Mentally he counted them. Five of them. Very well, he would die here, then. He pulled at his sword. “This is the only thing you’ll get from me, sirs,” he said. And then, though he didn’t expect any musketeers to be in this far flung area of town, far from their normal taverns, he yelled. “To me, musketeers. To me for the King.”
To his surprise, four men appeared running. And though one of them was de Termopillae, and therefore as good as half a man, if that, at the very least the odds were somewhat even.
Squaring off against Remy, Aramis thought that the day that four and a half musketeers couldn’t beat five guards of his eminence would be a sad day indeed.
Accidentally Stepping on Bottles; The Very Great Advantage of Knowing One’s Sphere; The Foal and the Lord
ATHOS called for Porthos early morning, and was relieved to find the giant dressed and prepared to go out, polishing off a roast chicken by way of breakfast.
Athos’s stomach clutched at the savory smell and grumbled something to the extent that it had been far too long since Athos had eaten anything of the kind. Which was true. It had been far too long. The nobleman, who had grown up on game meat and, once upon a time, would have disdained the taste of tame fowl, now ate meat, of any kind, but rarely. Somehow, most of his money-and it wasn’t much, as he didn’t like to draw upon the domains he no longer administered for fear his cousin who was taking care of the land in his absence should ask too many questions- received from his musketeer’s pay or the occasional reward for extraordinary service seemed to run away from his hands faster than he could contrive to get it in them.
Truth be told, he knew he played too many games of hazard. He always lost at them and, in his more sane moments, was as likely as the next man to admit that his determined gambling could only be another way of punishing himself-one with his having assumed the musketeer uniform, one with his having cut himself off from all his old acquaintance. He also knew there was too much wine. Far too much. In the last few years, he, who had before always been somewhat more moderate than even a moderate drinker, had swallowed enough wine to float several ships at harbor. And yet… And yet, for all the liquor bought him a certain haziness, and sometimes-rarely-the ability to sleep, it hadn’t managed to erase his perfect recollection of his wife’s look, of the way she’d smiled at him on that day they’d set out together on their last hunt. The same hunt that had ended with his finding that the Countess’s shoulder was branded with a fleur-de-lis, and him hanging her from a low branch. The hunt that had ended her life. And his. In fact if he drank too much, he often thought he spied her ghost, just at the corner of his field of vision. He would turn and not see her, and yet when he wasn’t looking he always knew she was there.
Between the gambling and the drinking, he rarely had much money left and though his excellent servant, Grimaud, who’d served Athos’s family for many years, always contrived to turn bread and a thin slice of meat into some sort of meal, it was often too little and not very nourishing.
“Do you want some?” Porthos asked, looking up from his plate which was heaped with fully half the golden-roasted fowl, while the other half sat on its tray, waiting to be devoured. “Holá Mousqueton, bring a plate for Monsieur Athos.”
“It is not… I mean…” But before he could fully formulate that he didn’t mean to intrude on Porthos’s meal and that he didn’t require to be fed-all against the embarrassing and audible growling of his stomach-Mousqueton had set another place at the table, and put a napkin beside it, for Porthos observed, even in private, the careful etiquette of the greater houses. Quite defeated, Athos sat down and- with the knife provided-helped himself to the leg of the chicken, while Mousqueton returned to set a cup of wine in front of him.
One taste of the chicken confirmed what his sense of smell had told him-that the meat was excellent and deliciously seasoned. Slow roasted, too, and kept moist by some art that exceeded not only the abilities of Athos’s excellent Grimaud, but the abilities of Athos’s erstwhile cook at La Fere, as well. “I didn’t know-” he said, and realized he was about to say he didn’t realize that Porthos’s pocketbook ran to chicken these days, when all of them seemed to be subsisting on dried bread crusts and whatever they could manage to get in the way of invitations to dine. He stopped his words, but not in time.
Porthos, who so often had trouble putting his feelings into words, seemed to understand other people’s feelings and thoughts, even when incompletely expressed. He shrugged, as though Athos had said what he meant to say. “Mouqueton got it,” he said.
“I stepped on the poor creature by accident,” Mousqueton said. “There was nothing for it, but to put it out of its misery. And since it had been in the middle of the lane, I couldn’t quite tell to whom it belonged, so I thought it was easier to remove the source of dispute by bringing it home.”
Athos swallowed a mouth full and frowned at the meat in his hand. “But Mousqueton,” he said. “If the chicken was lying in the middle of the road, it might have been sick.”
Mousqueton sighed. “Oh, no. It was very healthy. I had the devil of a time, running it down so I could accidentally step on it.”
Athos marked the small smile on Porthos’s lips, and shook his head. After all, Mousqueton had grown up on the streets, living from his expedients. He supposed, in the final scheme of things, the chickens that people turned out on the street to feed on what they could find, were not in many senses truly owned. And yet, though he could eat it, he could not have gone out and got it himself. Or commanded Grimaud to get it. He ate another mouthful and drank half of his cup of wine, which Mousqueton promptly refilled from a bottle in his hand.
“I suppose you stepped on the bottle also?” Athos asked, smiling so Mousqueton would not interpret his words as censure.
Mousqueton smiled. “It was the oddest thing, monsieur.”
Porthos seemed quite untroubled by all of this, as he helped himself to more meat. Athos waited until Mousqueton left the room to say, “I hope you have gotten over your conviction that the boy was your son…”
Porthos shrugged. “It wasn’t so much a conviction,” he said. “But you have to admit, as a suspicion…”
“As a suspicion it seems insane, Porthos. I’m sure that Monsieur de Comeau, whom we are supposed to see today, was the boy’s father. Or that, at the very least, the boy believed he was his father. Though it would have to have happened elsewhere than Paris. I have made enquiries, you see…”
Porthos looked up, saying nothing.
“I had Grimaud ask around. Monsieur de Comeau came to Paris about ten years ago, intent on a good marriage. That, he contracted seven years ago. Or at least what people term a good marriage, for the woman is noble and wealthy. Other than that… well… Grimaud tells me that local gossip has it Monsieur de Comeau goes in awe of his wife, and is perhaps a little afraid of her. It would not be considered a good marriage in my opinion, but this is how the world views it, and therefore…” Athos shrugged. “At any rate, after his marriage, Monsieur de Comeau lingered in Paris, presumably to get whatever other social advancement he could procure. He’s attached himself now to one, now to the other greater household, but he has no definite patron, and the couple has no children.”
Porthos nodded. “If she’s cold…”
“Yes, perhaps that is so,” Athos said. He was tempted to say that marriages were complex and just because she appeared to not have given birth it did not mean she was cold in private. But when he thought about it, Porthos probably knew a lot more about marriage-through his quasi marriage with Athenais-than Athos could claim to know through his failed marriage and his one other almost-relationship. He shrugged.
“Very well,” Porthos said. “Then we should go and question them, should we not?”
Athos nodded. He’d finished his chicken leg and though he’d eaten far less than his friend, felt as though he’d dined better than he had in months.
They walked to the Comeau residence in silence. Athos was not very talkative
at the best of times, and given Porthos’s difficulties in making his words obey him, it was often easier to be silent.
The lodging of the nobleman was a two-floor house, with a busy bakery on the downstairs floor. The smell of warm bread permeated everything and Athos was momentarily regretful that his morals would never allow him to imitate Mousqueton. The bakery had the lease of the downstairs floor entirely, but no lease of the field at the back or the yard that abutted it, which was entered via an arched doorway ineffectually closed by a rectangular iron gate. The gate stood open as the musketeers approached, and in the yard horses and grooms seemed to have set up a welter of activity. Far more grooms and horses, Athos thought, than befit this kind of establishment and which bespoke a horse-mad lord or a horse trader. Since he didn’t think it was the later, it must be the former.
It took a moment for people in the yard to notice the two musketeers at the gate-which spoke unusual absorption in their task, since musketeers normally caused the action to stop wherever they went. Or rather, they could very quickly become the center of the action if ignored.
At last a groom noticed them and, doffing his cap, loped over to them. “Monsieur Musketeers,” he said, stopping just in front of them and bowing deeply. “How may we help you? What can we do to further the service of his Majesty, what-”
“We are here not on the King’s business, but our own,” Athos said, straightening and managing to convey that he was one of the noblest men in the land and that his every word should be listened to.
“Your own?” the groom asked.
“I need to speak to your master,” Athos said. “About one of the… about a boy who was said to have come here last and who has disappeared.”
The groom frowned. “A boy? I don’t recall…”
Athos could have said the boy was not a noble boy. He was sure many commoners had come and gone in here who were less than full grown men. But he didn’t wish to tell the groom that. He knew all too well that in most people’s minds a plebeian boy’s disappearance was unimportant. Indeed, it probably would have been unimportant in Athos’s as well, if he hadn’t seen the small corpse on the floor of their practice room. Because the boy was unimportant, because plebeian boys disappeared and appeared like the sun on a cloudy day, it begged the question of why anyone had found this boy important enough to kill. Not just kill, but poison and then let go, almost guaranteeing that the boy would die away from his murderer. This would ensure the murder must be discovered as such.
Surely most men, on finding they needed to kill the boy, would have hit him on the back of the head and left him for dead in some alley, or some forgotten building, or stabbed him and left the body with every appearance of having died in a brawl. Or… a million other scenarios.
So why kill the boy with poison, and at a time when he would surely be discovered by someone who would care about his death-someone, what was more, who was likely to be of a suspicious turn of mind, and to have access to the ears of those in power? It seemed like a mad thing to do. And in that moment, Athos had the fleeting feeling that he could almost sense something… Something.
As though he stood in a tall place, looking below at the maze that was this murder, he felt as if he could almost see the whole thing, beginning to end and the bit in the middle as well. But the groom said, dubiously, “Well, if you would follow me. My lord is in the stables.”
And Athos was back in the yard with the horses and the busy grooms putting the horses through their paces and brushing them and grooming them. He nodded to the groom, and started to follow.
Porthos grabbed at his arm. “Athos,” he said. “I’ll stay here.”
Athos turned back frowning. “You will? Why? Don’t you have questions to ask Monsieur de Comeau?”
Porthos grinned, flashing that smile that made people think him simple or mad. “No, Athos,” he said. “You have questions to ask Monsieur de Comeau. I shall wait for you here. Between you high lords, you are better served if you speak alone. While I, myself, you know, since I have horse traders in my ancestry, will stay here and watch all these horses, and think to myself about a few things.”
Athos was about to reproach Porthos with silliness and to tell him that no one cared about Porthos’s ancestry but Porthos himself. Or at least, none of Porthos’s friends cared. But Porthos’s eyes were full of speaking mirth, as though he meant to say something else. No, as though he meant for Athos to understand something else that he didn’t want to have to say.
Finding he had opened his mouth, Athos closed it, then nodded curtly. “There is, of course,” he said, slowly, ponderously, looking for Porthos to correct him if he was guessing wrong. “A great advantage in knowing your place in the world.”
Porthos nodded. “Is there not?” he said. “And I know my place exceedingly well, I assure you. I always feel more at home in these kinds of places, with working men… aye, and women, too, who know what to do and what goes on in the bowels of your great houses. You, on the other hand, should go talk to the gentleman who is your equal and who will doubtless receive you with equanimity.”
If Porthos had smiled any wider or more blankly, he would doubtlessly have sprained his jaw, and Athos chose to relieve his friend’s mind by saying, “I understand completely. I will be back in a few moments.”
Porthos nodded and looked about him, till he found a large rock in the middle of the yard, in the full sun of late summer. He sat himself on it, watching horses and working grooms with every appearance of satisfaction.
As Athos turned his back on Porthos, Athos again wondered at Porthos’s seeming simplicity and whether it was truly so, or a degree of cunning so high that even Aramis didn’t fully understand it for what it was. Left in this situation, in the middle of grooms working at the horses, Athos would have sat there, the whole time, mute and wrapped in his own mantle of nobility. Not that he disdained the grooms, but he would have been just as unable to find anything to talk to them about as he would have been of sprouting wings and flying.
Even now, as he moved among them, grooms and servants stepped out of the way and bowed hastily to him, but none would be so bold as to greet him, or to utter a word to him, not even a reverentially whispered “milord.”
However, Porthos would, by the time Athos came back, know the name and age of every groom in the yard, doubtless know if they were married and, if so, if they were faithful or had a girlfriend on the side. He would know the ages of their children, the places of their births and their dearest aspirations.
“Your friend, monsieur is… er… he was, before becoming a musketeer…”
“As noble a gentleman as you might wish to meet,” Athos said and his eyes warned the groom not to pursue it.
Few people could challenge such a look from Athos, and the groom was not equal to it. He nodded and turned, and led Athos down the length of the yard, past as many fine examples of horseflesh as Athos had seen gathered in one place, to the door at the far stable, where he left Athos to wait, while-presumably-he was announced.
Athos waited a long while. From inside came a warble of voices. The groom’s muttered tones, answered by louder, impatient tones from a male voice. And there was… confused shouting.
Of course, etiquette dictated that Athos wait outside for the groom to return. Athos quite understood that, having been trained in etiquette by his father, who had been something of a taskmaster on the matter. And he quite understood that he shouldn’t barge in. But when one was investigating a murder in Paris, these days and under these circumstances, with the Cardinal behind the scenes, possibly manipulating all, sometimes the best course was to intervene, before dastardly deeds could be accomplished.
He hesitated but one second, while the voice of his formidable father, to whom he’d been a late and unexpected son, boomed in his mind, telling him there were things a lord simply did not do, one of them being to break etiquette in such a crass way.
And then he plunged into the dark door, into the smell of blood and hay, int
o the sounds of horses and two men yelling at each other.
One look was all it took for Athos, the erstwhile Count de la Fere and owner of a fine stable in his own, abandoned domains, to understand what was happening and why. There was a beautiful chestnut mare, and there was a foal, which was lying on the hay, while the two men rubbed it with straw. Meanwhile, the mare had pinned her ears flat back and the skin at the corner of her mouth had wrinkled-a sure sign she intended to bite someone-which, Athos judged, occasioned the screaming.
That the men were screaming and rubbing the foal at the same time, and not getting out of the mare’s way, seemed to betray some disconnection between mind and body, of the sort Porthos often complained of. Athos plunged forward and grabbed at the two men, pulling them away, just as the mare bit at air where the older of the men had been.
The mare gave them something that sounded uncommonly like a warning hiss, then nuzzled at the foal, who stood and tottered over to her. It seemed at a loss for where to find the tit, looking for it in quite the wrong place.
The older of the men started towards it, but the younger said, “You may leave him to it, my lord. He’ll find the tit right enough.”
The older man hesitated, but finally nodded. Turning to Athos, he gave him the once over, head to toe, then said, “Pleasure to meet you, Monsieur Musketeer,” the man said, extending a bloodied hand to Athos. “I am Monsieur de Comeau. I believe you wish to see me?”
Foals and Lords; The Follies of Youth; The Requirements of a Large Stable
MONSIEUR de Comeau was a tall man, as tall as Athos, and as slim of body and refined of bones as Aramis. Unlike Athos, he had the olive skin that is common with dark hair. Unlike Aramis-who would never allow himself to be seen by anyone, not even his servant, in less than fashionable clothing-he was wearing a serviceable suit of undyed wool and he didn’t seem in the least embarrassed by his common and undistinguished attire.
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