Sarah D'Almeida - Dying by the Sword

“I take Planchet isn’t here, either?” Athos asked.

Grimaud sighed. “Planchet is in the kitchen eating a prodigiously large breakfast.” He thought about it a moment. “I think the boy is still growing, which if you permit me saying so, sir, is rather alarming.”

“Maybe he is filling out,” Porthos said. Both Grimaud and Athos looked at him as if he’d taken leave of his senses.

“You know… he’s rather too tall and thin, maybe he is… growing into his height.”

“I doubt it, sir. He has the build that will always be tall and thin,” Grimaud said.

“Oh,” Porthos said, who was not at all informed on the different builds of youths and in fact didn’t remember paying any attention to how people grew up. “So, what should we do with the letter? Perhaps we should send him in search of D’Artagnan?”

Athos covered his eyes with his hand for a moment, then sighed, removing his hand and looking at Grimaud. “Give me the letter,” he said.

“But…” Grimaud said. “It’s for Monsieur D’Artagnan and I”-he hesitated-“think it’s from a lady.”

“Given the color of the paper and the perfume I can smell from here,” Athos said, drily, “I very much hope it’s from a woman. Though I’m not absolutely sure anyone who writes in purple deserves to be called a lady. Give it to me, all the same.”

“Sir!”

“No, I believe you must. It must be urgent if someone took the trouble of bringing it all the way up to here. So give it to me.”

“It’s Monsieur D’Artagnan’s private business,” Grimaud said.

“Quite likely. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t look at it.”

“Athos. It indeed does mean so,” Porthos said, flabbergasted by his friend’s attitude. Athos was always imperious when he was in pain, be it wound or headache, but today he seemed to be… rather more so. Remembering the conversation from the night before, Porthos thought, Heaven help us. It’s Monsieur le Comte. “Gentlemen do not read gentlemen’s correspondence.”

Athos gave him a withering look. “Perhaps not. But knowing the trouble that foolish boy can get into, we do indeed read his correspondence. Only think, if your scruples prevented you from following him, and he ended up dead as a result. I know I could not live with it. Could you?” He stretched a hand towards Grimaud and said, imperiously, “The letter, Grimaud!”

Grimaud delivered the letter, managing to look like a dog who cows to his master but does not wish to. Athos frowned at it. And Porthos, still full of misgiving, said, “Athos, should you-”

“Yes, I believe I must.” He inserted his fingernail beneath the seal of the letter and pried it open, unfolding the page. For a long time he frowned at the page.

“What does it say?” Porthos asked, and then, thinking that perhaps Athos was having a difficulty he often had, added, “Is the handwriting impossible to decipher?”

Athos said, “No,” but his voice was distant and muted, as though he were speaking out of a dream. “It’s just… there is very little here.” He frowned at the page, then cleared his throat. “ ‘Dear Monsieur D’Artagnan, Just as it had come upon my notice that I might have misjudged you, something happened which I do not feel equal to facing alone. Since it pertains to the maid in which you’ve shown some interest in the past, I believe it would be a very good thing if you should come to the palace as soon as it may be.’ ” He frowned. “It is signed Constance B.”

“The devil,” Porthos said. “Much like the letter she sent him, which brought him to the palace where he was ambushed.”

Athos frowned. “Yes. Do we know if Madame Bonacieux did write that letter? And why is it that she says she realized she might have misjudged him?”

“Boiled if I know,” Porthos said, heartily. “But I wonder…”

“If our friend got the message by some other means and went to the palace on his own?” Athos asked. He was chewing just on the corner of his upper lip and his moustache, which was always a bad sign with Athos.

Porthos nodded. Athos looked at him, and said something low and soft and shockingly obscene. Then added, “Could Aramis have gone with him?”

Porthos sighed. He wished he could have said that. He hated the idea of D’Artagnan out there alone, possibly falling into a trap, without any of them to stand by him and support him. But he didn’t in good conscience think they could surmise that. “Aramis left here late last night, according to Grimaud. He hasn’t come back yet. I would be forced to imagine…”

“That he’s found a softer bed than he could find here. Yes,” Athos said, the crease between his eyebrows that he got when he was in pain or worried becoming even more marked. He looked up at Porthos and sighed. “I think, Porthos, that we might have to go to the royal palace and see what has happened with Madame Bonacieux.”

“Well, if nothing else,” Porthos said, “it will allow us to find out if she was the one who called D’Artagnan to the palace or not, and that must count as a good. Because if it wasn’t her…”

“Then it must perforce have been someone set on creating a trap, yes,” Athos said. “Probably someone who either commanded or was commanded by the men in the black cloaks.”

Porthos nodded. Of all of them, Athos was the one-at least when he was not in the mood to go against everything everyone said-to always understand Porthos while requiring him to say the least.

“Very well,” Athos said. “Let us go.” He pulled his hair back with his fingers, roughly, tying it back with a bit of ribbon. Then he slapped his hat on and reached to the little trunk by the window, for the gloves on top of it.

Thus casually arranged, his appearance made Porthos sigh. Porthos could have spent most of the morning getting ready, and used brushes on his red hair, and set his hat just so, and used his best jewelry, and he’d never look a quarter as noble, as dressed, as full of dignity as Athos. Never. Not as long as he lived. It was a failing he had to learn to live with. But how unfair was it that Athos, who didn’t seem to care for any women-except perhaps the criminal he married-who had no interest in court life, who, in fact, did not care what his appearance might be, looked like that while men like Porthos, and even Aramis, had to work for every bit of their dazzling looks.

Out the door of the chamber, and on the landing of the stairs, Athos looked over his shoulder at Porthos. “Are you coming, Porthos?”

“Right away,” Porthos said, and followed. They walked side by side, in silence, as profound a contrast as possible. Porthos was taller than Athos, and of a broader build, but that was not what set them so profoundly apart. No, for that, one must take into account Porthos’s open, amiable expression, the roving eye that arrested on each pretty woman that walked past. And Athos’s focus, which seemed to be not so much inward as somewhere else altogether, cast together with his manner, which seemed to set him aside and enclose him in his own walls that no other human being could penetrate.

When they got to the palace, Athos took the lead. Porthos watched him, intently. It wasn’t that Athos didn’t often take the lead. It wasn’t even that Athos didn’t exude nobility from every pore even while engaged in the most menial of tasks-rubbing down a horse, cleaning a sword, standing guard outside the palace on a cold dark night.

But something else had changed since last night. It was, Porthos thought, as though having admitted who he was-not that his friends hadn’t always suspected it-had changed something about him. Looking at him now, it was impossible not to see the count, not to know he was the noblest of the four and their natural leader. Something about the set of his back, the way he squared his shoulders. And this way he had of going straight ahead of whomever accompanied him, and taking the initiative.