Dying by the sword (25 page)
Read Dying by the sword Online
Authors: Sarah d'Almeida
“No, no. That of a certainty he has not,” D’Artagnan said, and was rewarded for his lie—or at least his affirming of something he could not at all know—with a bright smile. Encouraged, he continued. “And I shall do my best to find the true culprit soon and to ensure that he shall not be detained much longer.”
“Oh, good,” Hermengarde said. “And then we may speak to Monsieur Porthos and get married.”
D’Artagnan was sure of it, though he did not inform her, because if Mousqueton hadn’t already, it would be useless to attempt it, that making Porthos understand what the situation was and what they meant to do might prove considerably harder than it would at first seem.
Instead, he sent Hermengarde to Constance to inform her that he was waiting. As Hermengarde was about to turn away, she turned to D’Artagnan. “Oh, your friend Aramis lent me such a pretty embroidered handkerchief yesterday, to dry my tears. I’m sure I was very silly to be crying at all. It must be a side effect of my condition, for never have my tears been more abundant.” She smiled shyly. “At any rate, I have washed the handkerchief, and here it is back again.”
She handed D’Artagnan a square of lace and D’Artagnan, who was quite sure that in the confused babble of last night, between brandy and wine there had been a talk of monogrammed handkerchiefs, looked uneasily down at the monogram, which was MAR. Since he knew for a fact that Aramis was in another life Rene Chevalier d’Herblay, he could but marvel at those initials. And then he remembered the Duchess de Chevreuse who apparently—and for reasons known only to her, or to those more adept at court intrigue than D’Artagnan—called herself Marie Michon. He put the square of lace into his sleeve, and thanked Hermengarde, determined to ask Aramis what all this could mean at the first opportunity.
Not many minutes went by, before Constance came out of the little door through which Hermengarde had disappeared. D’Artagnan started to her, with both hands extended, but the lady made no effort at all to meet his hands. Her own were kept where they were, at the end of her crossed arms.
Instead of the affectionate greeting which the twenty-something blond was likely to give him, frosty accents echoed from her soft and luscious mouth. “So I see,” she said, “that my summons are for nothing. I call you to me with the utmost urgency, and you decide to ignore me and instead”—she gave a pointed look to his arm, where the bandages were perfectly obvious by the lump beneath the borrowed shirt and doublet—“you choose to go to the duel you’d set before.”
“A duel?” D’Artagnan said. He stared at her aghast. “Who told you there was a duel set?”
“Someone,” she said, primly, “has said it. It is common knowledge at court. I heard someone say you and your friends had a duel set for yesterday. And you must know that his eminence is daily in expectation of getting the King to sign that edict which would make it fatal for you to fight. And yet, the marchioness tells me that you would have fought anyway, for you care nothing for your life, nor for how much you’d leave me desolate, should you die. No, you’d rather be killed and leave me quite alone.”
The words came out in such a torrent that D’Artagnan’s mouth dropped open in surprise. “Constance,” he said. “You cannot meant it.”
“What, that you should not fight so many duels? Of course I mean it. How many times have I imagined—”
“No, that you believe all this nonsense about my meaning to fight a duel. I never did.”
“You weren’t home when I delivered the note on my way to visit Monsieur Bonacieux.”
“Yes, that is true, I wasn’t. I spent most of my afternoon trying to find out something about who might have killed the armorer that Mousqueton is accused of killing. You must know, my dear, that we cannot let the poor boy rot in the Bastille. Not when . . . well.” He couldn’t bring himself to give away other people’s secrets, so he finished in a halting tone. “Well, Hermengarde loves him, you know.”
Constance, who had been examining D’Artagnan’s features, as though desperately trying to fix in her mind any reason to believe him or disbelieve him, now sighed. “I cannot believe you. I’m sorry. I left the note, and you never came.”
“I came,” D’Artagnan said. “I came and Porthos with me. Ask whoever was at guard last night, to whom I gave Monsieur de la Porte’s password. I came, and in that courtyard over there, before I could get to you, we were attacked by six men in dark cloaks. They . . . They wounded me,” he lifted his arm slightly, in vain hope for sympathy. “And then some guards of the Cardinal appeared, and they accused my friends and I of dueling. ‘Dueling’ he said. Among us. And when Porthos proved to them that it wasn’t so, they let us go, but by then I had lost so much blood, that the only thing to be done was to take me to Athos’s place. And then I don’t remember much of anything, save that, for some reason, I was given more brandy than I’ve ever drunk, and some excellent red wine.”
At this point, he realized Constance was crying softly. He said, “No, no. What’s this?” as he fished madly in his sleeve for a handkerchief. He found a square of lace and gave it to her. “Don’t you believe me?”
“I know I believe the drinking,” she said. “But I don’t know how much more. You don’t understand my fears,” she said, and touched her eyes with the handkerchief. “I know you’re out there, free, and so much younger than I, and I know how all the ladies of nobility make it a point of picking out the most handsome of the musketeers. And I am not noble-born, not even of very good family. All I have is my gentle upbringing, my familiarity with the Queen and my beauty, such as it is, and sure to fade fast, as much as you worry me.”
D’Artagnan said, “To me you are more beautiful than any princess.”
It is almost sure his honeyed words and that charm of manner for which his countrymen were known would have carried the day. It would, that is, had not the fair lamenter’s eyes fallen upon the square of lace in her hand. And then she stared at it, in something like horror, dropped it on the ground, and stomped on it with the tip of her dainty, slippered foot. “As beautiful as any princess, am I? Am I as beautiful as any duchess, also?”
Bewildered, D’Artagnan said, and meant it, “To me you are the most beautiful woman in the entire world.”
She sneered at him. She actually curled her lip in disdain and said, “Oh, I am done with you. I know you Gascons and your love of words, often empty of all meaning. How long have you been sleeping with the ladies of the court? Oh, answer me not. Probably before you met me, and probably it will go on long after you’ve ceased to care for me. I will not speak to you anymore. I will not . . .” She shook her head. “I married Monsieur Bonacieux at the behest of my family. Until I met you, Monsieur D’Artagnan, my heart was as innocent and untouched as that of a young girl in a convent. I could have lived my whole life long without knowing love. But you woke me to that emotion, and now it turns out it was all a lie.” She stomped again on the square of lace on the ground, then reached into her own sleeve and threw a key at his feet. “I shall not be needing the access to your lodgings that you so kindly bestowed on me. It was only a matter of time before I detected you in some other woman’s arms.”
And D’Artagnan, who in his whole life had only one lover, and that lover Constance Bonacieux, stared at her in horror, quite convinced his beloved had taken leave of her senses. Such words as came to his mind—mostly her name and protests of his innocence, he knew too well than to say. Indeed, he didn’t recover his voice till she had left and until, reaching down, he retrieved the maltreated handkerchief and saw that it was the one he’d meant to return to Aramis.
“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.
The Importance of Private Correspondence; No Gainsaying the Count
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.”
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