Sarah D'Almeida - Dying by the Sword

Porthos jumped a little. “Oh, sorry,” he boom-whispered, while pulling his hand away from D’Artagnan’s face.

D’Artagnan, in turn, took his finger to his lips, in the universal gesture of recommending silence and said, in quite a low whisper. “There’s a crowd outside. Don’t speak. You boom when you speak.”

Porthos nodded and looked an enquiry at D’Artagnan.

D’Artagnan sighed. He said, thinking as he said it. “Well… You can’t get out. Not through there. There is a crowd out there too. So…” He chewed on his lip, thinking, as he looked around the darkened smithy. There was a candle burning on one of the forges, its light too little to make it beyond a circle perhaps as tall and wide as D’Artagnan himself. Well, and a little more of it making it, attenuated some distance. He could see the swords overhead and, near the embers on the hearth, a pile of something that might be coal or metal. But that was about it, except for the light of the embers. There was a crowd outside the door. Porthos couldn’t leave without being stopped by the crowd. And since he was Mousqueton’s master, things could get ugly rather quickly. He would not put it past the crowd to try to arrest Porthos. And one of the ever-obliging guards of his eminence might be nearby. The last thing they needed was to be arrested or worse, to fight a duel in full view of a lot of people, a duel that could-at a stroke of the King’s pen-become their last.

No. Something more cunning must offer. And, as D’Artagnan thought it, the plan presented itself, emerging from his head like a rather shifty Athena from Zeus’s head. He grabbed at Porthos’s gold-lace edged sleeve. “Listen,” he said, standing on tiptoes to whisper as close as he could to his giant friend’s ear. “Hide behind that pile of… whatever it is, there. And I will… do something that will bring the crowd in here. They don’t have torches. At least not yet. The moment they enter here, you mingle with them. Remember, I’m your servant-” and at Porthos’s look of rebellion-“your other servant. And as such, you were looking for me, and I’m a bad, bad boy, and in a lot of trouble.”

Porthos looked doubtful. “But-” he said.

“Not a word. My name is Henri Bayard.”

A look of relief in Porthos’s eyes battled with a stubborn expression of confusion, but D’Artagnan, no matter how much he knew his stubborn friend’s need for concrete explanations was not so foolish as to spend his time-now-explaining to Porthos why he must be Henri Bayard.

At any minute, someone-perhaps the big, brave guy-would open that door. Worse, they might think to get torches, and then they would see Porthos and D’Artagnan and… all there was to see before it could be hidden.

“Go,” D’Artagnan told Porthos, in the tone that brooked no dissent. “Go. Now. Do not wait. Run.”

Porthos hesitated a moment, then ran to hide behind the pile of material, whatever it might be. D’Artagnan hoped it was not coal, as it would seem rather odd when Porthos reemerged-for him to be covered in soot. But then again, D’Artagnan was entrusting the success of his plan to a man whose mind worked in such an odd way that people not familiar with the inner architecture of his thoughts often thought him dumb, or at least simple.

But Monsieur D’Artagnan père, other than wise advice on ghosts, had also told his son that when going into a duel, one must always fight with the sword he had. There was no use, and it would only lead to no good, to keep wishing after the sword he couldn’t get. Porthos was the accomplice he had, and it was up to D’Artagnan to make the most of it.

Taking a deep breath, he blew out the candle on the forge, then let out a long, haunted scream, and after it, “Help me.”

At the scream, he fancied he heard feet scurrying away, but at the “Help,” the door was pushed open. In the doorway stood the big man and behind him ranged his friends and neighbors.

D’Artagnan, hoping it looked natural, threw himself down as though he’d lost consciousness. The steps approached. The big man knelt down. “What’s wrong boy? What happened?” He put his hand, roughly, on D’Artagnan’s neck, and announced, in tones of relief, “He lives.”

Xavier was there too, on the other side, and D’Artagnan had a brief moment of panic, as he realized the story he’d told the Ferrant family in no way accorded to what he’d given Porthos. But there was nothing for it, now, and he blinked, and pretended to come to, and said, in a trembling voice, “There was a creature… very tall and dressed all in white, and a red light enveloping him, as he stood at that forge there.” He pointed. “And he was… beating something. Looked like a sword made of men’s bones.” He shuddered at his own imagination and was quite glad to see not a few people in the crowd hastily crossing themselves.

“It’s the devil,” one of the men in the crowd said. “Come to collect the soul of whoever murdered Langelier.”

“A likely story,” Porthos’s voice boomed, from the back of the crowd. Arms crossed, Porthos forced his way amid the locals, using his shoulder as a battering ram, as he was known to do in any crowd, Monsieur de Treville’s antechamber included. “More likely you were in here to take a look at the scene of the crime, Bayard. And you left me without a servant to get me my dinner.”

“You’re his servant?” Xavier asked, his voice trembling. “But I thought you said you were going to be Monsieur de Treville’s servant.”

“Oh, he is that,” Porthos said, and at that moment, on a wave of relief, D’Artagnan could have clasped him in his arms. “But the captain is letting me borrow him until Mousqueton is freed.” Even in the dark, it was possible to see the glare he gave the gathered crowd, as though daring them to say that there was another outcome possible than Mousqueton’s freedom. “But Bayard thought he was too good to be the servant of a mere musketeer, didn’t you, rogue?”

He reached down, and with a realism that D’Artagnan couldn’t have anticipated, got a firm hold on D’Artagnan’s ear. “Up you come. I need someone to take a letter from me to the Princess de-” He stopped, as though he’d just avoided committing an indiscretion. “You know well who. And then we must pick my outfit for the encounter.”

The crowd-possibly daunted by the idea that Porthos, whose suit managed to shine even in the scant light of the embers and the little coming in through the open door, might have a better, more impressive suit that he kept for encounters with princesses. And Porthos, holding fast to D’Artagnan’s ear, and pulling it just a little too high, and a little too fast-just enough, D’Artagnan judged, to look as if he were dragging him-led him to the door of the armory and down the street.

No one followed them, though D’Artagnan could hear them arguing, still within the shop, the words “ghosts” and “murder” emerging now and then.

“Porthos,” D’Artagnan said, after a while. “It might interest you to know that this is not one of my favorite modes of walking with a friend.” And to his friend’s blank look, D’Artagnan sighed. “You are holding my ear, Porthos.”

“Oh,” Porthos said, letting go of D’Artagnan’s ear. He looked over his shoulder, then back at D’Artagnan. “What are you doing here, D’Artagnan?” he asked. “And why are you calling yourself Bayard?”

D’Artagnan calculated in his head the chances of Porthos understanding what he meant in the time available and without too much argument, and sighed when he could not raise the number above less than a chance in a million. Not that Porthos was stupid. Porthos was in no way stupid. But his mind worked on concrete details and on small points, and he would want D’Artagnan to explain why exactly he’d chosen the name Bayard, or else why he’d picked that exact color of russet suit from Planchet’s wardrobe.