“Very well. The road is several more miles in that direction.” He pointed toward the way they should go. “The road goes east and west. If you go either way, there is a north/south road not far. Please be on your way quickly.”
“Thank you, monsieur. May God be with you,” Brother Xavier told him.
They rode a ways on and stopped again when they were out of sight of the cabin. D’Artagnan rode up to the cart and moved the wet clothing off the prisoner.
“You did well, Monsieur. We may let you live, yet. Please continue to be silent and still. It will work in your favor.”
One or two more miles got them to the promised road.
“We should turn to the left, now. We’ve been going north, and our direction is to the west,” D’Artagnan told the others.
The group entered the roadway at that point. Within a few more miles they came to a village. Without prompting, Brother Xavier turned and began covering Monsieur DuPont with the slightly dryer clothing and the same warning as before.
“We will go on to the other side of the village, and then Gerard and I will come back and acquire more provisions,” D’Artagnan told the rest. “We’ll also find out where we are. Do try to avoid attention, but keep alert.”
They stopped at the west end of the village, pulling off the road and into a stand of trees. Then D’Artagnan and Athos set off on foot back toward the village and the local inn.
The village was typical of small towns in this area: a mixture of houses and businesses with the inn and the church in prominent positions.
“We’re wondering if we could procure provisions for our journey,” D’Artagnan said to the innkeeper. “We have run low but aren’t ready to stop for the night.”
“Of course, Monsieurs. What will you need?” the innkeeper replied.
“Gerard, do you have the list?” D’Artagnan asked his friend.
“No, I don’t, Allais. I thought you had it,” Athos replied.
D’Artagnan covered his face with his hands and hung his head. “Gerard, I know I gave you the list. What have you done with it?”
“As I said, I never had it. Do you remember what we need?”
“Ah, well. I guess we will have to tax our memories. We need dried meat.”
“And bread,” Athos added.
“And cheese.”
“And carrots. Do you have carrots?”
“And wine.”
“And beer. Oh, and onions.”
“And a sack to carry it in,” D’Artagnan finished. “Do you have all that?”
“Oui, Monsieurs. I can furnish that for you,” the innkeeper answered, and totaled the charge.
“That much?” Athos asked. “I have only this much.” He opened his hand to show a few coins. “How much do you have, Allais?”
D’Artagnan took some currency out of a pocket and displayed it. “This is all I have. Will this be enough with what Gerard has?”
The two tried in vain to figure out how much they had. Before long the innkeeper’s head was swimming from trying to keep up and offered them their order for the amount they said they had. Plus the sack, which they loaded with the food, and then argued about who would carry it.
“That was fun,” Athos said when they were half a block from the inn. “We should try that again.”
“It was, and it saved us some money,” D’Artagnan added. “Oh, we forgot to ask where we are.” He walked up to a woman who was about to enter a shop and asked, “Pardon me, Mademoiselle, but could you tell us the name of this lovely village?”
The woman giggled behind her fan and replied, “It is madame, kind sir, and the name of the village is Bizou.” She giggled again and went into the shop.
Chapter Ten
D’
Artagnan and Athos arrived at the edge of town where they had left the others in the group. The cart was in the same place, but Porthos and Aramis were not to be seen. And they saw that the prisoner was no longer in the cart.
“Where are Georges and Emile?” D’Artagnan asked Brother Xavier as they loaded their provisions into the cart. “And where is Monsieur DuPont?”
“They took the prisoner off that way.” Brother Xavier pointed toward the woods behind them. “They wanted to question him some more.”
“How long have they been gone?” Athos asked.
Brother Xavier thought for a minute and answered, “Not more than a dozen minutes.”
“Gerard, you stay here. I’ll go after them,” D’Artagnan said, and started off in that direction.
“That’s fine, Allais. I’ll put the provisions away,” Athos said to D’Artagnan’s disappearing back. “Help me stow this away, Brother Xavier. We can test it for freshness as we go.”
D’Artagnan caught up with Porthos and Aramis quickly. The prisoner was lying on the ground in a small copse, bleeding and groaning.
“What happened here?” he asked his friends.
“He was starting to make noise,” said Porthos. “We didn’t want him attracting attention, so we brought him away from the road. Then he tried to escape. He got his hands free and took my sword. Aramis had to defend me, since I had no weapon.”
“Where is your firearm?”
“I left it in my saddlebag. I didn’t really think I would need it just now.”
At that point, Monsieur DuPont started screaming. D’Artagnan walked over to him and warned him. “Stop right now or you will be of no use to us.”
The man continued to scream. Porthos, who had recovered his sword, joined D’Artagnan at the prisoner's side and brandished it menacingly. “Stop it!”
The prisoner, at that, started to get up, but Porthos objected by holding the point of his sword against the man’s chest.
“Georges, don’t,” D’Artagnan protested, but before either of them could do anything, the man lunged against the sword tip, impaling himself. He fell, pulling the sword out of Porthos’ hand, and breathed his last.
The three friends looked at him, then hung their heads.
“I didn’t want this to happen, but it seems Monsieur DuPont did. Besides, we couldn’t have let him go. We need to move his body away from here into that group of bushes over there. Don’t pull the sword out yet. We don’t want to leave too much of a trail of blood,” D’Artagnan told the others.
After they had finished the task and returned to the cart, Porthos told the ones who had waited what had happened.
“We did get a little information. Apparently, he was sent out by one of Monsieur’s men to search for Cardinal Richelieu.”
Brother Xavier looked like he was about to speak, but D’Artagnan held up a hand to stop him. “He was told to look elsewhere, but he seemed not to believe us. It was just as well that he caused his own death. All the men that attacked and kidnapped you are now dead. Perhaps no one will look in this direction again and we can proceed in peace.” He glared at Brother Xavier as a warning to keep quiet. “We don’t want Brother Etienne to be in danger.”
After eating some of their new provisions, they continued on the road, hoping to find another inn in another village to stay for the night. No one wanted to be as wet again as they had been that morning.
Not that much later the sky began to darken. Clouds were rolling in, covering the sun, which was low ahead of them.
“We may have to camp again tonight, unfortunately,” Athos said, gloomily. “We have no waterproof groundcovers, do we?” D’Artagnan shook his head.
“Then we should change back into our wet clothes so as not to get these dry ones wet, also.”
Most of the clothing that had been drying in the cart was dry by then, but they decided to change, anyway.
“I am so glad to be back into my robes. I am, of course, grateful to you gentlemen for the loan of your garments, but I am more comfortable dressed as I am meant to be.” Brother Xavier sighed.
They found a sheltered spot and pulled the cart under a large tree away from the road. They were able to light a small campfire fairly close and made a
small feast of the bread and cheese left of their provisions.
They moved some of the contents of the cart to the seat and hung the rest from a tree branch to keep them dry. The two monks managed to fit into the cart for the night and snuggled into the blankets for warmth.
“Do you think we need a guard,” Porthos asked. “It’s unlikely that we will be attacked again, but just in case . . .”
“Yes,” D’Artagnan interrupted. “I think that would be a good idea. Would you like to stand watch first? I think two hours apiece should be enough.”
“I will. Who will go next?”
Aramis agreed to go second. Then Athos chose third. That left D’Artagnan to be last. Porthos settled in against the tree and the other three crawled under the cart as far as they could manage, to sleep.
Despite the thunder during the night, it didn’t rain on them directly. But the dew was again heavy and parts of their clothing were damp when they awoke.
The next morning, Brother Xavier checked on the cardinal. “He seems to be breathing calmly, but his heartbeat is weak. I think he must need food. I’ll see if I can wake him.”
After changing back to their dry clothes, they got out the stores they had left and looked for anything that the cardinal could eat.
“I found some dried meat,” Athos said as he pulled a piece out of a bag. “I can cut it up into fine bits and mix it with a bit of the small beer we have left. That would make a sort of cold soup.” They did so.
After Brother Xavier had roused the wounded man, he checked how he was healing, then propped him into a reclining position and began to feed him.
They all ate a sparse breakfast of cheese and bread and got back on the road. The day was overcast, but they remembered the direction they had been going the day before, and headed that way again.
“Allais, get out your map and try to figure out where we are,” suggested Athos. “You knew where we were supposed to go the other day. Maybe you can work backwards.”
“A good idea, Gerard,” replied D’Artagnan, and dug the map out of his saddlebag, along with the itinerary that Cardinal Tremblay had given him. He searched for the town they had been headed to before they got lost. “The last place we stayed, before the attack, was Moutieres-au-Perche. The next night we were supposed to be in Remalard.” He thought for a moment. “We turned off the road to our right, didn’t we, to camp for the night the first time? That would have been to the north. Then we had to keep going that way to avoid being discovered. We crossed the creek and kept going north. Then we ran into the game warden who directed us to keep going to find a road. The village we stopped in was called Bizou. We then continued west on the road. So we should be around – here.” He pointed to a spot on the map. “I think.”
“How close to the route the cardinal gave us are we now?” Athos asked.
“Not very close at all. But we seem to be going the right direction. Should we continue on this road or try to go back?” D’Artagnan said.
“Would going a different way get us there faster?” Aramis asked.
“We don’t even know where ‘there’ is,” complained Porthos. “Where are we headed, anyway?”
“We are going to, uh,” he consulted the itinerary. “Nantes. It’s to the west and south from here.”
“What’s in Nantes?” Porthos asked.
D’Artagnan looked at him pointedly. “Brother Etienne’s family home, of course.”
They got on their way after rearranging the remainder of their supplies in the cart. The passenger had more room, which could be a problem. It meant that their food supply was getting low and would need to be replenished soon if they had to camp again.
“I hope we can find an inn for the night,” said Porthos. “I am so tired of camping.”
“I remember when you said you would be willing to sleep on the kitchen floor if you had to,” teased Aramis.
“Yes, I would. But kitchens are generally inside a building away from the elements. By the way, when we do restock our food supplies, could we please purchase some good wine? Beer is good. It’s wet and better than bad wine, at least, but good wine is the drink of the gods, and I want some.”
“Anything else, your highness? A roast capon? Some chocolate? We’ll ask the innkeeper if he can provide,” Athos taunted.
“All right! Tease me if you will. I have expensive taste,” Porthos replied.
“On an ale budget.” Athos grinned and slapped his friend on the back. “We’ll get what we can get and be happy for it.”
They reached a small village around lunchtime, but there was no inn.
“Go on and I will catch up to you. I’ll try to buy some food and meet you at the other end of town,” D’Artagnan told the others.
After they had gone ahead, he hailed a woman who was walking along the road.
“Madam, have you any food I can purchase? My friends and I are running low on foodstuffs and have a long way yet to go.”
She looked him up and down. From his boots and the tack on his horse, not to mention the quality of the horse, she decided he could probably afford to pay well. “I have a bit, but I must feed my family. What are you asking for?”
“Some bread and cheese, if you can spare it, and possibly some wine.”
“And what can you pay for it?”
They haggled a bit and came up with a price acceptable to both. The exchange was made and D’Artagnan rode the short way to meet his friends.
“Here we are,” D’Artagnan said as he rode up to the others. “I have found a feast.”
“Where is your hat,” Aramis asked. “Did you pay for the food with it?”
“No, but I did have to leave it as surety that I would return the pitcher I brought with wine in it.”
They pulled the cart off the road a few feet and everyone gathered around it. D’Artagnan spread his purchases on the bed of the cart to show them off.
“Bread and cheese” Aramis said. “That’s nothing special. Didn’t we just have that this morning?” D’Artagnan admonished him.
Another sack was placed in the bed of the cart. He took out a stoppered pitcher of wine. “This is for you, Georges. And the rest of us, of course.”
They set to and before long all the bread and cheese had vanished. The pitcher was well on its way to being empty.
“One last drink and we will leave. I’ll go return the jug and retrieve my hat.”
When D’Artagnan returned with his hat, the company moved on.
The day was lingering and getting hot. The road was not shaded by trees, but was leading them through a field where cows grazed near a pond.
“Beef!” exclaimed Athos. “I wish it was going to be our dinner. Alas, I’m afraid that we will be eating what is left of our stores. Meager pickings.”
“We may yet come to a village with an inn,” Aramis said. “A real bed would certainly be welcome. A floor in the kitchen for you, Georges, of course. You seem so fond of them.”
Porthos just grumbled a moment. He fanned himself with his hat, then shaded his eyes with it. “That may be a village ahead.” The haze in the air, plus the lowering sun in their eyes proved to interfere with their sight, but a few yards further brought the village into better focus.
“I think I see the sign for an inn,” D’Artagnan said. A little farther, he read “The Blue Whale. A strange name for an inn, or perhaps we are closer to the coast than we thought.”
“I don’t care if the inn’s name is The Depths of Hell,” returned Porthos. “I will sleep in its bed and eat its food.”
“Then it may be fortunate for us that that’s not its name,” D’Artagnan replied. By that time they had pulled close to the building. “It doesn’t look to be in very good condition. Pull the cart around the back. Gerard, come with me to see about rooms.”
“Of course, Allais,” Athos replied. “We will be back soon,” he called to the others.
“Doesn’t it seem strange to you that there are no villagers in the streets?” D’Artagn
an asked his friend.
“As a matter of fact, it does. I hadn’t noticed before, being rather excited by the village and the inn,” he replied. “Maybe they’re all inside. Shall we go in and see?”
D’Artagnan opened the door to a dark room. No fire blazed in the fireplace. Though it was rather hot for a fire, most inns had a small fire lit for extra light. They moved through the room toward the bar, calling out in case someone was there. They finally made their way to the kitchen, where there was also no fire burning.
“I think this inn may be abandoned. I wonder why.” D’Artagnan turned toward the steps to the second floor. “Let’s try upstairs.”
That floor seemed empty as well. There were beds and bedding in the six rooms, but no occupants.
Athos, who had accompanied his friend to the second floor, rummaged through the bedclothes on one of the empty beds. Pulling back the blanket, he said to D’Artagnan, “Here’s something.” He picked up a small book and opened it. “It’s a prayer book.” He rifled the pages. “And it doesn’t look like a proper Catholic one, either.” He took it over to D’Artagnan and handed it to him. “This looks like it’s Protestant. Why would such a book be left at an inn? Shall we take it with us? If nothing else, we could use it to start a fire.”
“I’m sure that Protestants travel, too,” D’Artagnan said. “Perhaps we should leave it in case the owner returns for it.”
“I want to go back to the kitchen and look around,” Athos said. “Something looked wrong to me.”
In the kitchen again, they started to actually search the room. The cupboards were bare of anything edible, although there were pots and dishes and cups. In fact, everything a cook would want was there except food to feed the nonexistent customers.
They went out the back door to confer with the rest of their company.
“I don’t understand what’s going on,” Aramis said. They were inside the stable, which held no horses and no grain to feed any. “There is a stream behind here. We should tie the horses there so they can drink. Then we should search the houses.”
They led all the horses except the still-hitched cart horse to the stream. There was also sweet grass by it for them to eat.
The Hunt for The Red Cardinal Page 14
