All for One (10 page)

“There are no doubt many who would be glad for any weakness among the King’s protectors,”
M.
de Tréville considered. “The English, the Dutch, the Hapsburgs—France may not be at war, but that does not mean she does not still have enemies.”

“What need is there to seek foreign enemies when there are others much closer at hand?” Perrin interjected. “I am still not convinced the Cardinal isn’t behind this all. He is ever trying to destroy your influence with the King to advance his own.”

“Nor is he the only force within France who would see the King brought low.
Les ducs
de Guise have surely not forgotten fifty years of rebellion,” Léandre suggested.

“True, but they have a good Catholic King again with a Cardinal as an advisor,”
M.
de Tréville reminded him. “Short of taking power for themselves, they have what they wanted all along.”

“So it’s most likely whoever is behind the plot is foreign, then, not just using a foreign go-between,” Léandre mused.

“I’d look to the English—I don’t trust this sudden desire on their part to make peace,” Perrin added. “It could well be a cover for some new plot against the crown.”

“Anything is possible,”
M.
de Tréville agreed, well versed in the layers of intrigue upon intrigue practiced in the ruling courts of Europe, “but apparently the new English ambassador is personally responsible for
saving
the life of King Philip from an inside plot. It hardly seems likely he would work so hard in that respect in one country only to come to another to create mayhem.”

“Isn’t his bodyguard Spanish?” Aristide asked. “I spoke with him, briefly, when
vicomte
Aldwych was presented to the King. It could mean nothing, but if the ambassador is friendly to Spain, he could be more apt to wish peace with Spain’s allies as well.”

“Teodoro Ciéza de Vivar,”
M.
de Tréville agreed, “said to be quite wicked with the sword. Beyond that, I know nothing of them except that the ambassador comes from a diplomatic family. Appearances certainly suggest he is interested in peace with France as well as with Spain, but his first loyalty will be to England just as ours is always to France. Unless you have anything else to add, Benoît, I think our best course is simply to watch and wait, ever vigilant but without acting until we know more.”

“I’ve told you all I know,” Benoît repeated for what felt like the hundredth time.

“I would like to keep him with us a little longer,” Aristide asked. “Here in Paris, he may see someone he recognizes, even if it is only someone with the same accent as the man who hired him to carry the message.” He did not add that he wanted to be sure Benoît was fully recovered, physically at least, before letting him return to his village. Aristide would give much to be able to help heal the blacksmith’s emotional wounds as well, but it appeared he would not be given that chance. He would have to be satisfied with knowing Benoît was at least able to resume the taxing demands of earning his living before he lost sight of him forever.

“I don’t see any point in it,” Benoît protested one final time, “but I will stay if you wish. ’Tis not as if I have elsewhere to be.”

“Take today,”
M.
de Tréville told his soldiers, “and get your new friend settled. You can resume your normal duties in the morning.”

“Thank you,
capitaine
,” Aristide bowed respectfully to his commanding officer and ushered his three companions out of the office. “Well, it seems we have one more day of freedom before we need to return to duty,” he observed as they walked down the stairs and into the sunlit courtyard. “Any suggestions on how we should spend it?”

“Finding this new Englishman,” Perrin replied immediately. “He’s the most likely suspect, and I want to know where he is and what he’s up to.”

“If we had any idea where to look for him, perhaps,” Aristide countered. “As we do not, until the next time he deigns to appear at court, I suggest a tour of the city, beginning with our own corner of it here at
l’hôtel de
M.
de Tréville.”

“This all belongs to
M.
de Tréville?” Benoît questioned, confused. “But I thought it was the headquarters of the Royal Musketeers.”

“It is,” Perrin interjected, shooting Aristide an annoyed glance. “
M.
de Tréville is the captain of those musketeers. Thus, we make our home where he does. From his office, he receives visits, listens to complaints, gives his orders, and, should he go to his window, reviews his men and their arms. Through his generosity, we exist, and so through his generosity, we have stables, armories, and other amenities at our disposal.”

“Speaking of stables, let us begin there.” Aristide led them across the central courtyard to a long, low building. “Your friend Sagace will be quartered here as long as you remain with us. You are welcome to visit him at any time—I will introduce you to
M.
Carrière so he will not run you off if he sees you without one of us accompanying you.” A loud whinny sounded, and Aristide stopped with a smile. “I must spend a few minutes with Orphée or his nose will be out of joint,” he excused himself, leaving Benoît with the other two swordsmen.

“Have you been musketeers long?” Benoît asked Perrin and Léandre, a bit lost now that the one constant in his rapidly changing world had disappeared. Before they could reply, a familiar noise reached his ears: hammer striking metal. Not giving the musketeers or his question a second thought, he headed in the direction of the comforting sound.

Léandre looked to Perrin, their expressions equally perplexed; then they turned to follow, unwilling to let the stranger wander about unaccompanied whatever Aristide had said.

Heat washed over Benoît as he stepped into the forge, watching a greybeard wield the hammer with consummate skill. His fingers itched to pick up the tongs, to plunge the glowing metal into the coals and heat it again for his molding, to bend it to his will and create something new from the ingots that littered the floor. Whatever the old man had intended to make, impurities in the metal caused it to fracture. With an impatient curse, he threw it in the bucket, steam rising to veil the intervening space as he looked up to see the stranger flanked by two musketeers. “What is it?” he snapped. “As if I don’t have enough to do already.”

“Pardon,
monsieur
,” Benoît replied immediately. “I didn’t mean to disturb your work. It’s just that the sounds of the forge drew me.”

“A blacksmith, are you?”
M.
Maurisset asked, looking over the half-starved form. “Not much of one by the looks of you.”

“One without a home and thus without a livelihood,” Benoît explained. “If you need a second pair of hands, I seem to be in Paris for the foreseeable future. I’d be glad to help out now and then.”

“That,” the blacksmith said with a disgusted snarl, “was supposed to be a stirrup for
M.
de Tréville’s saddle. If you can salvage something from it, we’ll see.”

Immediately, Benoît grabbed the tongs and fished the ruined stirrup from the water. Examining it carefully, he set it back in the coals and prepared to work.

“So this is where you disappeared to!” Aristide exclaimed from the doorway. “I might have known you’d find your way here. I see you’ve met
M.
Maurisset.”

“He practically ran away from us,” Perrin told the older musketeer with an accusatory glare.

“The forge calls to its own,”
M.
Maurisset insisted sagely, watching with approving eyes the way the newcomer handled the hammer and tongs. Whether he could salvage anything remained to be seen, but he was clearly no apprentice to metalwork.

Benoît ignored the conversation behind him, focused entirely on his work. He located the problem in the metal and pried it out using a long file before heating it again to begin melding together the fractured joint. He had made a good start, though hardly complete, when his shoulder began throbbing. He ignored it for several more swings, but eventually, his arm would not lift the heavy mallet again. “I’m sorry,” he said regretfully. “It appears my injury isn’t as healed as I would like.”

Stepping forward, Aristide took the mallet from Benoît’s grip and set it on the ground, then pulled aside the collar of his shirt to run a hand over the puckered scar. “You’re not bleeding again, fortunately.”

Mortified at being manhandled so unceremoniously—and in public, no less—Benoît pulled away abruptly. “I’m fine, just sore,” he insisted, rearranging his shirt so it covered the scar and his chest again, trying to ignore the warmth at the other man’s concern. He did not want to be the object of Aristide’s attention. He didn’t! The other two who looked on with suspicious glances were welcome to him, but Benoît didn’t know how to tell them that either.

“Have I done enough to prove my abilities?” he asked the blacksmith instead. “I’m obviously not up to anything large yet, but I could sharpen blades and run the bellows for you until my shoulder finishes healing if that would help.” He glanced at Aristide before continuing. “I owe the musketeers a debt for saving my life. This seems a good way to repay a little of that if you’ll have me.”

“Come around again when you’re feeling stronger, and I’ll see what I can find for you,” Maurisset answered, not at all averse to having a younger, stronger pair of hands to assist him. “You know where to find me.”

“I will,” Benoît promised, one of his fears slowly easing at the thought of having steady work again after so long. The smile that crossed his face was the lightest he had shown in months. “And thank you.”

“That looks like thirsty work,” Léandre observed as they made their way out of the stifling forge. “What say you to finding a tavern to ease our throats?”

“I have no—”

“Money doesn’t matter—we can always stand for a bottle or two at the
Le Bon Laboureur
—the innkeeper there is a former musketeer himself and knows our credit is good,” Aristide interrupted.

“Eventually,” Léandre added dryly.

“It’s Aristide’s turn to buy anyway,” Perrin added, “and his credit really is good. Come on, Benoît, let us welcome you to Paris properly.”

Chapter 8

A
CHORUS
of greetings sounded when the three musketeers entered the dim interior of
Le Bon Laboureur
with Benoît in tow, voices calling out their names from tables scattered around the tavern. “You’d think we’d been gone a month, not scarcely a week,” Léandre muttered, slapping a fellow musketeer across the back as they made their way toward the dark wooden counter.

“Aristide!” the grizzled tavern keeper greeted them with a wide smile. “Léandre, Perrin! Good to see you back. Did you enjoy your trip to the country?” His gaze stopped on Benoît, eyeing the stranger for a moment before smiling to include him as well. After all, it wouldn’t do to ignore a friend of three of his best customers.

“It was a little shorter than we’d planned,” Perrin replied, “but those things happen some times. So give us all the news in Paris while we were gone.”

“I hear we have a new dandy at court,” Robincourt confided. “They say he’s a young man, handsome enough to set all the ladies a-twitter, and he has the Queen’s personal favor. Saved her brother’s life, they say.”

“Handsome enough to please the King as well,” Aristide murmured, for his companions’ ears only. Léandre sniggered, as much at Benoît’s blush as at Aristide’s words and Perrin’s knowing wink. Spotting an unoccupied table to one side, the blond inclined his head toward it. “Some wine, and see that it’s fresher than your gossip,” he called to the owner, his grin taking the sting from his words as he pulled out a chair to straddle it.

“Are we going to have a problem with the King?” Perrin asked softly as the tavern keeper walked away shaking his head. “Is the ambassador likely to stir up trouble if the King approaches him?”

“More like the ambassador’s bodyguard, from what I saw,” Aristide answered, pulling over another chair for himself. “He looked ready to take on Louis himself if need be.”

“And well he should be if the King presses unnatural advances on his employer,” Benoît exclaimed, though he kept his voice down. “It is his job to protect the ambassador.”

“Our King is none too discreet about where he presses his advances,” Perrin answered dryly.

“Why should he be? He is the King,” Léandre retorted, only half in jest.

“But… but….” Benoît stopped his stammering. “He wouldn’t force the man, would he?”

“Nay, he would not,” Aristide answered calmingly, not adding that there was never need for force—few would dare refuse the interest of the King of France, though more often they were angling to catch his eye and his favor instead. Deeming it prudent to turn the conversation to another subject, he nodded when Robincourt returned with a pitcher and a tray of mugs. “What think you of Paris?” he asked Benoît, filling his glass.

“It is very different from home, in ways I can never seem to expect,” the blacksmith replied honestly. “’Tis a beautiful city, but already I miss the fresh air of the countryside and the quiet of home. Is it ever quiet here?”

Perrin choked back a snort, thinking of all the sounds Benoît must have heard last night. “Not with Léandre moaning like a two-
sou
whore,” he quipped, regretting his words as he saw the newcomer tense up again. He flushed under Aristide’s quelling stare. “
Desolé
,” he apologized. “That was uncalled for.”

Biting back his own retort about Perrin’s neediness, Léandre addressed the blacksmith with a genuine smile. “The noise startled me, too, at first, but you soon grow used to it. And there are some beautiful parks within the city. Or we could take him out to le Bois de Boulogne, Aristide….” Léandre trailed off, turning his head to follow his friend’s gaze to a table across the room. He didn’t recognize the well-dressed strangers who sat there, but they had clearly captured Aristide’s attention. “Friends of yours?”

“Talk of the devil, and he shall appear,” Aristide answered, quoting his nursemaid’s favorite proverb. “You wanted to meet the new English ambassador, Perrin? Unless I’m mistaken, there he is.”

“Well,” Perrin growled, “what are we waiting for?” He made to rise, intending to corner the ambassador and demand answers to their questions, but Léandre caught his arm.

“Sit down and think for once instead of going off half-cocked,” the blond scolded. “He’s not likely to tell us anything if he’s involved in any kind of plot against the King, especially not here in musketeer territory. We’ll just watch him for now and follow him when he leaves.”

Shifting his chair so he could watch the pair without obviously staring, Aristide studied the two men. The ambassador was clearly the younger of the two, richly but not ostentatiously dressed, with golden hair long enough to brush his shoulders as he leaned forward to smile widely at something his companion said. The bodyguard stroked his full moustache, leaning back in his chair as if completely at his ease, though the musketeer noted the way his eyes moved around the tavern’s interior, assessing its patrons. The gaze paused for a moment at their table, seeming to find them no threat as it soon moved on.

Aristide wondered if the Spaniard had failed to recognize him. True, they had only exchanged a few words when the ambassador was presented at court, but he would be surprised if the other man had forgotten so soon. Perhaps he did not want to be approached, though the musketeer wondered at their presence in a common tavern if that were the case. Before he could puzzle over it further, a much younger man approached the ambassador’s table. He sketched a bow, but the Englishman rose and embraced him warmly, even the dour Spaniard rising to clasp him by the shoulder. After a moment’s conversation, the bodyguard dropped a coin on the table, and the three left the tavern together.

“Let’s go,” Perrin declared immediately, rising from his seat and starting for the door. “We don’t want to lose them in the streets.”

“Go charging after them like a stallion chasing a mare and you’ll give us away, and we’ll never see where they’re headed,” Léandre countered.

“It would be much easier for one man to follow them,” Aristide added.

“All three of them wore swords,” Perrin pointed out. “I’m not letting you follow them alone and get killed. If one of us goes, we all go.”

Aristide looked to Benoît pointedly. If it were just the three of them, he wouldn’t hesitate, but the blacksmith was no swordsman, and he doubted he could find his way back to their townhouse alone. “Will you wait here?”

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” Benoît said. “It’s a city street in the middle of the day. What’s going to happen? We’ll follow them, see where they’re going, and then go home.”

Perrin frowned. “If it comes to a fight, can you hold your own?”

“I’ve never even held a sword except to sharpen one,” Benoît said with a shake of his head, “but I’m smart enough to stay out of the way. If we’re going, let’s go. They’re getting away.”

Shaking his head, Aristide led the way out to the street, pausing for a moment to let his eyes adjust to the bright sunlight after the dim interior of the tavern. He spotted three figures turning the corner some distance down the street. “That way,” he gestured, starting toward rue St. Sulpice. There was no way he could hope for subtlety, with four of them trailing the other men. If they were spotted, he would just have to find some reason they were heading in the same direction.

“You wanted a park?” Perrin muttered to Léandre. “They’re heading toward
le jardin de Luxembourg
.”

“I doubt they’ll give us time to stop and smell the flowers,” the blond retorted.

“What’s in
le jardin de Luxembourg
?” Benoît asked curiously.

“It’s a popular place for clandestine meetings,” Aristide explained. “Duels, lovers’ trysts….”

“Or for one conspirator to meet up with another,” Perrin interrupted.

The four men turned onto rue de Tourmon, just catching sight of a dark cloak disappearing between the gates at the end of the long street. Silently quickening their pace, the musketeers spread apart, leaving room for them to draw their swords if need demanded.

Benoît glanced nervously from one to another and back again, not sure where he would be least in the way should it come to a fight the three men were obviously anticipating. Finally, he decided admitting his ignorance was better than finding himself in harm’s way later. “Where will I be least likely to bother you?” he asked Aristide softly.

The musketeer considered telling the truth—that Benoît’s presence always bothered him with longings he knew were not returned—but he did not want to drive the young smith even further away. “Just stay behind us and out of sword’s reach.”

Benoît nodded and fell back a few steps, giving the musketeers space to do whatever they deemed necessary. They passed into the garden, the same dark cloak disappearing around a bend in the pathway. Benoît could feel the tension investing the three men carrying over to him. His hand itched for a hammer, just to feel he had some means of protecting himself.

Léandre turned the corner first, stopping in his tracks when he saw only two men ahead of them on the path. Before he could speak, a dark shape stepped from the trees behind them.

“What business have you with his Excellency, the English ambassador?” the man asked in a soft voice that carried more than a hint of menace along with its accent. He was dressed in a doublet and breeches as dark as the large moustache that spread across his face. His hand rested pointedly on the hilt of his sword.

Léandre’s hand caught Perrin by the shoulder, halting the younger man’s impetuous surge forward. “What business is it of yours what our business is?” the blond replied in a deceptively casual voice. “These are public gardens—perhaps we just wish to enjoy the pleasures of the afternoon.”

“When three armed swordsmen follow me, it becomes my business.” The Spaniard’s two companions had paused as well, turning back to watch the confrontation, but not yet approaching nearer.

“As it is our business when strangers to the city just happen to find their way to the preferred tavern of the musketeers out of all the taverns in Paris,” Perrin growled, more than a little suspicious that these men should have chosen a location so close to
l’hôtel de M.
de Tréville as a meeting place. “Does his accent match the man who gave you the treasonous letter?” he asked, turning to Benoît.

“Treason?” The swordsman’s sharp gaze narrowed. “You would do well to take care what accusations you bandy about so freely, my friend.” His words were addressed to Perrin, but his eyes met and held Aristide’s as he spoke.

Perrin’s temper snapped, his sword hissing from its sheath. “And you would do well to remember that you are in our territory now, and no one threatens the captain of the Royal Musketeers!
En garde
!”

Before his blade cleared the scabbard, three more swept out with it—Léandre smiling nearly as broadly as Perrin was frowning, Aristide’s face blank as his blade met the Spaniard’s with a sharp clang of steel against steel. A moment later the other two foreigners had drawn their swords as well, running back down the path to even the numbers in support of their companion.

Benoît drew back as swords clashed, his injury and his ignorance enough to keep him well away from the fight. His new friends fought with fearless frenzy, a casually elegant grace that surprised him as they thrust and parried with the foreigners. The moustached one, the one who had spoken, was a demon with a sword, and Benoît’s breath caught in his throat more than once in fear for his rescuer, but Aristide proved himself the Spaniard’s match, countering each feint as if it were completely expected, though he could find no advantage of his own either, it seemed to the blacksmith.

The other two strangers were younger, and while by no means inexperienced, they had neither the strength nor the skill so apparent in the oldest of the trio. Perrin and Léandre, while not Aristide’s equal either, clearly had the upper hand over their opponents, a fact that seemed to occupy the Spaniard’s mind as his gaze would occasionally stray to the other two, though only for a second each time, never enough opening for Aristide to press an advantage. Benoît felt that icy gaze rake over him once as well, but it moved on when it became clear he had no intention of intervening in any way.

“
Ho là
!” a voice cried over the sound of steel against steel. “What have we here? Musketeers dueling in the streets?”

Aristide’s head turned just long enough to spot three guards in the red of the Cardinal’s livery approaching them. His blade caught and parried his opponent’s, but the Spaniard did not press the attack, for which Aristide gave silent thanks. He had seldom crossed blades with as skilled a swordsman, and he suspected that had his attention not been split between his compatriots, the bodyguard would have been even more formidable. After exchanging a wordless glance with his ambassador, the Spaniard lowered his blade, standing silent as the guardsmen drew nearer.

“You know the price for dueling,” the Cardinal’s guard declared. “Hand over your swords and come with us quietly.”

“Dueling?” The English ambassador intervened, stepping forward casually as if he had not just been fighting for his life against an opponent whose skill outmatched his own. “Is that what you thought we were doing? Obviously, you were mistaken. The musketeers offered weeks ago to spar with my bodyguard and myself as a way to welcome us to Paris and to improve all our skills. Today was simply the first day we were all available to do so.”