Upright, holding onto the wall, Porthos felt relieved to see D’Artagnan get up. “You did not twist a leg?” he asked the young man, who had fallen in a most unnatural position.
But D’Artagnan only shook his head. “No. It’s no worse than what I did to myself everyday when practicing sword fights with my father in the fields behind our house.”
“I’m very glad not to have caused you injury,” Porthos said.
But Athos nudged him on the shoulder. “If the two of you gentlemen could manage to make it down the passage without tripping over your own feet or each other’s feet, we might yet see how the creature got into the room.”
“We never will make it in time,” D’Artagnan said. “I know that we’ll never catch him.”
“It wasn’t a him,” Athos said, laconically behind Porthos. “It was a her.”
“Indeed,” D’Artagnan asked, as he started walking down the passage towards the door hidden by the mirror. Porthos followed as close as he could without risking tripping over the young man. “I would have sworn it was a young man.”
“No,” Athos said. “It did not move as a young man. The . . . Steps were wrong.”
“Perhaps it was a ghost,” Porthos said. Here, in this passage, walking in the half darkness, it seemed wholly possible. “Perhaps it was the ghost of the young woman who died here coming back to reclaim her lost faith. Did you notice that it was a cross she retrieved from the trunk cluttered with much more expensive baubles?”
“Porthos,” Athos said, as they came to the mirror door and D’Artagnan opened it slowly, looking out. “Just because Aramis isn’t here, there is no reason at all for you to start thinking like him. It was not a ghost. That is the worst of metaphysical nonsense.”
Just then the door opened fully. They rushed out. Hermengarde, in the hallway, looked at them, her eyes widening slightly, probably at their disheveled condition.
“There was a ghost in the room,” Porthos said. It was the first thing that came to his mind and he flinched as he said it, even as Athos turned around to glare at him.
“There was an intruder in the room,” Athos said.
Now Hermengarde looked at all of them as though they had taken leave of their senses. “There can’t be an intruder in the room,” she said. “I was here. I can see the door,” she pointed down the hallway. “No one came or went.”
“She came through the balcony door,” Athos said.
Hermengarde’s blond eyebrows shot up towards her hairline, as she stared at Athos. If Porthos had made such a statement, he thought, the girl would have laughed at him.
But this was Athos, and it was Athos with his head thrown back, his lips tightly compressed and a look of utter disdain on his face.
Hermengarde tilted her head sideways. “It’s impossible,” she said.
Athos only stared.
Hermengarde reached under her waist band for the loop of keys. From it, she pulled the key to the room. One step into the room was enough to confirm for Porthos that they hadn’t been dreaming. The room was deserted, but the door to the balcony stood wide open and the jewelry box too was open, with handfuls of jewels strewn about.
D’Artagnan ran to the balcony. “Nothing,” came his voice. “Not a ladder, not . . . Nothing.”
Athos cast a look at the jewelry trunk, managing to convey the impression that it had personally offended him, then he stalked out to the balcony, himself.
Their voices came to Porthos, slightly distant but completely understandable.
“A rope ladder,” Athos said. “Whoever it was could easily have used a rope ladder.”
“Easily?” D’Artagnan asked. “But how? It couldn’t have been thrown with hooks up here. What are the chances it would reach? And then, after the person left, who would loosen the ladder and remove it? No one could have entered this room while we were gone.”
It wasn’t strictly true, Porthos thought. Hermengarde could have. He looked at the little blond maid, though, and failed to believe she had. Or that she was, even now, hiding a rope ladder somewhere about her person.
“It was a ghost,” Porthos said. His voice echoed strange even to himself. And he normally didn’t really believe in ghosts and spirits, or to be honest, anything he couldn’t touch, feel and bite. “It must have been a ghost.”
Athos came back into the room. “Porthos, don’t speak nonsense. Why would a ghost wear a mask? Why would a ghost wear male attire? And why would a ghost come in from the balcony, and open the door rather than just walk through it?” He looked down. “Besides, look here. Footprints.”
As he spoke, Athos pointed down, at a row of footprints from the balcony door. They’d been made in reddish dirt, and they faded progressively more till they ended a few steps from the jewelry trunk. “Only a corporeal entity could leave these,” Athos said.
Porthos felt better. He didn’t really want to believe in ghosts, anyway.
“Perhaps the dirt can tell us something,” Athos said. “Perhaps it will tell us where she came from.”
Porthos sighed. This was another of those instances of his friends getting lost in their own thoughts. “Athos,” he said. “The entire garden has that same fine reddish dust. It won’t tell us anything but that she stepped in the dirt of the garden, beneath the balcony, before she came here.”
Athos straightened up, from where he’d knelt, examining the foot prints, and looked up at Porthos and sighed. “Perhaps,” he said. “But if so, how did she get up here? She can’t have flown.”
The Prodigal Musketeer, Revisited; The Sins of Musketeers; Nowhere to Hide
ARAMIS made it to Paris as night was falling. He hurried, with the natural impatience of one who’d been too long away from his home, and who feels as though everything must have changed in his absence.
He dismounted as he came to the city, and told Bazin to take the horses back to the rental stable from which they’d acquired them.
“And then?” Bazin asked. “What am I to do?”
Aramis had given the matter some thought, just as he had given thought to the attire he was wearing. He’d changed in the inn, last night, into one of the suits his mother had wished on him—black linen and wool mixture. Scratchy against the skin and, truly, a garment of mortification.
Oh, Aramis was well aware that not everyone could wear silk and that many, many people went through their lives wearing wool, even in summer. He was duly grateful that he didn’t often have to submit himself to such penance. But the truth was that in this undistinguished suit, the equally black hat pulled low over his eyes, no one would know him. To ensure this, he’d taken the care of tying his hair firmly and tucking all of it under his hat. Even people who didn’t know Aramis called him “the blond musketeer.” His curtain of golden blond hair would make it impossible for him to hide.
This way—at least from what he remembered, having surveyed himself in the full length mirror the night before— he looked like a servant or a common apprentice. At least at nighttime and with the hat pulled down to hide his features.
Because of the disguise, he could not wear his sword, which was in the luggage he surrendered to Bazin. He could, however, and did wear his dagger, concealed under the hem of the longer than normal tunic.
In this attire, he gave Bazin the rein of his horse, and leaned close. “Go to the monastery on the Rue des Jardins. Do not tell them where I am, only that you need asylum for this time, while your master is unjustly pursued for a murder he didn’t commit.”
“What if they don’t believe me?” Bazin said. “About your not committing the murder?”
Something to Bazin’s beady eyes gave Aramis the impression that Bazin, himself, was none too sure Aramis hadn’t committed the murder. Aramis wouldn’t argue the point with him. In fact, he did not wish to argue anything with Bazin. Instead, he shrugged. “Ask for brother Jerome. No one will question you further. If they ask anything, you tell them you don’t know, which is near enough.”
“And you,” Bazin
asked, staring up at Aramis. “What about you?”
Aramis waved a hand, airily. “I know . . . people. I’ll go and find lodging, and I’ll clear my name, and then I will come for you.”
“When?” Bazin asked.
“As soon as possible,” Aramis said, and, with that, let Bazin go away.
Watching his servant’s retreating back, he realized that while it was true that he knew . . . people—in fact, his three friends had the disquieting habit of grinning every time they found themselves in a tight situation and Aramis uttered the words “I know a man”—he didn’t, in this particular situation, know anyone who could avail him.
Oh, he knew monks and crafters, merchants and apprentices. But anyone he went to now was likely to already have heard rumors about the murdered Duchess and the blond musketeer’s guilt. And if his own servant didn’t believe him . . .
No. There was no chance of his finding asylum with his casual friends, or even with those for whom he’d done favors, and who owed him favors in return. They would be likely to turn him in, if they thought him guilty of murder. They would not wish themselves tarred with the murderer’s guilt. No.
His own lodgings were out of the question. Looking at his servant’s back, now a rapidly retreating point in the Paris throng, Aramis scratched his forehead and, just in time remembered not to dislodge his hat.
After all, though most people in Paris didn’t know him, all it would take was one who did and who would see him and denounce him. He couldn’t go to his friends’ lodgings either. Someone would be watching those.
His best hope was to go to Monsieur de Treville. Go in through the back at the headquarters of the musketeers— enter through the stables.
Oh, they might be watched too. In fact, they almost certainly were watched and not just for Aramis’s sake, but around the clock, by the Cardinal, who liked to be aware of what Monsieur de Treville was likely to do, and how he was likely to play the game of one-upmanship that constituted politics and vying for royal favor between the two men. Beyond that, Aramis, who was no fool, would wager that there were spies in both men’s organizations. There would be guards in the Cardinal’s pay who reported to Monsieur de Treville. And though he shuddered to think it, there might very well be musketeers who ate the Cardinal’s bread. In fact, Aramis, if pressed, could name two or three that would easily and gladly do that.
But the Treville house was such a bee hive of coming and going musketeers, servants, petitioners, old friends, family of musketeers and whoever else could claim any connection at all with Monsieur de Treville that one more servant coming in at the back, without fanfare, likely wouldn’t be noticed. And Monsieur de Treville could help Aramis hide—could find him a more permanent hiding place. As well as, possibly, point him to ways of rehabilitating himself.
Even then Aramis was careful. He walked to Treville house via a crisscrossing network of streets, where he wasn’t likely to be recognized, and if he were recognized his objective wouldn’t be guessed.
He looked behind him, often, and around him too, to make sure no one was following him—that no face remained constant among the crowd near him.
And then, near Treville house, he waited, at the rear, by the great, always-open iron gates, through which servants and horses came and went. He waited till a large, noisy group of servants headed for them, talking and laughing and, clearly, returning from some tavern dinner or some gathering.
Aramis slipped in at the back of the group, not so close that they would think he was trying to mingle with them, but close enough that anyone watching the group would think he just straggled a little behind.
And then . . . Well, and then he needed to find a way to see when Monsieur de Treville’s office was deserted. Or rather, when Monsieur de Treville was alone.
The great man was alone sometimes for quite a few minutes together, while he signed some order, or read some paper. Every day a few of these happened, though more commonly his door was wide open and so called private interviews were conducted within the hearing and attention of the whole crowd in his antechamber.
And Aramis could not afford to have his interview seen or heard. All his care, his avoidance of being recognized all the way here, all that would be wasted if he now allowed himself to be recognized talking to the captain.
So . . . he couldn’t go in through the normal route.
It was well known—at least it was well known to musketeers—that the captain never closed his window. Certainly not unless the wind were blowing snow onto his desk. Through that window, on the first day he’d arrived in Paris, D’Artagnan said he had glimpsed Rochefort. Which had caused him to run the other way, out through the antechamber, colliding with Athos and courting a duel with the one of the three musketeers he had not yet offended.
But the captain’s window did not face the street—or not directly. It was on the second floor of the house—a staircase, at which the musketeers often played a dangerous game of king of the mountain involving swords, led the way up to it from the first entrance room. And up there, it overlooked a wall. It was only by looking at a certain angle, above that wall that encircled the property, that it was possible to see the street.
In normal times, and before his harrowing escape from Violette’s room, it would never have occurred to Aramis to try to climb into the captain’s room through the window. But these were not normal times, and his normal risk, of being challenged or embarrassed by the Cardinal’s guards, had now become a risk of being legally condemned for a crime he’d not committed.
He edged around the property, till he was directly below Monsieur de Treville’s window. From there he studied his way to it. Fortunately for him, it was not nearly as impossible as his descent from Violette’s room. Around the captain’s property, a tall wall ran, and up against that wall, an additional protection of trees grew. Tall, sturdy trees. The branches of one of which extended almost to touching the window.
In his childhood in Herblay, Aramis had often—to escape his mother’s attention as much as for fun—climbed trees or made his way through the orchard from one tree to the other.
His present size and body were not as small or flexible as the ones he’d possessed in childhood. But he was still flexible enough. It wasn’t as though he’d never needed to climb anything either in his time as a musketeer or in his more personal adventures between coming to Paris and meeting Violette.
He found the boots he’d adopted as part of his disguise sturdy enough to allow him a toe hold on the bark of the tree and thin enough that he could feel the irregularities in the tree trunk as he climbed. He shimmied up the trunk to a likely branch, then, lying flat, edged along it, till he could almost touch the window.
He was lucky in that as the office came into view, he saw the captain say goodbye to a musketeer—one of the newer arrivals in town whose name Aramis wasn’t yet sure of—and then sit down again to write something.
Monsieur de Treville’s servant opened the door from the antechamber and said something, from which Aramis caught the words: petitioner, request and now.
Monsieur de Treville shook his head. His more resounding voice carried louder and more clearly as he said, “No, Batiste, no. Give me a few minutes leave. There is something I must write. I shall tell you when I’m ready for another audience.”
With that the servant was dismissed, and Aramis spied his opportunity.
Actually getting into the office was the difficult part, since the branch thinned, where it almost touched the window, making it if not impossible very difficult for Aramis to support himself on it.
So Aramis chose the reckless route, which he would have disdained just a week ago. He stood totteringly on the thickest portion of the branch from which he still had a hope of reaching the window. And then he launched himself, head first through the opening, managing, just in time, to get hold of the window frame as he swung himself in, so that he landed feet first, behind the captain, rather than hitting his superior with his head.
&nbs
p; At the sound of feet falling behind him, Monsieur de Treville got up and spun around. Proving that there was a reason he was the captain of musketeers and not the abbot of a religious house, he pulled out his sword, even as he stood, and faced Aramis with sword in hand.
“What is the meaning of this?” he asked. “Who are you?”
“I am unarmed,” Aramis said, as loudly as he dared, without calling attention from the antechamber. “I am unarmed. ” And to emphasize how inoffensive and peaceful he was, he lifted both arms, showing his open hands to Monsieur de Treville.
When the captain made no movement to actually attack, Aramis dared take his hand to his head and, with a sweeping gesture, remove the hat that hid his face and hair. His hair tumbled down his back, and he lifted his head to face the captain.
“Aramis,” Monsieur de Treville said, but did not let go of his sword. “Aramis.”
“Monsieur,” Aramis said and bowed slightly, not sure how to read his captain’s expression. Monsieur de Treville looked both guarded and pale. “Monsieur. I am back in Paris.”
Monsieur de Treville backed to his desk. Without turning, he spun his chair around with a foot, and he fell to sitting. His sword remained in his hand. “Why?” he asked.
Aramis gulped for air. There were many things he could say. One of them, and entirely truthful was that his mother could scare the bravest of men and tempt the calmest of saints to a fury. Another, and just as important consideration was that Aramis had found himself, amid the fields and the silence, thinking more of Violette than he could in the confusion and crowd of the city. And his mourning for Violette seemed to have just begun and to make him into a very different—and much weaker—man.
But neither of these reasons were of the sort he could, gladly, confess to his captain. And so, instead, Aramis bowed and said, “I could not allow my honor to be besmirched. I could not allow my friends to have the charge of clearing it, while I sat, unmolested, so far from them.”
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