“Oh. You have my sympathy. The poor man. And twice D’Artagnan’s age too. But at least he’ll be joining his comrade who helped him fight D’Artagnan and who died of his wounds at the scene of the duel.”
The Cardinal made a gesture of impatience, hastily suppressed. “But if you haven’t come to offer me your services, may I ask…”
“But I have come to offer you my services,” Athos said. “I said so.” He lifted a hand, as he saw Richelieu open his mouth. “No, pray, allow me to explain. I came to offer my services, but without leaving Monsieur de Treville’s service. No, before you seek to insult me by insinuating I am willing to spy for you, let me stop you. There are insults, your eminence, that will make me forget that you’ve given up your sword.”
“I trust your honor better than that, Monsieur le Comte. You would not kill an unarmed man.”
“I wouldn’t trust my honor, Monsieur le Cardinal. I am, in fact, human, and flesh and blood can only stand so much.”
The Cardinal inclined his head. “I won’t accuse you of wishing to play a double role, then,” he said. “At any rate, it is more likely that your friend Aramis or your friend D’Artagnan would succeed at such a game. But if you want to take up my service without giving up Monsieur de Treville’s, what else am I to understand? I have enough people to guard entrances and doors, and if you mean that you’ll stand such a sort of double shift, again, much as I regret to tell you, it is not the thing that is worth the life of a servant who murdered someone.”
Athos wasn’t about to argue that Mousqueton hadn’t murdered anyone. At any rate, he would bet that Richelieu knew that already. Instead, he inclined his head, and looked at the pattern of the carpet upon the floor for a while before speaking. “No, no. While I am a good guard, I claim no particular acuity. After all, it was past my guard that the Duchess de Dreux was murdered. Forbid the thought that your eminence should likewise succumb to murder while I guarded the entrance.”
Richelieu shuddered, the shudder unmistakable, then focused his gaze on Athos, with renewed sharpness. “So you know of the conspiracy to kill me. I assume Treville told you so. And Treville being Treville, and no more likely to understand conspiracy or plotting than you are, I presume he foolishly told you that I am holding Mous-ah, Boniface, to get the Queen to confess to her part in the conspiracy.” He raised eyebrows at Athos. “Do you play chess, Monsieur le Comte?”
“No, your eminence. My father did. You remind me a great deal of him.”
This got him a quizzical look. Then the Cardinal shrugged, minimally. “Ah? Very well. However, I am sure you know that a Queen is worth more than a pawn. The trade won’t be made.”
“I quite understand,” Athos said. He allowed his more typical smile, tinged with a good deal of bitterness to elongate his lips into a smile. “I am not one of those who reposes a great deal of belief in the natural benevolence of women.”
A long enquiring look back, and Richelieu opened his hands wide, not quite in a show of helplessness, but more as though he were laying out a hand of imaginary cards. “What, then, do you propose to do?” he asked. “I have something you want-that is your servant back. And you have, presumably, something to offer me in return, else your coming in like this and wishing to deal would seem even more foolish than it is.”
Athos allowed a dry chuckle to escape him, without betraying the slightest expression of amusement. “A good description of the situation, your eminence. And the only answer I can make is that I’ve come to strike a bargain with the devil.”
The eyebrows went up. “Truly? How strange of you to seek him in the home of a churchman.”
“Not so strange, when you think about it, your eminence,” Athos said. “I do not listen to gossip, but one cannot help but hear some portion of it, as one goes about one’s business.”
The Cardinal said nothing. This meant, Athos supposed, the time for talk was over. He nodded, as though acknowledging the end of a part of the game and the beginning of the other. As much fun as it might be to needle the Cardinal, Athos had come here for a purpose.
He opened his hands in turn, displaying his palms. “I want Mousqueton’s freedom. Mousqueton’s freedom and his exoneration from these ridiculous charges.”
“And I want a strong France where noblemen can’t challenge the power of their sovereign,” Richelieu said. “We all want things. The question is, what do you propose to do about it? And what can you do about it?”
“In return for the freedom and life of Porthos’s servant, I offer my services in unraveling the conspiracy against your eminence.”
A surprised look. “Oh? I thought you meant to offer me something of value?”
Perhaps Athos deserved that, for the unprovoked insults against the Cardinal, or perhaps this was just the way of the Cardinal’s enjoying himself in turn. Athos bowed his head slightly, in acknowledgment of a hit, and answered back, “I’m sure it has value enough. You are aware that in the last year we have unraveled murders that baffled everyone else.”
“And bested me not a few times? Yes. But for that, you had the help of your friends. Am I correct in saying that this time you are on your own, and that none of your friends knows of your effort, much less is prepared to help?”
Athos opened his hands, displaying his symbolic cards. “Alas, I can only offer myself,” he said, while in his mind he calculated things quickly. There was D’Artagnan, on whose loyalty and cooperation he was fairly sure he could count. And there was Porthos, who would protest at the idea of doing anything for the Cardinal, much less anything to defend the Cardinal. But he would do it, nonetheless, for the sake of Mousqueton. And Aramis… ah, Aramis. There was no telling what Aramis might do. Even when he told you what he was going to do.
Not that Athos didn’t value Aramis as a friend-he did. And not that he believed that Aramis would knowingly betray him, or any of them. Their friendship had been tried in too demanding a course for him to have any doubt that they did indeed stand one for all and all for one.
It was more the way that Aramis’s mind ran, deep and convoluted and often hiding from himself what he himself thought. Aramis knew of the conspiracy and, in fact, Aramis might be part of it. Athos didn’t think so, at least not knowingly, because much as Aramis despised Richelieu, he did not condone of murder. A man he wanted out of the way would be challenged to a duel or manipulated into exile. And if neither of those applied, then neither would murder.
And yet, he might very well refuse to help save the Cardinal’s neck, or work only halfheartedly to save it. “I can’t promise my friends, or not yet,” Athos said.
The Cardinal watched him. Finally, he nodded. “I cannot give you the servant’s liberty without some surety you can do what you promise,” Richelieu said. “So this is the deal I offer you, Monsieur le Comte. I shall promise you nothing will happen to the boy for the next week. No torture, no condemnation. But you must deliver me the conspirators meanwhile or…” He clasped his own neck, with one hand, as if to indicate hanging.
Athos nodded, staring. It wasn’t till he was outside the Palais Cardinal-having crossed the great antechamber where all conversations stopped at his approach and didn’t resume again till he was too far to hear their words-that Athos thought there was another outcome the Cardinal hadn’t considered, and one for which he was sure of his friends’ approval.
He could discover who had, in fact, killed the armorer. And then Richelieu would have to free Mousqueton.
Meanwhile, he had a week. A week, and Mousqueton would be safe meanwhile. And he could work to find the real murderer. If he needed to pry into the conspiracies of the court to find something to keep Richelieu quiet meanwhile, it wouldn’t hurt. The court was so rife with conspiracies, he was unlikely to find anything concrete.
He was putting on his gloves, preparing to go back to his lodgings, when he heard a soft cough behind him. “Monsieur Athos?” a well-known voice said.
Athos pivoted on his heel, to see Rochefort, the shadow of the
Cardinal and, many said, the Cardinal’s evil genius. He was looking at Athos with an expression of interested amusement in his single eye. His other eye socket was covered with a patch. The last time they’d seen each other alone, Athos had held the upper hand. He rather suspected that Rochefort imagined he had it now.
“Yes?” he said.
“His eminence asked me to have a talk with you. If you would follow me.”
The Bravery of Youth; Porthos’s Defense; Ghost Tale
OUTSIDE the door to the armorer’s, Xavier hesitated, and D’Artagnan took advantage of the moment, to run ahead. There was a crowd outside the door, and a large man had just knocked on it and was calling out.
No one answered him. As D’Artagnan approached-since everyone was keeping a safe distance and looking rather like they were ready to take to their heels-the big man turned around and said, “No one is answering. Perhaps it’s just a cat locked in there? A cat would make a lot of noise. There was once a cat locked over in the potters and he-”
“Don’t be daft, Francois,” a voice shouted from behind him. “How would a cat reach the swords?”
D’Artagnan didn’t know why, but he did not want anyone to come in with him, and he found himself saying, “Perhaps. Or perhaps it is a ghost.”
At his conspiratorial accents, even the big man stepped back a little. Which allowed D’Artagnan a chance to slip past him, open the door, and slip into the dark armorer’s.
Of course, it only occurred to him afterwards, as the dark, clammy air of the workshop closed around him, that he was alone. In the armorer’s. Where a recent murder had happened.
Monsieur D’Artagnan père, a man of certain convictions and wise maxims, had once told his son, when D’Artagnan was just a small boy, that the probability was that there was no such thing as ghosts, and that it was very important for D’Artagnan to know that. On the other hand, it was important to keep in mind that the ghosts themselves might not know it.
It seemed to D’Artagnan, now, in the dark workshop, his nose filled with the smell of coals and metal polish as well as that curious metallic tang of smithies and an underlying smell of sudden death, that he heard his father’s voice again. He swallowed loudly, and hoped these ghosts-if there were any here-knew that they didn’t exist.
In the dark he took a step, two. And he found a huge hand clamping tight over his mouth. He put his hand to his sword belt, but he was wearing neither sword belt nor sword, and squirmed in the grip of another huge hand that had clasped his shoulder, in an attempt to turn around and kick his captor-who he was quite sure was corporeal-where it would hurt, when a well-known voice stopped him.
“D’Artagnan,” Porthos whispered in his ear, in his whisper which had an odd habit of booming at unexpected times. Not loud enough, D’Artagnan hoped, to be heard outside the doors to the smithy, but one could never be sure. “D’Artagnan? What are you doing here? And dressed that way.”
D’Artagnan did his best to answer, which was easier thought than done, due to the huge hand still clamped tightly across his mouth. He let out a hiss of exasperation, lifted his own hand and, delicately, prized one of Porthos’s fingers away, enough to say something that sounded like “pfffff” but was in fact, “Let me speak.”
Porthos jumped a little. “Oh, sorry,” he boom-whispered, while pulling his hand away from D’Artagnan’s face.
D’Artagnan, in turn, took his finger to his lips, in the universal gesture of recommending silence and said, in quite a low whisper. “There’s a crowd outside. Don’t speak. You boom when you speak.”
Porthos nodded and looked an enquiry at D’Artagnan.
D’Artagnan sighed. He said, thinking as he said it. “Well… You can’t get out. Not through there. There is a crowd out there too. So…” He chewed on his lip, thinking, as he looked around the darkened smithy. There was a candle burning on one of the forges, its light too little to make it beyond a circle perhaps as tall and wide as D’Artagnan himself. Well, and a little more of it making it, attenuated some distance. He could see the swords overhead and, near the embers on the hearth, a pile of something that might be coal or metal. But that was about it, except for the light of the embers. There was a crowd outside the door. Porthos couldn’t leave without being stopped by the crowd. And since he was Mousqueton’s master, things could get ugly rather quickly. He would not put it past the crowd to try to arrest Porthos. And one of the ever-obliging guards of his eminence might be nearby. The last thing they needed was to be arrested or worse, to fight a duel in full view of a lot of people, a duel that could-at a stroke of the King’s pen-become their last.
No. Something more cunning must offer. And, as D’Artagnan thought it, the plan presented itself, emerging from his head like a rather shifty Athena from Zeus’s head. He grabbed at Porthos’s gold-lace edged sleeve. “Listen,” he said, standing on tiptoes to whisper as close as he could to his giant friend’s ear. “Hide behind that pile of… whatever it is, there. And I will… do something that will bring the crowd in here. They don’t have torches. At least not yet. The moment they enter here, you mingle with them. Remember, I’m your servant-” and at Porthos’s look of rebellion-“your other servant. And as such, you were looking for me, and I’m a bad, bad boy, and in a lot of trouble.”
Porthos looked doubtful. “But-” he said.
“Not a word. My name is Henri Bayard.”
A look of relief in Porthos’s eyes battled with a stubborn expression of confusion, but D’Artagnan, no matter how much he knew his stubborn friend’s need for concrete explanations was not so foolish as to spend his time-now-explaining to Porthos why he must be Henri Bayard.
At any minute, someone-perhaps the big, brave guy-would open that door. Worse, they might think to get torches, and then they would see Porthos and D’Artagnan and… all there was to see before it could be hidden.
“Go,” D’Artagnan told Porthos, in the tone that brooked no dissent. “Go. Now. Do not wait. Run.”
Porthos hesitated a moment, then ran to hide behind the pile of material, whatever it might be. D’Artagnan hoped it was not coal, as it would seem rather odd when Porthos reemerged-for him to be covered in soot. But then again, D’Artagnan was entrusting the success of his plan to a man whose mind worked in such an odd way that people not familiar with the inner architecture of his thoughts often thought him dumb, or at least simple.
But Monsieur D’Artagnan père, other than wise advice on ghosts, had also told his son that when going into a duel, one must always fight with the sword he had. There was no use, and it would only lead to no good, to keep wishing after the sword he couldn’t get. Porthos was the accomplice he had, and it was up to D’Artagnan to make the most of it.
Taking a deep breath, he blew out the candle on the forge, then let out a long, haunted scream, and after it, “Help me.”
At the scream, he fancied he heard feet scurrying away, but at the “Help,” the door was pushed open. In the doorway stood the big man and behind him ranged his friends and neighbors.
D’Artagnan, hoping it looked natural, threw himself down as though he’d lost consciousness. The steps approached. The big man knelt down. “What’s wrong boy? What happened?” He put his hand, roughly, on D’Artagnan’s neck, and announced, in tones of relief, “He lives.”
Xavier was there too, on the other side, and D’Artagnan had a brief moment of panic, as he realized the story he’d told the Ferrant family in no way accorded to what he’d given Porthos. But there was nothing for it, now, and he blinked, and pretended to come to, and said, in a trembling voice, “There was a creature… very tall and dressed all in white, and a red light enveloping him, as he stood at that forge there.” He pointed. “And he was… beating something. Looked like a sword made of men’s bones.” He shuddered at his own imagination and was quite glad to see not a few people in the crowd hastily crossing themselves.
“It’s the devil,” one of the men in the crowd said. “Come to collect the soul of whoever murdered
Langelier.”
“A likely story,” Porthos’s voice boomed, from the back of the crowd. Arms crossed, Porthos forced his way amid the locals, using his shoulder as a battering ram, as he was known to do in any crowd, Monsieur de Treville’s antechamber included. “More likely you were in here to take a look at the scene of the crime, Bayard. And you left me without a servant to get me my dinner.”
“You’re his servant?” Xavier asked, his voice trembling. “But I thought you said you were going to be Monsieur de Treville’s servant.”
“Oh, he is that,” Porthos said, and at that moment, on a wave of relief, D’Artagnan could have clasped him in his arms. “But the captain is letting me borrow him until Mousqueton is freed.” Even in the dark, it was possible to see the glare he gave the gathered crowd, as though daring them to say that there was another outcome possible than Mousqueton’s freedom. “But Bayard thought he was too good to be the servant of a mere musketeer, didn’t you, rogue?”
He reached down, and with a realism that D’Artagnan couldn’t have anticipated, got a firm hold on D’Artagnan’s ear. “Up you come. I need someone to take a letter from me to the Princess de-” He stopped, as though he’d just avoided committing an indiscretion. “You know well who. And then we must pick my outfit for the encounter.”
The crowd-possibly daunted by the idea that Porthos, whose suit managed to shine even in the scant light of the embers and the little coming in through the open door, might have a better, more impressive suit that he kept for encounters with princesses. And Porthos, holding fast to D’Artagnan’s ear, and pulling it just a little too high, and a little too fast-just enough, D’Artagnan judged, to look as if he were dragging him-led him to the door of the armory and down the street.
No one followed them, though D’Artagnan could hear them arguing, still within the shop, the words “ghosts” and “murder” emerging now and then.
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