Sarah D'Almeida - Dying by the Sword

“The devil,” he said to himself. He had suspected it all along, but the thing was that Constance had never given him a chance to defend himself. And that she could believe in his perfidy like that, without need of proof, without a single doubt. That cut into the center of his young heart. “Perhaps Athos is right,” he told himself. “Perhaps all women are the devil.”

In this sullen mood, he left the courtyard, and went through the door barely saying a word of thanks to De Jacinthe. In fact, his rejection of all of the fair sex lasted exactly until he walked less than twenty steps from the palace entrance, towards his lodging, and saw a beautiful woman cowering against the wall, while two rough-looking men, with knives, tried to convince her to come with them.

“You’ll come with us,” one of the men said. “And there will be no debate. You are too tasty a morsel to escape us.”

The woman was indeed a tasty morsel, D’Artagnan thought, as he rushed to her rescue. She had hair so blond and so shiny that it might as well be pure moonlight. It was braided simply down her back, over a pale grey cloak edged with some sort of fur. Her features were as beautiful as her hair or her attire, something that didn’t seem quite real. Oval, perfect face, huge grey eyes, that matched her cloak, a straight nose, and lips so full and promising that they quite cast Constance ’s into shade. In fact, while Constance was beautiful, this woman was stunning.

His sword out of its sheath, D’Artagnan rushed in, and-in a mood of reckless chivalry-charged the two ruffians. “Leave the lady be,” he said. “Or face me.”

Clearly his demeanor was more fearful than he’d thought, for they didn’t even wait for him to come near, but instead took to their heels. D’Artagnan, somewhat bewildered by so easy a rescue, reasoned that perhaps they were, out of reason, afraid of guards. Or perhaps they’d mistaken his uniform for that of a musketeer.

He now found his hands taken in both of the cool, soft hands of the woman, who was as beautiful as an angel. “Oh, my hero,” she said. “You’ve saved a foreigner from a fate worse than death.”

Her accent, though present, didn’t so much sound foreign as like the accent of someone who’d spent a long time abroad. But then, D’Artagnan was quite willing to understand he knew nothing of accents.

He did however know of beauty, and this beautiful woman was curtseying to him. He bowed in return, removing his hat. “Henri D’Artagnan, madam,” he said. “At your service.”

She smiled. “I am Lady de Winter,” she said. “And quite a stranger and friendless in Paris. I wonder,” she said, “if you’d do me the honor of dining with me tonight?”

Before D’Artagnan had fully recovered, he found himself in possession of the beautiful woman’s address and the time to present himself at her door. And standing there, in the full sun of morning, he thought that if Constance was going to accuse him of dallying with well-born ladies, by the Mass, he was about to give substance to her accusations.

PORTHOS woke up with repeated knocking outside the door. Opening his eyes, he saw that he was in Athos’s room, though he had slipped to the floor. Athos was still asleep on the bed, though D’Artagnan was nowhere to be seen. And there was a repeated, insistent knocking outside the door.

His first attempt at a reply having come out as a grunt, Porthos cleared his throat and said, “Yes?”

The door opened and Grimaud’s worried face peeked into the room. “Monsieur Porthos,” he said, with a worried look at his master on the bed. “There is a letter come for Monsieur D’Artagnan.”

“Well, then give it to him,” Porthos said, speaking gruffly. On the bed, Athos stirred. Grimaud looked worried. Porthos, following his glance, saw Athos sit up suddenly and pull out his sword in the same moment.

Grimaud said, “You did not remove his sword,” and then dove for cover behind the chair. Whether the sound of his movement or his words called Athos, Athos rose from the bed and jumped down from it and, silent as the grave, charged towards the chair.

“Stop!” Porthos yelled, not at all sure the sword would not pierce through the chairback and hit the cowering Grimaud. “Athos, are you mad?” he asked at the same time he got his own sword, which he had leaned against the wall, and managed to deflect Athos’s charge just in time.

The sound of metal on metal caused Athos to open one of his eyes, but all the same, he still made a half-hearted lunge towards Porthos, which Porthos averted easily. And then Athos’s eyes were both open, his forehead wrinkled, and his mouth set in a grimace of pain. “What are you doing dueling me, Porthos?” he asked, in a tone of great outrage.

“I would ask rather,” Porthos said, baffled, “what you are doing dueling me.” And joining action to words, he lowered his sword and sheathed it.

For a moment it hung in the balance, but then Athos lowered his sword as well, and glowered at Porthos from beneath lowered eyebrows. “I couldn’t have,” he said. “You must realize I was asleep.”

Porthos sighed and refused to say that yes, he was perfectly aware of this and vaguely shocked that Athos could duel in his sleep. Instead, he just said, “Grimaud came in. With a letter.”

Grimaud emerged from behind his chair, at first cautiously, until he ascertained that his master’s eyes were both open-or a given value of open-and looking vaguely in his direction and focused enough that he might actually know who Grimaud was.

“Ah, Grimaud,” he said, in the tone of one considering a problem, as he stretched out his hand. “The letter.”

“The letter,” Grimaud said, “is for Monsieur D’Artagnan.”

“Oh,” Athos said, putting his hand down and frowning. “Then perhaps you should give it to him?”

Grimaud sighed, as though he were faced with madmen everywhere he turned. “Yes, I would, sir, if I had the slightest notion where he might be.”

“Well, I would assume at his house,” Athos said, though there was a touch of insecurity beneath this declaration, and he was frowning ever slightly more. “Or did he sleep here? I have some fantastical memory of waking up with his hand on my hair, but I went back to sleep immediately after.” He turned his frown on Porthos.

“We put you both on the bed,” Porthos said. “You and D’Artagnan, when you could not walk.”

“We?”

“Aramis and I.”

“And where is Aramis, then?”

Porthos looked around, as if he expected Aramis to materialize next to him out of clear air. Which, in fact, he did expect. After all, you never knew where Aramis might be, but he might be anywhere.

Grimaud cleared his throat. “Monsieur Aramis,” he said, “left shortly after the three of you retired.”

“Oh, did he?” Porthos said. “And isn’t that just like Aramis? There’s people trying to kill us all, some infernal cowards come at us all cloaked and covered up, and yet he goes off all by himself.”

“Yes,” Athos said, in complete agreement. “I too find Aramis very vexing.”

“And D’Artagnan?” Porthos asked Grimaud.

Grimaud shrugged. “I think he too has left,” he said. “At least, he’s not anywhere else in the house, so I have to believe he has left.” He raised the purple missive. “So I don’t quite know what to do with this. It was brought over by a servant from the palace, who had gone to Monsieur D’Artagnan’s lodging first.”

“Why did they come here after his lodging?” Athos asked, frowning.

“Well, Planchet had left word that he would be coming here,” Grimaud said. “So they assumed he either was with his master or knew where to find him.”