The musketeer's apprentice (23 page)
Read The musketeer's apprentice Online
Authors: Sarah d' Almeida
And Athos wondered if the extravagant pastime had been purchased with murder.
Horses and Memories; Guillaume’s Trip; Porthos’s Subtlety
"DIDN’T
the grooms talk to you?” Athos asked.
the grooms talk to you?” Athos asked.
Porthos looked startled, as if, Athos thought, he never expected such a question. He frowned slightly as he said, “Oh, they talked.”
“Then why had you left to stand by the gate?” Athos asked.
Porthos shrugged and looked away, at the facades of the houses they were walking past, as though something riveted him in the stone fronts, the tall windows.
“Porthos!”
A deep sigh answered Athos frustrated exclamation. Slowly, Porthos turned to look at Athos. “Athos, I think the boy was my son.”
“Oh, not this again, my friend,” Athos said. “Surely no one needs to explain to you that there are many girls who come from the provinces and who are with child. Surely you understand that just because Guillaume—”
“It’s not that.” Porthos’s voice, loud even when controlled, had burst forth from him like something torn out against his will. Its echoes reverberated off the walls. He shook his massive head, the red hair glinting under the midday sun. “It’s not that, Athos. I have reason . . . I have . . . reason.” His throat worked, as he swallowed, convulsively.
Was that the shine of tears in Porthos’s eyes? Athos was afraid of looking too closely. He’d seen Porthos angry and happy. He’d seen Porthos drunk and confused. He’d never seen Porthos cry. He didn’t want to see it now.
Looking away from Porthos, he waited, but from Porthos’s breathing, from the way he stomped as hard as he could, each foot hitting the cobbles as though they’d done him personal injury, he guessed that not only was something working at Porthos, but the something was of a kind that made his words tie in knots within the giant musketeer and refuse to come out.
If he demanded that Porthos explain himself now, he would only make Porthos more inarticulate and more angry at himself for being inarticulate and eventually that anger would spill over onto Athos, as if it were all Athos’s fault—because it had to be someone’s fault, after all. If Athos pushed now they could come to one of those awkward situations in which Porthos challenged Athos for a duel, then apologized for doing it, and then did it all over again. It would be an hour before he could get any sense out of him, unless he proceeded very carefully indeed.
Normally this was a task better left to Aramis who, for all he enjoyed teasing his giant friend and arguing with him over minute things, knew Porthos better than anyone else did.
But Aramis was away, at some alchemists or chemists or physicians, and not here, to talk sense to Porthos. So Athos tried. “Porthos, start at the beginning. How did you approach the grooms? What did they tell you?”
“I started by looking at the horses,” Porthos said. “And making comments, all the while making out like the only thing I wanted was to wait for you, and like I couldn’t figure out what was taking you so long or why. A touch of impatience. ”
Athos nodded, without looking at Porthos, but guessing that Porthos was looking at him.
“It wasn’t difficult,” Porthos said. “They have some fine Arabians there, and an Andalusian beast, freshly imported, whom they hope will stud their mares. I tell you, I never saw such a stable in the city. It would rival some of the best ones even in the provinces that are known for horse rearing.”
“Indeed,” Athos said, soothingly, hoping to spin the whole tale out of Porthos by starting with this unassuming, unthreatening gossip, the same way that Porthos had discovered whatever he’d discovered from the grooms. “Monsieur de Comeau has exceptional taste in horses.” He chose not to tell Porthos about how he couldn’t understand where the money for the horses was coming from, nor to vent any suspicions of Coquenard’s involvement. Not yet.
“Yes. And so we talked about horses for a while and then I said I knew a boy who used to work . . .” He stopped, his voice failing. “A boy who used to live at the Hangman, and how his name was Guillaume.”
Porthos paused, a long pause and, for a moment, Athos was afraid that Porthos had, once more, become lost in his own thoughts and that he wouldn’t find his way out. But after a silence, the musketeer burst out with, “Athos, all of them knew him. I think he spent most of his day there.”
“But we knew this, Porthos, or suspected it. The hosteler, Martin, said that he’d tried to find employment . . .” Looking up, out of the corner of his eyes, he saw Porthos shake his head.
“Oh, no. That was not the sole thing. That wasn’t even the most important thing,” Porthos said. “I can’t verify that he tried to find employment at all, in fact, unless you count as employment that he came and helped the grooms at all their tasks, in exchange for a crumb of bread and a drop of wine. I don’t think he ever tried to attach himself to Monsieur de Comeau or wear his livery. And . . . Athos, he had him thrashed.”
“Yes,” Athos said, sensing the passion behind his friend’s words and making his own words as calm as possible. “Yes. He told me so himself.”
“God’s Blood, why?”
“Because the boy imposed on him,” Athos said. “Tried to tell him that he was his bastard son. Tried to get Monsieur de Comeau to make him an alliance and to—”
“Are you sure?” Porthos asked.
“It’s what Comeau told me,” Athos said. “In this case, of course, there is always the question of someone telling the truth.”
“In every case, ever, there is the question of whether people tell the truth,” Porthos said, speaking with the gravity of an oracle. “Guillaume never asked me for money and never told me he was my son.”
“And yet you think he was?”
There was a long and sharp intake of breath. “I think it very likely he was,” Porthos said. “Very, very likely. I don’t know how to . . . You see, there are too many coincidences. ” His voice trembled, part in grief and part in frustration, and once more he showed a tendency to become snared in his inner thoughts and unable to express himself.
“Just tell it as you came to it,” Athos said. “Slowly.”
“Well,” Porthos said. “All the grooms praised Guillaume. They thought he was very smart, and of course, he knew a lot about horses, because he was probably looking after travelers’ horses since he was old enough to stand and hold a bridle.”
“Probably,” Athos conceded.
“And he never asked for payment for his work, though the grooms did take him out to . . . other taverns, when they went. I gather they didn’t drink at home. And they would buy him food and drink. And they gave him things, you know . . . a used pair of breeches, a mended doublet.”
Athos nodded thinking that such clothes as the boy had died in would not have been come by through gifts from grooms or other people of like quality. He didn’t say anything, but Porthos’s mind must have been running on the same path, because he said, “Of course, they said he must have found someone else to give him clothes, recently, because he showed up in fine violet velvet, the likes of which they’d never seen. Or rather, he wore his normal clothes but he would change into fine violet velvet before leaving. I think he was coming to me for lessons then.”
Athos nodded. He thought so too.
“And they said,” Porthos said. “That he’d come by money too. You know, throwing money around and demanding to pay his share of the drinks and the meals.”
Athos didn’t say anything, as there was nothing he could say to that. Where money was coming from in this matter was something that he would very much like to know. It seemed to him, that alone might solve the whole thing, and for a moment was tempted to tell Porthos to ask his Athenais whether she could trace it.
But Porthos was going on. “And then,” he said. “About a month ago Guillaume was gone for a week. He told them he was going to a village, where his mother had come from. ” A struggling breath, as though Porthos’s head where breaking above water after a long dive. “And the village was St. Guillaume du Vallon.”
Porthos looked at Athos as if he had made some dramatic revelation, but Athos had absolutely no idea what it could be. So the boy had gone to the village his mother had come from. What did that mean? “Were you teaching him fencing then?”
“Had been,” Porthos said. “For a few weeks. And he did tell me he was going to be absent for a week, but I had no idea where he went. I thought . . .” He shrugged. “If I had known. If only I had known.”
“But why Porthos?” Athos asked. “What would it have signified? So the boy was named after his mother’s village. What can it mean to you?”
“What can it mean to me, Athos? How can you be so calm? What would it mean to you to find you had a son, already grown to half man, and you not knowing him, not having any idea you had him?”
Athos blinked. “His name was Guillaume, and his mother’s village was St. Guillaume of something or other. How does this tell you that his mother . . .” And then Athos remembered. It had been stupid of him not to think of it earlier, only of course, when he’d met Porthos he already called himself Porthos. And yet he’d seen Porthos’s name but recently, in the genealogy in the boy’s pouch. “Du Vallon, ” he said. “By God, Porthos, du Vallon.”
Porthos sniffled, and Athos couldn’t tell if he was doing it to control tears or in annoyance at Athos’s slowness of mind. “I told you she was my Amelie. There’s nothing of her in that wench at the tavern, nothing I can tell you, at least, but I think there has to be . . . a turn of the head, a tilt of the brow. Something about her made me think of Amelie. And it was Amelie, Athos. It was. And Guillaume was my son.”
Biting his lip, confused, Athos thought how this would look now if the crime were found out and not a murderer ready for it. The boy had been Porthos’s bastard. The boy had already demanded money from Monsieur de Comeau on the pretext that Monsieur de Comeau was his father. What would people think but that he’d also demanded the like tribute from Porthos, and that Porthos had killed him instead of paying.
It wasn’t possible. No one should think it. Porthos was more likely to fell someone, anyone, with a blow of his huge fist, a quick strike of his nimble sword. What was more, he could easily have killed the boy—if he’d wanted that—and looking at Porthos who swallowed convulsively in an effort to control his tears, Athos knew he’d never wanted it. But if Porthos had wanted the boy dead, it would have been the work of a few seconds to strike out with his sword during one of their practices and claim it had all been by accident. Who could gainsay it who hadn’t been present? Who was there in the world who could have sworn otherwise?
And if Athos said that, if . . . If the crime were discovered and Porthos taken for it, and Athos were to say that striking by stealth, with poison, was all out of Porthos’s character, people would only tell him that Porthos was stupid and that he would think that a poisoning would never be found. Of course, Porthos wasn’t stupid, but few beyond his three most intimate friends would know that. Very few.
“Porthos,” he said. “It is a damnable situation.”
“Yes,” Porthos said. “Oh yes. If I’d known he was my son, Athos . . . If I’d known . . . I’d have . . .”
“Yes?” Athos asked.
“I’d have recognized him,” Porthos said. “I’d have . . . Why, in a few years we could have found him a guard post with some nobleman. We could . . .” He swallowed and was silent.
And in his mind’s eyes, Athos could see Porthos doing just the things he said he’d do. Porthos was no fool, but neither did he, unlike Aramis or Athos, care for the opinions of the world. He would have set the boy up in a proper position and introduced him to everyone in the world.
He would have withstood the pricks of mockery and the smiles of the world and the titters behind their hands at proud Porthos’s recognizing the son of a common whore. And he wouldn’t have cared two figs for it all, save that it would have given him the opportunity to fight some more duels with just cause.
And yet, what connections did Porthos have? What relatives that might mind what they would view as a humiliation for their whole line? And did Porthos have any relatives in Paris who might somehow have seen to the heart of the plot.
When Athos had told D’Artagnan that the great noble houses were all related to each other, he’d been speaking nothing but the truth. But the fact is, so was the lower nobility. In fact many people at about the same level married and married again, till their families were an interconnected web of affinity.
Of course Athos wouldn’t know much about families at Porthos’s level of nobility. Too young a line; too newly come to wealth and name. Athos could very well imagine what his father would say of Athos’s even deigning to greet such in the morning, much less be their close friend.
This meant Athos didn’t even know if Porthos might have near cousins in Paris, much less distant ones. And they were so secret about their identities—which Monsieur de Treville knew, and probably other people in Paris, but about which they never talked, not even to each other— that there had been no talk of family. He knew that Aramis and D’Artagnan were only children simply because they’d volunteered the information. But as for the others . . . For all he knew Porthos was the seventh of ten brothers, all of them living in Paris, and at least half of them resentful of the idea of a bastard nephew, and one born in a barn, yet.
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