“What is wrong with wishing to appear nice?”

“Nothing,” Aramis said. And floundered. “Nothing at all. You know what care I take with my own appearance. But then there is… and mind you, I mean no offense about your most excellent Athenais.”

“You leave Athenais out of this,” Porthos roared causing a few people near them to turn and stare and others, farther up, to run out of their way, possibly convinced that Porthos’s noise was a carriage at full trundle coming up behind them.

“I did say she was most excellent.”

“Indeed she is, and you should abstain from mentioning her name at all, except in praise.”

“I am praising it,” Aramis said, at his wits end. “I have nothing against the lady or her mind, even if she sometimes thinks it fair to make sport of me.” He lifted a hand to stop another outburst from his friend. “But is it, or is it not true that you tell everyone around that she’s a duchess or a princess, or another of the high heads of the realm.”

Porthos sulked at this, setting his lips in a taut line and glaring at Aramis. “She should be. And she is noble born. And by nobility of mind and capacity of thought, she should be…”

“Oh, I’m not disputing that,” Aramis said. “But still, if you think so highly of her you could just say that-that she’s as good as any princess. Not tell all and sundry that she is a princess.”

Porthos shrugged. “I know what people think of me. Musketeers. Courtiers. They think I’m rough and dumb. And I…” He shrugged. “I don’t want them to think themselves justified and to assume I can’t aspire to the highest ladies in the court. I can, you know? When I first came to Paris, and even when I first became a musketeer, I bedded my share of them. Only they are all so incredibly boring, all full of their own magnificence and beauty and never wishing to talk of anything else. So I have… Athenais. But I don’t think that’s what people would believe. They would think Athenais’s station in life is the best I can aspire to.”

“Yes,” Aramis said patiently. He considered pointing out that the hole in Porthos’s pedigree was of the same kind, but then he thought Porthos would point out that he’d never threatened to kill anyone who discovered that Porthos’s lover was nothing but an accountant’s wife. So he sighed. “And then there’s D’Artagnan.”

“Eh? What is wrong with D’Artagnan? Oh, yes, I know what he’s said. His father is a younger son and the whole of their property is so small that the area of the cemetery devoted to children is larger than their entire holdings, but Aramis… He’s clearly nobly born, taught to use his sword at an early age and… Aramis, he at least was taught to read at an early age. He understands you even when you are full tilt in one of your theological speeches and I suspect he understands Athos’s quotations too. At least sometimes he smiles when Athos says something that makes no sense to me. So I don’t see what D’Artagnan has to do with your thinking everyone could believe I would kill a child to hide some imaginary shame over my ancestors.”

“I didn’t mean any of those things,” Aramis said. “But cast your mind upon your first meeting with D’Artagnan. Did you or did you not challenge him to a duel for having got enmeshed in your baldric and thus showing people that it was not gold on the other side?”

Porthos’s eyes went very wide, then he frowned as though trying to understand what Aramis might mean by all of this. “In public,” he said. “He did it in public, and when I’d been showing off the new baldric too. What was I to do? Oh, I understand now that he didn’t do it on purpose. He was just in such a blessed hurry to catch up to Rochefort. But at the time it seemed to me that his entire purpose in life was to show the world that my baldric was not nearly so fine as it looked.”

“See, and you challenged him to a duel.”

Porthos raised an eyebrow as though pondering the matter-again an unaccustomed expression and one that would have looked more natural on Athos. “So, I challenged him to a duel. As did you, if I remember, because the pup tried to return to you the handkerchief of a lady you didn’t want it to be known you associated with. And Athos-Athos of all people-challenged the young Gascon to a duel because D’Artagnan careened into him and failed to apologize enough for the hurt he caused Athos’s shoulder. I believe at the time apologizing enough would have consisted of slitting his own throat then jumping into a roaring fire.” Porthos smiled, sheepishly. “The truth, my friend, is that none of us was himself that day. We’d just had the very unpleasant experience of being arrested by the guards of the Cardinal, followed by the even more unpleasant experience of having Monsieur de Treville flay our flesh from our bones with sarcasm. Surely you don’t think any of us is normally that thin-skinned?”

Aramis couldn’t help but grin. “Well, D’Artagnan is.”

“Indeed,” Porthos said and grinned, and twirled his moustache in a more accustomed manner, probably at a young woman who was standing in the doorway of a tavern ahead and smiling at him through the gathering gloom. “But still, I challenged him for a duel. I did not poison him or knife him in the back, did I? I’m not a villain. And D’Artagnan wasn’t and isn’t exactly a child. Kindly recall what he did to Chausac and de Brisarac on his very first confrontations.”

“Yes, but…”

“No buts about it. Just because I’m willing to challenge someone over exposing my baldric, it doesn’t mean I would poison someone else for exposing my pedigree. And I’m sure all other musketeers would know that.”

“Ah, yes, but does the Cardinal know it also?”

Porthos sighed. “They say he’s shrewd and that he has spies everywhere. Surely he knows I would no more kill someone by stealth than I would spread gossip about someone behind their back. If someone makes me aggrieved enough to wish to kill them or even to say anything unpleasant about them, I say it to their face or call them out to a duel. I do not, and never have, done things by stealth. I’m not good at it, at any rate.”

“Indeed,” Aramis said.

“So if this were the Cardinal’s plot, he would have known it wouldn’t work.”

“Porthos.” Aramis was sure the edge of impatience in his voice was now making people stare at him. “His eminence might know you’d never do it. But he would think people believe you vain and proud, and that your being vain and proud, you’d be a logical suspect for this.”

“Oh,” Porthos said. His expression cleared for a moment, then became charged again. “I hope he’s wrong. If he does think that. Because… because I hope most people know I’m honorable, also.”

“Indeed,” Aramis said.

Porthos nodded. And then with that inconsequence full of meaning of which only Porthos was capable, he added, “But you know, we’re all now friends with D’Artagnan.”

To Aramis’s blank look, he explained as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “So the duel wasn’t that important. Perhaps you’re wrong. Perhaps most people realize that I wouldn’t kill a child because of my ancestry. Perhaps even if there is one person out there evil enough to commit murder for that reason, perhaps even if all this came out, no one else would believe it.”

“Perhaps,” Aramis said, though secretly he suspected that this was no more than wishful thinking on Porthos’s part. “And yet, I would not wish to risk it. So I hope we find who murdered the boy quickly, if indeed he was murdered. Which means, too, finding his family, through them we’ll know any contacts he might-or might not-have had with the Cardinal. And we’ll be prepared to avenge Guillaume.”

“We are agreed on that,” Porthos said.

And so, while having a fascinating discussion about baldrics and pedigree, they left behind the noisy and bustling areas of town and walked now along a street lined with mansions, most of them with guarded gates. Aramis thought it best to keep his council.