Book 2: The Queen's Musketeers, #2

by R. A. Steffan

  Milady arched an eyebrow at him, but her expression seemed more indulgent than disapproving as she slipped seamlessly back into character. "Ooh, well said, little brother. And why shouldn't a young man take his pleasure where it is offered?"

  "Or a young woman?" d’Artagnan returned, before he could rethink the wisdom of voicing the words.

  Milady turned to face him on the stairway, looking up through shuttered eyes. "I will assume you are referring to your conquest," she said, "because I can assure you that I, for one, gained no pleasure last night."

  Before d’Artagnan could formulate any sort of response, she turned and descended the final few stairs, necessitating a return to character as they emerged into the public space of the taproom.

  "Oh, look, Charles!" she exclaimed, once again the gay, charming Clarisse. "There are your new friends from last night! Come, you must introduce me properly."

  Indeed, Aramis and Porthos had reclaimed their table from the previous evening, along with Athos, who looked like a man who had slept far too little and imbibed far too much the previous evening. Aramis noticed them and rose from the table, doffing his hat.

  "Hello, again," d’Artagnan said, falling back into his role. "I wasn’t sure if you three would be awake yet. May we join you for breakfast?"

  "Of course," Aramis said.

  "Make yourselves at home," Porthos said, rising as well.

  Athos merely grunted.

  "This is my sister Clarisse," d’Artagnan continued awkwardly. "Clarisse, these fine gentlemen are Athos, Porthos, and Aramis."

  "At your service, Mlle d’Artagnan," Aramis said.

  "Charmed," Milady said, and moved to the chair across from Athos.

  D’Artagnan helped her sit and took the chair next to her for himself. A few minutes later, a serving girl arrived—not Sylvie, somewhat to d’Artagnan’s relief—and ladled a rather unappealing brown sludge into bowls for them. This was enough of a departure from the excellent fare of last night that d’Artagnan looked at Milady in confusion, but she only shrugged and tucked into the uninspiring meal. When his eyes drifted over to the front counter, however, it was to find the innkeeper glaring at them from under heavy brows; no sign of last night’s smile to be seen. D'Artagnan looked back at Milady, his assumptions about her activities last night suddenly in question.

  His thoughts were interrupted by Milady’s next words.

  "So... Athos, is it?" she asked in a sly voice, looking up at him demurely; totally in character. "I must confess, I thought that was the name of a mountain. It seems a somewhat odd name for a man."

  "Athos is a somewhat odd man, mademoiselle," Aramis said, his voice light, but his eyes unusually watchful as they darted between Milady and her husband.

  "Hmm. Perhaps so, but one I find strangely appealing, all the same." She turned her full attention back to Athos. "You have the look of a man who has suffered a great loss, and reinvented yourself because of it, I think."

  "None of us are the same people we were five years ago, mademoiselle," Athos said; his eyes on her, intense.

  Milady’s smile was sad, and d’Artagnan suspected that anyone watching them closely would not believe for a moment that the two of them had only just met. Fortunately, the other patrons were more interested in their own breakfasts than the cryptic conversations of random strangers.

  "Indeed, we are not," Milady replied. "I can certainly understand the desire to leave the past behind and move forward. Quite a worthy goal, in my view." She sat back in her chair with a theatrical sigh. "And one which would be easier for my brother and I to accomplish if our friends had shown up when they were supposed to. But apparently there is no sign of them."

  D’Artagnan perked up, aware that they were now discussing their plans.

  "Perhaps your friends were merely delayed," Porthos offered. "They might show up tomorrow, or the next day."

  "That’s true," d’Artagnan agreed, "but we have no way of knowing if that will be the case. We could stay here for days or weeks, always wondering if they will show up the next day, or the next."

  Athos shook his head. "Indeed. It would make more sense for you to retrace their route, stopping to ask if they have been seen along the way. You can leave a message for them here, in case they do finally arrive while you are gone." Athos met d’Artagnan’s eyes meaningfully. "My friends and I are traveling to the northwest. What direction would your friends be coming from?"

  "The... northwest?" d’Artagnan hazarded, and was rewarded with a curt nod.

  "In that case, you and your sister should join us. We will be leaving shortly after breakfast, if that is amenable."

  "That sounds like an excellent idea, Charles," Milady said, taking his arm. "I can pen a letter to leave here for M. Sauvageau, and we can be ready to leave in an hour. I’d feel so much better to be doing something, rather than all this tedious waiting."

  "Very well," d’Artagnan agreed, sharing that opinion wholeheartedly. "You do that, and I’ll ready the horses. Gentlemen, we will meet you in front of the entrance an hour from now."

  Athos nodded agreement, and the other two smiled at him, their own impatience to be moving and acting, rather than waiting, easily apparent.

  An hour later, the five of them met up and headed out of town, Athos indicating with a small shake of his head that they should wait to speak openly until they were away from the city. D’Artagnan had seldom ridden a longer couple of miles, full of curiosity as he was at Athos’ sudden desire to leave. Finally, they found themselves alone on the road, and Porthos broke the silence.

  "You’ve figured something out, haven’t you?" he asked.

  "Indeed," Athos said. "Her Majesty and de Tréville are almost certainly in La Croix-du-Perche, at M. Rougeux’s chateau."

  Porthos frowned. "No, he decided that wouldn’t be safe. That’s why de Tréville sent me and Grimaud to find you and tell you about the new meeting place."

  "Then why send you out separately?" Athos asked. "Why not have you ride out together, checking first at Thiron Abbey and continuing on to Blois if we were not there yet? Why send both of you at all? Grimaud could have delivered the message, leaving you to help guard the Queen."

  "Wait, now—what are you implying, exactly?" Porthos asked, anger beginning to color his tone.

  "Of course," Milady said. "I see it now. He sent you and Grimaud to deliver different messages. You were told they would be at the inn in Châteaudun, and Grimaud was told they would go someplace else."

  "I see," Aramis said softly. "Obvious for de Tréville to do it that way, now that I think about it. Canny old soldier that he is."

  D’Artagnan put the pieces together. "So it was all a test? To see if one of them would pass the information along to the Queen’s enemies?"

  "So I believe," Athos said. "The only way to be sure is to find de Tréville and ask."

  "Just a minute, here!" Porthos said. "Since when does de Tréville—or anyone else—think me a traitor?"

  "Someone is a traitor, Porthos," Milady said bluntly. "And given that the inn remained unmolested during the period of time when Ana and de Tréville were supposed to be there alone and unprotected, it would seem to confirm that the someone is Grimaud. Wouldn’t you all agree?"

  After a moment, Aramis spoke into the awkward silence. "It seems somewhat inescapable at this point, unless a person was willing to point the finger at de Tréville himself."

  "Impossible," Athos said in a flat tone. "If de Tréville wanted the Queen dead, she would be dead a hundred times over by now."

  Porthos halted his horse, forcing the others to stop as well. "Frankly, I’m still stuck on the part where people think I might’ve turned traitor. So all of you were entertaining this possibility as well, were you?"

  "Of course not, my friend," Aramis said immediately.

  The hurt and anger was still evident on Porthos’ broad face, prompting d’Artagnan to speak up from his position a few paces away.

  "Porthos, the four of us discussed t
he possibility of a betrayal after we found that the abbey had been attacked. The others dismissed the possibility that you had anything to do with it out of hand. They wouldn’t even entertain the notion for a second," he said, pleased to see the large man’s features soften at his words.

  "Oh. Well, I suppose that’s all right then," Porthos said. He paused in thought for a beat. "But, Grimaud? Seriously?"

  Aramis shrugged before speaking. "It’s possible that he is acting for religious reasons. It’s also possible that we’re all missing something obvious and have this completely turned around." Milady scoffed in the background. "Whatever the case, the answer lies with de Tréville and Her Majesty, and at the location Grimaud was told to relay, if Athos’ theory is correct."

  The others nodded, expressing their agreement with Aramis’ assessment, and the five rode on, each wrapped in his or her own thoughts. Aramis was still steadily gaining strength, and d’Artagnan’s wounds only pained him of late when he moved unexpectedly or overexerted himself, so they were able to make it almost to Luigny before darkness closed in on them. Since the thoroughfare was deserted and none of them were terribly familiar with the area, they decided to set up camp at the edge of the woods a little way off the road rather than trying to press on into the night.

  No one was terribly surprised when Athos and Milady offered to gather wood for the fire and disappeared into the trees together, though that didn’t stop d’Artagnan’s ears from burning when the muffled sound of angry, passionate coupling drifted back to the campsite a few minutes later.

  Porthos sighed and gathered kindling and a few branches from the edge of the tree line, correctly guessing that it would be awhile before any firewood made its way back to camp.

  "I’ll just see to the horses, then, shall I?" d’Artagnan asked, as the big man set stones for a fire ring and reached for his flint and tinder.

  "That might be for the best," Aramis said with resigned good humor, flashing a sympathetic smile toward him at his obvious discomfort.

  By the time d’Artagnan returned after unsaddling the horses, rubbing them down, watering them, and tying them to picket lines, Athos and Milady had also returned, looking a bit worse for wear but having at least brought plenty of wood for the fire as promised. After a simple meal, they bedded down for the night.

  "What will we do if Her Majesty is not in La Croix-du-Perche?" d’Artagnan said into the darkness, unable to banish the thought. Unfortunately, no one had an answer for him.

  The following morning, they rose early and packed quickly, eager to finish the last leg of the journey and, with luck, find some answers at the chateau of M. Rougeux. Luigny was the last town before La Croix-du-Perche, and they reached it less than half an hour after breaking camp. At the edge of the village, though, Athos paused. A large tree by the road drew their eyes. Its trunk was painted with a sloppy, blood red cross.

  In the distance, several men and women toiled with picks and shovels, digging a large pit. The purpose became obvious as they cautiously rode into the town. The dead lay in untidy heaps at the edges of the road. D’Artagnan felt an unpleasant coldness clench his stomach, climbing slowly up his spine to wrap around his chest until his breath caught. His eyes flitted to one side, sensing movement among the corpses, and he froze, Grimaud’s mare coming to an uneasy halt under him.

  The black-bruised, swollen bodies of an older, gray-haired man and woman lay twisted together in a pile outside the door of a modest house. Close by laid a third, smaller body with long, dark hair. The movement that had attracted d’Artagnan’s attention was the shivering of a skinny, half-clothed boy perhaps fourteen or fifteen years of age, hunched in the doorway behind the dead, looking up at them with flat, bloodshot eyes.

  D’Artagnan’s head swam and in an instant he was no longer in Luigny, on his way to rendezvous with the rightful Queen of France. Instead, he was outside a farmhouse in Gascony, watching as the bodies of his mother, father, and little sister were heaved onto a cart like so much cordwood, leaving him clinging to the edge of the doorway, alone—the rough wooden beam the only thing keeping him from sliding to the ground and never rising again.

  "D’Artagnan!" Athos’ sharp voice recalled him to the present, and he realized that he had dismounted without even being aware of it. He looked up at the older man with wide eyes.

  "We have to help him," d’Artagnan said, moving toward the youngster.

  The broad body of the carthorse stepped in front of him, blocking his view of the house and the boy.

  "D’Artagnan," Aramis said insistently from the beast’s back. "Look at me."

  D’Artagnan looked up. "Aramis," he said. "Please. We must do something."

  Aramis’ eyes clouded with pain, and he moved the carthorse enough that d’Artagnan could see past it. "I’m sorry, d’Artagnan. Look closely beneath the boy’s arms. See the buboes there? The boy is already ill. Very ill."

  The suffocating feeling returned as d’Artagnan looked and saw the angry swellings on the boy’s bare torso. "We can’t just leave him here alone."

  Aramis’ hand clasped his shoulder briefly, and he turned his horse toward the boy.

  "What’s your name, lad?" Aramis asked kindly.

  The boy looked at him with a kind of confused longing, as if surprised that anyone would care enough to address him directly. "André," he whispered after a moment, in a voice scraped raw by tears and illness.

  "André," Aramis said. "You’ve worked so hard these last days, and suffered such a loss. God is with you, child. He knows how valiantly you strove to care for your family, and now He bids you rest." He opened one of his saddlebags; searching through it until he pulled out a bottle that d’Artagnan recognized as some of the extra tincture of opium that Athos had procured from Combres. "I have a drink here that will make you sleep. Do you have any strong wine left in the house?"

  André nodded, his eyes fixed on the little bottle as if it contained the very gates of Heaven within.

  "Good," Aramis said. "Mix the contents of this bottle with a cup of the wine, and drink the whole thing down. When you’re done, go lie down on your bed, and you will fall into a sweet, dreamless slumber. When you wake, child, I promise that things will be better." A slightly hoarse note entered his voice on the last sentence, and d’Artagnan swallowed hard against the lump that rose in his own throat.

  Aramis gently tossed the bottle of opium to the boy, who caught it and rose stiffly to his feet, clutching the gift to his chest as he stumbled back into the house, and out of sight.

  Porthos and Athos were both deathly pale, and Milady’s mouth was a hard, grim line.

  "He’s not going to wake up again after drinking that whole bottle, is he," Porthos said.

  "He will awaken in the Kingdom of Heaven with his family," Aramis said, "and, as I promised him, things will be better."

  D’Artagnan fought the hitch in his chest that clawed at him with every breath, and re-mounted Grimaud’s mare, which stayed uncharacteristically quiet and steady as he settled himself back in the saddle.

  "Come," said Athos. "Back the way we came. We will skirt to the southwest and rejoin the main road north of the town."

  As they rode through woods and fields west of the town, d’Artagnan felt oddly detached from reality, flitting back and forth from the present to the past. Porthos made a point of riding near him; drawing him back to awareness every so often with conversational gambits, but it was obvious that he and the others were struggling with their own demons after the tableau they had just witnessed in Luigny.

  Despite what Milady had said back in Châteaudun, it was never going to be over, was it? Would the plague keep advancing and advancing, until one day the last man alive in France started coughing blood, and looked down to see black spots peppering his body?

  Why, why had d’Artagnan survived when so many others died? Where had the kind stranger been with the promise of sweet rest and oblivion when he had been alone and hopeless?

  Aramis wouldn’t have give
n you tincture of opium, said the little voice in d’Artagnan’s mind that sounded like his father's. You weren’t dying.

  D’Artagnan shivered, wishing desperately for the cat o’nine tails in his saddlebag and some privacy to use it. He tightened his lips and rode on.

  The main road loomed ahead and to their right; when they rejoined it, it was blessedly empty. Eventually, they entered the little hamlet of La Croix-du-Perche—essentially a single road lined with small, neat houses, and a modest chapel about halfway along. Milady dismounted and entered the church to inquire about the exact location of M. Rougeux’s residence, and returned a few minutes later with directions.

  The houses thinned out and became larger as they followed the main road around a lazy bend to the north. The last property on the right was their goal, and as they rode down the cobbled drive leading to the house, a large, corpulent man emerged from an outbuilding to greet them warily, pitchfork in hand and pistol at his hip.

  "M. Rougeux?" Athos said, moving to the front of the group.

  "Who’s asking?" the man replied in a booming voice.

  "We are friends of M. de Tréville," Athos said. "This is my wife, Anne, and my comrades Porthos, Aramis, and d’Artagnan. I am Athos."

  The man relaxed visibly, a smile splitting his broad face. "Well, well! It appears that I owe Jean-Armand a cask of brandy, after all! He said that you would come, while I tried to tell him that you could hardly be expected to find him if he lied about where he was staying. I am pleased to be proven wrong, and you and your companions are most welcome. Here, let me call the boy to take your horses."

  The boy—a stout lad of twelve or so—emerged to a bellow. D’Artagnan and the others dismounted and followed their host to the house, overcome with relief at their good fortune.

  "Margerie!" M. Rougeux called. "We have guests! Friends of Jean-Armand’s!"

  They were joined by a slender, gray-haired woman with rosy cheeks, who welcomed them into the house and ushered them to a sitting room. Movement at an interior door drew d’Artagnan’s attention, and he and his companions released a collective sigh of relief upon seeing de Tréville escorting the Queen into the room, her belly large and swollen with child.