He woke up in complete darkness and being jolted about. His first thought was that he was in a carriage, but judging from the jolts, he was being carried around in something that shook all over the place-which meant a not very good carriage, he supposed. He reached up, only to find out that if it was a carriage, it was a very small one, since he was confined, in a sitting position, with his back bent over forward, in a space barely large enough to contain him. A frantic feeling of the space around him disclosed that they had taken his sword and-apparently-his hat as well.

His first, terrifying thought was that he was in a coffin. But if he were in a coffin, the coffin was still being carried around and not confined in the ground. And besides, Aramis had never seen a coffin the shape his enclosure appeared to be-fairly high and rectangular at the base, and covered over by a domed space.

Because his head hurt like blazes, it took him a moment for the shape to connect in his head to the only thing it could be-a storage trunk, of the sort used to deposit tools and clothes, or anything else. It smelled faintly of sap, so it must be fairly new and made of wood. And, now that his eyes were accustomed to the darkness, Aramis could tell that there was a small crack all around, through which light and air came. There was also a hole which was clearly a keyhole.

Aramis peeked through this keyhole and to his shock saw light of morning and also what appeared to be a swath of countryside. And someone’s back, dressed in rough homespun. He was being taken somewhere in an open cart, by men dressed in homespun. Probably men who did not know him and whom he did not know, though it was always possible, of course, that they were wearing disguises.

In Aramis’s mind, he had a view of the trunk, with him inside it, being dropped into a hole in the ground and covered over. That, doubtless, would be a solution to his having penetrated some portion of De Chevreuse’s conspiracy. Perhaps to other things too. Perhaps the whole thing with the armorer was that it was part of the same conspiracy. It would explain the guards’ presence on the scene so soon after the murder and their eagerness to take Mousqueton in. In fact, as far as that went, it explained a lot. Including why Aramis was now inside a trunk.

Well, he might in the end finish his life in a hole in the ground while still alive, but he would be damned if he allowed them to do it while he was still and well behaved.

Raising his fist, he pounded hard on the lid of the trunk. “Hey,” he called. “Hey, you above, let me out.”

“Ah, woke up, have you, sleeping beauty?” A rough voice, with a plebeian accent, answered him. “Well and good, now be quiet and no harm will come to you.”

“Why should I be quiet?” Aramis said, pounding on the lid again. “What are you doing to me?”

“You’ll see,” the man said. “And soon enough. Let’s just say you’ll be put in a safe place, from which you’ll never get out, not in a thousand years.”

The image of the hole in the ground, and dirt being shoveled in on top of him made Aramis shiver. “There are no places safe enough,” he said. “My friends will come for you, you’ll see.”

“Oh, don’t be going on about your friends. Rest assured they will be taken care of, and they won’t be coming for nobody when we’re done with them.”

Aramis, despite himself, heard a moan escape between his lips. “You’ll find them harder to deal with than you think,” he said, in a low voice, from which he could barely keep the sting of fear. Oh, sure, Athos, Porthos, D’Artagnan were all able men and capable of turning the world upside down at sword point. They were, however, as vulnerable as all other men to being taken in, fooled, cajoled and/or destroyed by a woman’s wiles.

Unless he much mistook his understanding of the man, and Aramis was not in the habit of misunderstanding anyone, Athos was still in love with the frightening creature. And as for D’Artagnan and Porthos, he would not give them a chance in a hundred of withstanding the charms of any female who approached them the right way and played the victim. They were even quite likely to overlook the fact that she looked uncommonly like Athos’s lost and found wife.

The response to his threat was a chuckle. “Oh, good with a sword, your friends are,” the man said. “But they are not very good with their minds. Trying to find you would require that they think and that, I fear, between drinking and wenching, they won’t find much time to do.”

Aramis considered shouting back that they didn’t drink that much, but then again, he’d left two of them behind in a profound drunken stupor, so that would not work. And as for wenching… well…

He thought of the wench most likely responsible for this-for it wasn’t to be supposed that Athos’s wife by herself would come up with the brilliant idea of capturing and boxing up Aramis. Not for a moment. It was more likely that she would think of boxing up Athos. And probably setting fire to the box afterwards. He rolled his eyes. So the person responsible for this would more than likely be De Chevreuse, who wanted Aramis out of her affairs. Did she truly intend to have her henchmen drive him to the countryside and bury him alive?

Shallow and frantic though their connection was, Aramis could not help but think that he could not possibly mean so little to her that she would want him to die such a horrible death. Perhaps she didn’t know. He knocked on the top of the box, this time more politely. “Pardon me, but does Marie know what you mean to do to me? Did she give you orders?”

“What?” the man said, and banged what seemed like a gigantic fist atop the box. “You dare use her name? All while you’re intending to marry your highfalutin hussy, you dare use my sister’s name? Let me tell you, my boy, that though she gave us no orders, as you presume, she will be more than happy to know you will not return to the world and the society of men until you do right by her. And pay back what you owe.”

“Beg your pardon?” Aramis said, hearing his voice squeak with alarm. “Your… sister?” He wasn’t aware of Marie Michon, aka De Chevreuse, having brothers who concerned themselves in her affairs. Truth be told, if they did, they would be the busiest swords in France, just keeping her name from being stained by rumors.

“Beg my pardon all you want. It is Marie’s pardon you’ll be begging in the end, and on your knees too. And don’t think you’ll convince us to let you out by using that well-bred voice, Pierre. We know where you come from. We know how you grew up. You’re not going to impress us by dressing all in fashionable velvets and by speaking as though you were born to rule a kingdom.”

Pierre! Aramis might be many things, but Pierre certainly he was not. Porthos’s given name was Pierre, but Aramis would need to be insane to think anyone had mistaken him for Porthos, even on a dark night and while his face was obscured.

No. He’d been between the armory and the house, as he would have been if he’d been coming out of the inside, and about to go into the armory. As if he were the new owner of the armory, the son of the murdered armorer. A vague memory of D’Artagnan’s account of the gentleman emerged. Something to do with his being in love with Hermengarde, doubtless the highfalutin hussy.

This being that way, and these men obviously intent on making Pierre marry someone by the name of Marie, this meant… That they weren’t going to bury Aramis. In fact, they were hardly likely to hurt him. And when they opened the box and saw his face in the full light of day, they would have to let him go.

But when would they open the box? He put his eye to the keyhole again, in time to see a swath of trees go by, at creeping speed, on the other side of what appeared to be a country road. From the daylight it would be nearly noon. If they’d come away this slowly, it was possible he wasn’t that far away from Paris. But how far away did he need to be to make it devilishly difficult for him to get back?