Some inarticulate sound must have escaped his throat because Athos, whose arm was firmly around D’Artagnan’s middle, holding him in place, said, “Oh, you’re awake. Easy now. I will be very upset if you vomit. I don’t have a change of clothes just now. Easy. We’ll be stopping soon.”
And indeed, even as he spoke, there was a feeling of their turning down another road, and then a narrow path, all eight horses thundering as though through well-known territory.
That the territory was well known at least to one of them, became clear as they came to a stop and Porthos came to help D’Artagnan down from his horse. “We’ll be safe here,” he said. “It’s little enough known. A convent that got burned in the wars of religion in my father’s time. It was a ruin when I was young and I used to stop here, sometimes, overnight, when I was hunting away from home. But the path, though once a Roman road, is almost all overgrown, and those fools are unlikely to find us, at least in the dark of night. Not that I could hear any attempt at pursuing us, but you never know.”
“Easy with the boy,” Athos said, letting go of his hold on D’Artagnan, even as Porthos lifted D’Artagnan bodily and set him down, gently, upon a fallen stone which, from the way another stone had fallen across its back, made a perfect seat.
His eyes clearing, by the light of the moon, D’Artagnan could see they were in what remained of a ruined chamber, four walls remaining more or less intact and half the ceiling missing. The chamber was vast, and retained its stone floor as well as many conveniently disposed stones.
“You’ll be happy to know,” Aramis said, “that I delivered what might very well have been a killing blow to the dishonorable canaille who hit you from behind.”
D’Artagnan tried to swallow, but really felt very dizzy.
“Here, you’ll be the better for this,” Porthos said. He’d uncorked a bottle of wine, and pressed it against D’Artagnan’s lips.
D’Artagnan dimly remembered some lecture from his mother about wine being the worst possible thing to drink when one had been hit on the head. And yet, it seemed only logical and he was thirsty, so he drank. And miraculously, little by little, his head cleared.
Presently he became aware that the servants had lit a small fire and were tending to the horses, and that the musketeers were eating roast chicken and drinking wine. When they realized D’Artagnan was awake, Porthos pressed some chicken upon D’Artagnan saying, “I think this is the last of the money Aramis made selling that salve to de Termopillae, and since the salve is a Gascon recipe, surely you’re entitled to some of it.”
“Your cousin de Termopillae?” Athos asked.
“Devil take him,” Porthos said. “Truth be told I never knew much of my family. For you must know that my father managed to quarrel with all his sisters save the one that died in childhood. And that one, perhaps, too, except he no longer remembers it. So I don’t know any of my cousins.”
“He’s much younger than you, at any rate,” Athos said. “But I wonder if he’s concerned in this.”
“I don’t like wondering,” Porthos said. “Any more than I like wondering why the guards are so intent on being rid of us, or who the other agreeable gentlemen might be.”
“So, the ruffians of the country are feisty enough for you, Porthos?” Aramis asked, teasingly.
“Undoubtedly too feisty, Aramis. I can’t wait to get back to Paris, even if it must bring with it all the questions about Athenais’s husband and all the rest. I must warn you that if her husband is guilty, I mean to marry her as soon as I can.”
“Marrying is folly, but in this case it is the only thing you can do,” Athos said.
At this moment their servants came forward, to share in the chicken and the wine with remarkable equality that didn’t usually attend their relationships with their masters when in the capital.
They looked, D’Artagnan noted, embarrassed, as though they expected to be scolded for something. The musketeers, meanwhile, seemed to have no intention of scolding them. It wasn’t until they were seated and eating that Planchet ventured, “I’m sorry for the destruction we caused and for setting fire to the stable, but you see, we found that there were several men ready to ambush us, and we—”
“I don’t resent you for that at all, my good Planchet,” Porthos said. “The only thing I resent is that you didn’t somehow manage to find a few coins in the pockets of those you had to lie low with cudgel or tree branch in order to escape. Now the money of the Gascon pomade is gone, we’re going to be in devilish straights back in town.”
Mousqueton sighed. “As to that . . .” he said, and putting his hand inside his sleeve, he brought out a handful of leather purses.
“I suppose,” Athos said, a smile on his face. “You had to put them out of their misery?”
“I thought they owed it to us, monsieur. For putting us through such a devilish uprising.”
“Very just,” Porthos said. “And for all the trouble you’ve gone through in cutting these,” he said, turning the purses over onto his hand and counting coin, which he distributed to his friends, “you are very well entitled to the other five or six purses you’re keeping to yourself.”
Mousqueton blushed dark, and the musketeers—and their servants—laughed. All save Bazin who looked sour and shocked.
To D’Artagnan, perhaps because of the knock on his head, everything seemed foggy and dreamlike. It wasn’t till he was falling asleep, rolling in his cloak, upon a mass of grass and dried leaves which the servants had gathered, that he reached within his sleeve for the perfumed handkerchief of Madame Bonacieux. And found it gone.
“It’s gone,” he said, sitting up. “It’s gone.”
“What is gone?” Athos, who was sleeping nearest him asked, his hand on his sword.
“The handkerchief Madame Bonacieux gave me.”
Athos relaxed and let go of his sword. “Ah, that. She will undoubtedly give you another. I doubt you will be wise enough to have nothing to do with her?”
“It’s the first time a woman has given me her handkerchief, ” D’Artagnan said, feeling unaccountably bereft.
“Ah. And we must all learn from our own experiences.”
A War Council; What the Servants Said; A Wife’s Loyalty
BACK
in Paris, and after a night slept in their respective beds—a night, for the first time in many, not interrupted by strange attacks—the three musketeers plus one gathered early morning to break fast and talk at D’Artagnan’s lodging.
Porthos judged that the young man looked peaked. Perhaps it was the knock on the head. You never knew how it would take someone, and though the boy had survived worse scrapes before, perhaps this one had truly undone him. On the other hand, it might be the loss of the handkerchief.
Porthos, who still remembered very well the heady rush of being seventeen, and who, unlike Athos, had not managed in his life to conceive of much distaste for feminine company, found himself smiling at the boy’s disappointment as D’Artagnan announced, “Madame Bonacieux seems to be at the palace.”
Athos had merely frowned, and Aramis had grinned. “She will come back, young fool,” Aramis had said. “And probably rather soon.”
Planchet, having served them all with bread and cheese and wine, had retreated to enjoy his own meal in a corner. Porthos thought it was as good a time as any to bring the other ones up to date on his movements since coming back to the capital. “I went to see Athenais,” he said. “Late last night, after her household was asleep.”
“And?” Athos asked. “What is her word on her husband’s dealings and on Monsieur de Comeau?”
Porthos frowned. “Well . . . Those are . . . complex. To begin with, as far as she could find, Monsieur de Comeau is not now, nor has he ever been in her husband’s debt. On the contrary, perhaps, since Monsieur de Comeau seems to deal . . . in horses. He has bought horses from Monsieur Coquenard and sold them to Monsieur Coquenard. And he has bought and sold other horses with Monsieur Coquenard acting as intermediary. In the whole of their exchanges, Monsieur Coquenard is probably the debtor.”
Athos raised his eyebrows. He looked more shocked than Porthos had ever seen him look. “A horse trader . . . ?” he said in shock.
Porthos laughed. Even though he still felt as though he were in mourning for Guillaume, and even though their situation remained dire, his amusement at Athos’s shock dragged the laughter from him. “Athos,” he said, gravely, “it is not as though he were a murderer. You must allow that horse trading is a lesser offense.”
Athos sat back on his chair, his mouth half-open. “Yes, yes. But . . . horse trading? Zounds, man. He’s a nobleman. And married to a woman of even higher pedigree.”
“Well . . .” Porthos said. “As to that, Athenais said she doesn’t think his wife knows anything of his . . . trading activities. She was, Athenais believes, married to him in the expectation of his having a greater fortune than he did. And she thinks he’s drawing money from his estates. Which he is, in a way—since he cycles the horses through his estates.”
“Horse trading,” Athos repeated, as though both words were in some arcane foreign language and he had trouble understanding them.
Aramis looked just as shocked, but D’Artagnan, for his still not fully focused looked, seemed more amused than anything else. He traded a look with Porthos, across the table.
“So, we can cross Monsieur de Comeau off our list?” Aramis asked.
“Well, perhaps,” Athos said. He frowned at them.
“What do you mean perhaps?” Aramis said. “If he’s making his money from horse trading, he’s not receiving it from either Monsieur Coquenard or the Cardinal.”
“True, but we know that Guillaume had a lamentable tendency to try to extort money from people based on the things of which they were ashamed and—”
“He never tried to get money from me,” Porthos protested. “I think you are jumping to conclusions.”
“Perhaps,” Athos said. “But Porthos, he did try to extort from you something he wanted—sword fighting lessons— based on his knowledge that you were hiding your true name under an assumed name in the musketeers.”
Porthos inclined his head. “I would have taught him sword fighting anyway.”
“But he didn’t know that,” Athos said. “What I don’t understand is why he would lie and tell Comeau he was his son, when it should be obvious Comeau would know he wasn’t. I wonder why he didn’t use Comeau’s horse trading as the true string on which to draw the lord’s purse.”
“Or perhaps he did,” Aramis said, raising an eyebrow.
“Or perhaps he did,” Athos said, and sighed. “And Comeau lied to us.”
Porthos frowned. “Well . . . perhaps, at that . . . but you know, I went back there and I asked around this morning before coming here.”
“You went back there?” Athos said. “You didn’t tell us.”
“I’m telling you now. I was going to tell you, but you were so shocked at the horse trading . . .” He shrugged. “Well . . . You see . . . I went back, on the way here, and I talked to the servants and maids at the house. And all of them agree that Monsieur de Comeau tossed the boy out on his ear and gave him short shrift on his attempt to blackmail him.”
“Yes, but did he intend to kill him, perhaps so that he couldn’t talk to his wife.”
“His wife,” Porthos said, remembering. “Well, the thing is that the maids tell me Guillaume continued coming to the house, you know, and that he went and talked to his wife too.”
“He I assume being Guillaume?” Athos asked.
“Yes, of course,” Porthos said.
“And were you so enterprising as to go and find out from his wife what exactly Guillaume had talked to her about?” Athos asked.
Porthos shook his head. “What I hear, from the maids and everything,” he said, “is that his wife was of higher birth than him, and . . . you know, a true lady, full of her own importance. As such, I figured she wouldn’t want to talk to someone like me any more than she would want to go out in public in a stained gown, you see . . .”
Athos stared, eyebrows raised. “I suppose we should send Aramis to talk to her?”
“Indeed no,” Aramis said.
Athos looked at Aramis and Porthos could tell that Athos was surprised, which was not a very common thing with him. “No?”
Aramis sighed. “It turns out that Madame de Comeau is the friend of a lady who . . . well . . . she wouldn’t hold me in esteem.” He looked at his nails, which he usually did to disguise embarrassment or to hide confusion. “The thing is, at any rate, that she doesn’t consider me aristocratic enough to be part of her circle.”
“You?” Porthos asked, and sat back on his stool so heavily he almost caused it to overturn. Only a quick grasp of the edge of the table saved him. “You? Who were the lover of a duchess and who are routinely courted by princesses. You are not noble enough?”
Aramis sighed. He flecked away some imaginary dirt from his doublet. “Well, you see, Porthos, it is like this, that princesses and duchesses don’t care how noble you are and are likely to consider you noble enough for them if you are noble at all. But people like Madame de Comeau who are in the lower degrees of nobility . . . indeed, at about my level, like to flatter themselves that they are far more noble and of more ancient family line than they are, and thus they wouldn’t dream of associating with me.” He looked up. It was hard to tell if his green eyes were sparkling with something that might be annoyance or amusement or both combined. “I’m afraid, Athos, that you’ll have to talk to her. You, with your looks and every appearance of being descended from crowned heads, she might be willing to talk to.”