Sarah D'Almeida - Dying by the Sword

The eyebrows went up. “Truly? How strange of you to seek him in the home of a churchman.”

“Not so strange, when you think about it, your eminence,” Athos said. “I do not listen to gossip, but one cannot help but hear some portion of it, as one goes about one’s business.”

The Cardinal said nothing. This meant, Athos supposed, the time for talk was over. He nodded, as though acknowledging the end of a part of the game and the beginning of the other. As much fun as it might be to needle the Cardinal, Athos had come here for a purpose.

He opened his hands in turn, displaying his palms. “I want Mousqueton’s freedom. Mousqueton’s freedom and his exoneration from these ridiculous charges.”

“And I want a strong France where noblemen can’t challenge the power of their sovereign,” Richelieu said. “We all want things. The question is, what do you propose to do about it? And what can you do about it?”

“In return for the freedom and life of Porthos’s servant, I offer my services in unraveling the conspiracy against your eminence.”

A surprised look. “Oh? I thought you meant to offer me something of value?”

Perhaps Athos deserved that, for the unprovoked insults against the Cardinal, or perhaps this was just the way of the Cardinal’s enjoying himself in turn. Athos bowed his head slightly, in acknowledgment of a hit, and answered back, “I’m sure it has value enough. You are aware that in the last year we have unraveled murders that baffled everyone else.”

“And bested me not a few times? Yes. But for that, you had the help of your friends. Am I correct in saying that this time you are on your own, and that none of your friends knows of your effort, much less is prepared to help?”

Athos opened his hands, displaying his symbolic cards. “Alas, I can only offer myself,” he said, while in his mind he calculated things quickly. There was D’Artagnan, on whose loyalty and cooperation he was fairly sure he could count. And there was Porthos, who would protest at the idea of doing anything for the Cardinal, much less anything to defend the Cardinal. But he would do it, nonetheless, for the sake of Mousqueton. And Aramis… ah, Aramis. There was no telling what Aramis might do. Even when he told you what he was going to do.

Not that Athos didn’t value Aramis as a friend-he did. And not that he believed that Aramis would knowingly betray him, or any of them. Their friendship had been tried in too demanding a course for him to have any doubt that they did indeed stand one for all and all for one.

It was more the way that Aramis’s mind ran, deep and convoluted and often hiding from himself what he himself thought. Aramis knew of the conspiracy and, in fact, Aramis might be part of it. Athos didn’t think so, at least not knowingly, because much as Aramis despised Richelieu, he did not condone of murder. A man he wanted out of the way would be challenged to a duel or manipulated into exile. And if neither of those applied, then neither would murder.

And yet, he might very well refuse to help save the Cardinal’s neck, or work only halfheartedly to save it. “I can’t promise my friends, or not yet,” Athos said.

The Cardinal watched him. Finally, he nodded. “I cannot give you the servant’s liberty without some surety you can do what you promise,” Richelieu said. “So this is the deal I offer you, Monsieur le Comte. I shall promise you nothing will happen to the boy for the next week. No torture, no condemnation. But you must deliver me the conspirators meanwhile or…” He clasped his own neck, with one hand, as if to indicate hanging.

Athos nodded, staring. It wasn’t till he was outside the Palais Cardinal-having crossed the great antechamber where all conversations stopped at his approach and didn’t resume again till he was too far to hear their words-that Athos thought there was another outcome the Cardinal hadn’t considered, and one for which he was sure of his friends’ approval.

He could discover who had, in fact, killed the armorer. And then Richelieu would have to free Mousqueton.

Meanwhile, he had a week. A week, and Mousqueton would be safe meanwhile. And he could work to find the real murderer. If he needed to pry into the conspiracies of the court to find something to keep Richelieu quiet meanwhile, it wouldn’t hurt. The court was so rife with conspiracies, he was unlikely to find anything concrete.

He was putting on his gloves, preparing to go back to his lodgings, when he heard a soft cough behind him. “Monsieur Athos?” a well-known voice said.

Athos pivoted on his heel, to see Rochefort, the shadow of the Cardinal and, many said, the Cardinal’s evil genius. He was looking at Athos with an expression of interested amusement in his single eye. His other eye socket was covered with a patch. The last time they’d seen each other alone, Athos had held the upper hand. He rather suspected that Rochefort imagined he had it now.

“Yes?” he said.

“His eminence asked me to have a talk with you. If you would follow me.”

OUTSIDE the door to the armorer’s, Xavier hesitated, and D’Artagnan took advantage of the moment, to run ahead. There was a crowd outside the door, and a large man had just knocked on it and was calling out.

No one answered him. As D’Artagnan approached-since everyone was keeping a safe distance and looking rather like they were ready to take to their heels-the big man turned around and said, “No one is answering. Perhaps it’s just a cat locked in there? A cat would make a lot of noise. There was once a cat locked over in the potters and he-”

“Don’t be daft, Francois,” a voice shouted from behind him. “How would a cat reach the swords?”

D’Artagnan didn’t know why, but he did not want anyone to come in with him, and he found himself saying, “Perhaps. Or perhaps it is a ghost.”

At his conspiratorial accents, even the big man stepped back a little. Which allowed D’Artagnan a chance to slip past him, open the door, and slip into the dark armorer’s.

Of course, it only occurred to him afterwards, as the dark, clammy air of the workshop closed around him, that he was alone. In the armorer’s. Where a recent murder had happened.

Monsieur D’Artagnan père, a man of certain convictions and wise maxims, had once told his son, when D’Artagnan was just a small boy, that the probability was that there was no such thing as ghosts, and that it was very important for D’Artagnan to know that. On the other hand, it was important to keep in mind that the ghosts themselves might not know it.

It seemed to D’Artagnan, now, in the dark workshop, his nose filled with the smell of coals and metal polish as well as that curious metallic tang of smithies and an underlying smell of sudden death, that he heard his father’s voice again. He swallowed loudly, and hoped these ghosts-if there were any here-knew that they didn’t exist.

In the dark he took a step, two. And he found a huge hand clamping tight over his mouth. He put his hand to his sword belt, but he was wearing neither sword belt nor sword, and squirmed in the grip of another huge hand that had clasped his shoulder, in an attempt to turn around and kick his captor-who he was quite sure was corporeal-where it would hurt, when a well-known voice stopped him.

“D’Artagnan,” Porthos whispered in his ear, in his whisper which had an odd habit of booming at unexpected times. Not loud enough, D’Artagnan hoped, to be heard outside the doors to the smithy, but one could never be sure. “D’Artagnan? What are you doing here? And dressed that way.”

D’Artagnan did his best to answer, which was easier thought than done, due to the huge hand still clamped tightly across his mouth. He let out a hiss of exasperation, lifted his own hand and, delicately, prized one of Porthos’s fingers away, enough to say something that sounded like “pfffff” but was in fact, “Let me speak.”