The Mage Queen

by R A Dodson

  “Thank you, Osanne,” Milady said graciously. “We are immensely grateful for your help. Without you and your granddaughters, I would have been forced to care for two bedridden men with the help of a husband who can barely hobble around on his own injury.”

  “You’re injured yourself, young woman,” said Mme Prevette, indicating the angry cut running down the length of Milady’s cheek.

  “A scratch,” she replied dismissively, waving her hand. “I’ve kept it clean; it will be fine.”

  D’Artagnan felt a slight jolt at the reminder of his failure to protect Milady at the end of the fight, followed by the now familiar unease with the idea of a woman who would pick up a rapier to engage an armed attacker in swordplay and who did not, in truth, either want or need his protection. Thoughts of the battle naturally led to thoughts of the aftermath, and their plans for protecting the Queen. He suddenly wondered what time it was, and how long it would be until that plan was enacted.

  Unsure, as he was, how much if anything the Prevette women knew, he merely asked, “Where is everyone else?”

  Milady’s piercing eyes fell on him, and she replied, “Madeleine is with Olivier in the drawing room, and I must say I’m impressed by her fortitude in the face of his grouchiness. A lesser person would have bashed him over the head with the soup tureen by now.”

  “And the others?” d’Artagnan asked.

  “Gone. They left about an hour ago.”

  D’Artagnan felt an odd and very unpleasant void open up in his chest, which swallowed up whatever words he would have said next. Milady must have noticed his distress, because she added, “Porthos said to tell you Ana María fell in love with the pony at first sight. He said you might never get him back, the way she was gushing over him.”

  He blinked. His father’s pony was gone. The last link—the very last possession that he had shared with his father—was at this moment disappearing into the distance down a dark road toward Chartres.

  “You should have seen them,” Christelle said brightly into the silence. “It was quite comical, really. Grimaud and M. de Tréville were dressed up in women’s cloaks like myself and Mémé, so it would look like Porthos was escorting us and Madeleine back to Blois, instead of taking the Queen away!”

  “Not, perhaps, the most elegant of deceptions, but we thought it might confuse and delay anyone who happened to be watching,” Milady added. “At the Prevette residence, they will shed their disguises and head north under cover of darkness.”

  D’Artagnan barely registered their words, still trapped as he was with his realizations. He was alone in the world, injured, reliant on the care of the others, and now, without even a horse to call his own. His eyes strayed to the impenetrable blackness beyond the room’s single window; the voices of the others faded to a background drone.

  The whip marks on his back began to itch terribly.

  Chapter 11

  D’Artagnan slept poorly that night, when he slept at all. Nightmares jerked him into awareness repeatedly, and he awoke feeling sick and feverish. At first, he was aware of the other people in the room—of Aramis tossing restlessly in the other bed. Of Athos, followed by Milady and, later, Christelle helping him to drink and placing blessedly cool, wet cloths over his forehead.

  As the fever progressed, however, the faces became unfamiliar and threatening as they loomed over him. He fought against them, crying out as his struggles pulled at the stitches holding his wounds closed. Instead of bringing him cool water, the shadowy figures tried to force bitter, stinking poison down his throat. He called out for help from his mother, his father, anyone, but his family only sat up in their shallow graves and shook their heads sadly at him; the blackened flesh hanging from their skulls like rags. He was too weak to fight his tormenters off. Though he choked and coughed and spat, some of the foul potion dripped down his throat to settle like lead in his stomach.

  He continued in a state of semi-awareness for what felt like ages, convinced that he, too, was dead. A wandering spirit, trying to find his loved ones; following the flash of a worn jerkin or the familiar hem of a skirt; crying out someone’s name only to find himself alone and lost in increasingly unfamiliar surroundings with tombs stretching around him as far as the eye could see. Exhausted and hopeless, he stumbled. When his feet caught in the soft dirt of a fresh grave and he fell, he did not try to rise again. The moist soil clung to his face, taking him down into muffled, suffocating darkness.

  When desperate thirst and a throbbing ache in his shoulder dragged him into consciousness some unknown amount of time later, d’Artagnan was genuinely surprised. He blinked his eyes open, fighting lids gummed together by sleep and illness. The blurry form of Athos came into view, sprawled asleep in a chair next to the bed in such a way that he would almost certainly awaken suffering from a sore neck.

  D’Artagnan tried to ease himself into a more comfortable position. As if somehow attuned to the small movement, Athos snapped into awareness immediately, and d’Artagnan realized belatedly that the other man had a hand resting on his arm.

  “Is he awake, Athos?” The voice came from the bed across the room, and d’Artagnan recognized Aramis, sounding slightly stronger than the last time he had heard the man.

  “I think so,” Athos replied. “D’Artagnan? Can you hear me? Do you know where you are?”

  Air grated against d’Artagnan’s dry throat like broken glass as he opened his mouth to reply. He coughed, the motion jarring his injuries further. When he finally regained his breath, it was to find Athos supporting his head and shoulders enough for him to sip from the cup of water that appeared in front of him. At that moment, d’Artagnan could remember nothing sweeter having ever passed his lips, and he began to drink greedily, a pained noise escaping his throat when the vessel was drawn away, out of reach.

  “Not too fast,” Athos said. “You may have more in a few moments.”

  “What... happened?” he asked, his voice still less than a whisper.

  “You took a fever from the wound in your shoulder,” Athos said. “And you are a most recalcitrant patient.”

  “... says the man who once rode from Blois to Villerbon without bothering to mention that he had a broken leg,” Aramis added, sotto voce.

  “The timely delivery of those papers was paramount, as you well know,” Athos replied. “I might have said something, but I couldn’t abide the thought of you fussing over it for the entire trip.”

  “I’m sorry to have been a burden,” d’Artagnan interrupted hoarsely, as vague memories of struggling against his nursemaids surfaced.

  “Don’t mention it,” Aramis said, a hint of laughter entering his voice as he continued. “Besides, I think the black eye makes Athos look positively rakish.”

  D’Artagnan looked at his host more closely, and saw that what he had taken for lack of sleep was actually a bruise. His heart dropped. “Athos, forgive me. I didn’t mean to—”

  Athos waved his words away, looking cross.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said, helping d’Artagnan up to drink some more water.

  When he had slaked his thirst, a terrible thought occurred. “I didn’t hurt the women, did I?”

  Athos snorted softly. It was Aramis who answered.

  “No, d’Artagnan. If you’d hit Milady, you’d probably have found something a bit more potent than willow bark slipped in the medicinal teas they were forcing down your throat. And that’s if you were lucky.” He paused, a smile lifting one corner of his mustache as he continued. “Frankly, I think the same could be said for Christelle. That girl is a force of nature. Milady keeps looking at her with this light in her eyes like she’s found a worthy protégé at last. It’s rather terrifying, actually.”

  “And the other sister?” d’Artagnan asked, searching his memory for a name. “Madeleine?”

  “Too young and small to be much help with holding you down,” Athos assured him. “She’s fine.”

  Reassured, d’Artagnan allowed himself to relax back
on the bed.

  “I imagine Mme Prevette will want to look at your shoulder, now you’re awake,” Aramis said. “How does it feel?”

  D’Artagnan’s focus was drawn to the pounding ache that throbbed in time with his heartbeat. “Like an angry rodent is trapped inside and trying to claw its way out, now that you ask.”

  “Sounds about right,” Aramis replied sympathetically. “You tore some of the stitches, and the rest had to be taken out to allow the pus to drain. Still, now that you’ve shaken off the fever, maybe it can begin to heal properly.”

  THANKFULLY, ARAMIS’ words proved prophetic. As the days passed, d’Artagnan gradually regained his strength under the watchful care of the others. The wound in his side stayed sound, much to everyone’s relief, and before too long both he and Aramis were able to leave their beds for short periods, though the other man still tired after only a few minutes of activity.

  When boredom and frustration at his physical limitations crept in, or when his earlier melancholy threatened to drag his spirits down too far, Athos would appear with some piece of tack from the stables that needed to be cleaned and mended, or Christelle would show up with a book from the small library and demand that he or Aramis read to her and Madeleine, since neither of the girls had ever learned how. At one point, Milady set him to mending torn clothing, though one look at his ragged, uneven stitches ensured that no similar requests followed.

  Still, some nights were worse than others. On one such night, nearly three weeks after the battle, d’Artagnan lay staring at the room’s ceiling, invisible though it was in the darkness.

  “Aramis?” he said softly, not wanting to wake the man if he was asleep.

  “Hmm?” came the drowsy reply.

  “I need to ask you something, and I want you to give me an honest answer. Why does everyone here act as though they trust me?” d’Artagnan asked.

  There was a slight pause before Aramis replied.

  “Why would we not?”

  “You’d all been here at the castle for some time, hadn’t you?” d’Artagnan said. “Then I came along, and within days, you were attacked.”

  “Ah,” Aramis said. “Now I see what you’re getting at. You want to know why we didn’t suspect you of being a spy?”

  “You had—you have—no reason to believe what I’ve told you about myself. And de Tréville didn’t really strike me as the trusting sort, even at the best of times. It doesn’t make any sense for him to have offered me a place with you.”

  “You think not?” There was amusement in Aramis’ voice, and d’Artagnan bristled, his scowl unseen in the dark. “D’Artagnan, Milady vouched for the sincerity of your confusion, during the attack, as to why anyone would want to harm Ana María. Then, of course, there is the small matter of the Queen herself having watched you jump in front of her to take a bullet. Frankly—and I mean this in the politest way possible—if you are secretly a spy and assassin in our midst, you’re very, very bad at it.”

  D’Artagnan took a moment to digest this. “But someone must have told Her Majesty’s enemies where to find her.”

  “We’re well aware of that,” Aramis said, the humor draining from his voice abruptly. “And, yes, it’s a huge concern. To discover that the Queen was staying in this castle is one thing, but to know precisely which room was hers...”

  “Would require inside knowledge,” d’Artagnan finished, and Aramis made a noise of agreement. “But who here would—?”

  “No one,” Aramis interrupted. “That’s the crux of the problem. Everyone involved is completely trustworthy.”

  Not everyone, obviously, d’Artagnan thought, and didn’t sleep for a long time that night.

  Chapter 12

  Toward the end of the third week of his recovery, Mme Prevette decreed that d’Artagnan’s bandages could come off for good. Athos had forsaken his own sling in order to regain the use of his right arm the week before, and removed the dressings from the slash on his thigh the previous day. Only Aramis was still swathed and bandaged; since his wound had been the most serious.

  Having returned a few days earlier to the room he had originally occupied before the attack, D’Artagnan stood in front of a dingy looking glass, craning this way and that, trying to get a good look at the angry red scars now marring his shoulder and side. It was Athos’ reflection in the glass that first alerted d’Artagnan to his host’s presence in the doorway. D’Artagnan turned just in time to catch the hilt of the rapier that the other man tossed to him, grimacing as the sudden movement pulled at his side.

  “Come,” Athos said. “You and I are sparring in the courtyard this morning.”

  D’Artagnan couldn’t help the smile that pulled at his lips as he followed, more relieved than words could express at the prospect of no longer being an invalid.

  His relief lasted right up until his first attempt to parry a thrust, when the pain in his side flared brightly and drove him to one knee with a gasp of surprise.

  “For God’s sake, d’Artagnan,” Aramis called from his position leaning against the railing that surrounded the dusty yard, where he had gathered with Madeleine and Christelle to watch the show. “You’ve been laid up for almost four weeks with major wounds. You can’t grab a sword and pick up where you left off! Take it easy. And Athos? Don’t break him.”

  “You’ve never had injuries this severe before, have you?” Athos asked him as d’Artagnan regained control of his breathing and staggered back to his feet.

  “I broke my collarbone once when I was nine,” d’Artagnan said, trying to keep the defensiveness out of his voice.

  The corner of Athos’ lips quirked up in a brief smile, and the expression seemed kind enough. Relaxing his stance, the older man rested his blade against his shoulder casually.

  “Letting a wound heal is merely the first step to a full recovery,” he said. “The wound must stay undisturbed so that it may scar, but that leaves the area stiff and tight. If the wound and resulting scar are bad enough, that part of the body will always be constricted and may wither from lack of use. However, in most cases, stretching the affected area and forcing it back into service will eventually allow you to regain the majority of your previous strength and range of motion. Or so I have found to be the case.”

  “The downside is, it hurts like the very devil while you’re doing it,” Aramis added helpfully from the sidelines.

  “I see,” d’Artagnan said, somewhat disheartened, but hiding it resolutely behind an air of bravado and a cocky smile. “Well, there’s something to look forward to in the coming days, I suppose. Hadn’t we better get started?”

  He was rewarded with a delighted laugh from Christelle and a look of admiration from Madeleine, while Athos inclined his head slightly in acknowledgement. The pair fell back into en garde position, and began to test each other’s defenses almost casually, to the occasional hoots and applause of their small audience. This time, d’Artagnan tried to maintain awareness of the pull in his side and his off shoulder as he moved, feeling out his new range and finding himself more than a little appalled by his limitations.

  He also watched Athos closely, seeing the faint sheen of sweat forming on the other man’s pale forehead and the way his brow furrowed with discomfort as he gradually pushed himself further and further. D’Artagnan knew Athos was not trying to press him to any great degree, but he still admired the smooth strength and fine form of the other man’s thrusts and parries, abbreviated though they were. If he had not already guessed after seeing Athos’ competence in a fight while wielding a sword in his left hand, sparring with him today would have left him in no doubt that he was in the presence of a master swordsman. In full health, surely Athos would be nigh unstoppable, and d’Artagnan was already plotting ways to entice the man to train him.

  Assuming, of course, that he was ever able to lunge properly again, he thought acidly as an ill-timed overextension left him stumbling and gasping in pain once more.

  “Perhaps that’s enough for the first d
ay,” Aramis called from his perch on the railing. “I’m getting sore just from watching.”

  With a complicated twist of his wrist, the tip of Athos’ sword swished in a smooth figure eight and ended up pointed squarely at Aramis. “Your day will come soon enough, my friend.”

  “Yes, thank you very much, Athos. Believe me—my joyful anticipation knows no bounds,” Aramis replied with a transparently fake smile and an elaborate doffing of his feathered hat with his uninjured left arm, much to the amusement of the Prevette sisters arrayed on either side of him.

  Athos smirked and turned his attention back to d’Artagnan, saluting him briefly before sheathing his rapier. D’Artagnan returned the salute and let his own blade dip to the side, feeling the disused muscles in his arms and torso trembling with fatigue, but also tingling with renewed blood flow.

  “You have a natural talent,” Athos told him, “and the makings of a more than decent swordsman.”

  D’Artagnan was taken aback by the praise, wondering how the older man could possibly come to that conclusion after seeing his clumsy fumbling today.

  “That is kind of you to say,” he replied as Aramis crossed the courtyard to join them. “I perceive, however, that I am considerably outclassed in my current company.”

  “Most people are outclassed as swordsmen in Athos’ company,” Aramis said easily. “Keep sparring with him long enough, though, and who knows?”

  D’Artagnan looked at Athos hopefully. “I would certainly be honored to do so, if Athos continues to be willing. Perhaps tomorrow?”

  “As you wish,” Athos said. “Besides—talented or no—as you see, my options for a sparring partner are somewhat limited at the moment, since Aramis is still indisposed, and it’s generally considered bad form to raise a blade to one’s own wife.”