“Seems odd,” D’Artagnan said, and though the innocence of the words might be a put-on, the frown that accompanied them was quite genuine. “That they are… friends and being courted by siblings.”

The baker laughed. “Odder things have happened, my boy. It has long been my experience that with whomever you might be friends as a youth, in the end you marry the woman who will be best for you as a wife. And though that was not needed for me, not with my Adele, and my baking skills and the little bit I had set aside, sometimes the better woman for someone is the one who brings money with her. Because money can buy freedom and security.”

“But…” D’Artagnan said, and the protest was genuine, wrung from his still-romantic heart, a protest against life in general, as well as against forced marriages. His lovely Constance, the woman he was sure he loved like no other, was married to a man she didn’t love and whom, as far as D’Artagnan could discover, she had never loved. “But…” He shook his head. “What about love?”

The baker shrugged. “Well, if you are lucky you will love the woman who is best for you.”

“But not always,” his wife said, frowning slightly. “And a bad woman will ruin you faster than anything else.”

D’Artagnan looked at her, startled. “So you agree with Monsieur-with your husband, that… that they would in the end have married the children of the armorer?”

“Monsieur Ferrant,” the plump Adele put in. “And yes, of a certainty they would. For what else is there, when you need to eat? And what woman wants to bring children into the world without a certainty for their future? They would have married the Langelier children, and been… if not happy, resigned to their life as siblings-in-law. Others have in the-”

An unholy clatter interrupted her words. It sounded, D’Artagnan thought, like a horse running through a field of metal; like a bell tower collapsing to the ground; like the end of the world.

“What,” he said, and, standing, found his hand going to the place where his sword normally hung. Not finding it, he cast a look around, to see if anyone had noticed his gesture. But the entire family, standing, seemed as much shocked as he.

The clatter ceased, and D’Artagnan repeated, “What-”

The baker’s wife crossed herself and spoke through almost bloodless lips. “It’s coming from the direction of the armorer’s. Mind you, it’s the ghost that’s walking.” She crossed herself again. “It’s what happens when someone dies by the sword, like that.”

Her husband opened his lips, but D’Artagnan never found out what he would have said. Because before he could, the clatter started up again, and D’Artagnan was out the door, running, finding that Xavier was running by his side.

Towards the armorer’s shop.

The Palais Cardinal; The Shadow of a Shadow; The Devil by the Tail

“IF you’d wait here, monsieur,” the Cardinal’s servant said, bowing deeply, as he led the musketeer away from the antechamber, the counterpart of Monsieur de Treville’s musketeer-packed waiting room.

The Cardinal’s antechamber was, perhaps of a less bellicose nature. His men were less noisy, less provoking, less enthusiastic. Not that the guards tended to be less fanatic in their devotion to their master than the musketeers in their loyalty to Monsieur de Treville, and not that many of them didn’t serve out of conviction. In fact, when occasion had come to engage them in words, Athos had often found that they served the Cardinal out of absolute belief that he was the best thing for France and that under his capable hands the kingdom would become the first power of the world, the envy of all of Christendom.

And it might well be so. Athos was intelligent enough and learned enough to concede that Richelieu had done much to restore a treasury and a prestige squandered in the wars of religion and destroyed in a thousand internal and petty disputes. None better than him to agree that Richelieu could be said to be better for France.

At any rate, it would be very hard to be more damaging than the previous two monarchs, who had sowed dissension like a bountiful crop and well-nigh brought the kingdom to the verge of tearing itself in two. Richelieu-for though it made Athos gnash his teeth, it could hardly be imagined to be Louis XIII-led a prosperous and stable France, where people could at last imagine they had a future.

But the future they had was not the future Athos wanted. Oh, he was neither as remote nor as deaf to what passed about him as he pretended to be. He knew what the people said on the street-that Richelieu had curbed the power of the great noblemen. That he’d given the sons of merchants and accountants a place in leading France. That he made it impossible for the princes to squander what the artificers made.

What Athos saw was different. Surely, some noblemen had grown too great and, used to a weak royal authority, had become little princes in their own right. And clearly, though he would never say it aloud, Athos was impartial enough-in his own mind-to admit that simply to be born to a great house, or a great position, didn’t necessarily qualify one to carry that position. Look at Louis XIII who let his minister reorganize the kingdom and his life, while he played at cards, or complained of being bored.

But he also couldn’t help thinking that this new class coming through-these functionaries, these smart accountants, the sons of men who didn’t know their grand-fathers’ names, would be no better. They might be cleverer, but nobility had always been able to hire the clever to do their bidding. But at least nobility-when things worked the way they were supposed to-was raised, if not conceived, in the expectation of being of service to those under their power. That meant even the ones who did not behave responsibly felt they should.

But only let these newly educated functionaries out into the multitudes. They would feel no obligation to be of service and, like Richelieu, everything they did would be for their own aggrandizement.

Athos felt his lip curl in disdain as the servant who appeared to be Richelieu ’s secretary led him from the crowded antechamber into a private chamber, surrounded by tall bookcases, with a writing desk pushed against a wall, in front of the sole window. There were upholstered chairs. Just two.

“If you’ll take a seat, Monsieur le Comte,” the Cardinal’s secretary said. “His eminence will be in instantly.”

Athos opened his mouth, closed it. He didn’t want to know how the Cardinal’s secretary knew a secret he would have killed to preserve, but he wasn’t about to show his discomfiture, either. Instead, he sat down, and looked incuriously towards the nearest bookcase, which showed many of the titles his own bookcase had sported, back in his domains.

It seemed to him it took an unduly long time for the Cardinal to join him, but he hadn’t expected anything else. After all, he’d come, by himself, to the enemy’s lair. He knew the enemy would try to enforce his superiority, or at least the superiority of his hand. Athos, who played card games-even when he always lost-knew he’d have done the same himself.

But at length the gentleman appeared. “Monsieur le Comte,” he said, and smiled slightly as he crossed in front of Athos and towards the desk by the window. A candelabra rested on the desk, casting the light of six candles upon various sheaves of paper and all that was needed for writing, including quills and ink bottles. Selecting a piece of paper and an ink bottle, the Cardinal spoke, offhandedly, over his shoulder. “To what do I owe the honor?”

Athos, who had once been a voluble and near garrulous child, had learned in his later life to be quiet, almost taciturn, as sparing with his words as though they were debts he must pay back, once spent. “I believe you know, your eminence,” he said.