Sarah D'Almeida - The Musketeer's Apprentice

Martin was staring at her, his mouth half-open in complete astonishment, his eyes filled with horror. But all he said was, “The children aren’t mine. I’d never laid eyes on Amelie when she first showed up here, and she was already big with child. That man says Guillaume was his son.”

The woman looked at Porthos, then back at her husband, and then at Amelie. “Oh, perhaps, but the girl has your face and your gestures, so I was justified in thinking they were both yours. And I was justified in killing him, too, and taking away his ill-gotten gains.”

She got up from the table, suddenly calm. “Put the money back in the wall. I don’t want to speak of this ever again.”

When the constables came to arrest her, she was busily polishing the counter, and seemed surprised anyone would want to punish her, after she confessed to murdering two people, in the sight of her husband, three musketeers, a guard and a group of honest merchants who’d found this a very strange entertainment provided for their mealtime, and who’d listened to everything very attentively indeed.

"AMELIE, bring the gentlemen some wine,” Martin said, and dropped everything he was doing-which at that moment was picking up dirty mugs and delivering them to tiny Amelie behind the counter.

The girl already looked different. She was wearing different clothes for one. Squinting at her, to see her better against the early morning sunlight, Athos was sure the clothes she had on were the woman’s, inexpertly altered to fit her much smaller size. But they were better clothes than the rags she’d worn before, and her hair was combed and loosely tied back. And she looked… happier.

She nodded to her father, and expertly drew the wine from the barrel and brought cups she put in front of each of the men. Then she hurried to serve another table that was clamoring for something.

“I don’t have much time,” Martin told them. “There aren’t many heavy drinkers in the morning, but the guests like to break their fast before they go, and Amelie is filling in valiantly, and of course we have a cook in the back, but still, we might need to hire a wench or two to help, till Amelie is older.”

“You sent for us,” Athos said. “You sent a note…”

Martin nodded. “What I want to know is this-is there someone to whom we need to return the gold?”

Porthos started to open his mouth, but Athos shook his head. “No one. It was given with good and free will. Only, I hope you’re not intending on spending it on drink and-”

The man shook his head. He looked, Athos noticed, more serious than he’d looked before. “That’s all behind me now. I don’t even want to marry again. Not till Amelie is settled. You see, I have a daughter.” He shook his head as though at the wonder of it. “It turns out everyone around here knew she was my daughter and thought I knew. Only I…” He shrugged. “When I… When Amelie came here, I’d already been married to Josiane so many years, and we had no children. And, you know, there had been other women and I had no children. So I thought there was something wrong with me. I thought…” He shook his head. “But I have Amelie. She’s quite a little worker, and if I keep the gold for a dowry for her, who knows… She might even marry an accountant or an attorney.”

Athos gave Porthos a sideways glance, to see how he took that, but Porthos only nodded. Sometimes Porthos could be very sensible, and see, as well as they all did, that an attorney’s life was a step up from this.

“Or she can inherit the inn and make it the best and largest inn in Paris,” Martin said. He looked grave. “At any rate, I wanted to thank you. You’ll always have a meal or a drink here if you need it.”

Athos, knowing that they would save that for when they needed and not for when they wanted it, which would save Martin growing tired of them very quickly, nodded. “And Amelie will always have four protectors,” he said. “Should she need them.”

“We would like,” Porthos said. “To take her with us, for four days, leaving tomorrow, if you will let us?”

To the man’s look of startled surprise, he explained. “We’re having Guillaume buried in my family plot, where all my ancestors sleep. And I’d like Amelie to be there. I think he would have wanted it.”

A shadow passed over the man’s eyes, and then he nodded.

D’ARTAGNAN was asleep. It was not a dreamless sleep, rather a sleep filled with dreams in which a beautiful, blond woman ran just ahead of him, laughing lightly and calling out in the voice of Madame Bonacieux, “You fool. You poor fool!”

Into this dream there intruded a sound like a scratching. It wasn’t enough to wake him. Instead, he thought it might be a mouse and there was a momentary dream of being a mouse in the wall-a mouse taunted by a beautiful blond woman.

But then the mouse whispered, back and forth in two voices; there was the sound of a door closing; then of steps, and then of the door to his room-the innermost of the two rooms in his lodging-opening and closing, and a smell of roses seemed to fill the whole room, overpowering.

Light steps approached his bed, and it was too much for D’Artagnan to hold on to his shreds of sleep. He opened his eyes, and he knew he was dreaming.

Madame Bonacieux stood there, in the moonlight. [4]Shewas dressed in only a very flimsy shirt that covered to her knees. Beneath it, one could see the rosy forms of her breasts, swelling gently, and guess at the narrow waist. Her blond hair was loose down her back. In a pile at her feet lie those accoutrements of respectability-her over dress, her cloak, her bonnet-which she’d clearly just discarded.

D’Artagnan raised himself on an elbow, to look more closely at this apparition, which might be a dream and insubstantial, but was, nonetheless, the most beautiful thing ever to grace his room.

“Don’t say anything,” she said, rapidly. “I don’t do this.” Her hands went up to cover her face, and when they came away, revealed she was blushing dark. “I’ve never done this before. Not with just anyone. But I want you to know that if I used you abominably, it was at least in part to lie to myself, to tell myself that you didn’t matter. I could tell you were overcome at first sight, but, monsieur, I was overcome too.”

She stepped towards the bed, moving-where D’Artagnan was concerned-as if on a cloud of dream. “But then I saw how you behaved when you realized I’d used you, and I thought I’d betrayed myself, too, and there was only one way to make it right. My husband doesn’t know I have this night off from the palace. Your servant says you’re leaving tomorrow on a trip. So, you see, that leaves us tonight. Please, don’t say no.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” D’Artagnan said. The dream was now close enough that he could extend his hands and touch it. To his surprise, it was very corporeal and warm and human-female flesh, pliant to his touch. “I wouldn’t dream of it,” he said again.

He pulled; she tumbled onto the bed.

And then there was warmth and softness and the diffuse smell of roses.

PORTHOS’S pounding on the door of the manor house at Du Vallon brought an almost immediate response. There could be no other way, since they’d been traveling slowly, with the sealed coffin in a cart among them, and there would have been talk and comment about it.

The door was opened by Monsieur du Vallon, himself, in a towering rage.

“Good morning, Father,” Porthos said.

The old man half-flung the door. “I have no son,” he said.

“How strange,” Porthos said. “For you had one.”