Double Cross (6 page)

SIX

A
CCORDING TO THE MESSENGER
, C
ONDÉ'S ARMY HAD
begun the siege that very morning. A sentry on the city wall had spotted them just before dawn, coming from the north. King Louis had rallied what few troops he still had, ordered the local farmers to take refuge within the city walls, and dispatched the messenger to find the French army. As he had left before the attack had come, the messenger had no idea what had transpired since, though he guessed Condé's army to number a thousand men.

Emil agreed to turn his army around and start north toward Paris at first light, although Aramis feared the city wouldn't survive long enough for the soldiers to return. “Not if Milady knows how to breach the city walls,” he warned.

And so Aramis, Porthos, Greg, and Catherine decided to ride on ahead of the army. They accepted a hot meal from Emil, as well as new clothes and weapons. They went to bed as soon as the sun went down, intending to catch up on some much-needed sleep, although it seemed to Greg that he had just closed his eyes when Aramis was already shaking him awake. The sky was still dark, so Greg checked his watch.

“It's three in the morning,” he protested.

“We've wasted enough time already,” Aramis replied. “Paris will not stand for long.”

Greg couldn't argue with that. He staggered to his feet and helped Aramis wake Catherine and Porthos.

They had just saddled their horses when a voice caught them by surprise. “Where do you think you're going?”

It was Athos. Greg was stunned to see him awake, let alone out of bed. Athos looked considerably better—the swelling in his leg had gone down dramatically—although he still seemed drained from his ordeal and needed a crutch to support himself.

“Back to Paris,” Porthos replied, and quickly filled Athos in on what had happened.

“Then I'm coming with you,” Athos replied.

“No,” Aramis said. “You need to rest. You almost died because you wouldn't take care of yourself before.”

“And now, thanks to D'Artagnan, I'm fixed.” Athos flashed a smile, looking more like his old self than he had in days. “I'm not going to sit here twiddling my thumbs while the rest of you run off to confront Dinicoeur and Milady and Condé. Without me, you'll all be dead in five minutes.”

“No,” Aramis repeated. “You might feel better, but you're not. Not yet. We'll be all right without you.”

“You won't even be able to get back into the city without me,” Athos replied.

The others looked at him curiously. “What do you mean?” Porthos asked.

“You can't simply walk up to the city gates in the middle of a siege and ask to be allowed in,” Athos explained. “The moment anyone opens the gates, the enemy will sweep in. That means you'll need to use the secret entrances, but you don't know where they are, do you?”

Greg frowned in response. The truth was, the map he'd seen had only indicated the approximate locations of the three secret entrances to the city. Finding them, however, certainly wouldn't be easy. “And you do?” he asked.

“I know one,” Athos replied smugly. “I learned it when I was in the king's guard. Unfortunately, it's almost impossible to describe where the entrance is. So I'll just have to show you.”

Greg wondered whether this was true. He suspected that Athos certainly could have described the entrance's location and was merely pretending otherwise so he'd be asked to come along.

Aramis, Porthos, and Catherine leaned in closely to Greg. “Could he truly be ready to travel so soon?” Aramis asked.

“I suppose,” Greg replied. “I'm not a doctor or anything, but his wound wasn't really that big. It was the infection that was killing him. And if we took care of that, I suppose he could recover quickly. I'd probably want to spend another few days in bed, but this is Athos we're talking about.” He pointed toward Athos, who was currently practicing how to sword-fight while using a crutch at the same time. “He certainly seems to be feeling better.”

Catherine smiled and shook her head in amazement. “Far better than he would if they'd sawed off his leg.”

Aramis approached Athos again. “All right,” he said. “You can come with us. But promise me, if the exertion starts to make you worse again, you'll stop. You're worth far more to us alive than dead.”

“I won't be slowing anyone down,” Athos said. “If anything, you'll be slowing
me
.” With that, he clambered on one of the horses and spurred it on.

The others raced to their horses and followed. They galloped after Athos, through the camp, and onto the Roman road again, heading north toward Paris.

As he'd threatened, Athos set the pace, riding hard the whole way. Greg suspected that his friend's leg was still in great pain, but the swordsman didn't show it. He didn't put any weight on it if he could help it, but other than that, he rode as fast as any of the others. After a few hours, Greg felt as though
he
was the one who'd been operated on. His muscles burned and he was dizzy with fatigue. But still, they pressed on.

They reached Paris just before noon and found it in the midst of a full-on siege.

Condé's army might have been smaller than Richelieu's, but it had come prepared with siege weapons. Greg could count a dozen catapults and trebuchets, one of which launched a huge rock at the city walls while he watched. The rock smashed into the ramparts, scattering the guards there and shattering a merlon as though it were made of glass. The huge weapons allowed the army to attack from afar, keeping out of range of any arrows the Parisians could fire. While Condé had the city surrounded, the bulk of his attack was focused on the eastern side. Until a few months before, this side of the city had been protected by the Bastille, a large fortress, but Michel Dinicoeur had badly damaged that when he'd freed Dominic Richelieu from its dungeon, and it had yet to be fully repaired. The city wall was weakened there, and now Condé's army was building a massive battering ram, apparently hoping to destroy the fortifications once and for all.

Fortunately, the secret entrance Athos knew of began far beyond enemy lines. “It's an abandoned limestone mine,” he explained.

“Like the one the Spanish assassin chased D'Artagnan into?” Porthos asked.

“Yes,” Athos replied. “From what I understand, there are several abandoned mines around Paris. The difference is, this one actually runs
underneath
the city. It was built hundreds of years ago—I've heard that most of the stone for Notre Dame came from it. But it's long been forgotten.”

Athos led the others to one of the few bits of forest still standing near Paris, two acres of trees atop a rocky mound that every farmer knew was impossible to clear and plow. They left their horses at the edge and pushed into the woods on foot. To Greg's surprise, Athos seemed even better after the long ride than he had before it, as though the exercise had done him good. His fever appeared to be gone, and while he still limped to keep his full weight off his wounded leg, he was barely even using the crutch. He led the way through the woods so quickly, it was difficult to keep up.

Still, it took him a while to locate the entrance. It was hidden deep in a tangle of underbrush, near the base of an ancient oak tree that looked like a hundred others nearby. The only difference was that at the base of this one, there was a hole between two of the roots. The hole wasn't even that big, barely wide enough for a man to wriggle through. “This is it,” Athos said.

“That?” Porthos asked. “That little thing is the secret entrance to Paris?”

“Well, if it were a giant tunnel with signs all around it saying, ‘This way to Paris,' it wouldn't be much of a secret, would it?” Athos shot back.

“I know that,” Porthos said, then glanced down at his large belly. “I just expected something that I could actually, well . . . fit through.”

“It's only the entrance that's this tight,” Athos told him. “In order to keep it hidden. It widens out inside.”

“How much?” Catherine asked. Though she could easily fit through the entrance, Greg noticed that she didn't look very eager to head down through the narrow, muddy hole.

“A bit,” Athos said, though without much confidence. He stooped to wriggle into the tunnel, but before anyone could take another step, he held up his hand. He knelt by the mine entrance and inspected the muddy ground there. “Someone else has been through here,” he said.

Greg and the others leaned in to see that there were two sets of boot prints in the mud. They appeared to be exactly the same size.

“Dinicoeur and Richelieu,” Aramis said.

“Are you sure?” Catherine asked, now looking even more worried.

“No,” Aramis replied. “But what other two men with the same size feet would have come this way? Dinicoeur knows all the secret entrances into the city—and we already suspected he would be returning to Paris.” He turned to Athos. “Can you tell how long ago the prints were made?”

Athos pressed a finger into the mud. “I can't say for sure, but since this mud's still wet, they seem quite fresh. I'd guess it hasn't been too long. Less than a few hours, if that.”

“Then we don't have a moment to lose,” Aramis said. “Lead the way.”

Athos nodded and started into the tunnel again.

“Wait!” Porthos called out.

Athos swung back toward him. “What now?”

“Isn't anyone else bothered by the fact that our enemies just came through here?” Porthos asked. “What if they're waiting in the cave to ambush us in there?”

“I don't think that's likely,” Aramis explained. “In the first place, it's not so surprising that Dinicoeur and Richelieu came this way. There are only three secret entrances into the city, and this is the only one on the southern side. To use any of the others, they'd have to circle around past Condé's army. They've merely done what we did: get to the closest access point. If anything, we should be pleased to learn they came through recently. It means that we've nearly caught up to them.”

“And the ambush . . . ?” Porthos asked.

“They probably think we're dead,” Aramis said. “I'm sure they heard that we'd been captured by Condé and sent to Les Baux. Condé wanted the entire countryside to know that.”

“We don't know that they heard that news for sure, though,” Greg cautioned. “And even if Dinicoeur and Richelieu knew we'd been captured, that doesn't mean they wouldn't be prepared for us anyway.”

“Still,” Aramis said, “they couldn't possibly know that we're trailing so closely behind them or that we'd follow them here. They're not going to be waiting in the tunnel to attack us.”

“Probably not,” Greg admitted. “But they could have booby-trapped it, just to be on the safe side. They'd certainly know that if we
did
return to Paris, we'd most likely use this tunnel. And for that matter, Milady also knows this route exists. I wouldn't put it past her to leave a surprise for us—or Dinicoeur.”

Porthos gulped. “Maybe we ought to try a different entrance then.”

“We can't,” Athos grumbled. “This is the only one I know the exact location of. And even if I did know where the others were, we wouldn't have the time to get to them.”

Porthos frowned. “All right,” he said. “I guess we have to go this way. But I think D'Artagnan's right. We need to be very cautious.”

“And yet we need to move as quickly as possible,” Athos said, with a glance at Aramis.

“Er, yes,” Aramis admitted.

“I'll see what I can do,” Athos said with a sigh. And then he slipped into the tunnel.

Porthos went next. As he'd feared, he barely made it through the opening. For a moment, he actually got wedged in the hole, but then he sucked in his belly and squeezed through.

Greg went next, with Catherine and Aramis close behind him.

Inside, the tunnel was damp, claustrophobic, and pitch-black. After going only a few steps, Greg couldn't see an inch in front of his face. It was extremely unnerving—especially knowing that Dinicoeur or Milady might have left a trap. He was sorely tempted to use his last remaining match to light a torch, but he felt he needed to save it for a true emergency. Besides, the tunnel was so cramped, it would have been impossible to carry a live flame. At several points, everyone had to get on their hands and knees to wriggle through a narrow spot.

To find the way through in the darkness, Athos followed a series of markings that had been carved into the wall, sort of like signposts for the blind. There were several tunnels that branched off the main one, and Athos cautioned everyone to stay close together and not make a wrong turn. “It's a maze down here,” he warned. “If someone ends up going the wrong way in the dark, there's a decent chance they'll never find their way out again.”