by R A Dodson
“Are you coughing?” Porthos voiced the question no one had wanted to ask. Once a person with the Curse started coughing blood, they would be dead by the following morning without fail. D’Artagnan held his breath.
“A bit, but it’s dry—no blood or phlegm,” Aramis replied, and d’Artagnan exhaled quietly. “I’m weak; I feel feverish. My joints hurt, and I have a pounding headache—which, I should note, has not been improved by your intrusion. And, of course...” He trailed off, gesturing at his neck and armpit.
“We could send for a doctor,” d’Artagnan said.
“No doctors,” Aramis replied immediately. “If doctors could cure the Curse then it wouldn’t have killed two-thirds of France. And I won’t expose the people of Chartres to the miasma.”
“All right, Aramis—no doctors,” Porthos said. His expression fell as he continued, “It was traveling through Chassant that did this, sure as anything. You could smell the dark magic hanging over the place. I knew we should have gone south instead, through Illiers-Combray.”
There was nothing to say to that. As many unpleasant memories as Illiers-Combray held for d’Artagnan, he would have willingly braved them and fought any of Isabella’s troops remaining there, if it meant Aramis would not have fallen ill.
“You might as well make yourself comfortable while we clean and air out the room, Aramis,” said Milady, ever practical. “Can you eat something?”
Aramis shook his head. “I have no appetite.”
“Try to take some watered wine, at least,” Milady urged, and bustled about, mixing a cup for him. Aramis accepted and took a sip or two before setting it aside, next to his discarded pistol.
As if that was the signal to free the others from their paralysis, they rose and began to divide up the tasks of making the abandoned room livable while Aramis fell into an uncomfortable doze, stirring now and then to curse at them half-heartedly when the banging of furniture being moved or the flap of a rug being shaken out at the open window disturbed him.
By early evening, their surroundings were up to the standards of a group of soldiers, and even the standards of a former comte and comtesse now accustomed to living as such. Aramis woke from an hour’s deep sleep, wracked by chills despite the sultry summer air and the heat radiating from his fevered skin. Porthos hurried to wrap him in a thick blanket and mopped the clammy sweat from his face with a cloth. Milady plied him with a bit more to drink, and after awhile he drifted off again, occasional shivers still chasing themselves through his body.
As the light at the window faded, Athos spoke from the chair he had claimed across the room. “If we’re not to exhaust ourselves, we’ll need to take this in shifts.”
“I’m not tired,” d’Artagnan said immediately, though it would have been more accurate to say that he dreaded the images his mind was sure to supply him with if he were to close his eyes. “You three should get some rest.”
Athos nodded. “Anne and I will take the room next door. Porthos?”
“I’ll sleep in here, on the settle,” he said, pointing to the low, wooden construction in the corner. Had d’Artagnan not known from experience that Porthos was capable of sleeping absolutely anywhere and under any conditions, he would have suggested somewhere more comfortable.
“I want to stay up for a bit and pen a more informative report for de Tréville and the others,” said Milady. “I’ll check whether they found the note I pinned on the door to the main wing, and I might see what state the kitchens in this wing are in.” She rose, and kissed Athos briefly before turning to depart. “I’ll be along in a while.”
When she disappeared through the door, Athos rose as well and crossed to stand with them near the bed. He laid a hand on Porthos' shoulder, and squeezed the back of d’Artagnan’s neck briefly. D’Artagnan looked up at the familiar face of his mentor, marred now with an ugly burn scar under his right eye, a memento of his torture at the hands of Isabella’s would-be assassins.
“You’ll wake us immediately if you need anything, or if there’s any change,” Athos said, not phrasing it as a question, and d’Artagnan nodded.
He puttered around, lighting a single candle while Athos headed to the room next door and Porthos made himself a nest of blankets on the settle and curled up to sleep. Sitting in the chair by the bed, d’Artagnan allowed himself a twinge of envy as, a few minutes later, the sounds of heavy snoring began to emanate from the corner. He had a feeling it would be a very long time before he himself next slept.
Time crept by like cooling treacle, marked only by the candle’s slow drip of wax. D’Artagnan startled free of the demons in his mind, jarred to awareness by a soft moan as Aramis awakened. He leaned across and picked up a rag, dampening it and mopping Aramis’ brow as the sick man blinked into awareness.
“How do you feel?” he asked when Aramis’ eyes settled on him with apparent lucidity.
“About the same, to be perfectly honest. Though I’d like a word or two with the tiny man who keeps driving a dull axe into my skull every few seconds. Help me sit up, please.”
D’Artagnan eased Aramis into a sitting position against the ornate headboard, propping him up with some of the dusty embroidered pillows they’d found earlier in one of the other rooms. He accepted the cup that d’Artagnan handed him, but made a face after a single sip and set it aside. A particularly loud snore came from Porthos’ direction, drawing Aramis’ attention to the sleeping man.
“Taking it in shifts, are you?” he said, his voice weak and hoarse.
“Yes,” d’Artagnan replied simply. “Do you need anything?”
“Distraction would be good,” Aramis said. “I find I am not yet ready to contemplate weighty matters of faith and mortality, so let us speak of something else.”
“What should we talk about?” d’Artagnan asked. His mind seemed to have seized up like a rusty wagon wheel ever since learning of Aramis’ condition that morning, leaving it stubbornly blank and slow.
“Tell me how things fare with the delightful Constance,” Aramis said.
“I don’t understand her,” d’Artagnan said truthfully.
“You’re a man,” Aramis said, “and a young one at that. Of course you don’t understand her. Did you talk to her as I suggested?”
“Yes, but it didn’t help. I asked her how I had offended her, but she would only insist that I hadn’t offended her at all. When, obviously, I had. Else why would she stiffen and pull away from my touch when I kissed her?”
Milady’s low voice came from the open door, where she had just reappeared from her various self-appointed tasks. “Interesting that you automatically assume her reaction must be all about you.”
D’Artagnan and Aramis both looked to the doorway, startled.
“What else would it be about?” d’Artagnan asked, genuinely puzzled.
”Pfft.” Milady made a small sound of disdain. “She has almost certainly been forced in the past. She was married at the age of fourteen to a man nearly thirty years her senior; it’s quite possible that being taken forcibly is the only way she’s ever known.”
D’Artagnan felt his heart, which had received too many shocks already today, begin to pound against his ribcage in the ensuing dead silence.
“Sorry,” Milady said, not sounding particularly sorry, “I’m sure this was meant to be a private conversation, but I heard voices as I was returning to the other room. Then, I heard what the voices were saying and decided that I had best step in and clarify matters before d’Artagnan pined himself into a permanent stupor.”
D’Artagnan realized that his mouth had been hanging open and closed it, just as Porthos let out another stertorous snore from the corner.
“That would explain quite a bit, to be sure,” Aramis said, sounding sad.
“But... they were married,” d’Artagnan said. “Why would he hurt her? He was supposed to care for her. Protect her.”
“You and Constance are surprisingly well-matched in terms of your innocence regarding the way the wor
ld works,” Milady said, and d’Artagnan bristled—how could she speak of innocence when he had buried his entire family—when Constance had buried a husband and an infant child? But she continued, “Picture it, though. A child bride with next to no idea what to expect on her wedding night... a husband eager to claim his young, attractive prize. The first time can be painful; she protests—tries to pull away. He ignores her pleas or, at best, tells her to be still and it will get better.”
D’Artagnan felt anger and nausea rising in equal measure as he pictured the scene.
“Because the first time was painful and frightening,” Milady continues, “the girl assumes that it will always be that way, and her fears become largely self-fulfilling. The husband, meanwhile, cares little as long as she submits to what he sees as her duty.”
“I would kill any man who treated Constance in such a way,” d’Artagnan said, finding it hard to force the words past the thick lump in his throat.
“He’s already dead,” Milady said, sounding impatient. “What good does your posturing do her now?”
“Well, what then?” he snapped, barely remembering to keep his voice down as Porthos slumbered on across the room.
“D’Artagnan.” Aramis' rough, weak voice cut across his frustration. “Milady only means that a woman who has been hurt by men in the past may not appreciate another man whose thoughts turn immediately to violence whenever his passions are roused.”
D’Artagnan subsided, forcing himself to think through their words. Seeing the sense in them. “I think I understand,” he said eventually. “I’m sorry for raising my voice, Milady—you’re perfectly correct that it is foolish to threaten a dead man.”
Milady waved his apology aside with a curt gesture, and d’Artagnan got a sudden sense that she would prefer to be having nearly any other conversation than this one.
“I appreciate you’re bringing the matter to my attention and helping me comprehend the situation more clearly,” d’Artagnan said. “Only... how do you know so much about it?”
“I talked to Constance about her background,” Milady said. “More importantly, I listened to what she said in return. You might try that, if you wish to have any sort of future with her. Particularly the listening part.”
“I will,” d’Artagnan said, still trying to fit this new information into the landscape of his interactions with Constance. “What I meant though, is how you know so much about the way a woman reacts. You’ve never been—”
He cut himself off, seeing Aramis wince out of the corner of his eye at the same time his mind caught up to his mouth, and what he was implying. Milady’s expression had been cold before, but now it might as well have been cut from solid marble. “Forgive me,” he hurried to say. “I shouldn’t have—”
“I understand that my sordid past has recently been laid bare in my absence for your curiosity and delectation,” she interrupted in a voice like winter wind. “Perhaps you did not think to ask yourself afterwards what reason my parents might have had for sending me off to a nunnery at the age of sixteen. Goodnight, gentlemen.”
Without waiting for them to speak, Milady turned and retired to her husband’s bed in the room next door, leaving d’Artagnan feeling as if he’d just been struck across the cheek. He leaned his elbows on the edge of the bed, burying his face in his hands and scrubbing at it. Aramis’ shaky hand landed on his right forearm a moment later.
“That will require an apology,” said the older man. “Not tonight, but promise me you will not leave it too long.”
“Yes. Of course.” D’Artagnan gave his face a final rough swipe, thinking of the passionate, fearless woman who had just left the room. “But... Milady?”
“Milady’s past is her own,” Aramis said, his tone harder than d’Artagnan was used to hearing it. “Though of late one would hardly know it. You would do better to concentrate on her advice regarding Constance, which was sound and true.”
“I will. You’re right,” d’Artagnan said. “It’s just a lot to think about.”
Aramis softened. “Then it’s as well you appear to have plenty of time on your hands. You have a good think, and I’ll try to rest again. Only a few minutes awake, and I already feel as though I’ve climbed two leagues up the side of a mountain.”
D’Artagnan covered Aramis’ hand with his own and squeezed it. “You do that. The others will thrash me from here to Sunday if they find I’ve tired you out.”
The sick man lay back on the bed and tried to find a comfortable position with his aches and pains. When he settled, d’Artagnan wrung the rag out once more and draped it over his forehead and eyes to cool the fever. He slumped in the chair, wondering how his mind could possibly contain all the worries currently whirling up a maelstrom within.
He was still sitting there several hours later when faint light from the window began to overtake the flame from the guttering candle on the table, and Porthos awoke with a groan and a stretch of creaking joints.
“Is it morning?” Porthos asked. “You should have woken me earlier.”
“I wasn’t tired,” d’Artagnan replied, though in reality his eyes itched and burned with fatigue.
“How’s Aramis?” said Porthos, rising to cross to the bed.
“Sleeping,” d’Artagnan said. “He woke occasionally through the night, but seemed about the same as yesterday.”
“And I might still be sleeping if it weren’t for you two louts,” Aramis rasped, rolling over with a groan to lie on his side.
“How do you feel this morning?” Porthos asked, ignoring the insult.
“I appear to have added stomach cramps to my already impressive array of symptoms,” Aramis said, curling around the affected area in obvious discomfort.
D’Artagnan vacated the chair so Porthos could sit in it and reach a hand out to feel Aramis’ forehead. “You haven’t eaten and you’ve barely drunk anything in more than a day,” Porthos said, failing to completely hide his worry at the new development. “Maybe that would help?”
“The thought is utterly repulsive at the moment, my friend,” said Aramis. “Perhaps later. For now, just sit with me and talk. Better yet, tell me a story, so I will not be expected to keep up my half of the conversation.”
“Sure,” Porthos said. “I can do that. D’Artagnan, you probably haven’t heard the one about how I first met de Tréville, have you?”
D’Artagnan shook his head, eager for anything that might distract him from the nauseating worry and dread swirling in his stomach.
“Well, I was in the regular army at the time,” Porthos began. “The musketeer regiment had just been commissioned by the King, and de Tréville was visiting some of the other commanders to recruit from their ranks. I think he wanted to get some seasoned soldiers on the rolls, to balance out all of the second and third sons of noblemen who didn’t know a musket barrel from their own arses.
“Anyway, the evening before, I’d taken a bet against this bloke called Duchesne that I never should have agreed to. So there I was in only my underthings, with my right arm tied behind my back, taking wrestling challenges from all comers when this very stern, very proper officer comes marching up...”
Chapter 47
The hours crept by, and d’Artagnan continued to ignore all suggestions that he get some sleep. Athos and Milady had arrived earlier, carrying a letter from de Tréville that had been attached to a basket of food left outside the door between the main wing and the south wing. They crowded around as Milady read it aloud, and even Aramis seemed to rouse himself from his aches and shivering to hear the latest news from outside their narrow little slice of the world.
The news appeared to be that there was no news. The siege continued. Supplies were holding so far, though shortages of some less common goods would no doubt start soon. The walls of Chartres still stymied Isabella’s forces, which could not approach across the narrow bridges without being picked off at the city guards’ leisure. Isabella might well be able to lay hands on more effective weapons now th
at her troops knew what they were facing, but moving large siege engines across country and into position would take time.
The letter ended with well wishes from Her Majesty, Constance, and de Tréville, along with a request that they write regular notes in return to share their own news.
Porthos made a grab for the basket, which contained an assortment of simple food along with a cloth bag full of chicken bones for stock. “I’ll head down to the kitchen and see what I can make of this,” he said. “Milady, how’s the water from the old well behind the stables?”
“A bit cloudy, but not too bad,” said Milady, who had used the abandoned well the previous night rather than risk meeting someone unexpectedly at the main well. “Do you have any messages that you’d like me to include in our reply?”
“Tell them thanks for the chicken carcass and that everyone will be fine,” Porthos said firmly, and left to start a pot of stock simmering downstairs.
“Anyone else?” Milady asked.
Athos shook his head, and Aramis croaked, “Tell them I’m not dead yet, but between my head and my stomach it’s starting to sound like an increasingly restful option,” from the bed.
D’Artagnan winced, his mind not currently in a place where he could appreciate the gallows humor. Drawn by the small movement, Milady’s eyes rested on him for a moment, her expression still cold after his faux pas of the previous evening. When he didn’t speak, she swept through the door, letter in hand. Complete silence descended on the room.
After a few moments spent wrestling with his tired and embarrassed thoughts, d’Artagnan excused himself from the other two. “I’ve thought of a message for the letter after all,” he said.
The door to Athos and Milady’s room was open, and inside, Milady was settling down at the desk in the corner with a sheet of paper and a quill. D’Artagnan knocked lightly on the doorframe, and her wary gaze jerked to the entryway.