Sarah D'Almeida - Dying by the Sword

“Violette and I were like that, one body, one blood, one flesh. As long as I live, though what you might call grief might die down-will die down, I daresay, since human memory does-I will be half a creature, a half of me having been ripped away and sent to an early grave. I will never know wholeness again till, God granting it, I meet her again in the ever after and we can be one once more. A child…” His mouth went dry again, and he had to stop, while his eyes filled with unaccountable moisture. “Should there have been a child from her, I would have moved heaven and Earth to have him by my side and to make him my heir. Other than that, a child is of no consequence to me. I’ve lived since I can remember in the expectation of being a priest one day, and of leaving no descendants. My lands and title will devolve on a distant cousin with a numerous family, and I wish him joy of them.”

Now his body allowed him to pry his fingers away from De Chevreuse’s face-as though he were prying them away against their will. She looked at him, her mouth half-open, like a startled child. And Aramis thought that he’d ruined it, now. He would be leaving here never to return, the one palliative he’d found for his pain over Violette’s death gone forever.

He stepped away and bowed correctly. “My apologies, your grace. I regret having upset you or scared you. It was scarcely my wish to do so. I beg you will forgive me and that when we meet again, you will show no signs of your anger at me.”

“Oh, but I’m not angry at you,” she said, suddenly. “And you’ll come see me the day after tomorrow, of course.”

He raised his eyebrows. “After my… insufferable behavior?”

She grinned at him, raising an ingratiating dimple on her cheek. “Your behavior,” she said, “insufferable though it might be, shows you to be a man of deep passions and sudden anger.” She shrugged. “It is in my nature, you know, to embrace danger. Much of my life has been lived in seeking it out and following it wherever it may lead.”

“Oh,” Aramis said, and stopped, remembering the rumor, more or less confirmed by Monsieur de Treville. “Your grace wouldn’t be happening, right now, to be involved in a conspiracy?”

She flicked her fingers, casually. “I am always involved in a conspiracy,” she said.

“To murder the Cardinal?” he said.

She looked surprised, her eyes wide. “Oh, I’d devoutly love a conspiracy that does that, or even attempts it,” she said, eagerly. “Is there one? And can I join it?”

“Unlike you,” Aramis said. “I don’t court danger for the love of it.” And then, with punctilious exactitude, “Unless it’s in duel where I must, of course, defend my honor.”

“We women do not have that choice,” she said. “All the swords we have must be borrowed.”

“Those,” he said, thinking of his fingers grasping her face while fury ran like a grief-dark river through his mind, “must be danger enough.”

She shrugged. “But I do not know of this conspiracy you speak. If someone wants to murder the monster, I must, of course, support them. I’ve found no one brave enough to try it yet, though.” As she spoke, she darted the smallest of looks at the folded missive on her writing table, and then quickly away.

Aramis was almost absolutely sure that she was lying about knowing nothing of a conspiracy. And yet, he was also almost sure he had seen something like surprise quickly followed by relief in her eyes when he’d mentioned the conspiracy. Surprise because he knew it? Relief because he didn’t know her part in it?

“I’d take care, milady,” he said. “Your correspondence with the Queen has been intercepted, and the Cardinal is sure it betrays a conspiracy against him.”

“His eminence thinks that the fact I still breathe, never mind my being in the same city as her Majesty, is a conspiracy against himself. It is all very silly.”

“Perhaps so, but remember he has the power to separate your head from your neck, and that’s a danger too large to court. Take care, my lady.”

“I always take care. I will see you the day after tomorrow, D’Herblay, since you anticipated our meeting today.”

It was so clearly a dismissal, he could not help but take it. On his way out, passing the table, he managed to cast a glance on the name on that missive, and was startled to find the name and styling of her Majesty’s illegitimate half-brother, Cesar.

“SIT down, Monsieur le Comte,” Rochefort said. He had led him into an office that was the exact, if poorer, replica, of his master’s. Where Richelieu ’s study was surrounded by a profusion of bookcases, each filled with leather bound volumes with gilded edges and covers, this one had only two bookcases. And where Richelieu ’s chairs were majestically carved and ornamented, Rochefort’s-while looking quite comfortable-were undeniably utilitarian affairs. His office also lacked a writing desk. What it had in its place was a sword, mounted on the wall, a sword that looked much like Athos’s ancestral sword, mounted on his own wall.

“I wish you wouldn’t call me that,” Athos said. “You might know it, and the Cardinal might know it, but other than courting my vengeance if you reveal it, there is nothing you can earn by letting me know you have my secret. I don’t use the name. What I have done has darkened it forever. Perhaps some yet unborn La Fere can resume it with pride, but I can never. So long as I live, that name must remain unknown.”

“Or at least until the crown has forgotten the small matter of your wife,” Rochefort said, casually, shrugging. “That’s normally why people take the uniform, isn’t it? To serve a while until one’s crimes are forgotten and the King owes one enough he’d never dream of punishing them. And then one can return to one’s former life, untouched.”

Athos felt a muscle work on the side of his jaw. “Do not mention… the lady. I committed no crime,” he said. “But as for returning…” He shrugged. “There are events and… and decisions that alter one forever. I don’t think I would be the best custodian for my lands or my people.”

Rochefort said nothing to this, simply sat down and joined his hands on his lap. “You’re not going to require,” he said, “that I call you Athos, are you? It is a demmed silly name. A demon, wasn’t he?”

“A mountain,” Athos said. “A mountain in Armenia on which a famous monastery is set.”

“A monastery!” Rochefort said, with every sign of alarm. “Are you then, like your friend who calls himself Aramis, merely wearing the uniform of the King’s musketeers until you can exchange it for the habit of a priest or a monk?”

“I?” Athos said, almost in shock. “Heaven forbid. I hope I have as much faith as the next man, but if I find myself inadequate to care for my lands or my people, how much more inadequate am I to look after God’s affairs? No. I’ll remain myself. The name is just… what it is.”

Rochefort shrugged. “Those of us who serve the Cardinal,” he said, “are not ashamed to do it under our own names.”

“Perhaps,” Athos said, “because you had nothing left to lose.” And let the idea sink in, seeing the sting of it at the back of Rochefort’s eye, even as the man looked away. Rochefort was, as Athos knew, as noble as himself-a man from an ancient family.

They’d been on the opposite sides of the secret war between King and Cardinal for so many years that the two of them knew each other as well as old friends might. Two things divided them beyond their opposing loyalties-which either considered inexplicable-that Rochefort was willing to stoop to the most dishonorable actions in pursuit of his master’s aim; and that Athos had no expectations, ever, of regaining the honors he had lost, while Rochefort was hoping to rebuild his domain and the fortune his ancestors had squandered.