Athos shook his head. “I have no intention of fleecing you.” This idea actually got a smile from him, but it vanished as soon as he realized what she had said. “You gave Guillaume money?”
She shrugged, a very expressive gesture. “What else was I to do?” she asked. “Otherwise the horrible boy would bruit it all around town that Bernard . . . Monsieur de Comeau deals in horses. And while I couldn’t care much where our money comes from, the rest of society is so tiresome about it.”
Athos raised his eyebrows. “Indeed. How much did you give Guillaume?”
She shook her head slightly. “Tell me, first, how did you come to find out about Bernard’s dealings?”
Athos smiled. He guessed very well that there might be some wifely loyalty there. In fact, thinking of the Lord de Comeau, with his single-minded interest in horses, his tolerant deference to his wife’s attempts at civilizing him, he guessed that the man might, very well, be a good match for this woman who seemed to observe social proprieties as some other people said rote prayers—something done for the others, not oneself. “My friend Porthos found out,” he said. “And please, don’t alarm yourself. I don’t think he’ll be in the least likely to divulge it to people.” Not the least because to divulge it, Porthos would need to explain how he’d come by the knowledge, which would involve confessing Athenais’s husband’s profession. Athos was so sure of this that he was able to meet the lady’s eyes square on, with every expression of reassuring honesty.
“Oh, but it is vexing,” she said. “What if . . . Why is your friend Porthos concerned in this at all?”
“For Guillaume’s sake,” Athos said.
“What’s the brat to do with it? With the money the wretch got from me, and a good velvet suit besides, which he forced me to choose, and only secondhand, he should be admirably provided for. Why would anyone concern himself with him?”
“He’s disappeared,” Athos said.
“Ah,” Madame de Comeau said. “As to that, the brat seemed intent on becoming a gentleman or a counterfeit of one. I wouldn’t put it past him to have gone to quite a different area of Paris and there impose on some unsuspecting nobleman to become his squire or what not.” She shook her head. “He’s a bright boy and seems capable of any degree of deceiving and extortion. He’ll do well for himself.”
“Well . . . perhaps,” Athos said, and here he couldn’t meet her eyes. “But . . . you see, he disappeared a few days ago and we are all very anxious for him.”
“All?”
“My friend Porthos and I and a couple of other people in our close acquaintance.”
Madame de Comeau wrinkled her perfect brow. “Athos . . . Porthos . . . Oh. You’re two of the inseparables. You must be, for no one else would have such odd names.”
“You rub elbows with musketeers, ma’am?”
She smiled, an impish smile. “No, but to tell you the truth, my little maid rubs elbows with musketeers servants. Or at least the servant of one of the inseparables, whose name I can not now remember . . . Oh! The boy is a Picard, and she says he’s amazingly clever, though to me he only looks pimply. I believe his master is a Gascon.”
“I believe I know of whom you speak, madam,” Athos said, once more marveling at how easy it was in Paris to have connections with practically everyone, or at least everyone in a certain circle. Though it could also possibly be said that musketeers and their servants, much like tom-cats, covered a wide territory.
“Well, I’m pleased to have met one of you. All the ladies speak of the four of you, you know?”
“You do me great honor, madam,” Athos said, rising. “But before I go, I don’t suppose you’d tell me how much money you gave young Guillaume?” And as she started to speak, he said, “Don’t be offended. If you tell me at least the general amount, I shall be able to guess, easily enough, how far he might have gone with it and what folly he might have taken upon his head to commit.”
“But . . .” Madame de Comeau said. “But what business is it of the four of you? Oh, I’ve heard you often concern yourselves with . . . well, with the King’s work that can’t be entrusted to anyone else.” She fluttered her hand desultorily. “Secret things. But what can the boy have to do with it.”
“Why nothing, madam,” Athos said, though not absolutely sure he told the truth. There were, after all, the repeated attacks by the Cardinal. And yet, he was almost sure . . . almost absolutely sure that whatever that was, it involved something quite different. “It is that my friend Porthos is the boy’s father.”
“Oh,” Madame de Comeau said, and put her hand in front of her mouth. “Oh. Of course. No wonder the boy was so intent on being a gentleman. Of course. Though it’s unhandsome of your friend not to supply him the means to do so.”
“My friend,” Athos said. “Didn’t find out until . . .”
“Until Guillaume had in fact vanished?” Madame de Comeau said. “Oh, it’s just like a story. I do hope you find the boy.”
“I do too,” Athos said, and inwardly told himself he hoped at least they found the boy’s murderer and gave both Guillaume’s memory and Porthos some measure of rest. “Only, if you’d tell me how much money you gave him?”
“Well, I didn’t have very much money on hand,” she said. “Not as such. But I had jewelry. Bernard is a great fool and always buying me some trinket or another.” This was said in the complacent tone of a woman who knows she is worth any tribute her husband might bestow on her. “So . . . I sold some pins and a necklace I didn’t like very much.” She made a little dismissive gesture with her hand. “I believe it all came to five hundred pistoles. Not that much at all.”
Not that much. Athos wondered in what class the lady had been reared, exactly, that five hundred pistoles was not that much. A hundred pistoles could keep the four of them in style for quite a while, and their needs were greater than most. Five hundred pistoles would certainly have bought a lot for both Guillaume and Amelie. Perhaps not enough to make her a lady, as he had promised her, but enough to see them lodged in some comfort and without daily drudgery.
But there had been no money at all on Guillaume, when he had been found. Where could the money have gone?
Athos bowed to Madame de Comeau and made his good-byes in his most correct fashion, somehow thinking the only way to deal with this very unconventional lady was with the utmost civility. She responded and rose as he turned to leave.
And then by the door, he noted a small table, piled with perfumes and creams, and he turned to look at the lady. “Milady, do you use belladonna?”
She blinked. “Not very often. Only now and then on my eyes. Why?” Her reply was quite innocent and devoid of guilt.
“No reason,” Athos said. Hat in hand, he bowed low. “Madam, your most humble servant.”
She smiled at him. “Do come back when this is all resolved and you’ve found the scamp,” she said. “I’d like to know how the story turns out.”
So did Athos.
Family and Familiarity; The Complications of an Inheritance; The Lot of the Youngest Son
DE
Termopillae got up from where he had been, sitting on a low stone bench, casting dice with his fellow guard.
Aramis suppressed an irritation he was very aware of being hypocritical. It was all very well to fume at de Termopillae for playing the dice while he should be guarding one of the many entrances to the royal palace, but the truth was that every musketeer did it, and Aramis not least of all.
“Porthos,” de Termopillae said, as the redheaded musketeer stepped in front of him and then, with a more pleased tone, “And Aramis.”
The truth was that de Termopillae was, for lack of a better explanation one of a few young musketeers who idolized Aramis and tried to copy his style of dressing, his manner of speaking and his gestures, down to the careful examination of their nails when in a tight spot. What none of them could imitate, of course, was Aramis’s intelligence and his ability to find his way through complex situations.
At least, this was what Aramis liked to think. But none of this helped him feel better about de Termopillae who, to own the truth, was the most successful of Aramis’s imitators, and for that the one he detested the most. Just looking at de Termopillae, who combed his blond hair exactly like Aramis and who wore venetians in a shade of grey that exactly matched some that Aramis often wore, and who tied his doublet in the exact same way. And—what was most galling—he pinned a lovelock to the side of his hair in the exact same way as Aramis, with a pin that looked almost exactly like Aramis’s save for being of cheap construction. This made Aramis’s blood boil, and something like a shade of rage fall in front of his eyes.
Porthos was looking at de Termopillae with a frown. And when Porthos frowned people were likely to pay attention. Oh, Aramis knew that frown. It was Porthos’s confused frown, and Aramis would bet he was trying to imagine in what way this foppish man, almost half his size and looking very much like a dandy, could be related to the du Vallons.
But de Termopillae, clearly, had no idea why either of them had taken an interest in him. He took a step back, and then another. “I . . . er . . .” he said, and stared at them. “I . . . er . . . used the balm you sold me, Aramis, and it has worked wonders. You’d never know I was stabbed almost clean through the arm. It is almost completely healed.”
Porthos made a sound deep in his throat, and then rumbled something half under his breath. De Termopillae jumped and stared. “I beg your pardon?” he said.
“I said,” Porthos said, making each of his syllables a small work of art, polished and perfectly set out for examination, “that it is a characteristic of the family. I never need a salve. I just heal.”
“The . . . the family?”
“My family,” Porthos said.
De Termopillae’s throat worked. He was looking up at Porthos, his eyes wide, and he had lost color so that what was normally a triangular and catlike, impish face looked like a tallow sculpture or the face of someone about to die of blood loss. “You know,” he said, his voice low.
This, Aramis could have told him, was the most stupid thing he could say. He clearly didn’t know how Porthos’s mind worked. Porthos was here about Guillaume’s murder, and though Aramis very much doubted that by “you know” de Termopillae meant to confess to it, to Porthos’s direct mind it would seem exactly like he had.
Porthos moved forward, a siege engine slipping its moorings. Aramis made an ineffective grasp for his sleeve, but it was all for nothing.
Porthos’s huge hand caught de Termopillae on the chest and lifted him, under the sheer impulse and force of its own movement, pressing him up against the wall. “Why did you do it, wretch?” he asked.
“Porthos, I don’t think—” Aramis said.
“I . . .” De Termopillae, his wound healed or not looked like he was about to lose consciousness. “Do what? I couldn’t help being born to whom I was, could I?”
“What does your birth have to do with this, sirrah?” Porthos asked. “How does your birth make you a murderer. And a child, yet?”
From the other side of the gate, la Roselle, the musketeer who was standing guard with de Termopillae, stared. He stood, transfixed, his leather dice cup in his hand and looking like he was not sure whether to run for help or just to run, since Porthos had, clearly run mad.
De Termopillae stared at Porthos. “What child?” he asked.
“My son,” Porthos said. “Why would you murder my son? Did you intend to dispatch me as well? And fat good it would do you. The manor house is a pile of stones, and I would bet you none of the fields about, none under my father’s care, are worth any more than the largest farm in his domain. Bless me if any of them are worth as much, considering how the farms go around there.”
De Termopillae, pinned against the wall by the force of Porthos’s hand, half bent over the stone bench, blinked. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. “I don’t know anything but that we’re cousins. Or at least, that’s what my father said when he visited last year. He said you had the mark and body of my mother’s family, and that bet it, you were my cousin. Other than that, I don’t even know your real name, much less that you have a son. And I couldn’t care less for your father or your son.”
“You don’t?” Porthos looked puzzled. He pulled his hand back, and de Termopillae fell, nervelessly upon the stone bench, and leaned against the wall.
“What did you think I had done?” he asked. “You have a son? Or did you say someone killed your son?”
Porthos glared. “It is none of your business,” he said.
“Granted, granted,” de Termopillae said, in the voice of someone who, just at that moment, would have granted anything, half the world included, if only Porthos would leave him alone.
Porthos seemed done with him, and ready to go, but Aramis was not quite of the same opinion. Instead, he held Porthos’s arm, now the giant looked as ready to retreat as he had been, first, to press de Termopillae to the wall. “Porthos, stay,” he said. Then, to de Termopillae, “Your father visited you in town?”
De Termopillae looked at Aramis. Aramis could tell, the way his gaze measured him that de Termopillae was totting up all the similarities and the differences between them, trying to decide how to make himself look more like Aramis, if that were possible.