Horses and Memories; Guillaume’s Trip; Porthos’s Subtlety

"DIDN’T the grooms talk to you?” Athos asked.

Porthos looked startled, as if, Athos thought, he never expected such a question. He frowned slightly as he said, “Oh, they talked.”

“Then why had you left to stand by the gate?” Athos asked.

Porthos shrugged and looked away, at the facades of the houses they were walking past, as though something riveted him in the stone fronts, the tall windows.

“Porthos!”

A deep sigh answered Athos frustrated exclamation. Slowly, Porthos turned to look at Athos. “Athos, I think the boy was my son.”

“Oh, not this again, my friend,” Athos said. “Surely no one needs to explain to you that there are many girls who come from the provinces and who are with child. Surely you understand that just because Guillaume-”

“It’s not that.” Porthos’s voice, loud even when controlled, had burst forth from him like something torn out against his will. Its echoes reverberated off the walls. He shook his massive head, the red hair glinting under the midday sun. “It’s not that, Athos. I have reason… I have… reason.” His throat worked, as he swallowed, convulsively.

Was that the shine of tears in Porthos’s eyes? Athos was afraid of looking too closely. He’d seen Porthos angry and happy. He’d seen Porthos drunk and confused. He’d never seen Porthos cry. He didn’t want to see it now.

Looking away from Porthos, he waited, but from Porthos’s breathing, from the way he stomped as hard as he could, each foot hitting the cobbles as though they’d done him personal injury, he guessed that not only was something working at Porthos, but the something was of a kind that made his words tie in knots within the giant musketeer and refuse to come out.

If he demanded that Porthos explain himself now, he would only make Porthos more inarticulate and more angry at himself for being inarticulate and eventually that anger would spill over onto Athos, as if it were all Athos’s fault-because it had to be someone’s fault, after all. If Athos pushed now they could come to one of those awkward situations in which Porthos challenged Athos for a duel, then apologized for doing it, and then did it all over again. It would be an hour before he could get any sense out of him, unless he proceeded very carefully indeed.

Normally this was a task better left to Aramis who, for all he enjoyed teasing his giant friend and arguing with him over minute things, knew Porthos better than anyone else did.

But Aramis was away, at some alchemists or chemists or physicians, and not here, to talk sense to Porthos. So Athos tried. “Porthos, start at the beginning. How did you approach the grooms? What did they tell you?”

“I started by looking at the horses,” Porthos said. “And making comments, all the while making out like the only thing I wanted was to wait for you, and like I couldn’t figure out what was taking you so long or why. A touch of impatience. ”

Athos nodded, without looking at Porthos, but guessing that Porthos was looking at him.

“It wasn’t difficult,” Porthos said. “They have some fine Arabians there, and an Andalusian beast, freshly imported, whom they hope will stud their mares. I tell you, I never saw such a stable in the city. It would rival some of the best ones even in the provinces that are known for horse rearing.”

“Indeed,” Athos said, soothingly, hoping to spin the whole tale out of Porthos by starting with this unassuming, unthreatening gossip, the same way that Porthos had discovered whatever he’d discovered from the grooms. “Monsieur de Comeau has exceptional taste in horses.” He chose not to tell Porthos about how he couldn’t understand where the money for the horses was coming from, nor to vent any suspicions of Coquenard’s involvement. Not yet.

“Yes. And so we talked about horses for a while and then I said I knew a boy who used to work…” He stopped, his voice failing. “A boy who used to live at the Hangman, and how his name was Guillaume.”

Porthos paused, a long pause and, for a moment, Athos was afraid that Porthos had, once more, become lost in his own thoughts and that he wouldn’t find his way out. But after a silence, the musketeer burst out with, “Athos, all of them knew him. I think he spent most of his day there.”

“But we knew this, Porthos, or suspected it. The hosteler, Martin, said that he’d tried to find employment…” Looking up, out of the corner of his eyes, he saw Porthos shake his head.

“Oh, no. That was not the sole thing. That wasn’t even the most important thing,” Porthos said. “I can’t verify that he tried to find employment at all, in fact, unless you count as employment that he came and helped the grooms at all their tasks, in exchange for a crumb of bread and a drop of wine. I don’t think he ever tried to attach himself to Monsieur de Comeau or wear his livery. And… Athos, he had him thrashed.”

“Yes,” Athos said, sensing the passion behind his friend’s words and making his own words as calm as possible. “Yes. He told me so himself.”

“God’s Blood, why?”

“Because the boy imposed on him,” Athos said. “Tried to tell him that he was his bastard son. Tried to get Monsieur de Comeau to make him an alliance and to-”

“Are you sure?” Porthos asked.

“It’s what Comeau told me,” Athos said. “In this case, of course, there is always the question of someone telling the truth.”

“In every case, ever, there is the question of whether people tell the truth,” Porthos said, speaking with the gravity of an oracle. “Guillaume never asked me for money and never told me he was my son.”

“And yet you think he was?”

There was a long and sharp intake of breath. “I think it very likely he was,” Porthos said. “Very, very likely. I don’t know how to… You see, there are too many coincidences. ” His voice trembled, part in grief and part in frustration, and once more he showed a tendency to become snared in his inner thoughts and unable to express himself.

“Just tell it as you came to it,” Athos said. “Slowly.”

“Well,” Porthos said. “All the grooms praised Guillaume. They thought he was very smart, and of course, he knew a lot about horses, because he was probably looking after travelers’ horses since he was old enough to stand and hold a bridle.”

“Probably,” Athos conceded.

“And he never asked for payment for his work, though the grooms did take him out to… other taverns, when they went. I gather they didn’t drink at home. And they would buy him food and drink. And they gave him things, you know… a used pair of breeches, a mended doublet.”

Athos nodded thinking that such clothes as the boy had died in would not have been come by through gifts from grooms or other people of like quality. He didn’t say anything, but Porthos’s mind must have been running on the same path, because he said, “Of course, they said he must have found someone else to give him clothes, recently, because he showed up in fine violet velvet, the likes of which they’d never seen. Or rather, he wore his normal clothes but he would change into fine violet velvet before leaving. I think he was coming to me for lessons then.”

Athos nodded. He thought so too.

“And they said,” Porthos said. “That he’d come by money too. You know, throwing money around and demanding to pay his share of the drinks and the meals.”

Athos didn’t say anything, as there was nothing he could say to that. Where money was coming from in this matter was something that he would very much like to know. It seemed to him, that alone might solve the whole thing, and for a moment was tempted to tell Porthos to ask his Athenais whether she could trace it.

But Porthos was going on. “And then,” he said. “About a month ago Guillaume was gone for a week. He told them he was going to a village, where his mother had come from. ” A struggling breath, as though Porthos’s head where breaking above water after a long dive. “And the village was St. Guillaume du Vallon.”