“You rub elbows with musketeers, ma’am?”

She smiled, an impish smile. “No, but to tell you the truth, my little maid rubs elbows with musketeers servants. Or at least the servant of one of the inseparables, whose name I can not now remember… Oh! The boy is a Picard, and she says he’s amazingly clever, though to me he only looks pimply. I believe his master is a Gascon.”

“I believe I know of whom you speak, madam,” Athos said, once more marveling at how easy it was in Paris to have connections with practically everyone, or at least everyone in a certain circle. Though it could also possibly be said that musketeers and their servants, much like tom-cats, covered a wide territory.

“Well, I’m pleased to have met one of you. All the ladies speak of the four of you, you know?”

“You do me great honor, madam,” Athos said, rising. “But before I go, I don’t suppose you’d tell me how much money you gave young Guillaume?” And as she started to speak, he said, “Don’t be offended. If you tell me at least the general amount, I shall be able to guess, easily enough, how far he might have gone with it and what folly he might have taken upon his head to commit.”

“But…” Madame de Comeau said. “But what business is it of the four of you? Oh, I’ve heard you often concern yourselves with… well, with the King’s work that can’t be entrusted to anyone else.” She fluttered her hand desultorily. “Secret things. But what can the boy have to do with it.”

“Why nothing, madam,” Athos said, though not absolutely sure he told the truth. There were, after all, the repeated attacks by the Cardinal. And yet, he was almost sure… almost absolutely sure that whatever that was, it involved something quite different. “It is that my friend Porthos is the boy’s father.”

“Oh,” Madame de Comeau said, and put her hand in front of her mouth. “Oh. Of course. No wonder the boy was so intent on being a gentleman. Of course. Though it’s unhandsome of your friend not to supply him the means to do so.”

“My friend,” Athos said. “Didn’t find out until…”

“Until Guillaume had in fact vanished?” Madame de Comeau said. “Oh, it’s just like a story. I do hope you find the boy.”

“I do too,” Athos said, and inwardly told himself he hoped at least they found the boy’s murderer and gave both Guillaume’s memory and Porthos some measure of rest. “Only, if you’d tell me how much money you gave him?”

“Well, I didn’t have very much money on hand,” she said. “Not as such. But I had jewelry. Bernard is a great fool and always buying me some trinket or another.” This was said in the complacent tone of a woman who knows she is worth any tribute her husband might bestow on her. “So… I sold some pins and a necklace I didn’t like very much.” She made a little dismissive gesture with her hand. “I believe it all came to five hundred pistoles. Not that much at all.”

Not that much. Athos wondered in what class the lady had been reared, exactly, that five hundred pistoles was not that much. A hundred pistoles could keep the four of them in style for quite a while, and their needs were greater than most. Five hundred pistoles would certainly have bought a lot for both Guillaume and Amelie. Perhaps not enough to make her a lady, as he had promised her, but enough to see them lodged in some comfort and without daily drudgery.

But there had been no money at all on Guillaume, when he had been found. Where could the money have gone?

Athos bowed to Madame de Comeau and made his good-byes in his most correct fashion, somehow thinking the only way to deal with this very unconventional lady was with the utmost civility. She responded and rose as he turned to leave.

And then by the door, he noted a small table, piled with perfumes and creams, and he turned to look at the lady. “Milady, do you use belladonna?”

She blinked. “Not very often. Only now and then on my eyes. Why?” Her reply was quite innocent and devoid of guilt.

“No reason,” Athos said. Hat in hand, he bowed low. “Madam, your most humble servant.”

She smiled at him. “Do come back when this is all resolved and you’ve found the scamp,” she said. “I’d like to know how the story turns out.”

So did Athos.

Family and Familiarity; The Complications of an Inheritance; The Lot of the Youngest Son

DE Termopillae got up from where he had been, sitting on a low stone bench, casting dice with his fellow guard.

Aramis suppressed an irritation he was very aware of being hypocritical. It was all very well to fume at de Termopillae for playing the dice while he should be guarding one of the many entrances to the royal palace, but the truth was that every musketeer did it, and Aramis not least of all.

“Porthos,” de Termopillae said, as the redheaded musketeer stepped in front of him and then, with a more pleased tone, “And Aramis.”

The truth was that de Termopillae was, for lack of a better explanation one of a few young musketeers who idolized Aramis and tried to copy his style of dressing, his manner of speaking and his gestures, down to the careful examination of their nails when in a tight spot. What none of them could imitate, of course, was Aramis’s intelligence and his ability to find his way through complex situations.

At least, this was what Aramis liked to think. But none of this helped him feel better about de Termopillae who, to own the truth, was the most successful of Aramis’s imitators, and for that the one he detested the most. Just looking at de Termopillae, who combed his blond hair exactly like Aramis and who wore venetians in a shade of grey that exactly matched some that Aramis often wore, and who tied his doublet in the exact same way. And-what was most galling-he pinned a lovelock to the side of his hair in the exact same way as Aramis, with a pin that looked almost exactly like Aramis’s save for being of cheap construction. This made Aramis’s blood boil, and something like a shade of rage fall in front of his eyes.

Porthos was looking at de Termopillae with a frown. And when Porthos frowned people were likely to pay attention. Oh, Aramis knew that frown. It was Porthos’s confused frown, and Aramis would bet he was trying to imagine in what way this foppish man, almost half his size and looking very much like a dandy, could be related to the du Vallons.

But de Termopillae, clearly, had no idea why either of them had taken an interest in him. He took a step back, and then another. “I… er…” he said, and stared at them. “I… er… used the balm you sold me, Aramis, and it has worked wonders. You’d never know I was stabbed almost clean through the arm. It is almost completely healed.”

Porthos made a sound deep in his throat, and then rumbled something half under his breath. De Termopillae jumped and stared. “I beg your pardon?” he said.

“I said,” Porthos said, making each of his syllables a small work of art, polished and perfectly set out for examination, “that it is a characteristic of the family. I never need a salve. I just heal.”

“The… the family?”

“My family,” Porthos said.

De Termopillae’s throat worked. He was looking up at Porthos, his eyes wide, and he had lost color so that what was normally a triangular and catlike, impish face looked like a tallow sculpture or the face of someone about to die of blood loss. “You know,” he said, his voice low.

This, Aramis could have told him, was the most stupid thing he could say. He clearly didn’t know how Porthos’s mind worked. Porthos was here about Guillaume’s murder, and though Aramis very much doubted that by “you know” de Termopillae meant to confess to it, to Porthos’s direct mind it would seem exactly like he had.

Porthos moved forward, a siege engine slipping its moorings. Aramis made an ineffective grasp for his sleeve, but it was all for nothing.