Dying by the sword (29 page)

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Authors: Sarah d'Almeida

BOOK: Dying by the sword
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“You couldn’t,” Planchet said, softly. “Not you.”
“Don’t try my patience too high,” D’Artagnan said, then seriously, “I know something is eating at you, Planchet. I’m not that cloddish. Tell me what it is. If you feel that much of a need to tell me something, chances are it is something I need to know.”
Planchet sighed, a heavy, doleful sigh, full, so it seemed, of the cares of the world. “Monsieur, it is only that I have a bad habit of listening at doors.”
D’Artagnan grinned. “Oh, no need at all to tell me that, Planchet. I never say anything with you in the house that I should not wish you to know.”
“Yes, yes, monsieur. But the other gentlemen, your friends, do not know that.”
“I see. What have you listened to?”
Planchet sighed again. “How castaway were you last night, sir? What is the last thing you remember?”
“Well . . . I remember Athos giving me wine, after all that brandy, which even then, and given the way I felt, seemed to me far less than a good idea.”
“And?”
“And then he talked a lot about some duchess that answers to Marie Michon, but I confess there my memory is foggy and I have no clue at all what he meant. He seemed to imply there was a conspiracy on the life of the King.”
Planchet shook his head. “No, Monsieur Athos only said that the Cardinal had told him there was a conspiracy on the life of the King, but that he didn’t quite believe it, as it were, sir.”
D’Artagnan nodded. “I’m not sure I believe it either. Though there must be a conspiracy on the Cardinal’s part. Or at least . . . if there isn’t . . .” He shook his head. “He either wants us to be roped in, or he’s fighting for his life. Either of those would justify his inventing a conspiracy on the King to get us to defend him.”
“Yes,” Planchet said. But he bit his lip. “You don’t remember . . . that is . . . I’m sure he would want you to know, because he was talking to all three of you, but you must pretend I don’t know it, myself.”
“Planchet, you make no sense at all.”
Planchet sighed again. “It is only that I shouldn’t know this, but . . . sir . . . Do you remember Monsieur Athos saying he is a count?”
D’Artagnan shrugged. “Not from hearing it this time, but I’ve suspected it for a long while. You see . . . I went with him to his friend the Duke de Dreux and it was all ‘
milord this’
and ‘
milord that
’ and ‘
Would the Count de la Fere wish water for his shaving?
’ I haven’t said anything, because I wasn’t sure he wanted anyone else to know. I suspect too, though he’s only a count, that there is family prestige or other, because the duke treated him quite as an equal.”
Planchet nodded. “Well, he told them all he was a count. And that . . . that is . . . that he’d just seen his wife.”
“His wife?!” D’Artagnan echoed. “Am I drunk still or were you, Planchet? Athos isn’t married.”
“Well, Athos might not be,” Planchet said. “But the count was. To a beautiful woman who turned out to be marked with the fleur-de-lis.”
“The . . . Poor Athos.”
“Yes, sir. And he hanged her, and he left his domains. And then . . . And then yesterday he saw her.”
D’Artagnan whistled under his breath. “No wonder he was drinking. But it must be all a chance resemblance. I mean, women look like each other, and there are cousins and sisters, and daughters, if it comes to that.”
But Planchet inclined his head. “Only he says he never made sure she was dead, after he hanged her, and you know . . .”
“I know,” D’Artagnan said thinking he couldn’t have been very sure he wanted her dead. Slicing her throat and leaving her in a thicket would have been the way to that. Trying to hang her, no. After all, it took expert hangmen to kill people with a rope and they had traps and deep falls and properly constructed gallows. So Athos can’t have been sure in his mind and his heart that he wanted her dead. And he’d left her . . . without checking. “And what does this have to do with me, Planchet?” D’Artagnan asked, curiously.
“Well, sir, Monsieur Athos said that she was called ‘milady’ by those in the Cardinal’s service. And then . . .”
“And then?”
“And then she looked uncommonly like the foreign lady you just described.”
“Athos’s wife?” D’Artagnan asked, bowled over. “But . . . you said the Cardinal’s service?”
“That’s where he saw her. At the Palais Cardinal.”
“Oh,” D’Artagnan said, then, turning around. “Do you mean . . . I mean, does she know who Athos is and what . . .”
“I don’t know,” Planchet said. “I’m afraid, sir, I would assume the worst.”
“Yes. I suppose I must do so,” he said. He thought how the lady didn’t seem to be truly threatened by the ruffians he’d chased away and how she had invited him to dinner on such small a service. “A fleur-de-lis . . .” he said.
“On her left shoulder,” Planchet said. “If you should . . .”
“I hope I shan’t,” D’Artagnan said, whose heart had never been sanguine over even flirting with a woman not his Constance. Now it was cringing at the idea. And anything more . . .
“I would call it off altogether,” he said. “But then, if she is bent on having her revenge on us, that would be the same as putting her on her guard. And besides, if it’s her . . . and if she means to entrap us, better myself, with my eyes open, than the others.” He thought about it for a moment. “Far better myself than Athos.”
Where Athos Tries to Understand the Impossible; Porthos Contemplates the Inscrutable; And Madame Bonacieux Keeps Her Silence
“MADAM,” Athos said. “I understand that we had to be informed of Hermengarde’s death. In fact, with poor Mousqueton still in the Bastille, and her being killed in the same way that the armorer was killed, I understand our being apprised of it immediately. But why did you ask D’Artagnan to come here? And why with such urgency?”
To himself, Athos was thinking that, in fact, the woman had probably sent for D’Artagnan as part of an attempt at reconciliation. At least, he hoped he wasn’t underestimating her, and of course, anyone would shrink from using the death of an innocent girl, almost a child, for such personal purposes. But then, Athos had known enough women to know that women weren’t everything. In point of fact, when it came to manipulating circumstances and in any possible way using someone else’s misfortune to advantage, there was very little he’d put past a determined woman.
His suspicions seemed to be confirmed by the look of almost fright that Madame Bonacieux darted at him. Then she looked behind him, and around her, as if to ascertain that no one could hear her, and she dropped her voice to a whisper. “Because, Monsieur, D’Artagnan talked to her this morning, and with her friend being the servant of one of you, and with her being . . . well . . . it was rumored, though she denied it when asked, that she was with child. The rumors have already started,” she said, looking frightened, “that her killer was one of you. One of the inseparables, they say. Some say that it was because she was with child, and you feared she’d hang on you or ask for support after her friend was executed. And some wonder if she knew something to Mousqueton’s detriment and was therefore silenced.” She took a handkerchief from her sleeve and wiped at her eyes. “No one has done anything about it, yet, monsieur, but I can tell you that as rumor grows, well, people will start to get some strange ideas about you and . . . and about D’Artagnan. And though I fought with him, I . . . well . . . I wouldn’t want any harm to come to him, or any of you.”
Perhaps because he felt guilty about having thought ill of her before, Athos forced himself to bow. “No,” he said. “No, I understand that. I wouldn’t wish any ill to come to any of us, either, and while I’m sure that D’Artagnan is utterly innocent, I also know how rumors can grow and fester. I will . . . warn him. And I will do what I can to solve this.”
A look to the side showed him that Porthos looked like he’d heard everything, and his eyes were full of that intent light that showed that Porthos was thinking. This was always a perilous proposition. Porthos could think very well, and indeed very fast, but the things his thoughts could wreak were often far less than orthodox.
Athos himself was not sure what to think, as he bowed over Madame Bonacieux’s hands and told her to be careful and that he would do his best to keep D’Artagnan out of the path of harm. “Though you know D’Artagnan, madam, and you know, therefore, how difficult that can be.”
And she had given him a little rueful smile. “Yes, indeed, I do know, since I argued with him simply for trying to keep him out of a duel, where, you see, he ended by getting injured.”
This brought Athos to with a start. “A duel?” The only time recently that he could think of D’Artagnan’s getting injured had been right here, in the gardens of the palace, and there D’Artagnan must be exonerated from recklessness. A fool he might be, and gallant to a fault, and always to rush in defense of others or his own honor. But even D’Artagnan could not have known that he would be attacked by stealth, while walking across the gardens in the royal palace towards an appointment with his mistress.
“Last night,” Madame Bonacieux said, “I . . . someone told me that he had a duel, and so I called him to come to me, because I believed, of course, that he would come to me rather than go to the duel. But he didn’t. And when he appeared this morning, he was injured.”
“But . . .” Athos said at a loss. “He was attacked by stealth while coming to your appointment. From whom did you hear this, madam? It is very important that I know.”
Madame Bonacieux was looking at him with intent eyes. “You mean . . .”
“I mean that I think whoever convinced you to send him a note and ask him to come to your chambers on that night, at the hour of the supposed duel, was laying a very clever trap for my young friend.”
The lady went pale. “Impossible,” she said.
“Why impossible, madam? Who can have told you?”
“She doesn’t know I have any relationship at all with him,” she said. “She couldn’t possibly have guessed.”
Athos only raised his eyebrows, a gesture of such imperiousness, that he often found people answering questions he had not yet asked them. This woman was no match for his questioning. She sighed. “It was the . . . it was the Duchess de Chevreuse,” she said. “And she only mentioned it in jest. Because of . . . You know she’s friends with your other friend Aramis?”
Athos nodded. He personally would not call it friends but he knew that the lady had some relationship with Aramis, and he would guess—reluctantly, if absolutely pressed on the point—that the relationship probably required close contact. But for the purposes of this conversation, he would call them friends.
“Well, she was talking—not to me, but to a crowd of people, and she said that Aramis would have a duel on his hands—he and his friends both. And I thought . . . She said they would be fighting for their lives that night. And so I thought . . .” She looked horrified at the idea that perhaps D’Artagnan had got wounded because of her attempts to protect him.
“And do you remember, madam, who it was that the lady was talking to?”
Madame Bonacieux shook her head. “Some of her circle, you know. The women she talks to, and some of the men who admire her. But . . .”
“But?”
“I remember little Hermengarde was standing by.”
“I see,” Athos said, and bowed swiftly, ready to depart. Then stopped. “No, wait, one more question—whom did you tell that you were summoning D’Artagnan to you that evening?”
“Why, no one.”
“What did you do after you heard that? You must have been in some agitation. Or at least it sounds as though you were. Which surprises me a little, to own the truth, because the fact that musketeers fight duels should not surprise a lady who is in an intimate relationship with one of them. You know that we—”
“Fight,” she said. “Yes, I do. And knowing it doesn’t make it easier to bear, but I understand that men of both honor and temperament . . .” She shrugged as if to express that there was much one could forgive to men of those attributes. “No, this agitated me more than it would just knowing that one—or all—of you were about to fight a duel. You see, there was such malice in her voice, as though . . . as though there were some treason at stake, something horrible about to happen. And I thought . . .”
“You thought you’d preserve my friend, which is very worthy,” Athos said, reluctant to admit the, to him, impossible idea that a woman had acted, in fact, from the best of motives. “But what did you do, exactly, madam?”
“I went to my room, and I wrote a note to D’Artagnan, summoning him to come to me. I didn’t know the time of the duel, but I surmised that he would be coming home to change or pick up his other sword, or some such thing.”
“Yes,” Athos said. It was true. All of them usually repaired home before a duel, if for no other reason because one liked to look one’s best. “And whom did you send with the note?”
“No one,” she said, and blinked in confusion. “I went myself.”
“But that means you must have told someone you were leaving or asked someone for permission?”

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