Like most fights, this one was over quickly, almost before Barnabas could be certain of what was happening. He quickly looked back and forth in the hallway, expecting intruders seeking to discover the source of the disturbance.
The first man rose from the floor with a start, grabbing one of the broken pieces of a chair and diving for D’Artagnan. The blade at Barnabas’ belt came into his hand and went flying, burying itself into the man’s left eye.
“I’m not sure if Madam Paulette is going to be pleased with the condition you have left her room in,” said Aramis, who had several of the house’s bouncers standing behind him. D’Artagnan couldn’t help but notice that the little man also had a pistol in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other.
“No doubt she will vehemently vent her vexation about the matter. She can bill the Quinniaro family. However, I’m sure they paid her well enough to let them keep him here. Besides, I’ll lay you even money that she has more damage than this on any given Saturday night,” said D’Artagnan.
“More than likely,” agreed Aramis.
“You stupid bastards,” yelled the man with the sandy hair as he struggled up from the floor, his Irish accent heavy in his voice. “You almost got me killed! Do you have any idea of how easy it would have been for him to snap my neck? You call this rescuing me?”
D’Artagnan covered the distance between himself and the man in three steps, then grabbed him by the collar of his dirty and stained shirt and slammed him hard against the wall. Then he lifted him up several inches above the floor.
“Is your name Culhane? Ramsey Culhane?”
“Y-y-yesss!” the man stuttered.
“Well, listen well, Monsieur Ramsey Culhane, and know this. You live because of me and my friends. It would have been very easy to leave you in the hands of these men who would as soon slit your throat and dump you into the canals as listen to your so-called righteous anger.
“Quite honestly, I suspect it is your own fault that these men were threatening your life. Of course, it may not have been, but then again, I really don't care. When you see your uncle again, just remind him that he is now in the debt of Cardinal Richelieu for having you alive. Do you think you can remember that?”
“Yes, I do.” Culhane managed to push the words out of his throat between gasps for air.
“I’ll remember it.”
D’Artagnan released Culhane to the floor, holding the man’s arm to keep him steady. They had taken a couple of steps before he pushed the man up close to the unconscious form of the man in the long leather jacket.
“Remember something else, my ungrateful friend. Your uncle owes the cardinal a favor for the saving of your sorry hide. But it is you who owe me your life. Someday I may come to you and demand that you pay back that favor, and you will,” he growled.
“I understand,” Culhane stuttered before passing out.
∞ ∞ ∞
D’Artagnan dropped a leather pouch on the table in front of Barnabas as the two men sat at a small table in Madam Paulette’s parlor. The thud when the bag hit the table showed that it was full. The younger man picked it up and spilled out the contents into his hand; mixed in with the silver were a number of gold coins.
“It seems that our adversaries had been paid in advance, and they didn’t spread the wealth around all that much,” said D’Artagnan. “But far be it from me to criticize the house of Quinniaro over their financial dealings, especially when it works out to our advantage.”
“Our advantage?” asked Barnabas.
“I gave Madam Paulette a portion of it to pay for damages and her silence. Half of what is left is yours. Call it payment for your services this evening and also your silence--the spoils of war, so to speak.”
Barnabas stared at the money for a moment; this would more than double the amount of money in his own purse.
“I did not do this for money but because you saved my life. It was a matter of honor.”
“Quite true, and you’ve more than repaid that debt, not only by helping Aramis and myself. But when you stepped in and saved my life, the scales were balanced. There is no reason you should not get a reward,” said the Frenchman. “Personally, I would suggest you use some of those coins to make some arrangements with one of Madam Paulette’s ladies.”
“Then you are planning on staying?” asked Barnabas.
“Indeed; the soonest we can get passage will be another day or so. The Quinniaros are tied up in Madam Paulette’s cellar, and Aramis will stay with Culhane to prevent him from wandering away. Since it is doubtful that the Quinniaros will send others, this is an excellent place to hole up. I suspect I may make an arrangement or two with one of Madam Paulette’s employees myself.”
Two young women, one in green velvet and the other yellow, had entered the room, taking seats on a chaise longue near the door.
Yes, it seemed to him that D’Artagnan had the right idea. Remaining here might definitely be an excellent way to end the evening.
All For One
By
Bradley H. Sinor & Susan P. Sinor
“L
et me tell you, my friend; women are nothing but trouble! They will do nothing but bat their eyelashes and get you into trouble! And when you think they are gone, then they come back to haunt you.”
Charles D’Artagnan took a sip of his wine and rolled his eyes as he looked over toward where the voice seemed to come from. The speaker was a young man, perhaps twenty-one or -two, yet he had a world-weary look about him that D’Artagnan could empathize with.
“Can I get you some more, Monsieur?” said the innkeeper. A gray-haired man in his fifties, he moved in and out among the tables with practiced ease.
“Just let me know when your supper is ready. I have spent far too long at sea and am famished,” D’Artagnan said.
In truth, it was good to be back on solid ground. After concluding their business in Venice, he and his companion, Réne Montaigne, had taken a ship out of Venice, intent on reaching the southern French coast. However, storms had delayed their arrival by nearly a week, a very long week for him. Not that D’Artagnan was prone to seasickness; it was more the fact that there had been nothing to do onboard, and, with the weather, they had been confined below decks for several days.
“Not to worry, sir. I call my wife the best cook in the province. You will find her meals the next best thing to a banquet at the palace of the King himself,” said the innkeeper, patting a rather large belly. “I have been the beneficiary of them for more than two decades, ever since I left the king’s army.”
“In that case, Innkeeper, I look forward to it,” said D’Artagnan as he reached into his coat pocket and produced a clay pipe and bag of shag tobacco.
“Porthos, you of all people can understand this,” said the young man that D’Artagnan had been listening to. “I’ve seen your heart be broken by a woman.”
The mention of the name Porthos caught D’Artagnan’s attention.
“Athos, Athos,” the other man sighed. “I do the heart breaking, not the other way around.”
Athos, Porthos? Those two names pulled D’Artagnan out of his relaxed stupor. In the time since he had been in the service of Cardinal Richelieu, he had come to know those names very well. Apparently, in the up-time, those two and their cousin, Aramis, as well as D’Artagnan himself, were quite well known in certain circles because of a book and those things called movies. Montaigne himself had been known to use the name Aramis, but that was just one among many names that the man who could fade into any crowd preferred to use.
“I tell you I saw her, Porthos; she was here not an hour ago walking down the street. The same blonde hair, in a green dress, the same walk,” he said, with a hint of anger in his voice, or perhaps it was despair. D’Artagnan couldn’t quite be certain.
“And by the time you got there she was nowhere to be found. You do tend to get in melancholy moods, my friend, so I suspect you saw some other woman who had a slight resemblance to this woman and your m
ind added the details,” said Porthos.
“Your pardon, gentlemen,” said a voice from just behind D’Artagnan. He looked up to see the familiar face of his partner, Montaigne. That the small man had been able to come so silently, so unnoticed into the inn did not surprise him in the least. Montaigne had been on shipboard with D’Artagnan but had disappeared shortly after they had come ashore, saying that he would see the young man back in Paris after dealing with a few necessary matters. D’Artagnan hadn’t bothered to ask for any details; he had learned from experience that the little man was not forthcoming with details except when it suited him.
The matters might have been another assignment from the Cardinal or, possibly, something else. D’Artagnan had met people who didn’t let their left hands know what their right hands were doing. He sometimes suspected that Montaigne didn’t let his fingers know what his thumbs were doing.
“This is a private conversation,” said the man called Athos, his stare a dark thing, especially for one so young.
“I am aware and do apologize for intruding, but I had to ask you. This woman you mentioned, the one in the green dress. I am also seeking her, so I think we have common cause in this matter.” Montaigne turned to order a drink from the innkeeper. “Plus, I believe it might settle your companion’s mind to know if this woman is who he thinks she is.”
“And you are seeking her, why?” asked Porthos.
“For reasons that will bear no harm to her or to you gentlemen,” said Montaigne.
Athos muttered something, but the sound was lost as he drained the mug in front of him. Porthos looked at the newcomer for a few moments before speaking. “My cousin is subject to the woes of too much drink, but perhaps it would not be a bad thing to go in search of this woman and let him see that it is not this phantom of his heart,” he said. “Very well, shall we meet you by the fountain in front of the convent in, say, a half hour?”
D’Artagnan considered the possibility of entering into the conversation himself but it seemed the wiser thing, for the moment, to hold back and see what Montaigne had in mind.
Montaigne left a moment after the two men, passing by D’Artagnan’s table with a particular twitch of his fingers. D’Artagnan let himself sit for a few minutes, casually finishing his drink and the last of the dinner that the innkeeper had brought him. He stood, taking his time to straighten his clothing, and moved toward the door.
The stable was just behind the tavern, and the young Gascon casually walked up to the stall where the dark horse he had purchased at the port the day before was standing. The animal was quietly munching on hay and hardly seemed to be aware of D’Artagnan.
“So, you have some interest in this ‘lady in green’,” D’Artagnan asked. “Anything you can tell me about? Is this why you wanted to come here? After all, it’s not the most direct route back to Paris.”
Montaigne climbed down from the hayloft, brushing a few strands off his clothing. “Quite true,” the smaller man replied. “I suppose, as the Americans would say, it’s a matter of ‘national security’.”
“What isn’t, these days? I would like to get back to Paris and see Charlotte,” D’Artagnan said.
“Your lady friend can wait. I’m sure a businesswoman like her has numerous matters to occupy her time. I need you to see if you can find this other woman.
“The woman in the green dress?”
“Indeed, although I suppose the dress color doesn’t matter; it can be changed. And if she is who I think she is, she will have more than one change of clothing.” He peered around the side of the stables toward the inn. “I have to go now. Do what you can to aid them. If I need to reach you I’ll leave a message with the innkeeper addressed to Monsieur de Largo.”
“One thing,” said D’Artagnan, “I have to know. Those two men, Athos and Porthos, are they who I think they are?”
Montaigne smiled. “They are Issac de Porteau and Armund de Sillegue d'Athos d'A'Autevielle, who you may have heard of under the names of Athos and Porthos. They are cousins and members of the King’s Musketeers. I would suspect they are on leave, since I think they may have relatives who live in this province.”
That Montaigne knew the men did not surprise D’Artagnan in the slightest. After Cardinal Richelieu had become aware of the up-time novel “The Three Musketeers,” and that it was based on some bits of actual history, he had dispatched Montaigne to find D’Artagnan and the others. The results had ended with the young Gascon enlisted in the churchman’s service.
“And the third . . . Aramis?”
“I’m not sure where he is.”
Before D’Artagnan could ask for more details, Montaigne slipped around the corner and disappeared.
∞ ∞ ∞
When one is looking for a person or an object, it helps to have some idea of where to look. It wasn’t that the town was that large; it was the sort where a man at one end of the town could hear when a mouse farted at the other end. So since there was one man who knew where this ‘woman in the green dress’ had been seen, it seemed the logical thing to seek him out.
The fight had just ended when D’Artagnan walked through the convent entranceway into the main hall. Athos stood at the far end of the room, methodically wiping blood off of his sword with the tunic of the freshly dead body. Porthos was a dozen steps away, his sword in one hand and a chicken leg in the other. He took several bites out of it as he poked at another corpse with the toe of his boot.
D’Artagnan stopped to pick up an un-broken bottle of wine from the floor. “Did I miss the entertainment?”
The two Musketeers eyed him warily, but when he pulled the cork from the bottle, took a swallow and then passed it to Athos, they seemed to relax.
“Friends of yours?” D’Artagnan gestured at the bodies on the floor.
“They were screaming at a couple of the Sisters and seemed to take umbrage when we politely asked them to stop,” said Athos.
“It was strictly self-defense,” said Porthos.
“Of course,” said D’Artagnan.
One of the nuns emerged from a far room, shaking her head as she looked at the damage. From her manner, D’Artagnan couldn’t help but wonder if she was the Mother Superior. If she wasn’t, he suspected it might not be too many years until she ascended to that office. “I should make you ruffians clean this up, though I know that you were defending yourselves. I hope that the men these bullies were looking for appreciate what you have done.”
Moments later several other nuns appeared and in swift order carried off the two bodies. The chances were that both men were dead and would soon be making their explanations to the good Lord rather than the local magistrates, which suited D’Artagnan. Even before he had gone to work for the Cardinal, he had preferred not to cross paths with the local magistrates any more than necessary. D’Artagnan thought it best not to ask what was going to happen to the bodies.
“Who were they looking for?” he asked the nun.
“I didn’t recognize the names - Athos and Porthos,” said the nun.
D’Artagnan’s two new acquaintances looked at each other. He wasn’t sure if it was a look of surprise, amusement or relief on their faces.
Athos turned to D’Artagnan. “My good sir, if memory does not fail me, were you not just at the inn up the hill? What brings you here?”
“The same thing as you, gentleman, and the same person. I work with the man you spoke to concerning the woman in the green dress. He suggested that I accompany you in her pursuit. He was needed elsewhere.”
Athos eyed D’Artagnan for a moment, looked at Porthos, and then nodded.
“Very well,” said Porthos. “I am Porthos, this is my cousin Athos. And your name, my good sir?”
“Charles D’…..de Largo,” said D’Artagnan. Why he had not given these two his real name, he couldn’t say; it just seemed the right thing to do for now.
“Very well; so now we are three,” said Porthos.
“Where do we go to look for a ghost? A memo
ry come to life; that is what this woman in the green dress appears to be,” said D’Artagnan.
“Your pardon, gentleman,” said the nun who had spoken to D’Artagnan earlier. “I know of whom you speak. I believe I have seen her on several occasions, at a distance. She is not someone I know personally. I know she is not staying with us at the convent. I think I saw her yesterday, going into a dress shop some two streets over.”
“We have yet to actually begin our search, except for asking here,” replied Porthos. “I believe I know the establishment you speak of; we will certainly ask after her there. Thank you, Sister, and good day.” The three men doffed their hats and bowed, then filed out of the convent and headed toward the street indicated.
“What happened?” asked D’Artagnan. “Were those men rifling the poor box?”
“That’s what we assumed when we heard the commotion. But from what the nun said they apparently had other motives.”
“Pity you couldn’t have asked them who they were working for.”
“Indeed,” said Porthos. “Who do we owe money to around here?”
“No one that I know of,” said Athos. “Unless you got into a dice game last night and haven’t mentioned it.”
“Me? Not that I recall?” Are you sure you don’t owe anyone any money?” asked Porthos.
“None that I recall, save for a few sous to Aramis,” said Athos.
“Hardly a motive to dispatch leg-breaking assassins to track you down,” said Porthos. “Besides, he would want to do that himself. “
“Indeed,” Athos said. “
The village was small but its streets were winding, so it took a quarter hour to locate the dressmaker’s shop that the nun had spoken of. The woman running it had red hair and a provocative smile when she saw the three men walk through the door.
“Good morn, my good woman,” D’Artagnan said. “How are you this fine day?”
“Very well, good sirs. And yourselves? Are you looking for some finery for your ladies? I have a very good selection.” She pointed out some odds and ends of frippery along with several bolts of bright colored cloth.
The Hunt for The Red Cardinal Page 4
