When they got to the palace, Athos took the lead. Porthos watched him, intently. It wasn’t that Athos didn’t often take the lead. It wasn’t even that Athos didn’t exude nobility from every pore even while engaged in the most menial of tasks-rubbing down a horse, cleaning a sword, standing guard outside the palace on a cold dark night.
But something else had changed since last night. It was, Porthos thought, as though having admitted who he was-not that his friends hadn’t always suspected it-had changed something about him. Looking at him now, it was impossible not to see the count, not to know he was the noblest of the four and their natural leader. Something about the set of his back, the way he squared his shoulders. And this way he had of going straight ahead of whomever accompanied him, and taking the initiative.
Porthos couldn’t hear what he was saying, but he saw the musketeer on guard, a young man whom they truly didn’t know, shake his head once. Then Athos drew himself up some more. The echoes of his words that reached Porthos were full of disdainful vigor.
The young man looked up at Athos with a stricken expression, very much like a man who finds a serpent under his doormat. Or perhaps a commander where he expected a comrade. Finally he nodded once and stepped aside.
“Come, Porthos,” Athos said, and Porthos sighed, knowing that now that Monsieur le Comte had taken over he was, doubtlessly, here to stay. Oh, Porthos would get used to him-a man could get used to anything-but until he did, it was going to be a rough road.
Athos charged ahead into the palace, taking turns with seeming intent. “He said,” he told Porthos, “that Madame Bonacieux would be in the little chapel outside the Queen’s apartments.”
“You asked for Madame Bonacieux?” Porthos said, shocked. After all, the lady was married. If anyone should find out that a musketeer had asked for her…
“I told him that I knew her parents and that word had come of an accident in the family. That I might get to her with all possible alacrity.” He looked at Porthos. “What? You can’t possibly think that anyone would believe me to be interested in the lady.”
And the surprising thing was that Porthos knew he was right. No one would think that. Not for one moment. For one thing, no one had ever known Athos to be interested in any woman, no matter how young or how old. For another, if Athos should bestow his favors on someone, no one could imagine him developing any interest in anyone beneath the rank of princess.
And yet, if his story was true, then Athos had married the sister of a village curate. Or someone who passed as one. How odd life was. Either that or the lady must be something special in the way of beautiful and seductive. Something rather in the way of that woman, who was it, who set the towers burning and the ships sailing? Helen of Troy. Aramis had told Porthos of her, in the middle of a very boring sermon on something else, and Porthos remembered thinking that no one was that beautiful and that doubtless the woman would have been found to have protruding teeth, a cast in one eye, but the sort of commanding personality that made everyone think she was beautiful.
And yet, if Athos had married someone with neither title nor connections, she had to be like Helen of Troy and therefore Helen of Troy must have existed, and been flawless. While musing on such things, he’d followed Athos across two small gardens and a sort of terrace, where often the Queen and her ladies would play games in the spring. Set against the edge of that was what looked like a small door into the palace. At that door, another musketeer waited, this one well-known to the two.
He nodded to them and, once more, Athos advanced to talk to him, and once more, after a little resistence the musketeer went within. Moments later, Madame Bonacieux emerged. She looked like she’d been crying, and she started a little on seeing them. “Oh,” she said. “Monsieur D’Artagnan’s friends. Did he send you? Is he then afraid to see me?”
Athos bowed, correct and distant, just the sort of look that tended to make most women fall for him on sight. Even Athenais, Porthos recalled, had wavered on meeting him. Though of course, she’d swear she hadn’t. “Did you write to him, then, madam?”
She nodded. “It’s just that…” And tears started up again.
“He didn’t send us,” Athos said, punctiliously. “It’s just that he is involved in a matter of some importance and could not get away, and therefore we came… You said something about a maid?”
“Oh, yes, yes. It’s that poor maid that Monsieur D’Artagnan talked to this morning. The one that was involved with one of your servants?”
“Hermengarde,” Porthos said, unable to help himself. “What happened to Hermengarde?”
Fresh tears started and it was through them that madame Bonacieux said, “She was found dead in the garden this morning. She had been run through with a sword.”
Coffins and Boxes; Where When Praying Fails and Threats Wither, a Good Solid Back and Shoulder Shall Set You Free
“MONSIEURS,” Aramis said, very civilly through the keyhole, though he had to control the rage building in him to maintain civility. “Monsieurs. You have the wrong man. My name is Aramis. I am a musketeer of his majesty the King. I’m sure if you open the box, you’ll see that you have the wrong man.”
Laughter answered him. Distressingly, there was the noise of something that sounded suspiciously like bottles, followed closely by a crackle of something being broken and the smell of bread. Aramis’s stomach growled. He hadn’t even had a proper dinner the night before. Just wine with Athos.
“Listen, what can I say that will prove it to you that I am not your friend?”
“Nothing, Pierre. We already know your honeyed tongue, and we’re not young women whom you can convince. And you were never our friend. Friends don’t do things like seduce each other’s sisters. You might have friends, I don’t dispute that, but we’re not them.”
Aramis pounded on the lid to the trunk. “Open in, or, God’s Teeth, I shall come out and slaughter you.”
This one occasioned far more laughter. “Ah, Pierre, if we don’t let you out, how do you propose to slaughter us?”
“I am not Pierre and trust me, I will find a way.”
For a while there was a silence, and Aramis had time to hope that they were perhaps considering the ways in which he could reach them through the box. But then the two started trading epithets about the supposed Pierre, his brains, his hygiene habits, his morals and-of course-his appearance.
Though none of this applied, in fact, to Aramis, it would be asking more of him than human soul could bear, to hear his supposed self ridiculed in such terms. After a while, in sheer desperation, he let free the voice that had been the pride of his seminary teachers, and launched in a beautiful Te Deum. It wasn’t easy, of course, because he was half folded over, and a box didn’t exactly have the proper acoustics, but not only did it keep him from listening to the rustics commenting about him, but it also reminded him that the box was not a coffin and that he himself was very much alive.
Reaching the end of his song, triumphant but breathless, he was pleased to note that there was silence from the front. In fact, the silence stretched so long, that Aramis wondered if his singing had finally caused his captors to see the truth.
But instead, he heard at length, one of the miscreants clearing his throat. “Holla, Jean, did you ever know that Pierre could sing that well?”
“No, and in Latin no less. Who would have thought that he paid attention to any of the Mass, even if it was the singy parts.”
“Yeah.”
“Perhaps we were wrong, Marc. Perhaps Pierre is not a worthless bastard.”
“Perhaps not, or perhaps he is a worthless bastard who can sing.”