Book 4: The Queen's Musketeers, #4

by R. A. Steffan

  “Captain of the Musketeer Guard, here to see the governor,” Porthos replied briskly. “I have orders for a prisoner release, signed by Cardinal Richelieu.”

  He held out the folded papers so the guard could see Richelieu’s seal. The man nodded, and stood back impassively to let them pass.

  “Escort them to the governor’s office,” he told his companion, who bowed quickly and led the way into the forbidding structure.

  The governor’s position was still held by the same man who had overseen the prison when Milady had been here before. His hair was whiter, his craggy face craggier. Milady knew him as a fair-minded man with a difficult job, and it was obvious when they greeted each other that he and Porthos must have had regular dealings over the years.

  Milady was surprised when the man’s gaze landed on her, a spark of recognition in his eyes.

  “Well, well,” said the governor. “Bit of a reversal from last time, it seems.” He gestured for the papers and cracked the seal, reading the orders with quick flicks of his pale eyes. “Yes, this all seems in order. Good. The Comte is a gentleman to the core, but he has not thrived during his captivity. It’s as well you’ve come for him.”

  Milady caught her breath in response to the surge of worry that overtook her upon hearing the governor’s words. She was suddenly and embarrassingly grateful for the grounding touch of Aramis’ hand, still resting on her arm. The governor gestured for them to follow as he picked up a heavy key ring and led the way into the warren of chambers and corridors.

  Olivier’s cell was on the lowest floor that was still above ground level, presumably because of the difficulty of moving him up or down stairs with a broken leg. With every step closer, Milady’s heart raced faster, clammy sweat breaking out on her brow despite the damp chill of the place. By the time the governor stopped in front of a locked door identical to the dozens of doors they had already passed, she could barely breathe. The key turned in the lock with a clank, and the door swung open. She hung back, balking, just out of view of anyone within the cell as Porthos and d’Artagnan pushed inside eagerly.

  “Well, now,” Porthos said, “it took a little doing and no thanks to you, but it looks like we’ve finally got this mess sorted out. You’re a free man, and we’ve come to take you home.”

  “On the contrary,” said a tired voice—a voice Milady knew almost better than her own, “As we have previously discussed, I am a guilty man, and I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Really?” d’Artagnan put in. “Because we’ve got someone here with us who might just change your mind about that.”

  “Oh?” Olivier replied. “Has Aramis come back to call me an idiot again, then?”

  “Well, you are an idiot,” Aramis called from his place next to Milady in the corridor. The priest forced her frozen body into action by the simple expedient of pressing between her shoulder blades and marching her in front of him toward the open cell door. “However, that’s not what Porthos meant.”

  As she entered the doorway, her eyes met Olivier’s in the flickering torchlight. An instant later, the breath escaped his lungs as explosively as if he’d been punched. He looked pale and gaunt. Haunted.

  Chapter X: November 24th, 1640

  “ANNE...” HE BREATHED, LEANING FORWARD on the narrow bench. His splinted leg rested on a rickety wooden stool in front of him.

  Aramis squeezed past her in the doorway to enter the cell with the rest of them. “She arrived on my doorstep several days ago. We all know what happened with the Flemish ambassador and the Spanish mercenaries, so you can do us a favor now and stop with the condemned criminal act.”

  Olivier’s dazed eyes flickered from Milady’s face to Aramis’ and back again. “Anne,” he repeated, ignoring the rest of it, breathing as heavily as if he’d just run a footrace. His hand lifted, reaching for her as she stood, statue-like, just inside the heavy door—a fly trapped in amber. “Oh my God in heaven. Come here, come here.“

  When she did not move immediately, Aramis muttered, “Oh, for the love of...” and gave her another gentle shove.

  The physical jolt caused the stuck cog in her mind to start turning again, and with a high sob, she stumbled forward the last steps and threw herself into her husband’s arms.

  “Anne, my dearest Anne,” Olivier said, dragging her closer as if he could pull her inside his own body somehow and hold her there forever, “I was so afraid... I thought I’d lost you...”

  Milady sobbed again, and buried her face in her husband’s neck, clinging to the moment and dreading what was certain to come next. Before she was remotely ready for it, Olivier eased her back a few inches and, with painful hope lighting his face, asked, “Charlotte?”

  Looking away and down to avoid his eyes, she whispered, “I’m sorry, Olivier... I’m so sorry!”

  She felt his full-body shudder through his grip on her arms. Realizing what it sounded like, d’Artagnan quickly said, “Athos, no! That’s not what she meant. Charlotte is alive. She’s alive. The men who abducted her separated her from Milady and took her somewhere else. Milady escaped. She and Aramis tracked down the person behind the whole plot and captured him only last night. He was a spy working for the English, trying to foment war between France and Spain. The Cardinal is arranging for a prisoner trade—the English agent in exchange for Charlotte.”

  Olivier sagged in relief, breathing raggedly as he pulled Milady close once more. She wrapped her good hand in the material of his shirt and held tightly.

  “I failed you,” she said into his shoulder. “I’m so sorry. I tried to protect her and I couldn’t!”

  Olivier buried his face in her hair, muffling his next words. “I couldn’t protect either of you,” he said, his usually strong voice wavering slightly.

  Aramis had been watching the scene unfold. “Fortunately God was watching over both of you, and stepped in as necessary,” said the priest, folding his arms across his chest in satisfaction. “Just as He is now watching over Charlotte.”

  The faintly smug tone helped them both regain a modicum of control. Olivier let out a noise that could have been irritation or amusement, and looked up. His sharp gray eyes catalogued Aramis’ bruises and cuts. “I gather that God recruited you into the effort as well, old friend,” he said after a moment.

  “If so, God may be a little bit miffed about the part where Aramis seduced a Vicomtesse and left her naked and tied to a bed,” d’Artagnan muttered in the background.

  Aramis blithely ignored him, and replied, “I strive to go where I am most needed.”

  When Olivier reached out a hand to him, keeping Milady tucked against his side with the other, Aramis took it and allowed himself to be pulled down until Olivier could place a heartfelt kiss on his forehead. “Thank you, mon cher ami,” he whispered against Aramis’ skin.

  Aramis smiled as he straightened. “It was a group effort, truly,” he said. “Though none of us would have gotten very far in our investigation without Milady.”

  “Thank you all, for bringing her back to me,” said Olivier, gesturing to draw Porthos—predictably teary-eyed—and d’Artagnan over for brief, one-armed embraces as well.

  “No thanks are necessary, my friend, as you well know. Now, though,” Aramis said, rubbing his hands together, “it is past time to get you out of this place and back to more welcoming surroundings. We have a carriage waiting outside, and I daresay that between them, Porthos and d’Artagnan are more than capable of helping you to it. How is your leg faring, by the way?”

  “Damn my leg,” Olivier growled. “Help me up and let’s be going.”

  “Pithy as ever,” Aramis replied lightly. “If I may, Milady?”

  Reluctant as she was to be parted from her husband, Milady reached up and allowed Aramis to help her to her feet and steady her. Porthos and d’Artagnan hefted Olivier between them, slinging one of his arms over each of their shoulders to support him.

  The governor, who had hung back during their reunion to give at least the illusion
of privacy, stepped forward to rejoin them as they left the cell.

  “I wish you well, Monsieur le Comte,” said the old man with a faintly wry expression. “Do try to stay on this side of the cell doors from now on, if you please. That goes for all of you, actually.”

  He led them back through the twisting warren until they were once again at the front doors, and gestured the two guards to let them out. Porthos helped them all get settled inside the crowded carriage and took his leave with a smile that was still slightly watery, promising to send on any new information as soon as he received it.

  Milady took the chance to examine Olivier more closely in the light from the street lamps that came streaming through the carriage windows, her heart sore at what she saw. He had lost a shocking amount of weight in the relatively short stretch of time since she’d seen him last. His eyes were underlined by dark circles that closely resembled bruises, and it was obvious that his leg still pained him. At least someone had set it properly. She shivered as she remembered the way it lay underneath him, twisted and wrong, as she was dragged away from him in the aftermath of the attack.

  When she looked back up at his face, it was to find him looking at her with the same bereft expression. Aramis and d’Artagnan were watching them both. Aramis sighed.

  “To answer your unasked question, Athos, she has a half-healed bullet graze to the left hip, a fairly serious knife wound through the palm of the right hand, bruising from attempted strangulation, as well as two separate head wounds. And she’s currently undergoing opium withdrawal.”

  Olivier looked paler than before, but merely nodded.

  “Though, to be fair,” d’Artagnan added helpfully, “the various perpetrators are all either dead, or wishing that they were.”

  “I would expect nothing less,” Olivier murmured, drawing Milady back to rest against him once more.

  “I am right here, you know,” she said, trying not to make it obvious how little she actually cared if they talked about her, as long as she could keep leaning against Olivier’s shoulder.

  “Your pardon, Milady,” Aramis said, not sounding particularly penitent. “At any rate, I’ve sent Bazin ahead to ready your house for you. He and I will stay the night, and I believe the lovely Constance will be along with her brood to take over in the morning.”

  Milady wanted nothing more than to be alone with Olivier, but she understood how difficult it would be for the two of them to cope without help, given the limitations imposed by their various injuries. She had not been back to their home since the fateful night of the attack. When the carriage pulled up to the doors and Aramis and d’Artagnan helped them inside, she wasn’t quite sure what to expect. Thankfully, readying the house apparently meant that Aramis had set poor Bazin to cleaning up all the bloodstains and tidying the broken furnishings so that the place no longer looked like the site of a battle.

  Upon hearing the commotion at the front door, the young servant hurried down from upstairs to meet them.

  “Messieurs. Madame,” he said, breathless, shuffling to a stop and bowing deeply. “Father d’Herblay told me about what happened. Forgive the intrusion into your home, but I have tried to clean up as best I could on such short notice. The master suite has been freshened and aired if you would care to retire there for the evening?”

  “Thank you for your efforts, Bazin,” Olivier said, his voice lacking its usual strength after the exhausting day and his painful journey from the Bastille.

  “Yes, thank you,” Aramis added. “That will be perfect. You’ve done well, Bazin.”

  The young man practically glowed under the praise, and Milady sensed that with those simple words, all his bitterness and worry about Aramis’ fall from priestly perfection had been forgotten.

  “There is a simple meal ready for you as well,” Bazin added. “Just soup and bread, I’m afraid...”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Olivier and Milady said in nearly the same breath.

  “Yes, that will be necessary,” Aramis retorted immediately. “D’Artagnan, you are welcome to stay and eat, but I will certainly understand if you need to return to Constance and the children. The rest of us will be eating, though—even if it means me tying you both to your chairs and pouring soup directly down your gullets.”

  Observing the mutinous looks he received in return, d’Artagnan raised an eyebrow and said, “I’ll stay, thank you, Aramis. It looks like you might need an extra pair of hands for the force-feeding.”

  * * *

  The following days were a trial. Neither she nor Olivier was particularly tolerant of the company of anyone except each other when they were ill or injured. The melancholia and dyscrasia brought on by the poppy tea mixture further shortened Milady’s temper, already frayed thin by her desperate worry for Charlotte and the unrelenting physical pain from her wounds.

  She and Olivier had a couple of tried and true methods of coping with each other’s rough edges when things were at their worst—violently passionate sex, and silence. The former was both impractical and unappealing while their injuries were half-healed and their daughter was still missing, so they spent the long hours largely indulging in the latter. When Milady’s withdrawals and cravings allowed it, they could be found curled together on the large bed, using the scent and feel of each other to hold the outside world at bay.

  When her itching and trembling drove her from his arms, she would wander the house like a wraith, torturing herself by sitting in Charlotte’s room or staring at the spot where Olivier had lain, broken and defeated, at the base of the stairway. If it was daylight, eventually Constance would come and drag her into the kitchen, plying her with warm, spiced wine. If it was nighttime, whichever one of Les Inseparables had drawn the short straw that evening would sit with her, engaging in one-sided conversation until the urge to throw something at them became so overwhelming that she retired back to the bedroom and into Olivier’s arms again.

  For his part, Olivier crawled inside his shell and stewed over everything that had gone or could go wrong, railing silently over the limitations of his broken leg. When it got too bad, either Porthos or Aramis would drag a couple of bottles of wine upstairs and proceed to get roaring drunk with him, engaging in mutual verbal evisceration with a surgeon’s precision for an hour or so before emerging—still the best of friends—and leaving him to sleep it off.

  On the fifth day, a knock came at the door. Constance had brought all four of the children with her that morning, and she bade them to wait in the kitchen while she and Milady went to answer it. There was no particular reason to be on edge, but Milady felt a frisson of worry, since no one was expected. Outside, a man, woman and child stood muffled in heavy cloaks, the man’s hand raised in mid-air to knock again.

  “Good heavens!” Constance exclaimed, just as Milady recognized the scarred, one-eyed face within the shadows of his hood. “You’d best come in quickly, before someone recognizes you!”

  “Good afternoon, Constance, Milady,” said Her Majesty, Queen Anne of Austria, as she guided her son inside, followed closely by M. de Tréville, ever the watchful bodyguard despite his elevation into the political realm.

  “Your Majesties. M. Secretary,” Milady greeted, in some considerable surprise. “This quite an... unexpected honor.”

  The visitors removed their cloaks, and Constance carried them away to be hung by the fire.

  “We have news,” de Tréville said, “and Her Majesty insisted on delivering it in person.”

  “Indeed,” the Queen agreed. “Sometimes I feel I shall go mad if I do not escape from the walls of the Louvre for a few hours, and this seemed like an excellent reason to stage a quiet excursion. Henry and I have been most eager to meet with you after these recent, terrible events.”

  Milady felt her heart pounding. “I am honored, Your Majesties. You said there was news, though? Is it about Charlotte?”

  It was no way to address royalty, but Milady had held Ana María in her arms as she wept, mourning the loss of her h
usband. She had shared a campfire with her... wiped the blood and afterbirth from her son—now a strong, nine-year-old boy—when he was born. In private, she and the rest of Ana’s former guard-in-exile essentially had carte blanche when it came to the Queen and her child.

  “Indeed,” de Tréville confirmed. “Is Athos able to receive visitors?”

  Milady clamped down on her need to hear what they had to say now now now. “Of course, Jean-Armand,” she said. “Let me go ahead and make sure he’s awake. Constance can show the three of you up in a minute.”

  De Tréville nodded agreement and the Queen smiled, holding the young King’s hand in hers. Milady dragged her eyes away from the small expression of maternal protectiveness, her own hand aching to hold Charlotte’s once more. She turned and made her way up the staircase, her movements no longer as stiff and sore as they had been a few days ago.

  Olivier greeted her with a question in his eyes.

  “It’s de Tréville, Ana María, and Henry,” she told him. “They arrived at our doorstep, traveling incognito. Apparently there is news; they’re coming up in a minute.”

  Olivier’s expression sharpened immediately. “Help me to the chair,” he said, already sitting up in the bed and hitching his splinted leg awkwardly over the edge.

  “They don’t appear to be standing on ceremony, Olivier,” she told him.

  “Nonetheless, I’d prefer not to greet the King and Queen Regent of France, along with my former commander, while lying flat on my back,” he said.

  “It wouldn’t be the first time,” she pointed out in a dry voice, but moved to help him nonetheless.

  Once he had gained the chair and laced up his shirt, she helped him rest his injured leg on a cassock and arranged a blanket over his lower body, since he was only dressed in braies in order to accommodate the splint. A few moments later, a knock sounded on the bedroom door and Olivier called out for them to enter. Constance opened the door and ushered their guests inside, hovering by the doorway to hear the news.