Book 3: The Queen's Musketeers, #3

by R. A. Steffan

  “You’re not broken, Constance!” he insisted. “We just went too fast, is all. And I—I should have seen that it wasn’t working. I should have stopped sooner.”

  “No!” she said, still weeping. “You did exactly what I asked you to. You don’t get to take the blame for this. This is my failing, not yours.”

  D’Artagnan swallowed, trying to be reasonable even though he felt utterly adrift. “You haven’t failed at anything. Think about how far you’ve come in such a short stretch of time.”

  “It’s not enough!” she shouted. Constance covered her face with one hand, attempting to wrestle herself under control. When she spoke again, her voice was calmer, though still tremulous. “Look, d’Artagnan. I’m sorry for getting upset. It’s getting dark outside. You should go and meet Porthos as you promised. We both have to be at the palace early tomorrow. I’m fine now... you don’t need to worry.”

  “I don’t want to leave you on your own like this,” he said stubbornly.

  Her eyes were puffy, but focused when she met his gaze. “Please go. I really need to be by myself for a bit. All right?”

  D’Artagnan took a deep breath. Let it out. Nodded.

  “If that’s what you truly want,” he said, giving in.

  “Thank you,” Constance breathed, her relief palpable.

  D’Artagnan itched to ask for a kiss... an embrace... some physical sign that they would be all right together, but he knew it would be a mistake. They both began to dress on opposite sides of the room. When he was ready, d’Artagnan asked, “Shall I empty the tub before I leave?”

  Constance shook her head. “No, I’ll get it. It will give me something to do.”

  “Very well,” he said. “I love you, Constance. Never doubt that.”

  Her smile was pale and wan, but her voice was steady when she replied, “I know, d’Artagnan. I do. I love you, too.”

  With that reassurance, d’Artagnan took his reluctant leave and exited into the chaos and squalor of the Parisian evening, his small dagger tucked securely at his waist. Drunken revelers staggered by, and prostitutes called to him from the street corners, but his mind was firmly back in the little set of rooms on Rue Férou.

  His preoccupation must have been obvious for all to see, for upon noticing his entrance into the seedy, dim interior of the Leaping Bard and hailing him to come sit at his table in the corner, Porthos immediately frowned in concern.

  “That is not the face of a man enjoying wedded bliss,” Porthos said knowingly, pitching his voice to be heard over the general pandemonium of the tavern’s other patrons.

  “It’s nothing,” d’Artagnan said.

  Porthos’ answering grunt was skeptical, and he shoved a slopping tankard of ale in d’Artagnan’s direction. “If you say so. Get this inside you— it’ll cure whatever ails you.”

  Unfortunately, it did not. Nor did the second tankard, or the third. The fourth, however, began to blunt the edge on the knife blade of d’Artagnan’s worry and distress, and over-layer it with a sense of warm camaraderie and fellow-feeling for his dear friend, Porthos.

  “Porthos,” he said solemnly, slurring his words only a little, “I need your help with something.”

  “I’m at your disposal,” Porthos replied, sounding somehow considerably less drunk than d’Artagnan himself was feeling.

  “You’re an exshp... an exshperienced... “ He paused for a moment to regroup. “A man of the world.”

  “I’ve seen a few things in my day. I s’pose you could say that,” Porthos said easily.

  “Well, suppose there was this woman. An’ she was beautiful, and brave, and perfect... an’ you loved her, and she loved you.” He gestured with both hands, trying to outline the words and give them form. “But before she met you, someone hurt her. With sex. An’ now she wants to... with you... but when you try, she looks up at you and freezes, and she’s not seeing you—she's seeing him.”

  Porthos looked terribly sad for a moment. “Oh, d’Artagnan,” he said, barely audible over the noise of the crowd, “the world is such a cruel place sometimes.” He took a deep breath, inflating his broad chest and letting the air out on a sigh. “All right. Let’s see. Does this hypothetical woman enjoy doing other things with her lover? Kissing? Touching?”

  “Yes, mostly,” d’Artagnan said earnestly. “Sometimes, something will be too much and she needs space to feel safe again.”

  “Are there specific things that remind her of being hurt?”

  D’Artagnan thought back with a mind that felt slow as molasses. “No, I don’t... wait. Yes. She said she didn’t like being in his bed in the dark, trapped underneath him.” A horrible thought hit him like a club to the back of the head. “Oh, God, I was on top of her. I trapped her beneath me. Oh, God. Porthos, I’m an idiot.”

  He let his heavy head fall forward to rest on his forearms, and felt Porthos pat his shoulder sympathetically.

  “Every man’s an idiot sometimes when it comes to women,” Porthos said. “All right. So, you want my advice? Slow down; go back to something that you both enjoy. When you’re ready to try again, take lots of extra care with her first. Make sure she comes at least once before you move on to anything else, so she’s nice and relaxed. Then let her be on top, so she can control things.”

  D’Artagnan lifted his head, trying to picture how that would work with ale-muddled wits. “On top. How—?”

  Porthos shook his head in exasperation. “Just like riding a horse—you see?”

  “Oh. Oh,” he said, as the picture suddenly clicked into place. He blinked slowly, and tilted his head in contemplation. It was a very appealing picture.

  “Yeah, you got it now, I think,” Porthos said with a snort. “Right. I believe that’s quite enough for you tonight, my young friend. Lemme help you get home, or Constance’ll have my head. Where’d you say your rooms were again?”

  The rest of the evening was a bit of a blur, and the following morning would no doubt have been far more awkward had he and Constance not been in a hurry to reach the palace, and had d’Artagnan not been more than a little distracted by the dull, pounding ache behind his temples.

  “Remind me not to let Porthos buy the drinks next time,” he said as the sunlight stabbed at his eyes like a knife.

  “Serves you right,” Constance told him, and his spirits were lifted considerably by the small, but cheeky, smile she flashed him.

  They arrived at the palace, and his spirits were lifted even higher when she returned his brief kiss before disappearing into the warren of rooms and corridors to start her daily duties. D’Artagnan stopped a pageboy to enquire about M. Villenueve’s whereabouts, and eventually found him—a portly little man with a bald, shiny head—in a large room used for storage.

  M. Villenueve tutted over him for several minutes, measuring various parts of his body with a cloth tape. He hurried out and returned a few minutes later with the most ridiculous clothing d’Artagnan had ever seen in his entire life. It was as if a peacock had tried to mate with a dolphin and together, they had birthed some sort of ridiculously shiny, lacy, powder blue monstrosity of an offspring. It was tight. He could barely bend over in the close-fitting knee breeches and hose, and the high-heeled shoes pinched his feet horribly. The light blue, lace-trimmed shirt stretched snugly across his shoulders, the opening exposing his chest with no way to lace it up. The jacket was stiff, unyielding brocade, embroidered with fanciful designs in silver thread, and...

  “Here,” said M. Villenueve. “Let me tie back your hair so I can fit the wig.”

  “The wig,” d’Artagnan echoed flatly, as the little man scraped and pulled his hair into a low ponytail.

  It was a powdery white confection that seemed weigh several pounds and made his head itch almost immediately when it was fastened into place. Within moments, he hated it with every fiber of his being. M. Villenueve chivvied him across the room and stood him in front of a large looking glass, where d’Artagnan stared at himself in open dismay.

 
; If any of the others ever saw him looking like this, he would never live it down.

  Next came the training with M. Delacruz, which was every bit as odious as d’Artagnan had suspected it would be. The man treated him as if he was lower than a cockroach squashed on the sole of his pointy white shoe. He was instructed on how to stand, how to bow, how to open doors, how to pour drinks... surely it was only a matter of time before he was shown the proper method for wiping the aristocracy’s arses after they took a shit.

  When Delacruz was finally finished criticizing d’Artagnan’s ability to perform such basic tasks as taking a visiting noble’s cloak and uncorking a bottle of wine, he sniffed in disgust and said, “I suppose that’s about all we can expect from such raw material. Be aware, boy, that you are only here because there is a shortage of servants and you are passably pretty to look at. One wrong move, and you’ll be out on the street, along with your painfully common little wife.”

  At some point during the last two hours, d’Artagnan’s normally hot temper had transformed into something altogether colder and sharper. He smiled sweetly at the hateful man and said in a perfectly obliging tone, “Then I will have to do my very best not to make any wrong moves, monsieur, for I would not want to waste this wonderful opportunity.”

  Delacruz glared at him for a moment as if sensing the simmering ill will behind the bland words, but finally sniffed and waved a hand in dismissal. “Go attend to the guests arriving in the east receiving room.”

  “Yes, M. Delacruz. Thank you, M. Delacruz,” d’Artagnan said, bowing smartly as he had been taught and turning sharply on his heel to perform his assigned duties. He could feel the sneer directed at his back as sharply as he felt the tight breeches chafing at his thighs.

  * * *

  Being a footman was the most tedious job d’Artagnan had ever had to perform. After a week of standing by doors, staring into space, and feeling new blisters rise inside his uncomfortable, impractical shoes, he was seriously beginning to contemplate committing a spot of impromptu regicide all by himself, just to be done with the whole thing.

  The only bright spots were Constance and Porthos. After a long, heartfelt discussion, Constance agreed to try not to be so hard on herself, and to focus, at least for now, on the things that brought her pleasure and joy. She and d’Artagnan cautiously resumed their physical relations, becoming more comfortable with each other and with communicating their feelings and limits.

  Porthos remained a stalwart support, doling out baked goods, drink, and advice about their positions at court in roughly equal measure. Still, d’Artagnan could sense that the backstreets of Paris wore on the big man, and he vowed to be a better support to his friend in return.

  To d’Artagnan’s frustration, there was really nothing of substance yet to divulge regarding the mission itself. He could report—and Constance confirmed—that the culture of the palace was one of creeping poison... the servants were bullied and often terrified; the guests crept around Isabella as one might tiptoe around a particularly dangerous and unpredictable snake. It was not clear to d’Artagnan if Isabella was actually insane, or merely trapped between the lure of near-absolute power and the pressures—both internal and external—currently surrounding France.

  The few times that he had been around the woman, he found her to be a pale, unhappy figure prone to sudden tempers and vitriolic over-reaction to the most minor of perceived slights. It was this unpredictability, he thought, that trickled down through Isabella’s household, making life at the palace so tense. Those in Isabella’s favor were desperate to stay there, and those beneath her notice were desperate not to attract the wrong kind of attention.

  It was a relief when, on the sixth day after their arrival, Constance met him at the servant’s entrance in the evening with a smile on her face.

  “I have news,” she said. “I’m to be the maid of a visiting lady, starting tomorrow.”

  D’Artagnan’s spirits rose immediately. “Oh, yes?” he asked, very aware of the bored-looking guard at the gate. “Anyone I would have heard of?”

  “I doubt it,” Constance replied airily. “Some obscure noblewoman, apparently. A widow, so I hear.”

  D’Artagnan barely managed to contain a snort. “Oh, is that so? How tragic.”

  Constance winked at him, and he smiled back as they left the palace grounds and headed for their little rooms on Rue Férou.

  Once they were safely locked away from prying eyes and listening ears, he turned to her eagerly. “So, have you seen her? Spoken with her?”

  Constance shook her head. “Not yet. The Cardinal is presenting her at court tomorrow, apparently. Once she’s installed in rooms at the palace, I’ll be able to talk with her.”

  “What a relief,” d’Artagnan said. “Maybe now, things will finally start to move forward.”

  Chapter XII: September 12th, 1631

  AS LUCK WOULD have it, d’Artagnan was assigned to work in the reception chamber the following day, giving him his first glimpse of the man who was so central to all of their plans. After hearing the whispers about the Bloody Cardinal—His Red Eminence—d’Artagnan wasn’t quite certain what he was expecting—perhaps some skeletal vision of Death in his cloak, or the Devil made incarnate, hiding hooves underneath his robes.

  The reality was somewhat more mundane, of course. The person who entered when the steward announced Cardinal Armand Jean du Plessis de Richelieu was a slender man, somewhere between the age of forty and fifty; upright of bearing and gray of hair. His eyes were pale and piercing; his long, narrow face made even longer by the neatly trimmed point of his beard. He was dressed fashionably for court—his cloak and skullcap were, in fact, a bloody shade of scarlet, and a large, bejeweled crucifix hung around his neck. He bowed low to Isabella, and his voice, when he spoke, was mild and cultured.

  “Your Majesty,” he said, “it is both an honor and a pleasure to appear before you today.”

  “Cardinal,” Isabella replied in her clumsy, heavily-accented French, so different from Queen Anne’s soft, clear voice. “Your presence has been missed these past few days. I trust you had good reason to abandon us in such a way?”

  “Alas,” said the Cardinal, “I was called away for weighty matters of Church and State. As partial recompense for my absence, however, I am pleased to be able to present to Your Majesty the Comtesse de le Fére, who has traveled here to seek connections at court after the tragic death of her husband.”

  The Cardinal stepped gracefully to the side, and indicated the doorway with an elegant gesture of one hand. D’Artagnan held his breath as Milady appeared, resplendent in a red dress trimmed with ermine and ostrich plumes. Her catlike eyes scanned the room, passing over d’Artagnan as if he were nothing more than a piece of furniture. With a demure smile, she approached the throne and dipped into a deep curtsy.

  One of the nobles loitering near d’Artagnan snorted softly and leaned in close to his companion. “Weighty matters of Church and State, indeed,” he said under his breath. “I think we can all guess what has kept His Eminence occupied for the last few days.”

  D’Artagnan kept his face expressionless only with difficulty. While it was doubtless a good thing that Milady’s cover story seemed to be working so effectively, it still rankled. He wondered, idly, how much of Chartres’ supply of wine had been sacrificed to Athos’ need to forget, if only temporarily, where his wife was and what people were likely saying about her. Watching Milady as closely as he could without breaking his attentive servant’s stance, he also wondered what she thought of it—whether she cared about the sly asides and assumptions. If so, it did not show on her face, which was as smooth and cool as a mirror.

  “It is a great honor to be here, Your Majesty,” Milady said upon rising. “I have heard stories of the court at Paris and the wonders of the palace, but they did not do it justice. We have nothing to compare in the north.”

  “The north, you say?” Isabella asked, peering down at Milady from her seat on the dais. “La
Fére, was it? I’m afraid I have not heard of it.”

  It was almost certainly intended as a slight, but Milady only dipped her chin in a shallow bow. “I am not surprised, Your Majesty. It is but a small estate, of little note or importance. It is only through the Cardinal’s patronage that I was able to travel to Paris since completing the mourning period after my beloved husband’s unexpected passing.”

  “Hmm,” Isabella said, clearly losing interest. “I suppose you’ll be looking for a new husband, then. Take care... there are those at court who would seek to take advantage of a woman alone, without allies.”

  Isabella’s final words were laced with bitterness, and Richelieu stepped in smoothly, before the exchange could descend further into awkwardness. “Tell me, Your Majesty. How fares our young King?”

  “Why do you ask?” Isabella said sharply, and a brief frown of consternation crossed Richelieu’s face, so quickly that d’Artagnan thought he might have imagined it.

  “Forgive me—it was merely out of my own curiosity and affection for our sovereign,” the Cardinal answered carefully. “The King celebrates his second birthday later this week, does he not?”

  Isabella’s face softened slightly. “Oh. Yes, that’s right. We have ordered a small celebration for the occasion. You are, of course, invited to attend, Cardinal.”

  Richelieu bowed. “I would not miss it, my Queen. Now, however, I must prepare a report on the most recent intelligence regarding the small uprising in Chartres, so that I may brief Your Majesty on the news this evening.”

  Small uprising? D’Artagnan could not help wondering what, in the Cardinal’s eyes, would constitute a large uprising.

  Isabella leaned forward with renewed interest, and d’Artagnan had to school himself not to do the same. “Yes, yes. Do that now, Cardinal. We would know the latest details of this cowardly act of rebellion as soon as possible.”

  “Of course, Your Majesty,” said Richelieu, bowing once again and backing away, ushering Milady out of the room ahead of him.