
back that had been barely visible from the practice room’s door.
He opened the gate, satisfied at its shriek, and
looked out at the broad plaza back there. Back here, truly, you wouldn’t know
you were in Paris. This garden gate opened to a bucolic landscape – the back
of several houses, narrow alleys running between the tall walls that encircled
gardens.
There was a vague scent of roses in the air, and
Porthos remembered that Guillaume had come in yesterday with a rose in his cap
– a bright red rose with wide-spread petals, of the sort that often grew along
the lanes of Porthos native village. Guillaume had said they were flowering
just up the lane from here.
Like a dog on the trail, Porthos followed the strong
scent of roses across the plaza. Peering down a lane, he saw a straggle of
nearly wild roses pushing over the top of a rickety stone wall. The roses were
exactly the same color and look as the one Guillaume had worn.
Convinced he at least knew the boy had come this
way, Porthos trotted down the narrow alley. It was barely wide enough for his
shoulders and it was hemmed in by two very long, very high walls, both of
which, from the noise and talks emerging from beyond them, probably hid to
communal gardens shared by several rental houses or houses filled with rental
rooms.
At the end of the alley, another alley ran across
it, forming as if the top of a t. Porthos frowned. Right or left? If he went
right, and the boy was coming in, late, from the left, he would miss him
completely. And then Guillaume would wonder where Porthos had gone.
What had Guillaume said about his route here? What
that might give Porthos a clue as to where the boy came from?
Vaguely, because he hadn’t been paying much
attention, Porthos remembered that Guillaume had complained of the heat of a
smithy he passed on the way here. It had been a couple of weeks ago, when
August was at its hottest, the sun beating Paris to a red heat, as though it
had been metal laying on Vulcan’s own forge.
And now straining his ears, Porthos could ear as if
hammers on metal. From the right. He hastened down the right side of the
alley, till he came to a busy forge. It took up the bottom space of a tall
house, but it had at least three doors, all of them open to the day. There
were anvils with sweating men pounding on them, and there were boys working
frantically at the bellows, and there was a nobleman – from the attire – in a
corner, holding a nervous white horse who was being shoed by two muscular young
men.
Porthos bit at the corner of his moustache. So –
there was a forge. Pray heaven it was the right one. Now... from here...
Something about a fish monger’s. Just down the
street. Porthos’s nose led again, till he came to a fish monger’s in a huge
plaza. From there so many roads led on that Porthos found himself quite at a
loss. Until he remembered Guillaume admiring Porthos’s new boots and saying
that he’d seen some at the cobblers on the way here, but that his father would
never give him money for them.
Peering down the streets, Porthos found the
cobblers. From there, he remembered the boy making some mention of a tavern at
the end of an alley and how musketeers sometimes drank there. The boy hadn’t
wanted to discuss the tavern much, but he’d told Porthos it was the Hangman.
From Porthos’s foggy memories of being led by Athos
to every tavern in Paris, when Athos was in one of his drinking moods, Porthos
found the alley that led to the back of the Hangman.
He walked down half the alley before he saw the
boy. At first, he thought it was just a pile of clothes, though the clothes
were purple velvet and the hat had a plume uncommonly like Guillaume’s. It was
crumpled against a wall, on the muddy ground of the alley at the back of the
tavern.
But when Porthos approached, his big feet raising
dull echoes from the packed dirt, the bundle near the wall stirred, the hat
went up, and a flushed, haggard face with bulging blue eyes stared at Porthos.
“Guillaume,” Porthos said. “What is wrong, boy?”
The boy looked at Porthos. His eyes were wide, and
shiny but didn’t seem to see him. “The angels,” he said. “The angels flying.”
He was very red.
“Oh, here, boy. How much did you drink?” Porthos
asked, feeling annoyed with Guillaume and with himself. It was clear the boy
had got hold of wine somewhere. Clumsily, Porthos reached for the boy and
tried to make him stand, but he only flopped around like an ill-stuffed rag
doll.
Guillaume’s arms moved, outward. “Fying,” he said.
And here, Porthos was momentarily confused. The boy
was flushed, and he acted drunk, but there was no smell of alcohol about him.
Could he have gone mad? Or was he ill?
“Here,” Porthos said, trying to support the boy as
he would one of his comrades when wounded or drunk.
But the boy twisted and convulsed.
“Thirsty,” he said. “Very thirsty.”
Porthos, despairing of holding him firm, finally lifted
him up and threw him over his shoulder. He would take Guillaume back to his
lodgings then call on Aramis. Aramis knew nearly anything and everyone. If
the boy was sick, Aramis was the best person to find the boy’s family. Sick or
mad, they would need to know.
Porthos hurried back towards his lodging at a
semi-run. The boy, thrown over his shoulder, talked constantly, but not of
anything that Porthos could see. “Beautiful,” he’d say. “Angels. Flying.
Flying. Birds. The sky is so blue.”
These words, as they walked through narrow, darkened
alleys made the hair at the back of Porthos’s neck stand up. It was as if the
boy were talking of some reality only he could see.
Suddenly he stopped and convulsed, then again.
There was a sound like a startled sigh.
It didn’t surprise Porthos when he put the boy down
on the floor of the practice room to find the boy had died. Still he checked
it, with a finger laid against the boy’s neck, a hand searching for a heart
beat that wasn’t there.
At long last, he stood and slowly removed his hat in
respect for the small corpse with his wide-open eyes, his expression of
surprise.
Guillaume D’Jaucourt was dead. Who knew from what?
Who knew how to contact his family? Who could break the news to them? And –
if murder had been done – who could ensure the killer was found?
Athos, Aramis, D’Artagnan. The names of his
friends, the other three of what all called the four inseparables, came
unbidden to Porthos mind. He never doubted it.
Slamming the hat back down on his head, he left the
practice room, closing the door gently behind him. Athos, noble as Scipio and
twice as wise, Aramis, learned in theology and the labyrinthine ways of
Parisian society, D’Artagnan the young, cunning Gascon. Those three would know
how to help Porthos see, justice for his apprentice.
Top
hg
The two men looked as different as two men could
look. Early morning, on the marble staircase that led from the antechamber of
Monsieur de Treville’s to his private office, they fought a mock duel for the
right to ascend the staircase.
Defending it, on the higher step, was a dark haired,
pale skinned man. His features would have made a classical sculptor weep and
his zeal-burned dark blue eyes could have graced a mystic or a saint. But he
stood, sword in hand, with the adept grace of the veteran duelist. His tight
laced, Spanish cut doublet and knee-breeches, now more than a decade out of fashion,
lent him a timeless air and also the air of one who would have control over his
own body.
His name was Athos and had been Athos ever since
he’d joined the musketeers to hide who knew what shame or disgrace. Throughout
Paris it was rumored that he came from the highest nobility and that his crime
was such that, if named, it would cause the heavens to shudder.
The rumors were almost right. Before assuming the
musketeer’s uniform as other men take the penitent’s cowl, the man had been
Alexandre, Count de la Fere, descended from one of the oldest and most honored
noble houses in the kingdom. And the sin for which he sought to atone was the
execution of his countess for what had then seemed to him sufficient reason –
but which seemed more monstrous with each passing year and more unjustified
with each new rigor of his chosen penance.
Facing him, on the step below was a man in his mid
twenties. With his long blond hair, his soft, supple clothes that dripped with
lace and screamed with edging and which gave him the appearance of a dandy, he
might look soft and effeminate. No one who saw him would retain the illusion
long and certainly not after seeing the feline leaps, the graceful falls, the
seemingly careless lunges of his sword play.
He called himself Aramis and said he was merely
sojourning in the musketeers till he considered himself worthy of joining a
monacal order. Indeed, only some years ago, as the young and naive Rene
Chevalier D’Herblay, he’d been a seminarian in Paris, intent on taking the
orders for which his pious mother had destined him from birth.
But D’Herblay’s weakness was women. And
unfortunately women showed the same propensity towards him. Which was why he’d
been found reading the lives of saints to a lady of slightly less pure
reputation than her family would wish. In the resulting duel he’d killed the
lady’s brother. Because dueling was illegal, ever since then he’d been hiding
in the Musketeers, under the name of Aramis.
Now he climbed the stair, pressing his friend close,
his thrusts so carefully aimed that they did no more than slit the fabric of
Athos’s doublet.
“You really must learn to cover your right,” he told
Athos with a smile that might pass as a smirk. Athos frowned.
Aramis smirked more widely. There was an excitement
in taunting Athos. Aramis had known his friend long enough and seen him in
close enough situations that he realized inside Athos there was as if a wild
beast, looking out and snarling in fury and held in check only by Athos’s
intellect and Athos’s conscience. There was the feeling that at any moment the
control might slip loose and the best escape the confinement of the well
trained nobleman.
But not now, and not over a game. Instead, Athos
smiled back, one of his rare smiles, this one tinged with the amusement someone
might feel towards an impertinent child. He charged down the stairs, pressing
Aramis close and making Aramis sweat in trying to parry all the thrusts.
The rules of this game, as it was played by the corps
of musketeers -- the best sword fighters in the reign of his Majesty Louis XIII
of France -- were that the first to be pressed all the way up the stairs to the
landing in front of the door to the office of Monsieur de Treville, their
captain, or the first one to be pushed all the way down the stairs and off the
steps altogether would lose the game. The loss usually involved many jokes
from all their comrades and, inevitably, a round of forfeited drinks stood by
the looser and a round of celebratory drinks by the winner.
Aramis had no intention of losing. He’d lost the
last three times he’d played this game with Athos, and the one he’d played it
with Porthos. He’d not yet succeeded in challenging the cunning Gascon,
D’Artagnan, to this past time. The cunning newcomer to their group had a way
of smiling and ignoring the best taunts and challenges from the rest of them.
Unnerving when it had been so easy to challenge him to a duel on his first day
in Paris. One must conclude either that the Gascon had grown prudent –
something as unlikely as a fish growing wings – or that he valued his purse
higher than his life. This last was quite likely, particularly as his purse,
like that of the rest of them, was so often empty.
Aramis’s was not exactly brimming with coin just
now, and he knew while he might be able to forego paying drinks as a winner by
pleading poverty, he could never forego paying the forfeited drinks to the
winner and any hangers-ons should he lose. And Athos could drink most men in
Paris under the table, while showing no other sign of inebriation than a
profound and growing melancholy.
On this thought, Aramis found himself on the very
last step of the stairs, defending himself ineptly with his sword held too
close to his body, while Athos charged down the steps, his lips curled in that
curious snarl-look they got when he was near claiming victory. Seeing Athos
like this, always raised the question whether the musketeer would remember in
time that this was a friendly game and stop himself from spearing his friend
through.
Aramis was fairly sure he would and yet he was not
willing to lose the remaining content of his purse. Making use of his agility,
which was his greatest asset in any duel, he made as if to leap down, then
ducked under Athos’s sword arm and came at him from the other side, pushing
Athos’s sword out of the way with his doublet-padded fore-arm, and physically
forcing his friend to take three steps up hastily. This gave Aramis room
enough to lope upwards two steps and reengage Athos in sword play.
From beneath came the sound of shouted
encouragements. “There’s life in Aramis yet.” And “For a priest, he doesn’t
fight badly.” And, of course, “He is right, Athos does leave his right
shoulder shamefully uncovered.”
All of it followed by the clink of coins that
indicated that bets were being made and paid by the mass of musketeers down
there, in the waiting room.
Aramis tried to ignore them, as he concentrated on
pushing Athos up yet another couple of steps, an intention that Athos resisted
with his not inconsiderable skill at parrying. In a way these mock duels were
harder than the real duels, where Aramis could simply have tried to thrust his
sword through his opponent’s heart. But he would never injure Athos, or not
voluntarily.
Together, Athos, Aramis, Porthos and even the
newcomer, D’Artagnan, had dueled and bled. Their friendship had been cemented
by a hundred instances of mutual defense, a thousand shared secrets. They
could no more kill each other than they could commit suicide. One would feel
much like the other at any rate. And not killing Athos while forcing him up
the steps was harder than it would have been to kill just about anyone. After
all, they’d practiced and fought together so long, each knew the other very
well and every move could be antecipated.
It was easiest of all to fight each other to a
standstill. To get through, Aramis must block every thought and every move
that didn’t have anything to do with sword and footwork, and the unyielding
body in front of him... He must forget it was Athos. Only remember he must
not kill him. He must...
With swords clashing, in the sound of metal, and,
with their swords gripped between them and held upright, with too little room
to move, Aramis pressed forward with his body, forcing Athos up one step, two,
another... Very quickly.
And then Athos recovered his balance. And on that
balance came the ineluctable fact that Athos weighed more than Aramis – his
rather solid mass of muscle and bone still looked lean enough but was by far
more hefty than Aramis’s gracile figure. Once Athos had firmly planted his
feet, Aramis could not budge him.
Athos speaking through his teeth said, “Will you
claim forfeit, Aramis?”
From his voice, it was hard to tell whether it was a
taunt or whether he truly meant for Aramis to forfeit the game and concede
defeat, even though the younger musketeer was nowhere near losing. From
Athos’s maddened dark blue eyes, too, it was hard to tell if he even remembered
what humor was.
“Sangre dieu, Athos,” Aramis said. “Would I
forfeit?”
“Well,” Athos said. “Then I have no choice but to
make sure you lose.” And on that the larger musketeer gave his friend a shove.
Aramis caught himself quickly. A foot behind to
recover his balance, and no harm really done, and then – from the door to the
antechamber, a familiar voice calling, “Aramis!”
He turned, without even thinking. He turned, half
ready to scold Porthos for interrupting him at his game, and then he saw Porthos.
The huge redhead whose ancestors, doubtless, had
come to the coasts of France in long ships, was not dressed in the style in
which he usually permitted himself to appear in public. That was the first
thing strange about it all, because Porthos was vain as a peacock and his
normal attire in public was twice as bright as any bird’s plumage. Aramis
could not remember his friend ever having appeared in public in this attire of
worn linen breaches and a tunic that looked like a beggar would disdain it.
No. Aramis had seen Porthos in these clothes, but only in the practice room,
in the privacy of Porthos’s own lodgings.
In the normal course of things, Porthos would rather
– much rather – die than be seen in public in this shabby a display. But,
worse, the face above the clothes looked like Porthos had already died. Pale
and bloodless, with a greyish tinge to the lips, Porthos’s skin made his eyes
look unnaturally bright, his hair and beard a screaming scarlet stain.
“Porthos,” Aramis said. And thinking no more of his
duel or his potential forfeiting of money to buy enough drinks to fill the
Seine – or satisfy Athos – he jumped over the elaborate railing of the
staircase and landed, sword still in hand, in a hastily cleared space in the
hall below.
Too late he realized he had probably forfeited the
contest, and was not reassured by the sound of Athos’s landing on the mosaic
floor behind him. Not reassured as far as losing the contest, at least but
reassured by Athos’s support. He heard Athos sheathe his sword and remembered
to sheathe his own.
The crowd was parting between him and Porthos.
Though they were all musketeers, battle hardened and ready to defend themselves
against many foes, few had the body to obstruct Porthos progress. The sheer
bulk of Porthos would clear the way. And few of them would stand in front of
Athos or Aramis either.
So as the crowd melted away and pressed out of their
path, on either side of the room, Aramis and Athos met with Porthos.
Porthos was silent – which in itself was strange,
after demanding their attention so forcefully. He looked from one to the other
of them, and then at the staircase and the railing over which Aramis had
jumped. He frowned, as though trying to make sense of something particularly
difficult. “Sorry I interrupted your game,” he said.
“The game matters not,” Athos said. “We can finish
another time.”
And, as Aramis let out breath relieved at not being
held to forfeit, Porthos nodded. “It’s very important, see? He’s dead.”
“Who is dead, who?” Aramis asked, his impatience tempered by concern. He
would easily have been the first to admit that his friend was inarticulate and
had a difficult time expressing himself. But today Porthos seemed inarticulate
even for himself. As if he were in shock. And why would Porthos be in shock
at someone’s death? Death was their profession and their companion, walking by
their side night and day.
“Who is dead? Who?” he asked, in alarm and, lowering
his voice, as the horrible thought occurred to him that he’d not seen the young
Gascon since last night. “Not... D’Artagnan?”
But Porthos’s eyes widened in surprise, as if
D’Artagnan’s death had never occurred to him, and then he shook his huge
leonine head. “No. Not him. The boy. My apprentice.”
Apprentice? Frowning, unable to understand of what
Porthos spoke, Aramis realized that other musketeers were listening in on their
conversation and that a hushed silence had fallen in the room.
Before he could think what this meant, he heard a
well known voice yell, from upstairs, the entrance to the Captain’s office,
“Athos, Porthos, Aramis.”
Aramis turned to see a musketeer – who had been in
conference with the captain – skulk down the stairs. At the top of the stairs
Monsieur de Treville stood, glaring down at them.
Though he was as olive skinned and as short as their friend D’Artagnan, who
came up barely to Aramis’s shoulder and no more than to Porthos chest, there
was not a man in the room that wouldn’t swear Monsieur de Treville was at least
twelve feet tall. And each and everyone of them would have allowed himself to
be – cheerfully – cut into ribbons for the captain.
Which was why Aramis’s breath caught in his throat
as the Captain said, “If the three of you, gentlemen, would come in to my
office, I’d like to be a part of your conference.”
Without a word, Aramis turned to obey. And found
that Athos was already ahead of him, running up the stairs. But he had to
reach for Porthos’s arm and pull before the giant musketeer realized he must
obey. That he hadn’t jumped to the captain’s order meant something was very
wrong indeed.
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“Am I to understand,” Monsieur de Treville asked,
frowning, and rounding on Athos, as he entered the office, “That your young
friend, D’Artagnan, got himself killed?”
Athos whipped his plumed hat from his head and
inclined slightly. In the anteroom he never bothered remove his headgear, but
here, and in the presence of his superior, he had to. “I don’t believe so,
Monsieur de Treville. At least Porthos said no. Didn’t you, Porthos?”
He
looked sideways towards his red-headed friend, to see him standing there,
beside Aramis, his mouth half-open and a look of confused thought on his broad
features, for all the world as though Athos had just asked him an insoluble
question.
Aramis who could be as impatient as any of them with
Porthos’s slowness looked shocked at Porthos’s silence. He reached out and
shook Porthos arm. “Porthos!” he said. “It is not D’Artagnan who is dead, is
it?”
“What?” Porthos said, as though waking. He looked
at the captain as though noticing him for the first time, and, whipping his hat
from his head fanned himself with it. “No, it’s not D’Artagnan.” He looked
around, and homed in on one of the three armchairs that faced a broad desk. He
dropped into one of them and only then seemed to notice the surprised look on
the face of the Captain who remained standing. “I beg your pardon Monsieur de
Treville,” he said then. “It’s been a hell of a shock.”
For a moment it all hung in the balance. Athos
memory extended back over the years when they’d all gotten excoriated in this
office for small offenses and big, ranging from having allowed themselves to be
defeated in a duel by guards of the cardinal to the recent and horrible time
when Monsieur de Treville had been convinced that Aramis had murdered his
mistress. For an offense like Porthos’s – of sitting down in the captain’s
office without the captain’s permission – it could go either way. The captain
could laugh it off or he could yell at the musketeer in terms that would peal
the skin of an elephant.
The shrewd dark eyes of the captain narrowed as his
gaze swept over Porthos. And perhaps because he noticed the musketeer’s
unusual pallor, his look of stunned shock, Monsieur de Treville sighed and
shrugged.
“Who is dead, Porthos?” he said. “And why do you
announce it in my antechamber, thus starting the gossip flowing?” As he spoke,
he walked around his own desk, and sat down in his own chair. He waved to
Aramis and Athos. “You may sit down as well, gentlemen, since Monsieur Porthos
took the initiative.”
Again there was the little surprised motion, as if
Porthos hadn’t fully woken till then. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Shouldn’t I have
sat down? What...”
“No,” Monsieur de Treville said firmly. “Never mind
that. Only tell us who is dead.”
“My apprentice,” Porthos said. “The boy.”
“What boy?” Aramis cut in impatiently, mirroring the
impatience that Athos himself was starting to feel. “We did not have the
pleasure of knowing that you had an apprentice.”
Porthos shrugged. “I did not see any reason to tell
you since it didn’t involve you.”
Athos waited for Porthos to go on and when nothing
issued from Porthos’s lips, he prompted. “Well, will you tell us now?”
“I believe I must,” Porthos said. He sighed.
“Since otherwise I might never know who murdered the boy.”
“Oh, so it is murder you’ve alarmed my antechamber
with,” Monsieur de Treville said, his voice just caught between amusement and
impatience.
This Athos could understand, since Porthos often
caused both feelings in him. The gigantic musketeer from Normandy was not, at
the best of times, a master of rhetoric. In fact, many of the men who
assembled in the antechamber right now took him for a simpleton and marveled
that such men as Athos and Aramis associated with him. And most of them
attributed their friendship to charity.
But the truth was that Athos -- who’d despaired of
heaven on that day when he’d left his wife swinging by the neck from a low
branch in his domain of la Fere and abandoned both title and lands to come to
Paris and become a musketeer – had very little interest in charity and very
little interest in those who were his intellectual inferiors. He knew that in
Porthos’s huge head, beneath the wealth of red hair, worked a brain at least as
fast as his own and probably faster. Time and again, in difficult situations,
it had been Porthos who had cut through the fog of confusion and theories to
see the plain truth: a gift far rarer than seeing the complex truth.
It was just that Porthos – who had once been a dance
master; who was unequaled with sword, and whose thought could follow complex
puzzles – found his way to words difficult and barred, as though his words must
reach the world, one at a time through a small slit in a thick wall.
Now, having declared that he must tell them about
his apprentice he’d ground again into silence. His huge fingers played with
the gold braid on the edge of his hat and he looked attentively down at them,
as though hypnotized by their movement.
“Porthos, you must speak,” Athos said, commanding
his voice to gentleness. His life had schooled him little in such. His father
had demanded much of him, from manliness to courage, but never tenderness and
never charity to those weaker than himself. He’d been inclined to it at any
rate, as a young man who read much and thought more. But he’d had to leave
tenderness and finer feeling behind after his wife Charlotte’s death. After
Charlotte’s murder. “Porthos,” he said, again a little louder, as Porthos
turned to look at him. “You must tell us who your apprentice is and why he’s
dead and why you’re here.”
Porthos shook his head as though to clear it. “He
was Guillaume Joucourt,” he said. “And he came to me to learn swordfighting.
And he died just a little while ago. He’s in my practice room. I’m not sure
he was murdered, of course. I think he was poisoned.”
“He came to you to learn swordfighting?” Aramis
asked. “In the name of all that’s holy, why? Why would anyone come to you for
sword fighting lessons?”
Porthos looked wounded, then shrugged. “You did.
Once.”
“You were a sword master then. It is different,”
Aramis said.
And Monsieur de Treville’s voice cut in, cold and
sensible and holding only the slightest tinge of that amusement that Porthos’s
caused in most people when they weren’t exasperated at him. “Did he know who
you were, Porthos? Or suspect?”
Porthos shrugged, then nodded. “He came to me,” he
said. “And tried to blackmail me into teaching him,” he said. “He was,” the
huge hand was held up at about his shoulder height while sitting. “This tall.
And a stripling with barely as much width to his whole trunk as one of my
legs. Redheaded. Freckled. With pimples starting. And he told me I had to
help him learn to fight with a sword or he would tell the world my secret.”
“And you taught him?” Athos asked.
Porthos looked up. Suddenly he smiled. For the
first time since he’d come in looking dismal and cold and lost, he looked like
himself. “Not because of the blackmail,” he said. “Look, he was a child.
Barely twelve. And all of us when we were children, we were subjected to our
parents’ whims. My father didn’t want me to learn to read, and Aramis’s mother
didn’t want him to learn to fight. And Athos–” he stopped. Their eyes met and
Porthos’s smile died entirely away and he shrugged.
Athos wondered what he’d been about to say. Porthos
and Athos had never, that he knew, discussed Athos’s upbringing. In fact, of
all of them, he was the one who’d ever been least inclined to speak of his
upbringing and background. They might know of the crime that had sent him into
the musketeers, to flee his conscience more than anything else. But of the
time before that, they knew nothing. Athos was not curious enough to ask.
Porthos had an inconvenient habit of knowing the truth. He looked away from
Porthos and at Monsieur de Treville sitting judge-like behind his desk.
“Well, I felt that sometimes parents don’t know
what’s best for their child,” Porthos said. His voice had lost some of its
force but regained it as he went on. “And Guillaume’s parents might not want
him to learn to fight, and they might intend him for the church, but some of
our best fighters have been men in orders and some of our best religious men
have been fierce swordsmen.”
“Indeed,” Aramis said, not without irony. “His
eminence Cardinal Richelieu, himself.”
It was like Porthos not to take this for a challenge
but to accept it as a comment, Athos thought. Because Richelieu had indeed been
a fierce duelist in his youth.
Porthos clearly saw nothing wrong with the mention
of him. “Like him,” he said. “So I thought what harm does it do to teach
Guillaume a little sword play, if he can get away from his parents to learn?
What ill does it do? Who cares?”
“His parents perhaps,” Aramis said, his voice
cutting cold.
“Well, perhaps,” Porthos said, and shrugged. “But I
figured soon enough and somehow that boy would be out on his own recognizance
and he would do as he pleased. And if he was that desperate to learn that he
went through the trouble of finding out who I was and of coming to me,” He
spread his hands across the top of his hat. “I thought the least I could do is
teach him.”
“And did his family find out?” Athos asked sharply.
“Are you sure he died by poison and not from a beating? Some parents...”
Porthos shook his head. “No marks on him. Almost
for sure poison, unless someone hit him on the head. He was talking about
angels and flying.”
Aramis, facing Athos over Porthos’s inclined head
quirked an eyebrow. Athos shrugged. It could be anything. The boy’s father
might have found out and punished him severely. But why should he? “Wouldn’t
it have been easier for the parents to prevent the boy from coming to lessons?”
he said.
“Exactly,” said Monsieur de Treville. He brought
his hands up, with his wrists resting on the polished desk, and touched the
tips of his fingers together. “Exactly what I was thinking, Athos. I was also
thinking that no matter how determined to devote the child to the church few
parents would view this delinquency as little more than a show of spirit.”
“And if they were determined to send him to the
church,” Aramis said. “They were more likely to punish him by making him
repeat maxims of the testament or study his theology.” Somehow he managed an
audible shudder in his disciplined, well-bred voice.
Porthos raised his eyebrows but said nothing.
“Exactly,” Monsieur de Treville said again, and
then, looking straight at Porthos. “Jaucourt, you said? Not a name known to
me. A noble family, you think?”
“He referred to his father as the gentleman
Jaucourt,” Porthos said.
“I’ve never heard of them,” Monsieur de Treville
said. “Of course there are many families come from provincial domains in
search of fortune or royal favor in Paris whose names wouldn’t be known to me.
But usually, if a family is at court, some rumor of their presence, some
reference to one of their retainers, reaches my ears.” He wiggled his fingers
against each other and seemed immersed in black thoughts. “Did he ever tell
you how he found out your true identity, Porthos?”
“Sir?” Porthos asked, puzzled.
“If he was truly twelve,” Monsieur de Treville
said. “Or thereabouts, surely he can’t have done a great deal of searching out
the truth on his own. How would he come by it?”
Porthos shrugged. “It’s... People know it,
Captain. I lived in Paris before I joined the musketeers.” He opened his hands
and if to signal the obvious. “And I’m not exactly one of those people who
pass unnoticed in a crowd.”
Monsieur de Treville nodded, but his long,
thin-fingered hand stroked at his well trimmed beard. “Doubtless,” he said,
and smiled a little as if to acknowledge that the thought of Porthos passing
unnoticed in any crowd was ridiculous. “But it’s been many years, Porthos, and
how would the boy know?”
Porthos shrugged again. “Perhaps his father knew?”
“From a noble family so newly arrived to Paris that
we’ve never heard of their name? Unlikely, my friend,” the captain said.
“But then,” Athos said, “What do you think is behind
all this?” As for himself, he couldn’t anymore have articulated a coherent
theory than he could have hazarded a reasonable-sounding guess, but something
was working at the back of his mind, something that made the hair stand on end
in the nape of his neck.
Monsieur de Treville shook his head. “I hesitate to
say it,” he said. “Since it is possible I am wrong and just of habit
attributing the worst of villainy to a foe. But the Cardinal bears you some
ill will – has born all of you some ill will for a long time, for being the
fiercest fighters in his majesty’s musketeers. And since these past two recent
incidents in which you foiled his plans...1”
Monsieur de Treville drummed his fingers on the desktop. “Well, his animosity
for you knows no bounds. I would say, Porthos my friend, it is quite likely
the boy was sent to you and told who you were. That his death owes something
to the Cardinal. And that things are set to accuse you of murder, in an
attempt to defend yourself from blackmail. What–” The captain stopped.
Porthos was shaking his head violently.
“No,” he said. “Guillaume was sincere and sincerely
seeking instruction in sword fighting.”
The captain shrugged. “Perhaps. I did not say he
wasn’t. Only that the cardinal was behind sending him to you and that the
Cardinal is behind his death. Or might be. Just because Cardinal Richelieu is
the greatest power in France, more powerful even than the king it doesn’t
follow that every plot and every evil should be laid at his door. However, a
lot of them can and it also doesn’t follow he wasn’t behind this one.”
“And,” Athos said, feeling his uneasiness answered
by the captain’s theory. “The truth is that it would be all too easy for him
to find a young boy of small nobility, dissatisfied with his lot in life and to
arm him with the means to approach you. It would be no more unlikely than his
finding an orphan and putting her in a position to impersonate the Queen, all
without the poor young woman knowing she was being used at all.2
It could have happened that way, Porthos.”
“But... a child?” Porthos asked.
“If
the Cardinal thought it fit his views of what is good for France, I think he’d
willingly kill a newborn dauphin in his swaddling clothes.”
Porthos looked at Athos, intently, his eyes focusing
seemingly with all his will. “If the Cardinal has anything to do with
Guillaume’s death, he shall be called out, Cardinal or not.”
The Captain looked alarmed. He came out from behind
his desk and put his hand on Porthos’s shoulder. “Porthos, my friend. The
important thing right now is for you – all four of you, including your friend
D’Artagnan, who was privy to the other crime investigations – to find out who
the boy truly was, how he died, and if there’s a culprit. If it turns out to
be the Cardinal, I shall take it upon myself to seek vengeance. I shall
present proof to his Majesty himself. Meanwhile, I would say you must hide
this crime. And you must promise me that you’ll do nothing rash.”
“Captain,” Porthos said, sounding bullish.
“Promise me Porthos. Haven’t I saved your life on
more than one occasion?”
“Monsieur de Treville, you have, but–”
“Then promise me.”
There was a long silence. Athos could almost
imagine the cogs turning inside his friend’s head as he weighed the best course
of action.
At last Porthos sighed heavily. “I promise. I
promise I shall do nothing until I know. If the Cardinal is guilty though...
I will demand my revenge.”
“Then we shall talk again,” Monsieur de Treville
said. “Meanwhile, I would send for your Gascon friend and start your
enquiries.”
1 Death Of A Musketeer; The Musketeer’s Seamstress.
2 Death of a Musketeer.
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