Sarah D'Almeida - Dying by the Sword

“His eminence says you have agreed to work for him on this matter of the… conspiracy,” Rochefort said, politely.

“On this matter only and only because he’s holding Mousqueton, Monsieur Porthos’s servant, as a hostage to this.”

“I understood you offered,” Rochefort said, drily.

“One offers, when one is compelled,” Athos answered with equal dryness. “I do not want the boy harmed. You know Porthos. He took to the boy as though he were his own son.” He held back from saying that Porthos had already lost one son. Not that he wasn’t sure Richelieu knew this. There were very few things in France that escaped the attention of the éminence grise. But either Rochefort knew it and it didn’t bear mentioning-or he didn’t know it, and Athos would spare Porthos’s pride. “It would be devastating to lose him.”

Rochefort raised an eyebrow, “Is he perhaps, in fact-?”

“Not that I know, or Porthos knows,” Athos said.

“Or find it necessary to tell me?”

Athos shrugged. No use making Rochefort and Richelieu think that their hostage was, in fact, more important than he was. “That I know,” he said, “Porthos met him when he came to Paris. I understand Mousqueton tried to relieve Porthos of some of his possessions and… Well, you know Porthos.”

“Mostly I know his prowess in duel, but yes. I have heard rumors about Monsieur Porthos’s soft heart.”

Athos inclined his head. He supposed that there were rumors about all of them and that somewhere, if not actually written down, in the Cardinal’s hand, there was a list of their weaknesses-Porthos’s soft heart and his vanity; Aramis’s faith and his inability to stay away from the fair sex; D’Artagnan’s tendency to leap before he looked and his romanticism and Athos’s-he paused. He knew himself well enough to realize he had faults aplenty. But he was at a loss to choose which of them would be the fatal one. His drinking? His reluctance to deal with any women at all? Or his shattered and embittered heart, forever burdened with the sense of guilt for having killed his wife. She might have been a criminal and her death an execution, but in the dark of night, Athos stared dry-eyed into the darkness and suspected very much that he’d made a mistake and slain the only woman he’d ever love, the woman whose memory still haunted his every moment.

“So you offered to help us with this conspiracy to murder the Cardinal,” Rochefort said, suddenly businesslike, as though something in Athos’s expression had scared him. “And I think perhaps you should know what we know for a fact and… and what his eminence fears.”

Athos did not say that his eminence’s fears might have very little to do with reality. He knew that this was probably a slander. The Cardinal was many things, but none of them was either coward or insane. In fact, he was-always, in Athos’s experience-realistic and exact and fully aware of the truth of a situation, no matter how much he chose to distort it in his favor. Instead, he settled himself, with his hands folded on his lap, and waited.

Rochefort seemed surprised he had passed up a chance to engage in a battle of wits. “His eminence,” he said with something like a twang of disappointment in his voice, “has intercepted some correspondence between the Queen and some of her friends.”

Athos inclined his head. “Not the first time,” he said. “Nor the last.”

Rochefort shrugged, as though to signify this did not matter. “The Queen is very loyal to her brother the Emperor,” he said. “Sometimes it seems inexplicably so. She has also conceived the most vehement dislike of his eminence, for no reason anyone can understand, since you must know his eminence has always had her best interest-” He stopped, and shrugged and Athos was very much afraid he’d allowed a chuckle to escape him. “At any rate, you see, the Queen’s loyalties are divided, and having the King’s best interests-and, aye, those of the kingdom-at heart, the Cardinal can’t help but monitor her conversations. We are not going to beg pardon for doing what must be done.”

“I assure you, Rochefort, we never expected you to beg pardon.”

He got a look of dubious enquiry for that, followed by an exasperated exhalation. “The thing, my dear Count, is that…” He hesitated. “This correspondence hinted that there would be a great change in France soon, and it was clear they meant that the Cardinal would be dead and…” He paused. “And the throne might be better managed. We believed the implication was that they meant to murder the King.”

He paused. Athos caught himself halfway out of the chair, rising by the force of his arms upon the armrests, and he forced himself to sit down again. He noted Rochefort’s gratified expression at what Athos was sure was his alarmed face, and Athos forced his face to relax; forced himself to discipline his emotions. This was Rochefort and Rochefort was an echo of the Cardinal. They-both of them-told the truth only when they couldn’t tell lies, or when the truth served their purpose better than a lie. The chances of this being truthful were less than none.

Yet, Athos’s voice still sounded altered and distorted by emotion, as he said, “You cannot know what you’re saying. You cannot mean it.”

Rochefort was looking neutral, his pleased expression gone. “I wish I didn’t,” he said. “Though in the beginning it was just… a suspicion, or less than that. A thought that the matter should be followed up. A vague idea that things were not all they seemed to be. So I… followed up on it. The Queen’s correspondent, the Duchess De Chevreuse, who you know, is like the worst half of her majesty, and has already been responsible for one miscarriage of her majesty’s, for encouraging her to behave in a very irresponsible manner in the halls of the palace…”

“Or at least that was the reason given,” Athos said.

Rochefort shrugged minimally. “We intercepted correspondence of the Duchess’s, next. The names this brought to us were a little… odd. It appears Madame la Duchess has for some time entertained correspondence with Captain Ornano, the governor of the house of Monsieur, the brother of the King.”

Athos, completely confused by the introduction of the governor of Monsieur, the heir apparent, Gaston d’Orléans, could only raise his eyebrows and try to appear more knowledgeable than he was and yet less enlightened on the matter than he felt he should be.

Rochefort smiled and shook his head. “Perhaps I should explain,” he said. “I understand your friend Aramis is quite au courant of every possible affair in the court. I judge it will not be a surprise to you if I say that we’ve had some strange reactions to the announced marriage of Monsieur to Mademoiselle de Montpensier?”

“Is he to marry her?” Athos asked.

“But… It has been announced by his majesty himself,” Rochefort said, as though shocked that anyone at all could have missed this all-important news. “Surely-”

Athos shook his head. “My only interest in the royalty is to serve them,” he said. “Not necessarily in the person of the present occupant of the throne.” And, added, hastily as Rochefort raised his eyebrow in turn, “No, I don’t mean anything disloyal by that. I am a musketeer of the King’s and I will serve him to the utmost of my understanding and my ability. That is not what I meant. I meant…” He steepled his hands, then shook his head. “When I was… fifteen, I ascended to the dignity of Viscount de Bragelone, the junior title in my family. As such, my father judged that I should be knighted according to the true and ancient rites. What occasioned the knighting-the performing of an act of valor-all that matters not. It was an organized tourney, in which I could display my prowess.” He was aware of a rueful smile distending his lips. “Such as it was, at the time. Good enough for my father’s blessing, at any rate. And he took me to the Abbey of St. Derris where the crypts hold the bones of the kings of France. There he made me aware that the occupant of the throne such as he is, remains, for all he is our sovereign and King, a passing being-a mortal like all other men. What I must serve, he then told me, and made me understand, is the monarchy of France. The present occupant is merely the… vessel of that sacred line, that power which represents and rules all of the kingdom.”