Book 2: The Queen's Musketeers, #2

by R. A. Steffan

  Perhaps most importantly, the coffers of the once prosperous farm yielded plentiful gold to supplement the coins stolen from their dead captors; enough, hopefully, to pay for what they needed to resupply themselves after losing almost everything in Illiers-Combray. And—an added bonus—as they wended their way through the property’s extensive, overgrown orchard, d’Artagnan shouted in excitement at the sight of ripe plums hanging from a row of trees in desperate need of pruning, but no less productive for their neglect.

  The two men ate ravenously without even bothering to dismount; the horses also taking their share. They filled one of the cloth bags with more for the journey, and set off with renewed determination toward Châteaudun. They followed the river a little way further before Athos decided it was veering too far to the east. The next time they came across a bridge spanning the sluggishly flowing water, the pair regained the road and headed southwest.

  D’Artagnan tried to be circumspect in his assessing glances toward Athos, knowing that the other man would not appreciate them. Nonetheless, he could not hold his tongue as they rode past the abandoned cottages of Dangeau with no sign of stopping, despite Athos’ gradually deteriorating posture.

  "Athos, do you not need to stop and rest for awhile?"

  "What I need is Grimaud at the end of my sword, explaining what demonic spirit possessed him to act in such a craven, dishonorable manner," Athos said flatly, before shooting a glance of his own at d’Artagnan. "Why? Do you need to stop? Are your shoulders paining you?"

  Yes, he thought.

  "No," he said. "I was just asking."

  The pair continued on in silence, their steady pace gradually eating up the distance until Châteaudun appeared on the horizon as the sun was slanting low in the sky off to their right. They approached, passing the northern market cross—empty of commerce at this late hour—and entered the large town. There was little choice other than to return to the inn at which they had stayed before; not only could they get rooms for the night and care for the horses, but the innkeeper was their best resource for finding the various items they needed for their journey.

  Assuming, of course, that the man was not still holding a grudge over whatever passed between himself and Milady.

  "Let me do the talking," Athos said, and d’Artagnan strove valiantly to hide his misgivings at letting Athos take the lead with the man who had flirted so shamelessly with his wife only a few days before. They handed their horses off to be stabled, ignoring the stable boy's quizzical look at their makeshift and missing tack.

  Athos allowed d’Artagnan to assist him into the inn, where the owner greeted them with a sour expression.

  "You lot back again, are you?" he asked.

  "Only the two of us, sir," Athos replied. "Our party was attacked on the road by bandits. We barely escaped with our lives. The others were too badly injured to make it back with us. They are staying at an abandoned farm some hours’ ride from here. Young d’Artagnan and I returned to secure medical supplies and provisions."

  "Injured, you say?" The innkeeper raised an eyebrow, and hesitated for a moment as if mentally struggling with himself. His attention turned to d’Artagnan, and as if the words were being pulled from him, he added, "Even your sister?"

  D’Artagnan found himself at a loss. Would he gain more sympathy by confirming the lie or denying it? Athos stepped in before he could say the wrong thing.

  "Yes, I’m afraid her injuries are grave," said the older man. "You’ll have to forgive my young friend; he is understandably distraught by the situation."

  The innkeeper’s expression wavered for a moment before collapsing into sympathy. "I’m rightly sorry to hear that, young man," he said. "Your sister was quite a firebrand. And a beautiful one, to boot."

  "She still is," d’Artagnan said.

  "Aye, of course she is, lad," the man agreed quickly, as if humoring him. "Of course she is. I’ll get you pointed to everyone you need to talk to in order to get your provisions, though they’ll all still want paying, obviously."

  "Fortunately, we found gold in the coffers of the abandoned house," Athos said smoothly. "We will be able to pay."

  "Well," the innkeeper said. "I suppose that’s a stroke of luck, at least. You need rooms tonight?"

  "A single room will suffice," Athos said. "And we will need food."

  "You’ll have it," said the man.

  "Are there any herbalists open at this hour?" d’Artagnan asked. "Or physicians who might come out and look at my friend’s wounds?"

  The innkeeper shook his head. "The herbalist shuts up his shop at dusk, so I’m afraid you’ll have to wait until morning. And the physician died last month. Which, if you think about it, doesn’t speak too highly of his skills, though personally I always found him to be a pleasant enough fellow."

  D’Artagnan nodded, swallowing his disappointment. "Perhaps we could get some hot water and clean linen for bandages sent to the room, in that case? We’ll pay extra for it."

  "Of course, lad," the innkeeper agreed. "I’ll have the food sent up as well. If you don’t mind me saying so, you two look like a stiff wind would blow you right over." He glanced at Athos. "You can take the same room that you and your soldier friends had last time."

  Athos nodded and counted out several coins, passing them over to the man, who swept them into a till. D’Artagnan readjusted the bag that held a couple of bottles of their scavenged wine and draped Athos’ arm over his shoulder, helping him up the stairs to the room he indicated would be theirs.

  They were just getting settled when a light knock came at the door and a familiar face entered, bearing a platter of food.

  "Sylvie!" d’Artagnan exclaimed in surprise.

  Sylvie’s eyes widened and a smile spread across her face, only to dissolve again as she got a better look at the two of them.

  "I didn’t expect to see you again so soon!" she said. "Good heavens, my pet, whatever has befallen you?"

  D’Artagnan relayed a slightly abridged version of their cover story, to many exclamations of dismay and tuts of sympathy.

  "You poor men," she said when he had finished. "I wondered what was going on when my uncle called for hot water and bandages. You two eat this food before you collapse completely, and I’ll be back in two ticks with the rest of what you need. All right?"

  "Thank you, Sylvie," d’Artagnan said gratefully, and let his eyes close briefly when she stroked the side of his face with her fingertips, before bustling out the door and back down the stairs with light footsteps.

  "You appear to have made quite an impression during your brief stay," Athos said in a dry voice.

  D’Artagnan was unable to prevent the flush that rose to his cheeks; grateful when Athos let it go with an amused shake of his head and handed him a bowl of stew, a chunk of coarse bread, and a spoon. The fare was simple, but hearty, and d’Artagnan ate ravenously, having had nothing other than water, fruit, and wine in well over a day. They washed it down with one of the remaining bottles from the farm, Athos once again toasting d’Artagnan’s luck and ingenuity in finding the abandoned crate.

  Sylvie returned shortly thereafter, bearing a steaming bowl of water and piles of clean linen. She offered to help them with their wounds, but Athos politely declined, assuring her that they had things in hand. Once she had gone, making them both promise to call on her if they needed anything, Athos insisted on cleaning and re-bandaging d’Artagnan’s wrist, which was becoming quite inflamed and sore.

  "It’s infected," Athos said. "Hard to tell by candlelight, but I think there are some fibers from the rope embedded in the wound. They are already scabbing over, so all I can do for now is to wash it and flush it out with wine."

  D’Artagnan nodded his understanding, gritting his teeth and locking the breath in his chest to prevent any noise escaping as Athos gently scrubbed at the red, weeping flesh and poured wine over it. When the fiery burn retreated a bit and the wrist was rewrapped with clean cloth, he cleared his throat to ensure his voice wou
ld be steady and asked Athos to let him tend to his burns.

  Athos shook his head, and d’Artagnan frowned.

  "Tend to them how?" the older man asked. "I’d prefer not to have either hot water or wine poured over them, thank you very much. And if you tried to bandage all of them, I’d end up looking like a corpse wearing a shroud. Leave them. I’ll be fine."

  After a bit more fruitless arguing, d’Artagnan subsided, an idea entering his mind that would have to wait until morning. Exhausted, the two of them retired to the bed, which was wonderfully clean and soft after the previous night spent against a tree trunk with neither tent nor blanket for comfort. The pain in d’Artagnan’s wrist and shoulders was not enough to keep him from falling asleep within minutes, but his rest was interrupted by nebulous, threatening dreams of failure and loss.

  Each time he jerked awake, however, Athos was a solid presence by his side, grounding him either with the sound of gentle snoring or a hand on his arm and mumbled, sleepy words of reassurance. The fourth or fifth time he awoke, the darkness had given way to pre-dawn light. D’Artagnan struggled upright and tried not to wake the other man as he rose to use the chamber pot. His shoulders felt like rusty iron hinges, but he was thrilled to discover that he could, with difficulty, raise his left arm a few inches today.

  He washed his face and hands with the water left from the previous evening. Dressing awkwardly, he roused Athos with a gentle shake, just long enough to inform him the he was going out to begin the process of replacing their provisions. Athos nodded his understanding and promptly went back to sleep, drawing a slight smile from the young man.

  D’Artagnan strapped on one of the weapons belts and fastened the purse securely inside his doublet before heading out the door. The serving girl in the tavern—not Sylvie, somewhat to his disappointment—provided him with bread and cheese, which he ate quickly while waiting for the innkeeper to appear. The man still seemed to be in an accommodating mood this morning, though d’Artagnan somewhat cynically put it down to the generous amount of gold Athos had paid him.

  Whatever the reason, though, he answered all of d’Artagnan’s queries, and within a quarter hour he was heading for the stable with a list of names and addresses for the various merchants and tradespeople he needed to see. The stable boy saddled Grimaud’s mare with their single, scavenged saddle and brought Aramis’ horse out with a halter and lead. D’Artagnan mounted—albeit somewhat clumsily with his nagging injuries—and reached forward to offer the little mare a crust of bread as was his habit. He took Rosita’s lead rope and exited the yard, heading for the saddle smith as his first order of business.

  An hour later, he was at the market, filling both horses’ shiny new saddlebags with dried meat and fruit for traveling rations, along with eggs, honey, and fresh milk. The herbalist provided him with oil of roses, turpentine, and an assortment of medicinal herbs. A clothier supplied him with new, clean shirts and braies, and a merchant on the edge of the town square with blankets, canvas, waterskins, and a cooking pot for camping rough.

  By the time he returned to the inn with both horses fully laden, the sun was well past midday. He tipped the stable boy five shiny copper sous to help him carry his purchases up to their room, where he found Athos pacing slowly back and forth, a wine bottle held loosely in his hand.

  The other man turned at the sound of their entrance. "Did you manage to acquire everything?" he asked.

  "I think so," d’Artagnan replied, dismissing the boy with a wave. "I’ll need Sylvie’s help to get into the kitchens and assemble my mother’s recipe for salve. Some of the herbs have to steep, but it shouldn’t take more than an hour."

  "We need to continue on to Blois immediately," Athos said.

  A wave of frustration overcame D’Artagnan, and he slapped both palms down hard on the rough table where he had laid the saddlebags, gritting his teeth as the abrupt motion jarred up the length of his sore arms.

  "We need treatment for our wounds, lest we collapse from a fever on the road and die. In the absence of a town physician, that means taking an extra hour to let me make the damn salve, Athos."

  Athos huffed out his own frustration and turned away. Deciding that action would get him farther than arguing, d’Artagnan chose to interpret the silence as assent. Grabbing the bag that contained what he needed, he headed out the door and back down the stairs. Sylvie was flitting to and fro amongst the afternoon customers, smiling her toothy smile whenever someone called her over. She noticed d’Artagnan almost immediately and indicated that he should meet her by the door to the kitchens.

  "What can I do for you, pet?" she asked upon joining him there.

  "Sylvie, Athos is hurt worse than he’s letting on," he told her. "I bought ingredients for a healing ointment, but I need access to the kitchen to make it—bowls for mixing... boiling water for steeping herbs; that sort of thing. Can you help me?"

  Sylvie nodded. "Of course, d’Artagnan. I have to keep serving the customers, but I’ll introduce you to Cook. Follow me."

  Cook turned out to be an elderly, rough looking man with two front teeth missing, but in d’Artagnan’s book, anyone who had produced the flaky meat pies he and Milady had enjoyed during their previous stay was a person worth knowing. The man only grunted at Sylvie’s explanation and told d’Artagnan to help himself to what he needed, but also to stay out from underfoot. He patted Sylvie’s shoulder fondly as she turned to leave, however.

  D’Artagnan thanked the man politely and quickly gathered what he would need, taking it to a low counter in the corner to work. He separated the egg whites, placing the yolks in a bowl for Cook to use as he saw fit, since he didn’t need them. In a separate bowl, he crushed the herbs with a pestle and poured a scant cup of boiling water over them, leaving them to steep. He beat the milk and egg whites together, grimacing and cursing his sore shoulder under his breath; then added honey until the mixture turned into a thick paste.

  When he was satisfied with the texture, he carefully added first the oil of roses, and then the turpentine, a few drops at a time, stopping after each addition to smell the concoction until it matched his childhood memories. As d’Artagnan was waiting for the color of the steeping liquid to darken a bit further, Cook wandered over to peer in the bowl, throwing him a wink and proclaiming with an unexpected burst of humor that the concoction would make "a right awful pudding, even with all that honey in it".

  Once the steeping water reached the same golden shade as the honey had been, he carefully strained out the leaves through a folded, loosely woven cloth, and moved the small pot to the fire, stirring it slowly over the heat until the liquid was reduced to a thick brown syrup sticking to the bottom of the vessel. After cooling for a few minutes, he added the sharp-smelling substance to the salve and stirred it in until it was a smooth, uniform color and texture.

  Satisfied, he scooped the finished ointment into the clay pot he had purchased and sealed it tightly with a cork lid. Thanking Cook once again for the use of his kitchen, he offered the old man the unused milk, honey, and egg yolks in recompense and hurried back to the upstairs room.

  "Finished?" Athos asked, a note of impatience in his voice. "Good. Let me help you apply the salve to your wrist, and we’ll leave."

  "Correction," d’Artagnan said, feeling his jaw tighten again. "We’ll apply it to my wrist and your burns, and then we’ll leave."

  "That’s not necessary," Athos said, his flat tone never wavering.

  D’Artagnan took in the older man’s pale face and red-rimmed eyes, bruised with exhaustion even after a relatively quiet night of rest.

  "This salve is my mother’s recipe. She always used it on our cuts and burns when we were growing up. Claimed it would cure any wound that did not penetrate the heart... though, admittedly, that might have been a slight exaggeration on her part." D’Artagnan firmly pushed away memories of smearing the fragrant concoction over her unconscious body, in those last, horrible hours; covering the buboes and black spots with a thin, even coatin
g; thinking maybe, maybe. He cleared his throat and continued to speak, driving the knifepoint home. "To dismiss this ointment is to dismiss my mother’s memory, and I will take it as a personal affront, Athos."

  Athos stared at him for a beat, assessing, before seeming to deflate slightly. "Very well. Let me see your wrist. After I’ve bandaged it again, I will attend to my own injuries while you ready the horses for travel."

  D’Artagnan looked at him for a long moment. "Your word?"

  The older man’s eyes narrowed dangerously. "I am not in the habit of lying to my friends, d’Artagnan. If I tell you I will do a thing, you may rely upon it as a promise."

  D’Artagnan let himself relax, confident that Athos would do as he had said. "I believe you. Thank you for indulging my concerns."

  Athos acknowledged him with a single, brusque nod and motioned for his left wrist. D’Artagnan let him unwrap the injury and apply the smooth paste over the angry, seeping flesh, sighing as the initial sting faded, to be replaced with a soothing sense of coolness that brought comfort as much with its old familiarity from childhood as from the lessening of pain. When his wrist was snugly bandaged once more, he gathered the saddlebags containing their supplies and left Athos in privacy.

  He was tightening Rosita’s girth for the final time when Athos rejoined him. D’Artagnan took the proffered clay jar and, under the guise of making sure that the cork stopper was tight, confirmed that a reasonable amount of the salve had been used. The stable boy helped them mount up, and the pair rode out into the early evening air.

  It was late in the day to start traveling, but d’Artagnan still worried that someone might wonder at the two of them leaving the town and heading south after claiming their injured friends lay to the northwest.

  "Should we not travel to the north for a bit before skirting back towards Blois?" he asked quietly.

  Athos shook his head. "It’s unlikely anyone will take notice of it, and at this point I am more concerned with haste than discretion."

  D’Artagnan shrugged and nodded his understanding. The pair rode briskly out of Châteaudun with the sun low in the sky on their right. Once on the open road, d’Artagnan rummaged one-handed in his pack for some dried meat, offering a share to Athos, who shook his head and rode on in silence. They would not make it to another town before dark, d’Artagnan knew, remembering their trip a few days ago in the other direction.