“My father came,” he said and ducked his head, then started brushing at his collar in a gesture so reminiscent of Aramis’s own that it made Aramis seethe. “To talk to me of my affianced wife, who is but waiting to marry me, as soon as it is safe to go back to my home.”
“Why should it not be safe to go back to your home?” Aramis said. “And you have a wife waiting for you?”
“She is my cousin,” de Termopillae said. “On my father’s side. An only daughter set up with extensive lands and property, and wanting only a man’s hand on the rudder of her ship.”
Aramis bit back a terrible impulse to ask which man de Termopillae meant to find for the task, and instead said, “Then why can’t you go back home and be married.”
De Termopillae sighed. “I killed a man,” he said.
“I knew it,” Porthos said, starting forward towards de Termopillae again. “You are a vile murderer.”
Aramis put an arm up in front of his friend, without even looking. He knew very well that should Porthos not choose to stop—should he push forward—he could push Aramis’s arm and overturn Aramis too. But he also knew, with the comfort of long-accustomed friendship that Porthos would stop, and he did, even though de Termopillae, who had no such assurance, was doing his best to knit himself close with the wall.
“How did you kill a man?” Aramis asked.
“In a duel. Just a duel,” de Termopillae said. “And because of the edicts . . .” He shrugged.
“How likely would you be to get any inheritance from your mother’s side?” Aramis asked.
De Termopillae blinked in confusion. “I beg your pardon? My father describes his marrying of my mother as rescuing her from some forsaken place in the middle of nowhere where people lived still as in the time of Charlemagne. Why would I want to inherit any of it, even were any of it worth inheriting?”
Aramis felt the pressure of Porthos against his extended arm, as if Porthos had almost taken a step forward, doubtless eager to defend his domains. “Never mind that,” he told de Termopillae, quickly. “Just tell me—if there were no heir on that side, would you inherit?”
De Termopillae stared at Aramis as if he thought the musketeer likely to grow a second head. “No. How could I? My mother was the youngest sister, and all her three sisters have children. And then there’s my brothers who’d inherit before I ever did. You see, the reason that my father arranged me a marriage with an heiress is that of my three brothers, Charles will inherit my father’s land, and Felix will go into the church and Henri, enfin, is well in his way to become a general. That leaves me, and Father thought the best thing to do with me was marry me to my cousin, and I do not mind, only Father thinks we need to wait another year, till the scandal of the duel dies down.”
“Very well,” Aramis said, and turned to Porthos. “You see, it is all explained.”
He could tell from Porthos’s blank expression that nothing was explained, or at least not to Porthos’s satisfaction. But Porthos, used to trusting Aramis took a step back and nodded.
And Aramis said, “Thank you for answering our questions, de Termopillae. You’ve been very helpful.”
De Termopillae nodded, somewhat dazed looking, still casting a suspicious glance at Porthos, as if he suspected the huge redhead of who knew what. But he said nothing— being a wise man and intending to live—and Aramis turned as did Porthos, and they started to walk away, before Aramis turned back. “Oh, one last thing.”
“Yes?” a shaken de Termopillae asked.
“Where were you . . .” Aramis calculated mentally. “Five days ago, early morning?”
“Here,” de Termopillae said. “I was keeping guard from midnight till almost high noon, as I was taking my shift and Firmin’s on account of Firmin being pickled.”
“And did you see a skinny auburn-haired lad, named Guillaume?”
“I saw no one, really, except a veiled lady who went out. One of the Queen’s maids and the goddaughter of Lavalle. No one else. Right, la Roselle?” and, in an aside, “We stood guard together.”
“There was no one unusual, and certainly no lad,” la Roselle said.
“Right,” Aramis said, and bowed gracefully. “Thank you very much for helping us.”
Counting Cousins Out; Playing the Blame Game; The Mercy of Enemies
"SO,
explain it again,” Porthos said. He knew that he wasn’t stupid. At least, oftentimes he saw things that escaped the other musketeers, even Aramis with his theology and rhetoric, and Athos with his classical learning. But whatever had happened back then had left him completely baffled.
They were now some distance away from the royal palace, and preceding at a good clip towards D’Artagnan’s place where, as Aramis had assured him, Athos was bound to head himself, once he had talked to the lord’s wife.
“Tell me why it is that it couldn’t possibly be de Termopillae. ”
“I’m not saying it couldn’t be de Termopillae,” Aramis said. He was frowning slightly. “It could of course be him if two conditions obtain.” He counted it off on his fingers. “One, if he is a consummate liar and lied to us about his circumstances. And two if he managed to make la Roselle lie as well.” He looked at Porthos and added, “About where he was, on the morning Guillaume was poisoned.”
“And are those two so hard to obtain?” Porthos asked, lowering his eyebrows over his eyes and glaring. “I’d say all musketeers are consummate liars, and that getting two of them to lie about the same thing, well . . .”
Aramis grinned. “Liars perhaps, but not consummate liars. I don’t think poor de Termopillae could lie convincingly. And if he could normally do it, he certainly couldn’t do it after you’d scared him within an inch of his threatened life.”
“So you don’t think he was lying?” Porthos asked.
“No,” Aramis said. “I don’t, and at any rate, it would be stupid of him to lie about such simple things as the number of children in his family or which of your aunts is his mother, because how did he know you didn’t have some idea? Or, how did he know you hadn’t talked to someone about it?”
“Still he could be bluffing it,” Porthos said.
“Not, with you there, so near, and ready to slip the leash and hurt him at the slightest excuse,” Aramis said. “Not likely. I’d say not possible. Most sane people don’t want you turned on them in a rage.”
“You speak,” Porthos said, “as though I were some kind of war machine.”
Aramis grinned but said nothing, as there was nothing to say. They walked their way past the broad streets filled with imposing houses, their doors guarded by dogs and menials, and wended into the more populous quarters of town, towards the Rue des Fossoyers where D’Artagnan lodged.
“Mind you, if we’re going to cross out people who might have done it,” Porthos said. “Our list is getting mighty scant.”
Aramis nodded. “I suppose there’s little hope,” he said, “that Monsieur Coquenard might have done it.”
“Just as well,” Porthos said. “Much as I love Athenais, if I had to marry her in order to look after her, she would be very ill looked after.” He opened his hands in a show of helplessness. “I am in no condition to support a wife.”
“No,” Aramis said, smiling slightly. “Besides, I fancy your Athenais would drive poor Mousqueton insane if she started minding his housekeeping.”
“More likely he would drive her distracted with his unerring ability to step on chickens and bottles of fine wine.”
Aramis nodded. “And I suspect Monsieur de Comeau didn’t do it. Though of course, it is possible that Athos will find his wife did.”
“You don’t sound as if you believe it.”
“Well . . .” Aramis sighed. “I’ve heard something of the woman, and I daresay if she thought it was of some real advantage to her to kill a child, she’s the type of woman who would, quite likely, do it. However . . .”
“However?” Porthos asked.
Aramis opened his hands. “I must own to having lied to Athos.”
Porthos smiled a little. “That,” he said, “is very bad of you.”
“Indeed. The truth is I know the lady somewhat by reputation, and I know that she can wrap any man she wishes around her finger.”
“Oh. Which is why you set Athos on her.”
“Well, if a man can interview her and be undaunted by her charms, it is our friend.”
“Our friend,” Porthos said, “is not indifferent to women, particularly beautiful ones.”
“Oh, no. Not indifferent. There are such men, and if that were merely the case, then he would have no more trouble interviewing her than interviewing any man. Athos is more like a man who having nearly perished of a terrible disease—say, small pox—has developed such a reaction against it that he never will catch it again. Immunized, rather than indifferent.”
“So in practical terms, that people like me can understand . . . ?”
“Well, it means that she will be less likely to convince him of her innocence by sheer charm, but . . .” Aramis frowned. “She is charming. And though there are, I’ve heard and read about, charming women who are famous criminals, and often famous poisoners, I don’t think it is her type of charm. From all I hear of those in her circle, she is a kind woman with a good sense of humor. And there, I must own, Porthos, that I don’t think poisoners do very often laugh.”
Porthos nodded. “Though I bet they do, I know what you mean. You mean you don’t feel her to be guilty, though you’ll wait Athos’s judgement.”
“Exactly,” Aramis said.
“So, this leaves whom still to be suspected?”
“Oh, the late Amelie’s mother and father,” Aramis said. “Though my mendicant friar could find no evidence that they’d ever been near the child himself. Or not near enough to poison him. Certainly, they established no relationship with him that would allow them to offer him food and have him eat it.”
“This doesn’t mean that they couldn’t have paid someone to . . .” Porthos frowned and sighed. “You know I don’t like to say it of my own father. Proud as the devil, of course, but bastards who don’t impinge on him and his land, provided they aren’t made legitimate by my marrying their mother . . .”
“Exactly,” Aramis said. “I would say it would not concern him. And indeed his main work in Paris seems to have been to make sure that you hadn’t married Amelie.”
While speaking, they’d arrived at D’Artagnan’s neighborhood and started, through dint of long habit to walk along a normally deserted alley between buildings. It was normally deserted because it was not in point of fact an alley, but only a space left when buildings had been put up. Musketeers and other big men not scared by the darkness cast by the tall buildings nor by the odor of urine caused by the many men who chose that place to relieve themselves cut through that space. But few other people did.
Porthos sighed. “I don’t suppose we can pin it on the Cardinal after all?”
“I don’t see why we shouldn’t,” Aramis said. “There’s also that group of anonymous ruffians who seems to fall on us out of nowhere. The leader sounds distinctly English, and I’ll be cursed if I know—”
“Stop in the name of the Cardinal,” a voice said.
Aramis and Porthos looked at each other. Porthos had thought for a moment that the voice came out of his own thoughts, and doubtless Aramis thought the same. In the time it took them to realize that both of them had heard it, five men had emerged from the shadows, blocking the alley ahead of them.
“If you’ll just give us what we want,” one of them said—and Porthos was sure it was Remy, the same ugly, scarred fellow from the hostelry on the road back to Paris. “You’ve led us a chase long enough.”
“We have not,” Porthos said, “the slightest idea what you want.” He bowed gallantly, while saying so, because that was what Athos would do. “And so we will just have to fight you.”
“With pleasure. And then you must give it up, or tell us which of your friends has it.”
“I say,” Aramis said. “The guards of the Cardinal must have run insane. I wonder if his eminence himself has lost his reason.”
“Canaille,” the scarred man said, charging Aramis. “You shall pay for that.
In no time at all, the alley resounded with the noise of crossed swords.
A Rude Awakening; A Lady in Distress; A Monstrous Idea
D’ARTAGNAN
slept. At the back of his mind, in the part of him that was somewhat conscious, there was the idea that he had slept too long. But there was also another feeling, a feeling of needing rest and of relishing it, which was quite unusual to this young man of seventeen and of an active disposition.
And then upon his deep, dreamless sleep there impinged a sound of crossing swords and a couple of exclamations that he knew for a fact to be uttered in Porthos’s voice—well, either to be uttered in Porthos’s voice or to have been shouted right by his bed, because that was the only way a voice could be that loud.
Adding insult to injury, a hand seized rough hold of D’Artagnan’s shoulder and shook it. “Monsieur D’Artagnan, Monsieur D’Artagnan.” The voice was undoubtedly Planchet’s and yet it couldn’t be, because Planchet was not fool enough to wake his master from a deep, dreamless sleep.