Between Two Kings

by Lawrence Ellsworth

  “Sire,” said Athos, opening a coffer and drawing out gold and gems, “here’s more than we need. Fortunately, there are four of us in case we encounter thieves.”

  Joy brought a rosy flush to the pale cheeks of Charles II. He saw two horses being led up to the portico by Grimaud, who was already booted for the road.

  At the gate, the count said to a servant, “Blaisois, give this letter to the Vicomte de Bragelonne. For everyone else, we’ve gone to Paris. I entrust the house to you, Blaisois.” His servant bowed, embraced Grimaud, and shut the gate behind them.

  XVII In Which Aramis Is Sought but Only Bazin Is Found

  Two hours had scarcely passed since the departure of the master of the house, whom Blaisois had watched until he’d disappeared on the road toward Paris, when a cavalier mounted on a sturdy piebald stopped in front of the gate and called, “Holà!” to the stable boys. They, with the gardeners, were gathered in a circle around Blaisois who, having been left in charge, was giving the estate’s servants their orders.

  The accent of this Holà! sounded familiar to Blaisois, who turned to look and then cried, “Monsieur d’Artagnan!… You there, hurry, run and open the gate!”

  A swarm of eight lively lads ran to the gate and quickly dragged it open, bowing and scraping, for everyone knew the welcome their master always gave this visitor even if the valet’s remarks hadn’t spurred them on.

  “Ah!” said Monsieur d’Artagnan with a pleasant smile, balancing on one stirrup before dropping to the ground. “And where is my dear count?”

  “Your luck is out, Monsieur,” said Blaisois, “and so is that of our master the count, for what will he say when he finds that he’s missed you? Monsieur le Comte, by a stroke of fate, departed less than two hours ago.”

  D’Artagnan didn’t seem very concerned. “All right, Blaisois,” he said. “Since you speak the purest French of anyone, you can give me a lesson in grammar and proper speech while I await your master’s return.”

  “That’s impossible, Monsieur; it would be far too long a wait,” said Blaisois.

  “You don’t expect him back today?”

  “Nor tomorrow, Monsieur, nor the day after that. Monsieur le Comte has gone on a journey.”

  “A journey!” said d’Artagnan. “Nonsense! Admit you’re telling me a fable.”

  “Monsieur, it’s the absolute truth. Monsieur le Comte did me the honor of placing the house in my care, and he added in that voice of his, so full of authority and affection, ‘Tell anyone who asks that I’ve gone to Paris.’ ”

  “Well, then!” said d’Artagnan. “If he’s off to Paris, that’s all I needed to know. You should have told me that right away, you clown. You say he has a two-hour lead?”

  “Yes, Monsieur.”

  “I’ll catch up with him in no time. Is he alone?”

  “No, Monsieur.”

  “Who’s with him?”

  “A gentleman I don’t know, an old man, and Monsieur Grimaud.”

  “They won’t ride as fast as I do… I’m off!”

  “Monsieur, if you will only listen to me for a moment,” said Blaisois, putting a hand to the horse’s reins.

  “All right, but be quick and don’t make a speech out of it.”

  “Well, Monsieur! I believe this mention of Paris was nothing but a decoy.”

  “Oh ho!” said d’Artagnan. “A decoy, eh?”

  “Indeed, Monsieur. I would swear that Monsieur le Comte’s destination isn’t Paris.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “Why? Because Monsieur Grimaud knows where our master is headed, and he promised me that, the next time he went to Paris, he’d take some money along for delivery to my wife.”

  “Oh, so you have a wife?”

  “I have one, a local girl, but Monsieur thought her a chatterbox, so I sent her to live in Paris. Sometimes that’s inconvenient, but at other times it’s quite pleasant.”

  “I understand, but to the point: you don’t think the count has gone to Paris?”

  “No, Monsieur, for then Grimaud would have broken his word, which is quite impossible.”

  “That is impossible,” repeated d’Artagnan, suddenly thoughtful, because he was quite convinced. “Well done, good Blaisois, and thank you.”

  Blaisois bowed.

  “Now, see here, you know I’m not just curious, I have genuine business to conduct with your master. So, think, if you can, of anything he might have said. A single word, even a syllable, you understand, could put me on the trail.”

  “Upon my word, Monsieur, I heard nothing. I’m completely ignorant of Monsieur le Comte’s destination. And I never eavesdrop at doors, as such things just aren’t done in this house, it’s quite forbidden.”

  “Dame, that is going to make it difficult,” said d’Artagnan. “But you must, at least, know when he’s planning to return?”

  “No more, Monsieur, than I know where he’s gone.”

  “Come, Blaisois, are you holding out on me?”

  “Monsieur doubts my sincerity! Oh, Monsieur, I’m stricken with grief!”

  “The devil take his golden tongue! A fool with a loose word would be worth a dozen of him,” muttered d’Artagnan. Then, aloud, “Farewell, then!”

  “Monsieur, please depart knowing I tender you all my respects.”

  “Pompous ass,” d’Artagnan said to himself. “He’s insufferable!” He gave the house a final glance, turned his horse and rode off with the nonchalance of a man who hasn’t a worry in the world.

  But once he was around the wall and out of sight, he took a deep breath and said, “Could Athos actually be at home? No, all those idlers loitering around Blaisois would have been hard at work if their master was around. Athos, on a journey? It’s incomprehensible.”

  He shook his head. “Ah, bah! This is all damned mysterious. But, anyway, he’s not the man I need right now. That man’s in Melun, in a certain presbytery I know of. And that’s forty-five leagues from here, which means four days. On, then—the weather is fine, and I’m free to go where I will! Never mind the distance.”

  Then he put his horse into a trot, on the road toward Paris. On the fourth day he arrived in Melun, as predicted.

  D’Artagnan rarely paused to ask for directions or other common information unless he was seriously off course, preferring to rely on his own wits and perceptions, his thirty years of experience, and his habit of reading the faces of both men and their houses. At Melun, d’Artagnan quickly found his presbytery, a charming old building with plastered red brick walls, vines climbing up to the gutters, and a stone cross atop the gable of the roof. From the ground floor of this house came a noise, or rather a clamor of voices, like the cheeping of chicks when the chattering brood has just hatched. The deepest of these voices was reciting the alphabet in fat, fruity tones, pausing to correct his followers and lecture them on their mistakes.

  D’Artagnan recognized this voice, and as the ground floor window was open, he leaned down over his horse and called out under the vines that grew above the window, “Bazin! Bonjour, my dear Bazin!”59

  A short, fat man, with a flat face, a skull crowned with gray hair cut in an imitation tonsure, and an old black velvet cap, rose when he heard d’Artagnan. Though instead of rose, it would be more accurate to say leapt up. Bazin jumped to his feet, upending his little school chair, which the children scrambled to grab in a scrum that resembled the Greeks trying to wrest the body of Patroclus from the Trojans. Bazin not only jumped, he also dropped his chalk board and stick.

  “You!” he said. “You, Monsieur d’Artagnan?”

  “Yes, me. Where is Aramis… I mean the Chevalier d’Herblay… or do I mean the Vicar General?”60

  “Why, Monsieur,” Bazin said with dignity, “Monseigneur is at his diocese.”

  “You say what?” said d’Artagnan.

  Bazin repeated his statement.

  “Ah ça! So, Aramis has a diocese?”

  “Yes, Monsieur. Why not?”

 
; “He’s a bishop, then?”

  “Where have you been keeping yourself?” said Bazin cheekily. “How did you not know that?”

  “My dear Bazin, we men of the sword, being pagans, know very well when a man is made a colonel or a marshal of France, but devil take me if I’d know if he were promoted to bishop, archbishop, or even pope! We don’t hear such news until everyone else is already over it.”

  “Hush! Such talk!” said Bazin, glaring. “You’ll ruin these children, whom I’ve tried so hard to teach proper behavior.”

  In fact, the children seemed quite taken with d’Artagnan, admiring his horse, his long sword, his spurs, and martial air. They particularly admired his commanding voice, and all began swearing, “Devil take me! Devil take me!” amid gales of laughter, which amused the old musketeer, but made the pedagogue lose his head.

  “There!” he said. “You see? Shush, you brats! Whenever you show up, Monsieur d’Artagnan, all my best efforts are undone! Disorder rides in with you, and Babel is revived! Good God, you rascals, shush!” And the worthy Bazin rained blows right and left that didn’t silence the students, but certainly changed the nature of their cries. “At least,” he panted, “you won’t lead anyone astray this time.”

  “Is that what you think?” said d’Artagnan, with a smile that made Bazin’s shoulders shudder.

  “Oh, yes he could,” Bazin muttered.

  “Where is your master’s new diocese?”

  “Monseigneur René is Bishop of Vannes.”

  “Who appointed him?”

  “Who but the Superintendent of Finances, our neighbor?”

  “What! Monsieur Fouquet?”*

  “Exactly.”

  “Aramis is in favor with him?”

  “Monseigneur preaches every Sunday in the superintendent’s chapel at Vaux, and then they go hunting together.”

  “Ah!”

  “And Monseigneur often composed his homilies, or rather, his sermons, with the advice of Monsieur le Surintendant.”

  “Oh? And does he preach in verse, our worthy bishop?”

  “Monsieur, do not mock at sacred matters, for the love of God!”

  “Settle down, Bazin! Then Aramis is at Vannes?”

  “At Vannes, in Brittany.”

  “Now I think, Bazin, that you’re bearing false witness.”

  “No, just look, Monsieur, the apartments in the presbytery are empty.”

  “He’s right,” d’Artagnan said to himself, as a glance told him the place had the air of an empty house.

  “But Monseigneur must have written to inform you of his promotion.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “A month ago.”

  “Oh, that’s no time at all! Aramis must not have needed me for anything yet. But see here, Bazin, why didn’t you go with your master?”

  “I can’t, Monsieur, I have my duties here.”

  “Your lessons?”

  “And my little penitents.”

  “What, you confess them? Have you been ordained a priest?”

  “I’m going to be. It’s my calling!”

  “When do you take orders?”

  “Oh,” Bazin said complacently, “now that monseigneur is a bishop, I’ll have my orders in no time, or at least my dispensations.” And he rubbed his hands together.

  Deluded or not, he certainly believes it, d’Artagnan thought. “Some dinner, Bazin.”

  “At once, Monsieur.”

  “A chicken, some soup, and a bottle of wine.”

  “It’s Saturday, a day of fasting,” said Bazin.

  “I have a dispensation,” said d’Artagnan.

  Bazin looked at him skeptically.

  “Don’t look at me like that, you cockroach!” said the musketeer. “If you, the servant, are counting on receiving dispensations, then I, the bishop’s comrade, am certainly entitled to some myself, so don’t tell my stomach it can’t have meat. Now be good to me, Bazin, or by God, I’ll complain to the king, and then you’ll never confess anyone. You know very well that the nomination of bishops is the king’s prerogative, and the king’s on my side, so I’ll have my way.”

  Bazin smiled smugly. “You may have the king, but we have the Superintendent of Finances,” he said.

  “Are you mocking the king?”

  Bazin said nothing, but his smile was eloquent.

  “My supper,” said d’Artagnan. “It’s going on seven o’clock.”

  Bazin turned and ordered the eldest of his students to go warn the cook. Meanwhile d’Artagnan was looking over the presbytery. “Huh,” he said. “I doubt Monseigneur finds this worthy of his new grandeur.”

  “Oh, we have the Château de Vaux,” said Bazin.

  “How’s that compared to the Louvre?” d’Artagnan replied archly.

  “It’s rather better,” replied Bazin, with the greatest complacence.

  “Is it?” said d’Artagnan. He might have prolonged the discussion to assert the superiority of the Louvre, but the lieutenant noticed that his horse was still tied to the door handle. “The devil!” he said. “Have my horse attended to! Your master the bishop hasn’t its equal anywhere in his stables.”

  Bazin looked askance at his horse and said, “Monsieur le Surintendant has given us two pair from his stables, any one of which is worth four of yours.”

  D’Artagnan flushed, and his hand twitched as he considered where to bring it down on Bazin’s head. But the impulse passed, he reflected a moment, and contented himself with muttering, “The devil! I was right to leave the king’s service.” He added aloud, “Tell me, worthy Bazin, how many musketeers serve Monsieur le Surintendant?”

  “With his wealth, he could hire every musketeer in the realm,” replied Bazin, setting down his chalkboard and chasing the children away with his stick.

  “The devil!” d’Artagnan repeated.

  Just then it was announced that his supper was served and he followed the cook into the dining room, where his meal awaited him.

  D’Artagnan sat at the table and boldly attacked his chicken. “It looks to me,” said d’Artagnan, gnawing at the tough flesh of his poultry, a fowl they’d apparently forgotten to fatten, “like I made a mistake in not seeking to serve this new master. It seems this Superintendent of Finances is a mighty lord indeed. Really, we know very little at Court, blinded as we are by the rays of the royal sun. It prevents us from seeing the light of other stars, which are different suns just a bit farther away.”

  Since d’Artagnan, from pleasure and purpose, liked to get people to talk about things that might interest him, he did his best to bandy words with Master Bazin, but it was a waste of effort. Other than continual and hyperbolic praise of Monsieur le Surintendant, Bazin, who was on his guard, would say little. He replied to d’Artagnan’s sallies with bland platitudes that did nothing to satisfy his curiosity, and as soon as he’d finished eating the lieutenant went off to bed in a bad temper.

  D’Artagnan was shown by Bazin to a rather mediocre room that contained a decidedly bad bed, but d’Artagnan could sleep anywhere. He’d been told that Aramis had gone off with the keys to his private apartment, which didn’t surprise him, as Aramis was a careful and orderly man, and moreover usually had plenty to hide in his private rooms. He had therefore attacked the bad bed as boldly as he had the tough chicken, and since he had an ability to sleep as healthy as his appetite, he took no more time to drop off than it had taken him to strip his chicken’s bones.

  As he was no longer in anyone else’s service, d’Artagnan had promised himself that he would sleep as long and deeply as he liked, but despite the good faith in which he’d made that vow, and no matter how badly he wished to stick to it, he was awakened in the middle of the night by a great clatter of passing carriages and mounted servants. A sudden flare of lights set the walls of his room aglow, and he jumped out of bed in his nightshirt and ran to the window. Is it the king going by? he thought, rubbing his eyes. A commotion like this can only belong to royalty.

  �
��Long live Monsieur le Surintendant!” called, or rather acclaimed a voice from the ground floor that he recognized as that of Bazin, who was waving a handkerchief in one hand and holding high a candelabra in the other. D’Artagnan saw something like a brilliant human form lean out and bow from the window of the principal carriage, while loud bursts of laughter, no doubt evoked by the comical figure of Bazin, echoed from the same carriage, leaving a hearty wake of joy in the train of the passing procession.

  “I should have known it wasn’t the king,” said d’Artagnan. “No one laughs so loudly when the king passes by. Hey! Bazin!” he cried to his neighbor, who was leaning three-quarters of the way out his window so he could watch the carriages drive off. “Hey! Who was that?”

  “That,” said Bazin smugly, “was Monsieur Fouquet.”

  “And who were all those people?”

  “That was Monsieur Fouquet’s court.”

  “Oh ho!” said d’Artagnan. “Now what would Monsieur de Mazarin think of that?” And he went thoughtfully back to bed, wondering how it was that Aramis always seemed to be in favor with the great powers of the realm. “Is he luckier than I am, or just smarter? Bah!” This was the word with which d’Artagnan, having grown wise, now concluded every internal monologue. Formerly he had said, “Mordioux!” which was a spur to action, but now that he was older, he said a philosophical, “Bah!” and that reminded him to rein in his passions.

  XVIII In Which d’Artagnan Seeks Porthos but Finds Only Mousqueton

  Once d’Artagnan was convinced that the “Vicar General” d’Herblay was really absent, and that his friend was nowhere to be found in Melun or environs, he rode away from Bazin without regret, casting a sour look over the magnificent Château de Vaux as he passed, which was even then beginning to shine with the splendor that would be its ruin. Then, setting his jaw in defiance and determination, he pricked up his horse and said, “Come, come, there’s still Pierrefonds, where I’ll find the finest of fellows with the deepest of pockets. And funds are all I need, since I already have a plan.”