by Sarah Hoyt
But there was no blade by the basin. Why should he expect there to be? After all, the vampires might be evil, but they were not stupid.
He drew up his feet to sit on the eiderdown, hugging his knees to his chest. His feet were filthy, crusted with blood and dirt, from his escape attempt and being barefoot the whole rushing trip.
There was no way to escape. He would have to sit and wait until Rochefort or his vampires disposed of him in whatever way they saw fit.
Jumping to his feet in the fury of this thought, he aimed a fierce punch at the wall and hurt his hand on one of the many metal fleurs-de-lis that ornamented the wall. He recalled a dim memory of a time when the walls of his room had been waxed wood paneling, without any decoration. What had led his father to ask the village ironsmith to make these fleurs-de-lis and to set them all over the walls?
He stepped back puzzled, rubbing at his chin again. Seen from one side it seemed to make no sense, and from another, it was all a mad dream. He didn’t know how old he was, but the memory of the walls being bare and warm waxed wood paneling came back to him, until his father had commanded these ornaments installed—an odd fancy in a room that was used as a nursery for a small boy—d’Artagnan could not have been more than four years old.
Thinking back on it, he was sure he had thought his father had done it because d’Artagnan had in some way displeased him. He ran his fingers along the cool metal of the flowers, feeling their rough edges. Why would his father consider putting them in d’Artagnan’s room to be a punishment? The emblem was associated with the royal house, to which d’Artagnan did not belong. He supposed that he should not feel insulted, though, to be treated like a prince, though the symbol was now used as a brand for undeclared Judas goats.. But d’Artagnan did not think his father was accusing him of being a Judas goat, or of treachery. Or at least—he sniffled, his eyes being unaccountably close to overflowing with tears—his father had always seemed to him a sensible man, and he wouldn’t have expected a very small boy to understand such an insult.
Dredged from a deeper memory, at last d’Artagnan recalled his father had been furious because d’Artagnan had gotten out of his room, to which he’d been sent as a punishment to “cool your abominably hot temper, young sir.”
He could just hear his father saying it . . . probably not a single memory but a composite of the many times he’d been sent to his room for just that sin when he was young.. He rubbed the bridge of his nose, the thought of getting out of his room foremost in his mind. But how had he done it? Probably, he thought dismissively, by simply opening the window and slithering down the tree, something he’d done as recently as a month ago, simply because he did not wish to worry his mother when he went out to drink at a tavern late at night.
But no. Scraps of memory crept back to him. There had been a hole, a tunnel. He frowned. From his room? Impossible. He was on the second floor. He didn’t doubt that the house might have a secret passage here and there; it was certainly old enough. . Doubtless, it had been built on the ruins of previous houses, so indeed, secret passages might have been left incidentally, if not in truth.
He slowly recollected rough stone walls, and a labyrinth of passages, some of them crumbling plaster with traces of paintings upon them. He frowned at the unlit hearth in a corner of his bedroom. Did he go into the tunnel through a hole that opened in the wooden paneling by the fireplace? He was sure of it . . well, at least as sure as he was of anything he remembered from childhood.
Squatting by the fireplace he tapped the wood panels around it. The dull thud of wood where it backed against the ancient stone walls was a disappointment. . But in an area just to the left of the fireplace, a significant area sounded hollow under his knocking knuckles.
D’Artagnan sat back on his haunches, on the oak floorboards, and stared with a frown at the panel. There was a hole there, so it might be true there had once been some sort of passage. Maybe. Perhaps it merely was a boarded-up door to the next room which might be one of the linen store rooms. Though it seemed to him he rarely heard anything from that room, and from his memory there was a remembered space between the two. He frowned again. Which would be there, if there were a passage.
Kneeling, he examined the panel again, and noted a fissure running all around the panel, but there were no similar gaps around other panels. The crack was hardly discernable and resembled, he told himself, a badly fitted panel. Or, of course, a very well-fitted door.
A deep sigh escaped him. What if there were a secret door? He would never find the way to open it. He scratched at the fissure with his fingernails, but didn’t dare try to knock through the panel. Not with two guards stationed outside the door. He did not intend to end up as tightly bound as he’d been on the trip here. That left . . .
Thinking hard, he dredged up a vague memory of having opened the door by stabbing at a knot in the wall. Yes, he’d pushed it and the door by the fireplace had slid open. And being a young boy he had . . .
It was madness. But all the same, he remembered hearing the sound and looking—over his shoulder and to his left—as the door opened.
He positioned himself on his knees, approximating the height he had been at age—what age?—four, yes, four.
If you were the father of a small boy who had just found the way to get out of his room . . . a way—because d’Artagnan could not believe his father would be so careless as to put his small son in a room with a secret passage leading somewhere—that you might have forgotten or never known about, you could change the boy’s room, but he would remember the secret door. D’Artagnan smiled ruefully remembering his younger self—of course he would return to that room to use the passage again. Or you could just hide the wooden knot with a fleur-de-lis, in a sea of other similar fleurs-de-lis. If he was right, that was why his father had undertaken such an otherwise senseless expense.
He pushed at various flowers on the wall. He pulled them. He crawled on his knees the length of the wall, fiddling with each flower, pulling the petals, the crown, pushing the knots. Nothing happened. Of course, a careful father, might also have disabled the operation of the door. But then . . .
Tears prickled in his eyes again. He was so tired. And the only thing he was sure of was that Rochefort and his minions would return to make him . . . He couldn’t think what they’d want to make him do, except that he was sure it would leave him wishing for as simple an end as poor Jean’s.
In frustration, he punched a flower or two again, then out of despair, started trying to twist the iron ornaments. Two of them twisted, insecure in their attachment to the wall, but nothing happened as they turned. He heard a sharp keening of frustration escape his lips, and bit his lips together forcibly. Such a sound might call his captors. He grabbed hold of the twisted fleur-de-lis, pushed and pulled at it furiously, then leaned on it, fully resting his forehead against another.
Behind him, he heard the sound of a small door creaking open.
Down, Down, Down
THE door was small and narrow, barely large enough to admit d’Artagnan. He looked through it. After a narrow passage, there was what looked like a broad hole and . . . something, d’Artagnan didn’t know what. If he crawled into this hole, there was a chance he would end up stuck further on.
On the other hand, it was possible that it led all the way through to . . .
Where? Confused images, memories of emerging from the tunnel on the hillside, outside the walls of the bastide. If that were true . . .
He frowned. Right. One thing was certain. Even if the passage led only to the kitchens or just outside the house walls, it led outside this room. He entered the passage backwards squeezing in, both because his shoulders were his broadest part and because he wanted his head nearest the entrance to the tunnel, should he need to reverse.
Crawling backwards on his hands and knees was frightening, all the more so when he pulled himself completely into the tunnel. A small handle allowed him to slide the hidden door closed from the inside. After he pulled
the panel halfway, it clicked the rest of the way shut by itself.
D’Artagnan felt trapped, but controlled his quiet panic as he kept creeping backwards until he came to the slightly broader end of the tunnel where, looking behind and beneath his body, he could see a passage continuing and leading vertically down. It wasn’t till he was hanging by his elbows, his shoulders straining with pain and bruised muscles screaming, that his feet found the rungs embedded in the wall. He climbed down, rung by rung, eventually coming to a pitch-dark passage. Feeling his way with his fingers, he followed a smooth, plastered wall for what seemed an endless length of time. He was unable to tell if he was going farther from the room or returning to it, but a blind sense of direction told him he was getting away from his room by degrees and, finally, from the house itself.
In memory, the journey was completely different, but he’d followed the tunnel in daylight then. He guessed there must be holes or other conduits overhead for the attenuated light of day. In the darkness, there were none.
He could feel his way more than he could see it. Feeling cooler air and, suddenly was no longer constricted by the walls and ceiling of the tunnel. D’Artagnan slowly, cautiously, stood. Keeping one hand on a cold, damp, rough stone wall, he took a few steps. From the sound, his footsteps were treading the floor of a cave; from the feeling of the air, even from the immenseness of the dark around him, twirling and enveloping him like a living thing—he knew he was in a vast space. It didn’t feel like a corridor but like a salon or a cathedral.
As he came to the end of the wall he’d been following, a passage opened to his left and another to his right. Turning to the left, he felt the floor go down a step and took it. Two.
Something touched him, enveloped him. It felt, at first, like an enveloping chill. And then it reached in, grabbing and twisting his emotions, making his heart pound, his pulse race, his feet hesitate—he could not descend the next step.
He stopped, his foot midair. Advancing or even leaning in that direction increased his perturbation. Pulling back, the fear subsided. He considered pushing against the terror, simply because he’d been raised with the idea fear was a bad thing and should be conquered. But he remembered the horror he felt at Jean’s death, and the sheer recoil of disgust. There were perils not worth defying. He turned the other way, following the other wall.
The fear subsided. His heart returned to its ordinary rhythm. Step by step, he followed the corridor until he felt fresh air on his face. It came, he determined, from directly in front. Extending his hands, he felt his way forward until they encountered an irregular rock surface. He could feel colder air blow and the smell of the night and the outdoors. He discerned from his touch that the stone—a boulder of some sort he guessed—was roughly round in shape.
He pushed at it, tentatively, then again. No movement. He pushed again, putting his aching shoulder to the burden and pressing with all the weight of his body behind him.
The rock swayed, and a little space opened. Not enough to walk through, but enough to squeeze out on his back. The scant moonlight coming in through the opening showed d’Artagnan what might be an ancient Roman fresco on the wall he’d been following.
He slid into the opening on his back and, pushing hard, managed to shove himself out, inch by inch. He ignored the sound of ripping cloth, the painful scraping of the exposed areas of his flesh.
Emerging on the other side, aching and more bruised than before, d’Artagnan took stock of the situation. He stood on the inside the meandering walls of the bastide, near the second watchtower. He took a deep breath in relief . Even if there were vampires loose in the town, it would be more dangerous outside its walls at night than in. He could see a man atop the watchtower; from his look and the fact he kept a little fire near him, he thought it was a mortal and not a vampire. Which did not mean d’Artagnan would be so foolhardy as to hail him.
He needed someone he could trust. Monsieur d’Astarac, he thought. His father’s accountant and boyhood friend, whose son, Pierre, was d’Artagnan’s own boyhood friend. He would go to the d’Astarac house and ask asylum and—he looked down at his battered feet—for new clothes, or at least boots. He would lay all before them and ask them what to do.
He couldn’t go back to Paris, he thought, when his own town was facing this much strife. But what he could do remained to be seen.
His body in pain, and sore of foot, staying within the shadows close to the walls, hiding at the sound of any passerby, he walked the remembered streets to his friend’s house.
His feet took strides as much upon memory as upon real cobblestones. If he ignored his stinking and tattered clothes and his throbbing body, he might be a boy again, and his only fear that his mother would discover he was out alone.
Sanctuary
“GOOD heavens, boy, what happened to you?” Monsieur d’Astarac said in a shocked tone. Only an old a family friend would refer to the lord of the domain as “boy,” but d’Artagnan had been in and out of his house for years, first as his son Pierre’s young playmate and later, as both grew, to go on rides or hunting with Pierre. Besides, the d’Astaracs were minor nobility—if d’Artagnan remembered properly—and Monsieur d’Astarac would have been a lord himself, save for having been born a third son.
d’Artagnan felt a blush warm his cheeks, but spoke resolutely, “I beg your pardon, Monsieur, but I was . . . that is, I was kidnapped and have escaped capture.”
“Well.” Monsieur d’Astarac stepped back from the door, opening it fully onto a hall that was, like Monsieur de Tréville’s, paved in tile, in this case yellow and black, and allowing d’Artagnan to step into a home lit by many candles and furnished in a way that was more comfortable and richly appointed than d’Artagnan’s own. d’Artagnan had never thought of it before, since the fact his family was accorded more respect had blinded him to the relative wealth of his friend’s family. But now faced with the tiled floor, mellow polished wood surfaces, and a feeling that this was far more hospitable a haven than any he’d entered in a long time, he allowed himself to be blanketed by a feeling of security as Monsieur d’Astarac closed the door behind him and called, in his assured voice, “Cecile, Cecile!”
His lady wife arrived from within and looked shocked at the sight of d’Artagnan while her husband spoke rapidly. “The boy was kidnapped and clearly maltreated. You must get the servants to fill the old tub with warm water for him. Prepare the bed in the green bedroom. Oh, and tell the cooks to prepare food for him, for he can’t have eaten well in some time—have you, my boy?”
Overwhelmed, d’Artagnan shook his head, and allowed himself to be led through various rooms. By the time they got to the green room, a large hip bath was already waiting, full, in front of the roaring fireplace, and everything laid out for his comfort. He bathed, flinching at the sting of soap on his skin, every inch of which seemed to be abraded, cut, or bruised. But after he had bathed, he slipped into the dressing gown they’d provided, an affair of silk and lace unlike anything he’d ever owned, but which felt soft and comfortable against his skin.
He’d asked for a clean suit of clothes and boots, and though Monsieur d’Astarac had teased him about not needing such for a while yet, the fact was that morning would be coming soon—even if in this opulent house, with the curtains closed to keep in the comfortable warmth of the fire, he could ignore that for a while.
So, rather than argue, they’d given him a clean suit of clothes borrowed from Pierre, who was similar in size to d’Artagnan, and he felt like himself again, even if Pierre’s shirt and breeches, doublet and hose—without being bright or gaudy—were all of much better quality and much newer than any that d’Artagnan owned. The boots, too, were almost new. One thing they didn’t provide for him was a sword, and after his time in Paris, he felt almost naked without it.
However, when he lived at home, he had not worn a sword unless going out, so he could imagine that Monsieur d’Astarac would not think of it—not to mention that a sword, scabbard, and belt wer
e costly items not lightly loaned. Upon reflection, especially since, after the last few days, he couldn’t imagine going about unarmed, he took the straight razor from the side of the tub, folded it up, and put it into his right sleeve. He was grateful that he’d been allowed to shave, as they might not have thought about it, since both Monsieur d’Astarac and his wife seemed to think d’Artagnan was all of ten years old.
He had barely wrapped himself in the dressing gown, when there was a knock at the door. At his word, several servants came in. Ten male servants—far more than he’d ever known the d’Astaracs kept—went entered and exited the room, taking out the bathtub and towels and removing any indication that he’d bathed.
In no time at all, as though this were one of those dreams in which things came about just by wishing, two chairs and a table had been set in the room. On the linen-covered table, lay a silver platter with a small roast chicken, accompanied by roast potatoes, and a meagre bowl of withered apples, which reminded d’Artagnan of the apples he’d eaten in the ruined cottage. There was also cheese, of course, a bottle of wine and a goblet.
Monsieur d’Astarac, himself, came in after the food, took one of the seats at the table, and motioned d’Artagnan to take the other. “Eat, my boy, eat. You must be famished. I’ve eaten already, and as you can see we couldn’t find much to serve you at this hour, so I will not join you. But if you will allow me to sit with you, perhaps you can tell me your adventures as you eat.
“I heard of course, that you had gone to Paris, after . . . well . . . It was a sad business my boy.” He made a face. “That was a bad business. Your father and mother . . . gone like that. Not that one cannot help but salute them for their decision and their fortitude of mind. They did not wish to be vampires, and no matter how much it was forced on them, they would not do it.” He inclined his head. “We heard you’d gone to Paris . . . to stay. But now you’re back, and in such a state . . . ”