by Stuart Gibbs
By now, Greg and Athos had made good progress across the city. The towers of Notre Dame rose close by. The boys cut across the Bridge of Saint Denis, where the remnants of the cheese shop still smoldered, and then raced across the Île de la Cité.
As they pushed on, Athos began to limp, favoring his good leg. Greg glanced down and noticed a dark stain of blood around his wound.
“Maybe we should slow down,” Greg said. “You’ve been going nonstop today.”
“Me?” Athos asked. “You’ve battled the king’s guard, Milady, and Condé.”
“And Dinicoeur and Richelieu,” Greg said.
Athos looked at him, impressed. “When?”
“Shortly before I ran into you.” Greg told Athos what had happened in more detail. “I’m assuming the king’s guard took both of them into custody, though,” he concluded. “After all, they know both were traitors to the country.”
“Never assume anything where those two are concerned,” Athos warned. “If they got away, they’ll either be coming after you or lying in wait wherever the second half of the Devil’s Stone is. You’d better be on guard.”
Greg nodded. “All right. And you’d better take care of yourself. You don’t want that leg getting infected again.”
“My leg is fine,” Athos said, giving Greg a smile. “I owe you my life. I don’t think I ever thanked you properly.”
“You’ve saved mine plenty of times,” Greg said.
“Yes, and then I turned my back on you.” Athos looked away, ashamed. “I was upset at how Milady had used me for a patsy. My pride was wounded and I turned on you, as though you were the one I couldn’t trust. That was small and petty of me, and I’m sorry.”
“And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth about myself earlier,” Greg said.
“I understand why you didn’t. You’re from the future. That makes you awfully . . . peculiar.” Athos grinned, letting Greg know he was teasing. “But you’re still one of the best friends I’ve ever had. I’ll miss you when you have to go home.”
“I’ll miss you, too,” Greg said, then added, “if I ever get the chance to leave.”
“Oh, you’ll get it,” Athos said. “I’m going to make sure of that.”
They arrived at the cathedral, and Greg knocked on the huge front doors.
“Who goes there?” a suspicious voice demanded from the other side.
“It’s us, Porthos,” Athos said. “Athos and D’Artagnan.”
They heard the bolt on the other side being thrown, and then Porthos peeked out the door. “Hello,” he said with a big smile. “Come in.”
“I assume from your presence here that you were successful in your mission,” Athos said.
“I was,” Porthos replied proudly. “Stefan and his mother are hidden away safely where Dinicoeur will never find them.” He held the door open wide, allowing the boys inside.
Aramis was right behind Porthos. Inside, the cathedral glowed warmly with candlelight, and everyone Greg cared about was there: his parents, Catherine, and his fellow Musketeers. Greg couldn’t imagine a more wonderful sight.
“You’re all right!” Catherine ran to him and threw herself into his arms. “We were so worried about you!”
“I was worried about all of you, too,” Greg said. “Looks like you made it out of the palace all right.”
“You did the hard part, distracting the guards,” Catherine said. “We didn’t have any trouble.”
“And Milady and Condé?” Athos asked.
“We tied them up good and tight,” Catherine said. “And Condé’s men, too. They’re not going anywhere.”
Aramis immediately pulled Athos aside to check the bandages on his leg. A little blood had seeped from the wound, but thankfully not too much. “How’s your leg holding up?” Aramis asked.
“It still hurts,” Athos said. “But not so badly that I can’t use it.”
Aramis pulled the bandages aside and inspected the wound. “Looks clean,” he said. “And the infection certainly seems to be gone. But all your running around is preventing it from healing shut.”
“I’ll rest once our enemies have been defeated and Paris is saved,” Athos told him.
Aramis sighed, but knew there was no point in arguing. “I suppose I’d better prepare you another poultice then.” With that, he ducked out the door into the church garden.
As Aramis left, Greg’s parents came over to see him. Everything had been so hectic back in the palace, he hadn’t had a chance to give either of them a hug yet himself. Now he put his arms around both and held them tight. “I missed you so much,” he said.
“Not as much as we missed you,” Mom told him.
“I thought I might never see you again,” Greg said.
“I can understand why,” Dad said. “Catherine told us everything you’ve been through. You might have died twenty times over.”
“We’re so sorry you had to go through all that,” Mom said. “If only I’d never given my amulet to that horrible Michel Dinicoeur, none of this would have ever happened. I just wish we could go back home again.”
“That wish might come true soon.” Greg pulled out the amulet and his phone.
His parents gasped in surprise—although Greg thought he caught a glint of disappointment in Catherine’s eyes. She recovered and smiled brightly for him. “You got them both? How wonderful.”
“Now all we need is the other half of the stone and we can go home,” Greg said.
Aramis came back through the door with a handful of fresh herbs for Athos. Greg looked to him expectantly and asked, “Have you learned anything about where the Devil’s Stone is hidden?”
“You really ought to be asking your father that,” Aramis replied. “He’s made some progress while we’ve been away.”
Greg swung back to face his father. “Really? What?”
Greg’s father cleared his throat. “Well, before you left, you told me to search through the library here to see if I could find any reference to a White City of Constantine. I’ve since learned that you actually found that city: Arles. I hadn’t figured that out—but I did find another reference to the White City in an old scroll. It seems that some Roman legionaires brought a piece of something evil from there to Paris many centuries ago, so far back that the Romans still called Paris Lutetia. They had orders from the emperor to take this thing to the farthest reaches of the Roman Empire.”
“That matches the story we heard in Arles!” Greg exclaimed. “The piece of evil they brought has to be the other half of the stone. They were supposed to put it where it would never be found again.”
“That’s where the stories we’ve heard differ a bit,” Aramis said. He knelt before Athos with a fresh bandage and began to prepare the new poultice.
“Yes,” Greg’s father said. “I’m guessing those were the Romans’ official orders, but it seems that a commander of the legionnaires named Gaius had a different idea. He apparently felt that the stone was too powerful to simply throw away. He hoped that at some point humanity might be better suited for it—that we would have the self-control to use it for good and not evil. Therefore, he wanted to make it possible to retrieve the stone again—but just barely. So he constructed a vault to hold the stone. The vault was made to be impenetrable; only someone who was worthy of the stone would be able to figure out how to get it.”
“Obviously, that didn’t work out so well,” Porthos said, “seeing as the first person to find the stone again was Dinicoeur.”
“Did the scroll say where Gaius hid it?” Athos asked.
“No,” Greg’s father said sadly. “Nothing at all.”
“I think it’s somewhere under the Louvre,” Greg said.
All eyes in the cathedral turned to him.
“You do?” Catherine asked. “Why?”
“Because of something you told me back in Arles,” Greg replied. “You overheard Dinicoeur tell Richelieu that the second half of the stone was right under the king’s nose. That must mea
n it’s in the palace, right?”
Catherine looked at Greg, confused. “I don’t understand.”
“Greg, ‘Under one’s nose’ is a relatively modern colloquialism,” Dad said. “To someone from our time, it means ‘close by,’ but to someone from this time, it literally means the stone is under the king’s nose.”
“How could the stone literally be under the king’s nose?” Greg asked.
“Perhaps Louis is wearing the stone on a chain like the one you have,” Porthos suggested. “If it was around his neck, it would be under his nose.”
“Louis isn’t wearing any amulet,” Athos chided. “We would have noticed by now.”
“Wait!” Aramis cinched the poultice tight on Athos’s leg and stood, his eyes alive with excitement. “Maybe Dinicoeur wasn’t talking about King Louis at all. What if he meant another king?”
“Another king of France?” Porthos asked. “As far as I remember, there’s only one.”
“One living king,” Aramis corrected. “But there are kings in this city who aren’t alive.”
“You mean dead ones?” Greg asked. “You think the stone’s locked away in a tomb somewhere?”
“No,” Aramis said. “I mean a king who was never alive. As you all may recall, Louis is betrothed to Anne of Austria. The wedding is scheduled for next month.”
“Is that still on?” Porthos asked. “Seeing as her father sent an army to overthrow the country?”
“I suspect it is,” Athos replied. “Philip is going to want peace with France even more after that. And there’s no better way to broker a peace than to marry off your daughter.”
“Very well, but what does all this have to do with the king’s nose?” Catherine demanded.
“King Louis’s mother, Marie de Medici, felt that the marriage should be celebrated with a great gift of art,” Aramis explained. “So she commissioned a huge bust of King Louis from Pietro Tacca.”
“Pietro Tacca?” Greg’s mother asked. “He’s the student of Giambologna, right? They did the great sculpture of Louis’s father, King Henry, on the Pont Neuf.”
“Yes, although that one isn’t finished yet in this time, either,” Aramis corrected.
“But Tacca and Giambologna work out of Italy . . . ,” Greg’s mother began.
“They did,” Aramis said. “However, for these two works, they set up an artist’s studio—an atelier—in Paris. Everyone in the city has been very excited about it. With the unveiling of the bust, Paris will finally become known as a city whose art rivals that of Rome.”
“How big is this bust, exactly?” Greg’s father asked.
“I’m not sure,” Aramis admitted. “No one has seen it yet. But it is supposed to be monumental.”
“So then, something located under the bust of King Louis would literally be under the king’s nose,” Greg said.
“Exactly,” Aramis agreed.
“Where’s the atelier?” Greg asked.
“Directly across the street from where we’re standing,” Aramis told him.
“That would explain everything,” Greg said excitedly. “The clues we had weren’t pointing to two different places in Paris at all.”
“What do you mean?” his mother asked.
“We knew two things about the location of the stone,” Greg explained. “Dinicoeur said it was right under the king’s nose, which I assumed meant the Louvre. And his map indicated a connection with a Crown of Minerva somewhere on the Île de la Cité. But if ‘the king’s nose’ is on the Île de la Cité, then both clues are indicating the same location. The stone must be somewhere on this island.”
“Then where is the Crown of Minerva?” Greg’s mother asked.
“I don’t know yet,” Greg admitted. “But I’m sure we’ll find it if we start with the bust of King Louis.”
“Then what are we waiting for?” Porthos asked. “Let’s go find this stone!” He started for the cathedral doors.
“Wait!” Aramis cried. “The atelier is certainly locked up at night. We can’t break in. It’s against the law.”
“We are the law,” Porthos told him.
“It’s morally wrong,” Aramis protested.
“The fate of the world is at stake,” Porthos countered. “I think we have some moral leeway here.” He reached for the doors again, although before he could open them, there was frantic knocking.
Everyone in the cathedral tensed.
“Who goes there?” Porthos demanded in his most commanding voice.
“The emissaries sent by Commander Henri Ducasse,” came the reply. “We are here to escort Athos to the palace.”
Porthos looked to Athos for confirmation. Athos nodded that it was all right to open the doors.
Four soldiers stood in the plaza before the cathedral. They were all breathing heavily, having run there from the Bastille in full battle gear. The leader, a tall man with a bristling mustache, spoke directly to Athos. “Are you ready to go? Commander Ducasse says our mission is of great urgency.”
“I’m ready,” Athos said, then looked to Catherine. “Although we need a guide back through the palace to where you left Condé and Milady. I hate to ask a lady to put herself in peril. . . .”
“Then I shall simply volunteer my services,” Catherine said. She and Athos headed out of the cathedral. The others rushed after them out into the small plaza before Notre Dame.
Aramis pointed across the plaza to a large building that looked like a warehouse. “That’s Pietro Tacca’s atelier right there.” He started toward it, Porthos and Greg’s parents on his heels.
Greg held back, however. He took Catherine by the arm before she could leave. “Be careful,” he told her.
“You too,” she said with a smile.
Greg stared into her eyes and felt warmth, comfort, and trust in her gaze.
Suddenly, there was an explosion from the direction of the Bastille.
Greg and Catherine turned to see a ball of fire rising from the city’s eastern gate.
“What was that?” Catherine gasped.
“Bad news,” Aramis replied. “I think Condé’s assault on the gate has already begun.”
FOURTEEN
“CHANGE OF PLANS,” ATHOS SAID. “I NEED TO HELP PROTECT the gate. If it falls, Condé’s army will overrun the city.” Without waiting for anyone to respond, he headed off in the direction of the explosion. He still limped a bit, but if his leg was causing him any serious pain, he didn’t show it.
“Wait!” Porthos called. “What about Condé and Milady?”
“You go get them!” Athos yelled back. “They’ve been tied up. Even you should be able to handle that!” He flashed a smile, then ducked around the side of the cathedral and vanished into the night.
“I suppose he’s right,” Porthos said. “Besides, I won’t be any help finding the stone. That will require brains, rather than brawn.” He turned to Catherine and the four soldiers Henri had sent. “Let’s make haste, shall we?”
The six of them ran off, leaving Greg, his parents, and Aramis in the plaza. Greg noticed that Aramis and his parents all looked very worried. Although he felt concerned himself, it seemed it was up to him to be the confident one. “All right,” he said. “Let’s find this stone and get back home.” He strode purposefully across the plaza to the atelier.
There were two huge doors in front—Greg guessed they needed to be huge to allow the giant sculptures inside to be removed—and they were locked tightly with a hasp and padlock. The windows were shuttered and locked from the inside.
“How are we supposed to get in?” Greg’s mother asked.
Aramis pointed up. “There is a large system of louvers in the roof. I have seen it from the bell towers of Notre Dame. I hear that Tacca likes to have natural sunlight in his studio when he works. You’re the most nimble of us, D’Artagnan.” Aramis glanced at Greg’s parents. “I mean Gregory.”
“D’Artagnan’s fine,” Greg said. “It’s kind of grown on me.” He handed Aramis his sword a
nd studied the facade of the atelier. It was two stories tall and made of rough stone. It wouldn’t be the easiest building to scale, but it was still less difficult than plenty of walls he’d faced in the rock gym.
He started up. As his legs and arms were already aching from exertion, he tried to move quickly, so as to put as little strain on them as possible—and yet he’d only gone a few feet before he could feel his strength draining. Still, he pressed on, scrambling from handhold to foothold, until finally, he pulled himself over the lip of the roof and collapsed on the shingles at the top.
“Are you all right?” Aramis called up.
“Yes,” Greg replied. “I just need a few moments.”
From where he lay, he could see the eastern gate of the city. It was, at most, a half mile away. Flames flickered around it—the result of the explosion, probably—and silhouetted against them, he could see men in the heat of battle. Greg wondered if one of them was Athos; the other Musketeer should have been there by now. Thankfully, the gate still appeared to be standing, although beyond it, Greg could see Condé’s army amassed, waiting for the wall to be breached.
Greg was struck by the thought that he was in the wrong place. As a Musketeer, he should have acted like Athos and raced to defend the city. Instead, he was simply trying to find the other half of the Devil’s Stone so he could get back home again. Athos had acted selflessly without hesitation, while Greg had not.
No, he thought. You must find the stone. With the power of the stone, all can be set right.
Greg realized that the piece of the Devil’s Stone, dangling from his neck, had begun to pulse. It was very faint, but it was definitely happening. Is the stone speaking to me? he wondered. It seemed impossible, but the stone had done the impossible before.
Greg began to feel energy return to his body. It was almost as though the stone was giving him power. He didn’t feel invincible, exactly. It was more that the fatigue in his limbs was ebbing away. He stood up and quickly moved across the roof.
The louvers Aramis had mentioned weren’t hard to find: They took up most of the roof. They were a series of giant slats that could be maneuvered to allow the sun in, but keep the rain out. They were designed to be operated by a chain that dangled to the floor; by pulling on it, the sculptor could alter the angle of the louvers above. They were so well constructed that when Greg lifted up on one slat, they all popped open, revealing the workshop floor far below.