“There are cousins, then?” Aramis asked, all gentle and detached interest. “Who might have an interest in the land? But surely until you got word from the lord’s grandson no one would have thought the lord’s son had died, would they?”
“Well…” the little priest shrugged, which seemed more like an all-enveloping movement of too-bony shoulders enclosed in a voluminous black garment. “Ah,” he said. “That. You see, the lord’s son was sent to the capital… thirteen years ago, it would be. And for a long time there were no letters, and then, five years ago, a single letter from him to Rouge, as runs the mills. And you see, it’s not natural to be gone that long without sending word.”
“But surely,” Aramis said. “The first letter came after seven years absence. And besides, I understand Lord du Vallon can’t read or write.”
“No he can’t,” the little priest said, and grinned, the happy grin of a small man who nonetheless holds something over a much larger one. “He thinks that reading and writing effeminates you, he says. He says it would turn him into a priest or a cleric and make him less than a man.” He shook his head. “Nor could the younger lord, but yet, I hear it’s not all that difficult to get someone to write a letter for you, in Paris. Nor is it that hard for the lord to get one of his servants to read it. But there hasn’t been word for years and years, save that one letter… and who knows if that was even true?” He shrugged again. “The letter, they said, said that the Lord Pierre had left his name and this very successful school of fencing and dancing he’d funded in the capital, and had become a musketeer-” he looked around at them. “As you are, monsieurs. But the truth is, people from St. Guillaume do go to Paris. Not often, it is true, but they do go. And those that went and asked around said there was no du Vallon in the musketeers. And see… I think that letter was sent by someone for some purpose I can’t but guess.” His voice climbed, into reed-thin registers, as he said. “They say Paris is all plots and counter-plots and it would drive a man mad to live there and try to understand them. And I say someone wanted us to believe that the Lord Pierre was still alive in Paris. Perhaps one of the lord’s cousins, waiting on the inheritance and hoping that no one would dispute it till then?”
“There are many cousins then?” Athos asked. “And is the domain of du Vallon much disputed?”
The priest shrugged. “There are many cousins. The current lord had five sisters and each of them went off and married a neighboring lord and raised families. And they all want the domain. Oh, not for what it is now, though some of the farms are getting very prosperous indeed. But those farms tend to be on freeholds, and therefore do not pay the lord as they normally would. But the cousins, all of them think that with a little investment and a little attention, and something else than the lord’s unbreakable pride, it would be possible, quite possible, to make Du Vallon a profitable domain. At least profitable for those who don’t want more than a little country place to which they may retire and in which they may live a quite life.”
“And do you know if any of these cousins lives in Paris,” Aramis asked. “Who could have sent the letter?”
“Now, that,” the priest said. “I only have on hearsay, you see, because it’s not in the records of this parish, and I only know what I hear people say, after Mass of a Sunday. But I heard from some people who went to Paris that there’s a cousin of the young lord who lives in Paris and even is in the musketeers. I can’t remember his name, now… except it reminded me of something Greek.” He frowned. “Yes. Something Greek. Some great battle. Some pass. Yes, some pass, because for the longest time I’ve thought of the man as Milord Pass. ”
“De Termopillae?” Aramis asked, his voice full of disbelief.
“The very one,” the little priest said, now looking at Aramis more than ever as if the young musketeer were a magical apparition, with all the miraculous powers that implied. “The very one. How did you know, lord?”
“Termopillae pass,” Aramis said, and shook his head. “I know de Termopillae. A very well recommended, very well-connected man.”
“That and poorer than a church mouse,” the priest said.
“And church mice are what I know something about.” He grinned, as if he’d made high humor. “You see, his mother married a neighbor lord but it turned out the whole thing was all eaten up from the inside, all in the hands of the moneylenders. And then the man she married killed himself. ” The priest made the sign of the cross, as though to keep away the taint of such an evil event. “And there was nothing left for it but for their son to go and serve in the musketeers. Yes, I would say he would be quite happy to come in for a tidy domain like Du Vallon. And so I shall tell the young Lord Guillaume, when he comes to collect his inheritance. He needs to watch his back every minute and be on his guard all the time, as there are many who would do him in for the sake of his inheritance.”
“I see,” Aramis said, and cast a worried glance towards Porthos and D’Artagnan, who stood by the tomb. “Thank you, Father. You’ve been very informative. We must leave now, but you’ve solved all our problems.”
“Not a bother at all,” the priest said, and smiled again. “I get lonely here, sometimes in the shadows. The children come for their lessons, and the women for their prayers, but I rarely talk to anyone outside the parish. By the time the four of you ride away, there will be people coming in to ask me who the strangers were. I shall be the center of attention for weeks.”
He blessed them all and sent them out of the church to the bright sunlight outside. Blinking, D’Artagnan received his reins from Planchet.
Porthos had already mounted. “We’ll go,” he said. “If we set out now, we’ll make the hostelry by the time it grows dark.”
None of them argued. It wasn’t till they had stopped, to buy some food at an isolated farm house, and sat under a tree to eat a country repast of roast chicken and ham that D’Artagnan said, “This problem grows more charming by the second. There are your cousins-namely de Termopillae, our very own comrade, who might have seen the boy come to you, and who might have traced the boy’s movements, or, who knows, may have been treated to a glimpse of that recording in his pocket. He might have decided that by killing Guillaume and implicating you, he was clearing his way to inheriting Du Vallon. It pains me to think that of a musketeer, but-”
“But de Termopillae isn’t so much a musketeer as a rat in a musketeer’s uniform,” Athos said, and frowned. “You might as well say it, D’Artagnan, as there are a few of them. There are always those with the connections and the knowledge to get a musketeer’s post from the King with no real desserts. Most of those die early, of course, but some are actually careful with their lives. Barring a call to war, de Termopillae might survive to embarrass us all…”
“I hope it wasn’t him,” Porthos said. “I would hate to have to kill a fellow musketeer.”
“Indeed,” D’Artagnan said, “but the other prospects are just as charming. There’s your Amelie’s parents-and I have to tell you that I didn’t like the man at all and wouldn’t disdain seeing him swing at the end of a rope.”
Porthos frowned, a dark frown. “No. Nor would I. Honor or not, I still think anyone who turns their daughter out…” He shook his head.
“And then,” D’Artagnan said, thinking he’d best not even mention Porthos’s father. “There’s Monsieur de Comeau who was getting money from who knows where.”
“And it might have been Athenais’s husband,” Porthos said. “I know. Though I must say that I consider that far too unlikely. Only because, you see, Monsieur Coquenard would be more likely to want me dead, myself, and it wouldn’t be so hard for some assassin to creep up behind me, some night, when I’m drunk.”
“Except that when you’re drunk we’re all likely to be with you,” Athos said. “And drunk or sober we, the King’s Musketeers, are more than a match for any would-be assassin. ”
“Yes, yes, but still,” Porthos said. “Monsieur Coquenard wouldn’t be likely to know that. He doesn’t s
et great stock in the work of the sword.”
“Oh, yes, but doubtless he has informants,” Aramis said. “All merchants do. And you know, it might give Monsieur Coquenard greater satisfaction to see you killed on the gallows than to have you murdered on the streets. Can’t you see?” He looked at Porthos, who shook his head, at Athos who shrugged, and then at D’Artagnan who was aware of looking blank. “Oh, do none of you understand women?” Aramis said, in a tone of great exasperation. “A lover killed in a duel, or a lover killed in an alley, by stealth, would remain in any woman’s mind and heart for the rest of her life. But one who was put to death by the King’s justice after having killed a child? A woman would be likely to recoil and repent from such an unworthy attachment and turn back to her husband all the more faithfully for feeling she had wronged him.”
“So, Monsieur Coquenard,” Porthos said.
“Yes, yes. And of course the Cardinal.”
“Why would the Cardinal concern himself…”
“Who knows?” Athos said. “Perhaps he wants de Termopillae to inherit. The Cardinal seems to spend half of his time disposing the noble families of France as though they were chess pieces on a tray. If he disposed of you for that reason, it would not surprise me in the least.”
“And the fact remains,” D’Artagnan said. “That there is no other way to explain all the attacks we’ve suffered from men who are clearly sent by the Cardinal, a lot of them guards, not wearing uniform, but guards nonetheless.”
“We’ve not been attacked in very long,” Athos said. “Not since we came out to Du Vallon.”
Aramis crossed himself. “That is the sort of thing you should never say aloud, Athos.”
But Porthos was looking past all of them, at the countryside which, though half a day’s ride from his home, must still look much like that in which he’d passed his childhood. “And let’s not forget my father in that list of suspects, ” he said. “Let’s not forget my dear father.”
He wiped his hands on some grass by the wayside and got up. “Let’s go,” he said, preparing to mount. “I want to be in Paris. The countryside is even more confusing than the city, and I fear that there are more plots brewing here than there.”
Where a Roadside Ambush Is Not In Fact a Roadside Ambush; The Effect of Country Air on Parisian Ruffians
THEY arrived to the hostelry late in the evening. D’Artagnan longed for nothing so much as a bed, and a respite from the continuous bounce of the saddle. While their servants took the horses to the stables, the four of them entered the inn.
The first impression D’Artagnan received was that it was full. Very full. Which struck him as odd since, on the way out, they’d found the place empty, its tables dusty and half its candles unlit, two of its three cooking hearths cold.
Now every table was occupied and not only the wenches who had helped serve them, but also three or four stable lads were circulating amid the tables carrying food and drink.
That was his first impression, and second upon it a more startling one. Half the people in the inn were dressed in good attire that yet bore no marks, no shield, no note of any particular house or patron. And the other half wore doublets and plumed hats of bright blaring red. D’Artagnan stepped back, straight into Athos, and said, “The guards of the Cardinal,” as he took his hand to his sword.
A look over his shoulder showed him that Athos was already drawing his out, and he jumped aside and drew his, even as Aramis stepped fully in, his demeanor as elegant and composed as ever, although his lips tightened in an expression of displeasure and his hand went to the pommel of the elaborate sword at his hip.
And at every table, the men were standing, drawing their swords.
Counting the opponents and passing thirty, D’Artagnan was aware of Aramis, composedly and with great aplomb, crossing himself. He knew, without looking, that Athos’s face would be composing itself into the mad expression of half resignation but mostly fury that distorted the noble features when Athos was sure that he must die, and took pleasure in the mayhem he would cause before death.
And D’Artagnan closed his eyes and opened them again. And all the men stood, hands on swords. Only, here was a saving grace, that there were two contingents of them-the red-attired one looking suspiciously at the secretive one- and the foes eyeing each other with as much animosity as they showed the three musketeers and D’Artagnan.
The lead of the guards spoke first-he was a tall man, with a scarred face, and it seemed to D’Artagnan they’d met before in the many skirmishes that marked the life of musketeers and their allies in Paris -bowing, and removing his hat. “You led us a good chase gentlemen, and I admit you do the Cardinal credit as foes, but if you think we are going to allow you, here and now, to mock us and confound all the Cardinal’s plans, you are very wrong. Give yourself up to us, now, and we shall go easy on you.”
“That is nonsense,” a pale-haired man with a vague foreign accent said, from the other side. “I’m sure these men had no more intention of doing the Cardinal a wrong than they had of anything else.” He looked at them all and fixed D’Artagnan earnestly. “Sir,” he said, “if you give me a few minutes of your time I’m sure that all will be solved to the mutual advantage of both us and our friends.”
D’Artagnan would very much have liked to believe him, only he remembered this same face all too well, and he remembered this man as one of the dark-attired attackers who had attacked him in Paris. Between these and the guards of the Cardinal there was little to choose and indeed, little certainty that they weren’t acting in concert.
D’Artagnan dared a look over his shoulder and to the side, to see Porthos looking aggrieved, Aramis looking mulish and Athos looking almost gleefully bellicose. There was no doubt in his mind that his friends, too, had recognized their attackers.
“I thank you for your kind words, sir,” D’Artagnan said. “But I find talking to people who have attacked me before, under cover of darkness, extremely distasteful. You will, therefore, do me the honor of crossing your sword with me. En garde!”
The fixed scene of the tavern broke into a panoply of violence. If both their enemies had converged on the musketeers and D’Artagnan, the four of them would have been quickly overwhelmed. But the two factions seemed as intent on fighting each other as on fighting the four of them.
It was not something that D’Artagnan had much time to understand as he found himself fighting, at once, the blond man with the foreign accent and the scarred man who was the leader of the guards of the Cardinal.
The guard-whom D’Artagnan remembered was called Remy-pressed D’Artagnan the hardest, pushing close, and speaking between his teeth, “Come, come, Monsieur D’Artagnan. You’re little more than a child and you can’t think you’ll survive getting involved in such dealings that far surpass your ability.”
D’Artagnan didn’t answer. He had no idea what Remy meant by dealings. He had some vague notion he had displeased the Cardinal and he was not quite sure how. Perhaps by escorting Constance Bonacieux to her mysterious rendezvous or perhaps by interfering with the Cardinal’s plan involving Guillaume and Porthos. In either case, he would fully agree with Remy that these plots surpassed his ability to comprehend. All of which meant nothing. He was honor bound and duty bound to defend his friends, and Remy attacking him like this, pressing him across the bar as he defended himself, crossing amid other duelers, didn’t predispose him to cooperate with whatever the Cardinal might want.
Across the bar, Porthos roared, a sound followed by the noise of breaking crockery and the scream of several people. Through the corner of his eye, D’Artagnan could see that Porthos had grabbed a tray full of drinks from one of the serving wenches and flung it in the face of several of his opponents, in what seemed to be an attempt to clear the path to the bar. What Porthos wanted with the bar, D’Artagnan could not say, except that, knowing how Porthos’s mind worked, he rather suspected that it had something to do with getting himself a drink.
Closer at hand, Athos j
umped on top of a table, from which position he could more easily battle six determined opponents four of whom wore the red guards’ uniform.
And to the other side, Aramis was battling half a dozen opponents, all the while lecturing them. “It is an interesting theological question,” he said, between brilliant parries and fulminating lunges, “exactly how-and when-violence is allowed in defense of self, or of a cause deemed just. The very concept of just war, as exposed by St. Thomas de Aquinas in Summa Theologicae…” Aramis’s voice went on and on, and D’Artagnan was sure that if he paid attention to Aramis he would presently feel dizzy and be unable to continue defending himself. And, despite his long theory in fighting, he had never, in practice met two such seasoned fighters as these foes.
While the two leaders of the attackers didn’t cooperate, neither were they as foolish as their followers, that is, stupid enough to fight each other. Instead, they each pressed for advantage with him and might, occasionally, bare teeth at each other but without, ever, allowing their enmity to distract them from the task at hand.
He was having a hard time keeping his place, and guarding his back, in case either of the two got ideas.
Hearing Porthos yell from the corner of the room, nearest the counter, “Five roast chickens and four bottles of wine, host, now,” did not exactly make him feel better. Oh, Porthos was the best of friends and a man who had, countless times, helped D’Artagnan out of tight binds. But what could he mean by ordering dinner in the middle of this devilish situation?
The Musketeer's Apprentice Page 23