“You-?” Porthos asked, confused.
“I mean there are people of whom I’ve heard, who almost surely have never heard of me.” Aramis turned and awkwardly tapped Porthos on the shoulder. “Really, don’t fret. I’m sure we’ll find out. If four good men, with working heads on their shoulders and ready swords, can’t find the parents of a lost child in Paris, the world has come to be a complex thing indeed. You go and talk to whomever you know in the palace and I’ll pursue my own acquaintances. We’ll meet here. Can’t be more than an hour.”
Porthos watched Aramis turn and head up a staircase at a fast pace. Sometimes he wondered who Aramis knew, and how. Oh, until recently Aramis’s main center of information at the palace had been a Duchess, Spanish by birth, who allowed Aramis to call her Violette, and allowed him to call on her very frequently.
But Violette, once Duchesse de Dreux, was gone. What other contacts did Aramis have? To whom did he talk?
From things the musketeer didn’t say, Porthos suspected that Aramis was deep in intrigues in the palace. All of Paris knew, or at least surmised, that their Majesties- not liking each other and keeping separate courts and separate favorites-the King favoring-at the whim of his grey eminence, the Cardinal-Germany, and her Majesty favoring Spain and Austria, meant that their interests and opinions, their policies and desires, were often at cross purposes. The royal palace-Porthos vaguely felt, though it was rarely given to him to be in on the secrets and convoluted calculations-was like a swiss cheese, tunneled through with myriad plots.
Porthos suspected that Aramis navigated amid all those plots and made all his plans, and knew everything there was to know. And watching Aramis’s agile figure run up the staircase barely visible through the door opposite, Porthos shuddered in relief.
He would hate to be where Aramis was, to be caught in the cross threads of multiple plots, to always have to watch his mouth and what he said. He liked to blurt out the truth and nevermind what people might think.
Of course, he wasn’t absolutely sure where to go in the palace, himself. He knew a lot of people here-but mostly by sight. He’d seen the servants, talked to them, flirted with the maids for all the years he’d been serving guard at the palace. And now and then a maid brought him a warm drink-or an alcoholic one-on a cold night and stayed to flirt.
These weren’t friendships, as such, but they were the kind of acquaintances that would normally allow him to go along the hallways, showing the picture of the boy and asking if anyone had seen him. The easiest thing to do, the thing he’d do at any other house, would be to go to the kitchen and install himself there, with his tales of war and his charming smile to every woman who came near him. And then he’d flash the picture, and soon, between one mug of wine and the next, he’d have talked to every servant in the palace and found out all he wanted.
Even in the royal palace, that would be the best strategy. The kitchen was huge, sure. And filled with people of all descriptions going about their disparate tasks. But Porthos was well known enough, if by sight only, that he might get some attention.
Only now…
Standing in the hallway, he twirled his moustache. Only now, he didn’t dare. The thing was that last time he’d needed to investigate the servants in the palace one of the female cooks had got very friendly with him. Very, very friendly. And she wanted to be more than friends, in fact. So much so, that Porthos had felt he could not comply with her wishes without betraying his own, longtime lover Athenais.
So if he went into the kitchens… The cook would be on him, in anger and lust, and he wasn’t sure which he dreaded more.
In an agony of hesitation, he stood in the courtyard and twirled his moustache, trying to think of another way. There was the girlfriend of Porthos’s servant, Mousqueton. Her name was Hermengarde, and she was maid on the third floor of the palace. It might be easier and ultimately quicker to have brought Mousqueton with him, but Porthos had neglected to do so. Instead, the servants had stayed behind to manage the small corpse and the coffin.
But he thought if he stood in the stairwell between the kitchen and the third floor-the back stairwell used by the servants-he would sooner or later see either Hermengarde or someone who looked likely enough to take a message to her. As far as he understood the lives of servants at the palace, most of what they did was fetch food for their lords and ladies, and sometimes filch it from the kitchen if they didn’t have the seniority to get it by fair means.
In fact he got very lucky. No more had he made it to the back staircase-steep, made of stone and haunted by persistent smells of old meals that lingered like the ghosts of dinners past-than, climbing two steps, he almost bumped into a slip of a blond girl, walking down. And the blond girl, in the attire of the King’s servants, looked up with a smile and said, “Monsieur Porthos. How come you are here? Is everything well with Bonif-With Mousqueton?”
Porthos pretended he didn’t hear Hermengarde-for it was she-ask him about Boniface, Mousqueton’s birth name, which Porthos had changed for the more bellicose one of Mousqueton. Instead, he smiled at her. “Nothing wrong with Mousqueton at all, only he’s busy with a small task for me, and I came here in search of you.” And, as the girl’s eyes widened in alarm, he hastened to say, “Because I need some information about someone who might have been to the palace.”
The girl nodded. “If you’ll only wait, Monsieur Porthos. I have an elderly Countess, arrived from the provinces last week, clamoring for roast chicken and threatening all and sundry with a beating if it is not promptly fetched for her.”
“Where…”
“Just wait here,” the girl said with a flash of teeth that could be a smile or just a grimace of impatience. She squeezed past Porthos, down the farther flight of steps towards the kitchen which was at a lower level than the patio through which he’d entered.
Moments later she came back carrying a tray with a plate covered by a smaller plate, and a small cup of wine on the side. “This should do,” she said smiling, as she went by him. “I had to filch it from the old devil, the chief cook.” She smiled over her shoulder. “So I daresay I’ll be in trouble next time, but not in as much trouble as you’d be if you crossed her path, monsieur.”
“Does she still remember me?” Porthos asked, twirling his moustache nervously as he followed Hermengarde up the stairs.
“Oh, yes,” Hermengarde said. She laughed a little, musical giggle. A rich smell of chicken and wine rose from her tray, and she moved as if her feet and her body, whole, were all part of a mechanism that somehow, effortlessly, kept the tray stable and the food upon it from tilting or spilling. “Oh, she remembers you.” She looked over her shoulder and her animated face looked impishly happy. “You see, she really had her sights set on you. She has now been listening to palace gossip, and she heard that you’re carrying on with some princess. She says if she finds out who the crowned trollop is, she shall poison her.”
Porthos twirled his moustache some more and thanked all divinities that Athenais was neither a princess nor lived anywhere within the confines of the palace. “She doesn’t live in the royal palace,” he said.
“So Mousqueton told me. He says she is a foreign princess, and he’s very sure that she’ll never be in danger of the old devil. And meanwhile my friends and I shall amuse ourselves by laughing at her fits.”
Porthos wondered if Mousqueton had told Hermengarde the truth. Somehow he doubted it. After all, demeaning his master was no part of Mousqueton’s self-interest. He depended on the glamour of his noble master to help him keep Hermengarde hypnotized. Unless, of course, he was so serious about Hermengarde that keeping her in thrall of him was no longer necessary and in that case-Porthos not being stupid-he knew his secret was as safe with the girl as it was with Mousqueton.
They had reached the third floor of the palace, where were normally lodged the highest members of the nobility, and where Aramis’s girlfriend had lodged. Hermengarde ducked from the stairwell onto the little landing, and from it tried to
open a door with her dainty slippered foot to allow herself into the hallway. Porthos reached past her, grateful for his bulk and his long reach, and held the door wide open, until she slipped past.
“Thank you, monsieur,” she said. “If you’ll follow me now to the door, I’ll take the food in and then I’ll be at your disposal to answer any questions you please.”
Porthos followed her. Five doors down and they got to a small door that seemed to have been especially fitted to get into the space between two normally spaced doors. From its size and mean construction-appearing to be built from various planks of wood that someone had found lying about and nailed together with half-splintered strips of wood and bits of leather-it might have been the servants’ quarters door in a mean provincial house, or else the door leading to a closet or a back hall.
Hermengarde knocked at it, and a voice within made some indistinct-but sharp-sounds. Hermengarde opened the door and went in, admirably juggling her tray. Porthos, thinking that in this case discretion was definitely the best attitude to take, waited beside the door with the same attitude of indolence and patience as he had learned to assume while on guard duty.
Hermengarde went in. From within came the clink of the cutlery and some muted talk. Then a sharp, aged voice, not Hermengarde’s said something accusatory, and Hermengarde said something apologetic. And then something hit the other side of the door. Hard.
Porthos jumped and was about to open the door when Hermengarde opened it, and came out, without her tray, with her cap disarrayed over her blond hair. She closed the door behind her and stood aside a little, arranging her hair and her cap.
“Did she throw something at you?”
Hermengarde nodded. “She did, the old witch. She threw a shoe at me.” Suddenly, the grave little face broke into a smile. “Well, at least it wasn’t the chicken or the wine. That would have been a waste of good food, and besides it would have made me wash my hair or my cap.” She walked towards Porthos, and, grabbing his arm, pulled him down the hallway away from that door, with a finger on her lips to indicate he should be quiet.
When they got almost all the way to the landing, where it was unlikely that their voices would carry back far enough to reach the old woman in her small room, Hermengarde said, “Honestly, these provincial nobles. They come to the palace, in search of royal favor or sometimes of pensions they think are owed their relatives for some great deed of the past. Or sometimes it’s money for a daughter’s dowry or convent fee, or a place in the musketeers or guards for their sons. They come and they’re assigned some mean room, because the King has never heard of them and has scant heard of their domain. And then they… stay. And they engage in petty plotting with other noblemen to overcome the plots of yet other noblemen, until they’re driven so mad by their conceit and self-importance that you can never please them. She was upset at me because the chicken was only a breast and had no wing attached, if you please.” She shook her head. “Boniface tells me that I’m lucky to serve in the royal palace, but I tell you, monsieur, I think he’s lucky to have a decent master who respects him.”
Porthos supposed that was his cue to offer her a post, but really-his life was no life for a married pair of servants. There would be the campaigns in which he and Mousqueton-for all he might wish to call himself Boniface-would go, without warning, or with very little warning. There would be the months when they ran out of money and had very little to eat, though something to drink could always be managed. It was no life for a beautiful young woman and certainly no life for the children that might follow.
And children made Porthos think of the children he’d never have and that, in turn made him think of Guillaume. He was aware of his features acquiring a grave cast.
“Monsieur, what’s wrong?” Hermengarde asked, her voice gentle and almost tender.
“I… It’s just that… I’m concerned…” He didn’t know what to say, then sighed heavily. “You see, I have had an apprentice… er… someone to whom I was teaching fencing. A young man.”
“Have had?”
“He…” Porthos considered rapidly. He could tell the girl a lie, but chances were Boniface-Mousqueton would only tell her the truth. And besides, the girl had proven trustworthy in the past. “He showed up late and very ill today, and then he… he died. When he died I realized I had no idea where he lived or who his parents were.”
“Didn’t his parents contract the lessons with you?”
“No,” Porthos shook his head. “His parents didn’t want him to learn to fight. They probably destined him for the church.”
“Oh,” she said. And then, “But then they don’t know he is dead.”
“No,” Porthos said, and for the first time felt a pang at the thought of having to tell them. What would they think? And what feel? What could he say to ease their pain, he who wasn’t a parent?
He pulled the picture from his sleeve and passed it on to Hermengarde. “I am trying to tell them as soon as possible, ” he said.
She unfolded the picture and looked at it reverentially, like someone would look at a saint’s relics. “Beautiful young man,” she said. “But I’ve never seen him.” Folding the picture again, she handed it to Porthos. “I would answer for his not having been anywhere near the palace,” she said. “People would have noticed otherwise. Handsome boy. I can count in both hands the number of boys that age around the palace who are not already in someone’s employ. Most people who come to court are older.”
Porthos nodded, but pushed the picture back at her. “Can you ask around?” he said. “Just in case. I can’t because of the cook. But… I’d truly like to know for sure.”
Hermengarde looked dubious but then nodded. “Yes, I’ll ask. You’ll wait here?”
“No,” Porthos said. “I’ll wait in the courtyard by the south entrance. If you’d be so kind.”
She nodded. “I will be as quick and thorough as I can. I do wish to help you in your errand of mercy. Better than the fetching and carrying I do all day.”
Porthos managed a smile of encouragement and a full-hearted bow at her, hat in hand. But in his heart he felt she would find nothing.
Somewhere, Guillaume’s parents were worrying over his absence and Porthos had no way of even finding out who they were. And, if perchance he did find them, he would be able to do nothing but cause them more grief.
Where Porthos is Missing; Where Information is Missing; Where One Thinks the Unthinkable
WHEN Athos arrived at Porthos’s home, he found D’Artagnan and Aramis already there. As a worried Mousqueton led him up the stairs, and Athos emerged into the spacious room where they met at Porthos’s, the other two rose from their seats at the massive table, and turned to look.
“Oh,” Aramis said. “I thought…”
“You thought?” Athos asked.
Aramis sighed. He looked tired and drained, more so than he had looked for many a week now. Aramis normally managed to look perfectly groomed, perfectly attired and not at all affected by any situation no matter how unpleasant. It had taken Athos sometime to realize this was not because he did not, in fact, care about anything, but rather because he was in his way almost as stoic as Athos. Even if his way required perfectly manicured hands, a wealth of lace and silk and the latest in plumes for his hat.
“I thought you might be Porthos,” Aramis said, and allowed himself to slump back into his chair, in a distinct un-Aramis-like slump. “Here, Bazin, fetch us some wine. I think the tavern down the street has some that might be less than vinegar.” He tossed Bazin a coin that the servant plucked overhand from the air.
“You have money?” D’Artagnan asked, not accusatorial, but more curiously as a man for whom money has become one of those marvels often heard about but never seen with ones own eyes, or by anyone one knows.
Aramis looked at D’Artagnan, and shrugged a little. “I sold some theology books,” he said.
Athos was amused to note a hesitation in Bazin’s step, but the servant seemed to have decide
d against warning them on the evils of drinking holy books. To stop the risk altogether, Athos moved forward, pulled his chair and sat. “Why would you think I was Porthos?” he asked. “Where is Porthos?”
D’Artagnan shook his head and Aramis sighed.
“But you were with him,” Athos said, looking at Aramis.
“And you were with D’Artagnan,” Aramis said.
“D’Artagnan and I separated, so we could talk to twice as many landlords and tavern keepers,” Athos said, sternly. “We didn’t see any reason to meet again until we met here with whatever intelligence we gathered.”
“And did you gather any?” Aramis asked.
Athos shook his head and looked at D’Artagnan who opened his hands in a silent show of helplessness.
Athos leaned forward. “And you, Aramis? You separated from Porthos, and-?”
“I separated from Porthos at the palace,” Aramis said, hotly, as though he expected one of them to accuse him of snobbery. “His acquaintance and mine at the palace are different and we thought we’d get more information by going to our separate sources. We were supposed to meet in the courtyard where whoever arrived first would wait for the other.”
“And he didn’t meet you?” Athos asked.
Aramis shook his head. “Not only that, but as I waited there, I was overtaken by a palace maid, Hermengarde, whom I gather is a good friend of our Mousqueton.” Aramis nodded towards the servant. “She had the drawing of Guillaume with her. She said she had been asking around the palace, to all other servants and no one had seen him.” The long, well-manicured finger drew a circle on the polished wood of Porthos’s massive table. “Which accords with the witness from the noble ladies to whom I spoke.”
“So, no one at the palace has seen him?” Athos asked.
“None,” Aramis said. “We asked, as I said, between us, to most servants and most noblemen, and no one had seen the boy. No one knew, either, of a family by the name Jaucourt. And you know, even if they are the smallest of minor nobility, I don’t think it’s possible for them to be in Paris and be in such splendid isolation. Surely, if they came to court, they have to have met with some distant cousin, or some lost friend from their homeland. Somehow, someone at least who has some hold on the court and who knew who they are.”
The Musketeer's Apprentice Page 8