Sarah D'Almeida - Dying by the Sword

“He would not,” Grimaud said, and shook his head. “Not until he had made up his mind what to do and worked the plan over with Hermengarde, which he had just done when…” He shrugged. “You see, they’ve all of them”-he looked at Planchet and Bazin in a corner of the kitchen-“gotten used to coming to me for advice. Because… because I am older, and I have raised children.”

Athos nodded at this. “So he came to you for advice?” “Certainly, when he had his letter. And he wanted to know what I thought and how Monsieur Porthos would accept it if Mousqueton were to get married.”

“What did you tell him?”

“That Monsieur Porthos was the kindest of all masters, and that he was not likely to take it amiss if Mousqueton married, provided between the two of them they found some way to support themselves and their child. And Mousqueton, you know, sir, the last thing he wanted was for his lover to be forced to give up their child or to leave him at the door of some church, to be raised out of charity.”

“No,” Porthos said. “That’s how Mousqueton himself was raised, and I would have guessed that he would endure any number of trials to assure that his child didn’t suffer a similar childhood. But… How is Hermengarde taking all this?”

“I told her,” Aramis said, his shoulders squared, his face resolute, “that we would do all we could to ensure Mousqueton’s freedom.”

D’Artagnan noted a look from Athos. “And what in this made you believe you were the target of this attack? What could possibly have crossed your mind to lead you to think-”

Aramis shook his head. “You know I have a new… friend.”

“If by that you mean a new seamstress, or a new niece of your theology professor, or whatever you’re calling it these days, yes, I am well aware of that,” Athos said, drily. “Else how to explain the disturbing profusion of perfumed note paper arriving at all hours.”

By the corner of his eye, D’Artagnan watched Bazin cross himself. Since he knew what Aramis’s servant, whose greatest ambition in life was to become a lay brother in whatever order his master chose to serve, thought of his master’s carnality, it was a confirmation of Athos’s guess.

Aramis only nodded. “Well… I have… something of that nature.” He stopped, suddenly, and looked around, with a worried eye. “Can we speak of this in private?”

“In the kitchen?” Athos said. “Not likely. And surely you’re not suggesting you don’t trust our servants. We are, after all, fighting for the life of their friend.”

“Yes, that is all very well,” Aramis said. “And I am sure each and every one of them is more than willing to do what must be done for our brave Mousqueton. However…” He paused, and hesitated. “There are dangers attendant to this situation, dangers, shall we say, that do not proceed from the murder and do not devolve upon Mousqueton alone.”

Perhaps it was, D’Artagnan thought, the return of Aramis’s habitual roundabout manner of speech that made Athos’s lips go taut once more. But D’Artagnan knew this could not be allowed. “I believe,” he said, in a tired tone, “what Aramis means is that there is some danger attaching to his seamstress. I’m not going to speculate, but it could be anything, from an irate husband to… something more serious. We know how high Aramis-who is, after all, so punctilious about his clothes-looks for a seamstress who can sew a straight seam, do we not? Is it so strange that he would not wish to speak of it in front of our servants, not because he doesn’t trust them, but because he believes the knowledge could bring danger to them?”

Exhausted by his long speech, he leaned back against the edge of the table, in time to see a grateful smile from Aramis. “Thank you, D’Artagnan,” Aramis said, in a voice that revealed D’Artagnan was not by any means the only one to notice that Athos was more tightly wound than normal. “You have, as usual, made light in the dark.”

D’Artagnan bowed slightly, but Athos was frowning. “Well, then let us adjourn upstairs, to my sitting room, to discuss the matter. I…” He frowned more intensely, as though the admission were being torn from him reluctantly. “I too have something that I should discuss and which is perhaps too serious to allow innocents to be involved in.”

“Planchet, my shirt,” D’Artagnan said again, imperiously. The boy had been holding his shirt the whole while, looking at it with an expression of utter dismay on his freckled face.

“It’s all over blood, sir,” Planchet said, lifting the offending garment. “As is your doublet.”

“Grimaud,” Athos said, “if you would be so kind as to help Monsieur D’Artagnan to my chamber, and offer him any of my shirts or doublets he would care to take.”

D’Artagnan felt a sudden relief, for he had been afraid they’d need to send Planchet home for replacement clothes and he, himself, was starting to think that there was some danger involved in their going out of doors alone. As far as he could determine, each of the three of them had assumed he was the culprit in the fracas in the palace gardens. And Athos, himself, seemed to have some secret.

He allowed Grimaud to lead him out of the kitchen and help him up the stairs. Grimaud assisted him with small movements, a touch on the elbow, a support of the arm-all without seeming to, D’Artagnan noted and wondered how many times Grimaud had escorted his drunken and querulous master this way. And how many times he must have lead Athos up these stairs when Athos was far more wounded than D’Artagnan was now.

All of them, D’Artagnan knew, worried about Athos. Aramis might be the only one who worried for his soul, but Porthos and D’Artagnan spent plenty of time musing on the state of his body. As, doubtless, did the devoted and absolutely loyal Grimaud, who now led D’Artagnan to a room far better appointed than should have been expected of any musketeer living in Paris. Most of the furnishings there declared as loudly as words that they’d been brought back from Athos’s ancestral domains.

Grimaud extracted a linen shirt-much finer than anything D’Artagnan had ever worn-and an old-fashioned and worn doublet from one of the clothing presses, and clucked at something within the press. D’Artagnan, who had heard the sound of glass or ceramic just before that, looked at Grimaud, and their gazes met in perfect understanding.

As Grimaud helped D’Artagnan into the shirt-a little long, but not much larger than D’Artagnan’s own, or at least not large enough to look ridiculous, since D’Artagnan was much more sturdily built than the muscular but spare to thinness Athos-D’Artagnan said, “Has… has your master been suffering a great deal from his old trouble?”

Grimaud sighed. “Not so much, sir. Now and again though the… since you joined their group, the troubles of a different sort have kept him from brooding on his own quite so much as he used to. And with Monsieur le Comte, you know, it is memories and… and the thought of what might have been that brings his trouble about.”

“You mean that having found himself faced with murders has been good for my friend?”

Grimaud inclined his head. “I’ve thought so. There is nothing, you know, like a little intrigue and a lot of danger in the present to keep the past at bay. Only today, when he came in, Monsieur D’Artagnan, I will confess that I looked into his eyes and I thought…”

“You thought?”

“I thought he looked as though he’d seen a ghost.”

“DID you see a ghost?” D’Artagnan asked, as he came into the salon where his friends had been speaking desultorily, while waiting for him.