Bewildered, not quite sure where he was, thinking that perhaps he had gotten off at one of the various isolated farmhouses they’d stopped at, Aramis heard, through the din of bleating, oinking and cackling, a familiar voice saying “Run, your musketeerness. Run.”
It seemed like as good an idea as any, and, besides, Aramis had always had a horror of living poultry, since, at the age of two, he’d been attacked by the family farm’s very territorial rooster. He ran.
He dodged a pig, stepped over a chicken, might possibly have stepped on another chicken’s neck, and thought it was a pity that Mousqueton wasn’t there to put it out of its misery and bring it to his friends, and then, running along a broad thoroughfare, realized that he was supposed to go to his friends. He was supposed to warn them that something was very seriously wrong.
From the color of the sunset, in the horizon, he suspected that his friends might very well be home, that is, if whoever she was-this woman-hadn’t got their heads, as she wished to. Either that, or Paris was burning, and Aramis hoped Paris wasn’t burning, otherwise all the chickens would get roasted before they were plucked and cleaned.
Vaguely recognizing the area he was in, he changed directions, and ran towards Rue Ferou, where Athos’s residence was. He arrived there out of breath, and knocked on the door, until it was opened by a very disapproving-looking Grimaud.
Aramis thought someone might overhear him, since he was outside, on the doorstep, so he leaned in close and said in what he thought was a whisper, and yet boomed confusingly in his ears, “Grimaud, fetch your master.”
“Monsieur Aramis!” Grimaud said.
“Yes, yes,” Aramis said. “I’m out of breath. I was running. The thing was, she’s out to kill us all, and the chickens are about to get roasted.” At which point and unaccountably, he lost his hold on verticality and started tilting forward. Grimaud stopped his fall and yelled, “Bazin, curse you, leave your rosary beads, your master needs you!”
And then the world went a long way away from Aramis.
Where Athos Is Inspected; The Lady Is the Tiger; And Porthos Disappears
ATHOS separated from Porthos, taking only the time to ask a passing gentleman in what appeared to be the livery of the Queen’s house, where exactly the duchess lodged. She was, as he should have expected, quite close to the Queen’s own chambers, in the sort of spacious apartments that were the envy of late-arrived provincials come to Paris to beg for royal favor.
It wasn’t till Athos found himself outside her door that it occurred to him to wonder if perhaps she wasn’t in at all. But a knock on the door brought him a sharp command to identify himself, and Athos, deciding that obfuscation was the best part of value and that he wasn’t actually technically lying, said, “The Comte de-” and mumbled the rest.
The door flung open, and he stood staring at a child who could be no more than eight, attired in a becoming maid outfit, with a much-beribboned apron. She looked up at him with huge eyes, and he made her a very correct bow, all the while conscious of being watched. He knew, without looking up, that the duchess was just on the edge of the door and looking at him, evaluatingly. “Mademoiselle,” he said, using his most polished accents, which were very polished indeed. “I crave the favor of a word with the Duchess de Chevreuse.”
Fast footsteps approached the door, and an amused voice said, “Don’t be silly, Josephe, let the count in.”
The woman who appeared fully in Athos’s field of vision was, quite frankly, a vision to behold. She was blond, and had the sort of rounded face with perfect features that always makes its possessor look very young and very innocent. Wide open grey blue eyes and a slightly tilted-up nose contrasted with a full, luscious and very adult mouth, to make the countenance bewitching. What followed beneath the neck was bewitching as well, as the pink and white neck gave way to the pink and white, rising breasts, nestled in a dress that was so low-cut that all it did was hold them up without covering them in the least. Athos could quite easily see the pink edges of her aureolas, and turned his head away before his eyes might discern that he could catch a glimpse of pink nipples amid the cream lace.
Looking away and up, he found himself being scrutinized with equally intent gaze and, from the lady’s slightly parted lips just breaking on the edge of a smile, he had to assume that she approved of what she saw. Her eyes shone appreciatively as she took in the wealth of very slightly wavy silk-fine black hair and she said, “You’re the Comte de… I’m sorry. I didn’t catch the rest.”
Athos smiled back, one of his practiced smiles that meant very little. “I would prefer not to give my family name. In the musketeers I am called Athos.”
“Athos!” Her hands met, in an almost clap at her chest. “You are a friend of a very great friend of mine, then.
“Aramis, madam, if that is whom you mean.”
“Aramis, exactly.” She smiled at him, almost mockingly. “While I completely understand, monsieur, the need to go into hiding and wear an assumed name-in fact I’m sure if I were a man, I’d have killed a great many men in duels-I cannot understand why both of you must choose such strange names. And there is a third to your group of odd names, isn’t there?”
“That would be my friend Porthos, madam.”
“Oh, yes, the big one that everyone says is seeing a foreign princess. He always scares me a little. Too much man there, if you know what I mean.”
Athos had not the slightest idea what she meant, and, as in all such situations, contented himself with bowing deeply.
She giggled as if he’d performed a particularly clever trick. “Please, come in, Monsieur le Comte,” she said.
Athos thought that lately everyone seemed obsessed with his dignity, but he went in, all the same, and bowed again to the bewitching duchess who, while watching him as if he had been a particularly luscious pastry, said, “You may close the door.”
Full of misgiving, considering all he had heard about the duchess and her approach to men, Athos closed the door and turned around, trying to keep his face utterly impassive. “Madam, in the last two days, your name has been mentioned to me a great deal, in a variety of circumstances, some of which must give rise to the liveliest concern, insofar as-”
“Turn around,” the duchess said.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Turn around,” the duchess said, and twirled her pink and white fingers in a motion, as though indicating in which way he could best please her.
Athos, never before having been ordered to twirl, except by his dancing master in the now very distant past, turned around slowly, hands at his waist. “What I mean, your grace,” he said, “is that-”
“Do you ride, milord?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Do you ride?” she asked. “Horses.”
“I know how to ride, if that’s what you’re asking, but I’ve found a horse is not much use to me in Paris, and a lot of extra expense to stable, so I only borrow a horse when I need to, and I only do that on service to the King or for emergencies.”
“Do you dance, then?”
This was getting somewhat past the point of ridiculousness. “Not for many years now, your grace.”
“So, there is no accounting for it.”
“Madam?”
“Your shape. The way your legs are so well-muscled and your back… You must know it’s very unusual in a man of your age, for I’d wager despite very few grey hairs that you will not see thirty again.”
“I don’t-”
“No, of course not. No use at all giving me details, though I daresay I could find them, you know? It is not hard, when you are well-formed and female, to ask whatever questions cross one’s mind. People will tell you the strangest and most absurdly intimate things, all in the absolute conviction that you have not a brain in your head. Why is that?”