But then she raised her eyes and looked directly at Aramis. Her eyes were large and the normal way to describe them would be to say they were light brown. To Aramis, though, they weren’t so much light brown as distilled sunlight, collected, amassed in amber and shining forth with the luminosity of a thousand childhood afternoons.
All purity, all beauty was there, captured in those eyes. Looking into her eyes, Aramis was a boy again, the same boy who, still innocent of that world that the Dominican disapproved of, had run wild and free through the summer afternoons amid ripening wheat stalks.
“Rene,” his mother said, sharply. “This is my sister’s goddaughter, Lida D’Armato. She’s come from Spain as the intended of the Count de Bassompierre, whom she is to marry in two weeks. Until then she’ll stay with us, under my careful supervision.”
Aramis nodded to his mother’s words, even to her stern warning pronounced last. But in his mind—he couldn’t help it—he was imagining the beautiful Lida naked. He was kissing her lips that so resembled a newly opened red rose. He was . . .
“In fact, quite mistaken about his having any vocation,” the Dominican said. And, with one last look of reproach, he headed out the door.
“Rene,” his mother said. “You will explain to me the meaning of this. I thought you—”
From outside, through the open door, came the sound of hooves, then the smart sound of a man dismounting. A few of Lida’s servants—and a few of his mother’s own, who’d come to watch her arrival—jumped forward to look out the door and see the commotion.
Words pronounced now by one, now by the other servant, reached Aramis’s ears.
“A fancy livery.”
“The red of the Cardinal.”
“Carrying something.”
“Looks like a letter.”
And then a servant in the red livery of the Cardinal stepped into the front hall. He bowed at Madame D’Herblay—who for some reason paled—and must quite have missed seeing Aramis who had, without anyone noticing, drifted behind a couple of servants holding a trunk made of that painted leather that was the specialty of the Spanish city of Cordoba.
“Madame D’Herblay,” the messenger said. “I’ve been sent to bring a letter to the man they call Aramis.”
“Aramis?” Madame D’Herblay said. “I’m sure there’s no one here by that name. It doesn’t sound like a real name.”
If there was one thing that Aramis knew, it was that one didn’t trifle with the Cardinal or his messengers. Fool them, sure. Duel with them, whenever needed. But in this case, if he held himself in secret, it would only mean the messenger would tell his mother it was him—and then proceed to explain, probably in front of the beauteous Lida, why he was seeking Aramis, and all of Aramis’s nefarious nature.
So Aramis stepped forward, and bowed to the messenger. “I have on occasion called myself that,” he said.
“Rene!” his mother said.
The messenger smiled. “Very well, Chevalier. His eminence has asked me to give you this. It outlines your possible choices. I hope you choose well.”
And with those words, the messenger turned and walked out of the house and down the steps, back to his waiting horse.
How had they found Aramis? And what choices could the Cardinal be speaking of?
Cardinals and Passageways; The Slowness of the Quick; Porthos’s Wisdom
“S
O there is no passage into the room?” Athos asked.
Porthos shrugged. “It is not as simple as that,” he said. He’d come with his friends, reluctantly, having been pulled from watching street acrobats. Athos had said that the street was no place to discuss such secret matters. This seemed to Porthos very foolish indeed. If he watched people and saw them going into a house together to talk, he would be far more likely to think they were talking of forbidden matters than if they stood around, on a street corner, watching acrobats and jugglers and discussing the matter.
Besides, Porthos liked acrobats and jugglers and since they had taken the trouble to perform on the street outside Athos’s home, all of them somersaulting and walking on wires and who knew what else, he felt the least he could do was watch them.
But no, they must go within to the dark and dreary interior of Athos’s home and there—with serious eyes and serious voices—discuss the matter while a serious Grimaud circled around filling their cups with wine.
At least the wine was the best Athos—who usually served the best wine of them all—had ever served. Two bottles, he said, given to him by his friend Raoul. Porthos was grateful that Athos shared the wine—too good for one of Athos’s solitary drunks. But he was less amused at Athos’s words, Athos’s implication that Porthos had found nothing.
“It’s not that simple,” he said, and, searching his mind for the right word, the kind of word Aramis might well have used, he added, “There are . . . implications to what I discovered that you’re not taking into account. Mousqueton tells me that Hermengarde, the palace maid, says that the Cardinal himself wanted Aramis’s Violette placed in that room. Because he was afraid she conspired with Anne of Austria in favor of Spain. And she said that the Cardinal often stood in that secret hallway and listened to them.”
“And what would you have that mean?” Athos asked. “That the Cardinal actually saw our friend murder his lover?”
Porthos shook his head. Sometimes Athos could be exasperating. Porthos was as appreciative as anyone else of Athos’s admirable qualities—his noble looks which in truth translated a matching nobility of mind, one that few people could match. But with it all came the conviction that his true superiority to the mass of men meant that his thought was always, perforce, correct.
It seemed to Porthos as though Athos had early on decided that Aramis must be guilty of the murder and, once having decided it, kept right on repeating it, unable to change his mind. Or if he hadn’t he still reverted to this point of view when the investigation didn’t go as he expected. “Athos,” he said. “Aramis didn’t kill anyone.”
Athos waved his hand exasperatedly, as if to sweep the comment away. “No, Porthos, I believe he might not have, but don’t you see those would be the only circumstances in which the hole in the wall would be relevant? Because it can’t possibly be that Violette was killed through that hole. So it must . . .”
Porthos shook his head. “You’re missing the larger picture. The Cardinal spied on the woman, the Cardinal is so involved in this that he sent someone to my lodgings, wanting to know where I was, what I was doing. He seems afraid I know something about Aramis, or about this whole affair. Doubtless he’s sent someone to your lodgings, and even D’Artagnan’s too, but I was the only one in town. Athos—it is stupid to try to find out who would have wanted to kill Aramis’s lover.”
Athos raised his dark eyebrows upon his broad pale forehead, then brought them down over his eyes in a frown. He took a deep draught out of the wine cup in his hand and glared at Porthos. “I don’t have the privilege of following your meaning, Porthos. What can you possibly mean by that? Why is it stupid to try to find out who might want to murder a woman who was murdered?”
“Because too many people might well have wanted to,” Porthos said.
“I don’t follow you,” Athos repeated, his expression even more annoyed.
“I suppose,” D’Artagnan put in from the side, in the conciliatory tone of voice he often used when his friends disputed. “That Porthos means that at any time many people might want to kill many other people and that, thus to find who might want to murder the seamstress is a lost cause.”
Porthos nodded. “You have it. By the blood, the Gascon has it. Think Athos, how many people would not want you dead, starting with his eminence and ending with the men you’ve bested in duels. Yet, none of them has murdered you.”
Athos shifted in his seat. “No one has murdered me, Porthos. While someone has murdered Violette, something that puts the whole case in a different complexion. We have to find who had cause to murder her, and then whether they could have executed it.”
“But that’s the most important part of it,” Porthos said, setting his wine down and pounding so hard on the arm of his chair that the wood resounded with a loud boom and Grimaud, quietly approaching them with another bottle of wine, jumped into the air and paled.
“What is the important part of it, Porthos?” Athos asked impatiently. He’d been rather impatient since his return from his friend’s house. As though he’d seen or heard something that hurt him or worried him. “Would you do me the courtesy of speaking a language the others of us understand? French by preference, though Latin and Greek will serve in a pinch.”
Athos was insufferable in this mood, Porthos thought. If he didn’t remember his friend’s many kindnesses to him and services to the king over the last years, he’d challenge Athos to a duel. He hated it when Athos went all grand seigneur, and rubbed it in that Porthos hadn’t had Athos’s superior education.
And of a sudden Porthos realized what was wrong. Aramis wasn’t here. Aramis, though not quite as noble—or at least not of such a prestigious family as Athos—had the same excellent education and a background at which Athos himself couldn’t possibly sneer. So when Athos started getting above himself and disdaining his company, Aramis could bring him to ground with a resounding thud—or more likely with a joke and a quotation. The problem, Porthos thought, was that they were incomplete without Aramis. Aramis was necessary to the proper functioning of their group.
But Aramis wasn’t here, Aramis couldn’t be here, unless they found out who had killed Aramis’s seamstress. And the only way to do that was for Porthos to explain to his friends just how foolish their present course of action was.
He took a deep breath and prepared to do battle with the language, which he always found a harder and more slippery foe than any enemy he’d taken on the field of battle or the field of honor. “Athos, listen,” he said. “I did not mean to call you stupid and there was no offense there. We’ve all been equally stupid, as we wonder who could have killed Violette and not how.” He lifted his hand to ward off Athos’s interruption, as he saw his friend open his mouth. “No, listen. In other murders, it might very well be an important matter to find out who wishes to murder the victim. If the victim is fortunate enough to have few enemies, or few powerful enemies, then motive is all. But this is not the case here. Here . . . Look, how was the Duchess killed?”
“She was stabbed through the heart,” Athos said, frowning. “I fail to understand what you mean.”
“No. She was stabbed through the heart while in a third floor room whose only door of easy access was locked. If we assume—and I am assuming, no matter what you think—that the only person locked in the room with her did not kill her, what is the greatest indicator of who might have committed the murder?” He looked at Athos’s eyes and found total incomprehension. Again, he lifted his hand, but this time looked at Grimaud and stopped himself before pounding the arm of the chair. Instead, he brought his hand down, open, and rested it upon the wood, flexing the fingers against the carving. “The greatest indicator is the ability to do so. By what means could someone gain access to the room? Who could have come up and killed her, in the space of time it took Aramis to answer a call of nature? Find that, and the means they used to get there will tell us who it might be. And then it will all be easy.” He smiled at Athos’s frowning countenance, and extended his cup to Grimaud for a refill.
He’d refrained from pounding the arm of the chair, and he felt he was owed something in return. Grimaud obligingly refilled the cup.
All this while, Athos continued to frown. “But . . .” he said. “If that’s true, then it’s impossible. No one could have got to the balcony, three floors off the ground and far enough away from a tree that the tree presented no means of climbing there. The tree was just near enough to break Aramis’s fall, but it was not near enough, could not be near enough to allow anyone to get into the room. If we’re going with the means to commit the murder, then Aramis would be guilty. Is that what you’re trying to suggest?”
“No,” Porthos said. “I merely think you are ignoring other means by which someone could have got into the room.” He waved towards the window, through which, faintly, could be heard the sounds of cheering and a faint off-key music. “Look outside, for instance, and you’ll see men and women performing feats of agility and strength that most of us would consider impractical if not impossible. Walking on a rope suspended between two buildings, jumping up to impossible lengths, walking on stilts.”
Athos’s eyes widened. “Are you trying to tell me, Porthos, that you believe an acrobat, who cannot possibly even have met the Duchess de Dreux wished her dead? Or that she was killed by a stilt-walking villain who traipsed around the gardens of the palace on his walking stilts, in his gipsy motley?”
Porthos shrugged. “I’m not suggesting either, Athos, only that you are ignoring other possibilities like that.”
“Someone could have come in through the ceiling,” D’Artagnan said. “Or have you looked into that.”
“No,” Porthos said. And frowned in turn. “But the ceiling is not the most common means of entry into a room, and I’m sure if there were something unusual there Hermengarde or one of her friends would have told me.”