Martin wiped his hands to his voluminous apron. “You will be proven wrong, by God, follow me and you’ll see.” And full of his own righteous certainty, he marched towards the tavern.
The tavern was almost empty. Only one table-at a corner-was taken by a group of four strangers who were eating their midday meal in silence. Martin’s wife, behind the counter, was wiping it with vigor.
As they came into the tavern, with Porthos still carrying Amelie, she darted the girl a venomous look. “There you are, you laze about,” she said. “Again in the company of men. I don’t suppose it has occurred to you to go to the laundress as I sent you, to find-”
Her recrimination stopped, mid sentence while Martin walked in and walked straight towards the fireplace. When her voice resumed, the tone was the same, but the target different. “Martin, what are you doing? What do these men want?”
Martin, on a righteous mission of his own, ignored her. He marched straight to the fireplace, and grabbed at a certain brick that didn’t seem to protrude any more than any others. The sound of brick scraping on brick could be heard, as he moved it slightly back and forth.
“Martin, what are you doing?” his wife asked and, leaving the counter, came running towards them to grab onto Martin’s arm. “What are you doing? Have you gone mad?”
But he only shook his head and continued pulling. From where Porthos was, he could see that his face was set in an expression of anger, still, and his eyes burning with the certainty of his own righteousness.
“Martin!” his wife said, and now started raining blows on his arm and shoulder, blows he ignored as though they were no more than the sting of a wayward mosquito.
And then the brick came loose, and there was a sound of metal, and a rain of gold came spilling out of the hole in the wall, to tinkle on the floor, calling even the attention of the guests in the corner.
The woman wailed, and Martin stood, staring at the hole and at the gold. He put his hand into the hole in the wall and brought it out covered in coins, which he allowed to fall between his fingers to the floor, as though they didn’t mean anything or he wasn’t sure exactly what they were for.
Then he turned to his wife, his gaze still angry, but now burning with something else. “You,” he said. “You killed the boy. I could take your coldness. I could take the fact that you don’t love me. But you killed the boy? Why, Josiane, why?”
She looked at her husband, her face rigid, and then broke suddenly in a deep sob. She stumbled towards the nearest table and dropped onto a bench next to it. “You only married me because my parents owned the tavern,” she said. “I saw even then, how you looked at every pretty woman who passed by. And I thought it didn’t matter, because we’d have children, and I’d be the mother of your children. But it never happened. And then you had your whore come and live here, already with child, and then you had this other one”-She pointed at Amelie-“with her. And then Guillaume was just as bad as you are. That brat, always looking here and there, and knowing everything…
“I poisoned the slut. Five years ago, I poisoned the slut, and everyone thought she had died of a fever. The nightshade out back, my mother always said not to get any leaves in anything by accident, because it makes you burn up inside, and I gave it to her, because I knew you were visiting her every night, there, in the stable, like animals, and she was swelling up with another of your bastards, yet again. And I gave it to her and she died, but then you just started going to other women. And you wouldn’t come home till near morning, and drunk, and I thought, I thought…” She shook her head. “I got up, on Sunday, late at night, and I went into the stable, to see if you’d taken your horse, or if perhaps you’d gone out on foot, and I saw your brats with all this money, and he was talking about how they’d live like royalty. And I was sure it wasn’t money come through in a good way, and all I could think is that you’d leave with them. There was enough gold there to buy another tavern, if you wanted. And I thought you’d leave with them, and I’d be alone, and I didn’t even have any children. So I poisoned your bastard.”
Martin was staring at her, his mouth half-open in complete astonishment, his eyes filled with horror. But all he said was, “The children aren’t mine. I’d never laid eyes on Amelie when she first showed up here, and she was already big with child. That man says Guillaume was his son.”
The woman looked at Porthos, then back at her husband, and then at Amelie. “Oh, perhaps, but the girl has your face and your gestures, so I was justified in thinking they were both yours. And I was justified in killing him, too, and taking away his ill-gotten gains.”
She got up from the table, suddenly calm. “Put the money back in the wall. I don’t want to speak of this ever again.”
When the constables came to arrest her, she was busily polishing the counter, and seemed surprised anyone would want to punish her, after she confessed to murdering two people, in the sight of her husband, three musketeers, a guard and a group of honest merchants who’d found this a very strange entertainment provided for their mealtime, and who’d listened to everything very attentively indeed.
A Daughter Found; Legacies
"AMELIE, bring the gentlemen some wine,” Martin said, and dropped everything he was doing-which at that moment was picking up dirty mugs and delivering them to tiny Amelie behind the counter.
The girl already looked different. She was wearing different clothes for one. Squinting at her, to see her better against the early morning sunlight, Athos was sure the clothes she had on were the woman’s, inexpertly altered to fit her much smaller size. But they were better clothes than the rags she’d worn before, and her hair was combed and loosely tied back. And she looked… happier.
She nodded to her father, and expertly drew the wine from the barrel and brought cups she put in front of each of the men. Then she hurried to serve another table that was clamoring for something.
“I don’t have much time,” Martin told them. “There aren’t many heavy drinkers in the morning, but the guests like to break their fast before they go, and Amelie is filling in valiantly, and of course we have a cook in the back, but still, we might need to hire a wench or two to help, till Amelie is older.”
“You sent for us,” Athos said. “You sent a note…”
Martin nodded. “What I want to know is this-is there someone to whom we need to return the gold?”
Porthos started to open his mouth, but Athos shook his head. “No one. It was given with good and free will. Only, I hope you’re not intending on spending it on drink and-”
The man shook his head. He looked, Athos noticed, more serious than he’d looked before. “That’s all behind me now. I don’t even want to marry again. Not till Amelie is settled. You see, I have a daughter.” He shook his head as though at the wonder of it. “It turns out everyone around here knew she was my daughter and thought I knew. Only I…” He shrugged. “When I… When Amelie came here, I’d already been married to Josiane so many years, and we had no children. And, you know, there had been other women and I had no children. So I thought there was something wrong with me. I thought…” He shook his head. “But I have Amelie. She’s quite a little worker, and if I keep the gold for a dowry for her, who knows… She might even marry an accountant or an attorney.”
Athos gave Porthos a sideways glance, to see how he took that, but Porthos only nodded. Sometimes Porthos could be very sensible, and see, as well as they all did, that an attorney’s life was a step up from this.
“Or she can inherit the inn and make it the best and largest inn in Paris,” Martin said. He looked grave. “At any rate, I wanted to thank you. You’ll always have a meal or a drink here if you need it.”