Sarah D'Almeida - The Musketeer's Apprentice

“Indeed,” Aramis said.

“So if this were the Cardinal’s plot, he would have known it wouldn’t work.”

“Porthos.” Aramis was sure the edge of impatience in his voice was now making people stare at him. “His eminence might know you’d never do it. But he would think people believe you vain and proud, and that your being vain and proud, you’d be a logical suspect for this.”

“Oh,” Porthos said. His expression cleared for a moment, then became charged again. “I hope he’s wrong. If he does think that. Because… because I hope most people know I’m honorable, also.”

“Indeed,” Aramis said.

Porthos nodded. And then with that inconsequence full of meaning of which only Porthos was capable, he added, “But you know, we’re all now friends with D’Artagnan.”

To Aramis’s blank look, he explained as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “So the duel wasn’t that important. Perhaps you’re wrong. Perhaps most people realize that I wouldn’t kill a child because of my ancestry. Perhaps even if there is one person out there evil enough to commit murder for that reason, perhaps even if all this came out, no one else would believe it.”

“Perhaps,” Aramis said, though secretly he suspected that this was no more than wishful thinking on Porthos’s part. “And yet, I would not wish to risk it. So I hope we find who murdered the boy quickly, if indeed he was murdered. Which means, too, finding his family, through them we’ll know any contacts he might-or might not-have had with the Cardinal. And we’ll be prepared to avenge Guillaume.”

“We are agreed on that,” Porthos said.

And so, while having a fascinating discussion about baldrics and pedigree, they left behind the noisy and bustling areas of town and walked now along a street lined with mansions, most of them with guarded gates. Aramis thought it best to keep his council.

"WHY is it logical?” Athos asked D’Artagnan, "that we should go to your landlord’s first? Surely not that many noblemen lodge nearby?”

D’Artagnan couldn’t seem to remember why it was logical at all. His home was within walking distance, but it was hardly in the best part of town. Rather, it was in an area frequented by the bourgeoisie and not particularly wealthy bourgeoisie at that. The Rue des Fossoyers where the young guard of Monsieur des Essarts lodged, was broad and lined on both sides with tall buildings that sheltered shops on the bottom floors. Some of the merchants lived on the bottom floors, too, while other lived above their shops. But usually all or part of the houses were rented to people very much like D’Artagnan-young men seeking their fortunes in Paris and with their foot on what could be considered the first rung in the ladder of success.

In D’Artagnan’s case, his new uniform of the guards, almost indistinguishable from that of the musketeers save for a slightly lighter color, marked him as noble born. Other young gentlemen wore the garb of clerks or apprentices in various professions ranging from law to blacksmithing.

D’Artagnan knew, or at least suspected that some of them might be noble… and if they were noble… He felt Athos’s stare on him and shook his head. “I thought,” he said, his desperate cunning saving him as it so often did. “That if they’re not too wealthy a family and not too well known at court, they might have had dealings with my landlord who is, among other things, a grocer. I suspect he has all kinds of other businesses too, though, from lending on security of some sort, to perhaps selling used clothes or appointments that such a family might need. Since Aramis said the suit didn’t fit well…”

And on this, D’Artagnan ground to a stop and shrugged. Athos nodded. “And since the suit didn’t fit well you thought that of all the possible shops in Paris, the boy must have been seen by your landlord.” He cleared his throat. “I thought you were several weeks in arrears with your rent, though?”

D’Artagnan shrugged. “If we do it properly we will not need to see my landlord,” he said. “His wife, who normally stays at the palace is visiting and she…” He felt the blush climb to his cheeks and heat there, like a blazing furnace beneath the skin. He shook his head, as he thought of the beautiful woman and wished that he wasn’t quite so transparent about his interest.

But Athos must have been in a kind mood. He inclined his head slightly. “Ah. Sometimes even the logic of seventeen is right, or at least leads one onto the right path. Don’t worry about it, D’Artagnan, as I see no evil. We might as well ask. In a place like this, full of merchants and clerks, you’re right that someone might very well have seen the boy who was almost certainly not high nobility.”

“Why not high nobility?” D’Artagnan asked. “Aramis said that he might just be the youngest of a very noble family.”

Athos shrugged. “Because I don’t know the name. I’m not going to claim to know every noble family in France. However, I do know most of the high nobility by name or surname at the very least. I know all of them to Aramis’s level at least. Not… I might not be able to tell you where their domains are or who their children are. I certainly might have no idea what they look like-but I have at least heard the name once. And Jaucourt is totally new to me. So, I suspect that they are either recently ennobled or very small and provincial nobility.”

D’Artagnan, who had for sometime been aware that a gulf lay between nobility such as his own and the type of nobility that Athos embodied, only nodded. “Why didn’t you say this before?” he asked. “In Porthos’s practice room?”

Athos shrugged. “What, after the great discussion about pedigree? To what end? It would only have annoyed Porthos and accomplished nothing. Besides-” He shrugged again. “Who knows? Even families of low nobility have important cousins, second cousins or friends. If it’s a noble family recently come to court, it could very well be that what drew them here were just such contacts. If anyone at the palace has seen them, then surely Porthos and Aramis will find out, between the kitchen maids and the duchesses. And as for us, why shouldn’t we canvass your neighborhood? It has at least the advantage of being well-known territory.”

If Athos was being facetious, D’Artagnan could not detect it. But as they approached D’Artagnan’s lodgings, its bottom floor occupied by Monsieur de Bonacieux’s shop and lodgings, D’Artagnan forgot all about what Athos might think of him and of this errand.

Behind the panes of the lower window, he distinguished, as though half in shadow, a feminine shape. And before his mind could assure him of any such thing, his heart sped up and his mouth went dry.

From the other side, perhaps because of the woman distinguishing a like shape, there was movement, and then the opening of the window, creaking slightly-and there in the opening stood the lovely Madame Bonacieux. She’d changed her clothing. The gown she now wore was not exactly high court fashion, but a simpler, looser garment. And yet, it outlined her heavy breasts just as tightly, and the plunge of its low-cut neckline displayed a fair amount of white and rosy skin.

D’Artagnan’s thoughts stopped in their tracks when he realized she was wearing his rose-the rose he’d given her-on the very end of that neckline, the stem between her breasts and the petals peeking above. He struggled for words like a drowning man might struggle for the proverbial straw, but none came to a tongue that seemed, suddenly, thick and unyielding.

He forced sound through his lips, but what came out was a stammered, “Ma-Ma-Ma-” and no end to the word “madam,” no matter how he endeavored to pronounce it. She smelled like roses, a soft scent, like summer at full bloom, like…