And he must get back. He absolutely must. His friends must be warned that the Cardinal had a new minion, and one who would be looking for their blood.
Where D’Artagnan Wakes Up in a Strange Bed; The Doubts of a Loving Heart; A Woman of Dazzling Beauty
D’ARTAGNAN woke up with his hand on a mound of silken-soft hair. He tugged at it, experimentally, and was answered with a low grunt that brought his eyes fully open and showed him someone who was most definitely not his Constance. For one, the person in his bed had dark hair. For another, from the width of the shoulders and the doublet stretched across them, he was male. He was also, as D’Artagnan realized, once he’d blinked the sleep from his eyes, Athos.
A glance above showed him he was in Athos’s bed, in Athos’s lodgings. And that Athos was asleep, curled entirely away from him, save for his loosened curls. Athos was still wearing his full day attire, including his sword, in its sheath strapped at his waist, which bespoke his either having collapsed on the bed, dead tired, or his having been carried to the bed by Porthos and Aramis, who probably had carried D’Artagnan to bed also.
D’Artagnan sat up, experimentally, to a chorus of what sounded like bells, and a pull of nausea from his stomach. His eyes hurt with the light. His arm hurt too, but he wasn’t so confused he did not remember he’d got wounded the day before in a duel. He’d been about to go see Constance. He remembered that. And then there had been men in black cloaks who fought as if possessed by the devil. And he had got wounded. After that, Porthos and Aramis had brought him to Athos’s place, and they’d proceeded to make him drink more alcohol than he’d ever drunk before. And since he’d met the three musketeers, he’d drank quite a bit of liquor in almost painfully strange combinations.
He glared at Athos. Athos had given him brandy and wine, he remembered. What he couldn’t remember was why. He was sure Athos had been angry, or at least at that edge of anger to which he allowed himself to go without ever tipping over. And he was sure, angry as he’d been, Athos had felt a need to get drunk. It had been a deliberate effort. One doesn’t order up six bottles of burgundy all at once unless one means to get most seriously and intently drunk.
“Athos?” he said, slurring the word. But his comrade only grunted again, and curled yet tighter upon himself. “I see,” D’Artagnan said.
What D’Artagnan needed was a good pail of cold water over the head, and then to find breakfast in the nearest tavern. He’d lost blood, and he’d never taken more than wine. That was a recipe for disaster.
He swung his feet off the bed, picked up his sword which-at least in this case-his friends had been kind enough to remove and prop against the wall, and sheathed it. Then, he stood up. They’d never removed his boots, which was fortuitous, as he did not wish to struggle with them.
Porthos was asleep on the floor, next to a chair, all rolled up in his cloak. D’Artagnan wondered if Porthos too had gotten drunk, and decided it truly wasn’t worth his while to look for Aramis. For all he knew, he was perhaps on the other side of the bed, between bed and window, or maybe under the bed.
Instead, D’Artagnan opened the door, tiptoed out of the bedroom, and stepped over Planchet who was asleep in the hallway. He stared at his servant for just a moment. Planchet could not have been drunk, could he? There was no saying. Perhaps they’d finished up whatever wine their masters had left. Should D’Artagnan wake Planchet up? That was very doubtful. After all the young Picard had a worse head for wine than anyone that D’Artagnan knew, Bazin-who could get drunk off communion wine-included. If he had been drinking, he would be irascible and also sullen. And D’Artagnan was in no mood to drag a sullen, dismal servant behind himself.
So, he would go without Planchet. And joining action to word, D’Artagnan tiptoed down the stairs-avoiding waking anyone else who might be suffering from hangover in some other place in the house-and into the front hall, then opened the front door and slipped out into the bright morning.
He hadn’t lived in Paris so long that he had learned to be indifferent to the city in the early morning hours. Perhaps because he rarely woke up this early-though sometimes he went to bed this early-he loved the look of the buildings under the early dawn light, enjoyed the pealing of morning bells that called various monastic orders and convents to matins, and enjoyed seeing people with their morning faces, still fresh and surprised by the daylight.
He enjoyed it so much, in fact, that before he had gone more than one block his sour mood and his frown had vanished, and he was thinking clearly, as he breathed in the cool, clear air.
Constance had sent him a note to meet her at the palace. Of this he was sure. She had sent him the note in some distress, and this was not normal, because when Constance was in distress, she came to see him-she did not send him notes. That meant the situation must have been unusual, and, as such, she must have needed him more than ever. And he had failed her.
So, he was willing to concede that he’d been attacked and wounded and finally made very thoroughly drunk by his very misguided friends. But did this excuse him? Would Constance forgive him?
And suddenly he was not hungry at all. He just wished to go and see Constance as soon as possible. He took the shortest route possible for that purpose, and got to the royal palace before the sun was fully up in the sky. The man on guard, he noticed, was De Jacinthe, one of his friends from the musketeers. He was a little confused when D’Artagnan told him he needed to speak to someone-a lady-within. It wasn’t until he was on the point of giving his Constance ’s name, that his mind caught up with his racing mouth.
Yes, yes, Aramis had his affairs with married women. Countesses and duchesses and the occasional foreign princess, at least to believe gossip. But the thing was, gossip there was, and aplenty, and only the fact that most of the husbands of these illustrious beauties had their own amusements and could not care less what their wives did in their spare time, kept it from being a problem, leading possibly to a duel or worse, to the setting aside of the lady.
Porthos, whose lover, Athenais Coquenard, was married to a mere accountant, had to be far more circumspect with his behavior, because Athenais could and would suffer, should it be discovered that she had a gallant. How much more so would Constance suffer, whose husband was twenty years older than her and besotted and far more alert and capable of obtaining revenge than Monsieur Coquenard. Let alone that he could turn D’Artagnan out, or demand that D’Artagnan pay him back the several months his rent was in arrears, there was the very real possibility he would divorce Constance. And much as D’Artagnan longed to marry his ladylove, he much doubted that anyone who had a say in it, including her godfather who was steward to the Queen’s household, would allow her to marry a penniless eighteen-year-old guard with not a pistol to his credit.
He sighed. No. He must be discreet. And being discreet, he cast about for the name of a lady whom he could claim to be courting without in any way being compromising. The only name that came to mind was that of Mousqueton’s inamorata, Hermengarde, and her name D’Artagnan gave with no remorse.
De Jacinthe sent word for her to come receive him, and when Hermengarde appeared at the door, her blushes and confusion on seeing D’Artagnan lent a credence to his story that the musketeer could not possibly have anticipated. She led him into the palace, and it was only once inside that she turned to him and smiled. “You’ve come to see your lady, have you not, Monsieur?”