The musketeer's apprentice (29 page)
Read The musketeer's apprentice Online
Authors: Sarah d' Almeida
There would have been a time when any peasant would have been proud to say that their daughter had had the son of Monsieur du Vallon—even if illegitimate. There was a time, and it wasn’t far distant, when even Porthos’s father wouldn’t have viewed Guillaume as a young man’s mistake and nothing much to talk about. At worst, the boy would have been taken from his mother and reared, discreetly, by some order of monks or something. He would have been an acknowledged bastard and, failing of a legitimate successor to the name, the acknowledged heir. His existence would no more have shocked anyone than it would have surprised them.
But the times were changing, as was clear by all this newfound prosperity all around Porthos. He chewed on some excellent mutton and thought it over. In the changed world, the lord couldn’t afford a bastard, because he had no way to support him, or any others with similar claims. And if you couldn’t support them in style, you might as well deny their existence.
By the same reasoning, the newly wealthy peasants should have been glad to embrace an offshoot of noble blood. But it seemed impossible for this new class that was forming, these peasants with money, these merchants with connections, to view morality the way noblemen had once viewed it—as something to be aspired to but, enfin, too demanding for fallible man to achieve in this lifetime, without special grace from the Almighty. In this new class, as he knew from Athenais’s own life, respectability was everything, even when it was just a respectability of semblance without true content. And in this new class, it would be worth throwing your pregnant daughter out for having marred the family honor. Wouldn’t it be equally likely that they would kill their illegitimate grandson, before he could embarrass them before the world?
Porthos felt a headache coming on, but there was nothing for it. Rouge and Morgaine paraded before him their eight children—seven boys and a girl, the youngest, as pretty as Morgaine and full of graces that had once been reserved to the daughters of the nobility.
And it wasn’t until they, all four of them, were shown to the guest room at the back, with its warm-burning fire, its beds with sheets aired and turned and warmed by the fire, that Porthos dared speak to his friends. “It’s hard,” he said, “not telling him the truth.”
Athos—always understanding—inclined his head. “I guessed it would be,” he said. “But Porthos, you may come back and tell him the truth, if you wish, once we know the whole thing. For now, do you really want everyone in the village to know it? Do you want Amelie’s family on their guard before we ever meet them?”
Porthos shook his head. “But Rouge is trustworthy. And though you, Athos, would say that no woman is trustworthy, I would guess that Morgaine is also reliable.”
“Oh, it’s not your friends that frighten me,” Athos said, lowering his voice. “But with all the servants and possibly young relatives—I never understood exactly who all the servers were—coming and going around us at table, I would bet every single thing we said, and every expression, will be all over the village in no time at all.”
Porthos nodded. It would be hard to dispute that. He knew it for the absolute truth. Soon everyone in the village would hear everything they had said.
“But the boy came here,” Porthos said. “And told them that Amelie and I had married before she died and that . . .”
“It is my guess,” D’Artagnan said, speaking quietly from where he was sitting on the bed and removing his boots. “That he came here before he had found you. It is my guess that he came by in the full assumption that you had died—”
“That I had died?” Porthos asked, with some confusion.
“Yes,” D’Artagnan said. “I would assume he thought you were dead, because his mother had looked for you so long in Paris, and yet hadn’t found you. What would be more logical than to think you had somehow died?”
“Oh.”
“Indeed,” Athos said. “And everyone in the provinces knows that life in Paris is full of dangers for those who live by the sword. You might have been killed in any of a dozen duels, any of a hundred skirmishes.”
“Oh, nonsense,” Porthos said. “Why would I die of something like that. It would take a fool to be killed in Paris. Or at least someone luckless or unable to fight ably with the sword. Neither of which I am.”
“But Guillaume wouldn’t know that,” Athos said. “To him you would be nothing more than his mother’s recollection of her childhood friend and lover, someone who had come to Paris and disappeared. He probably thought you dead.”
“And thinking you dead, he thought the most logical thing was to claim that you’d married his mother. Who could trace among the several parishes in Paris, whether you’d actually married or not? Any parish priest might have married you,” D’Artagnan said.
“And the records might easily have got lost afterwards,” Athos said.
“And as such,” Aramis said. “He could claim to be your legal heir and claim your portion.”
“It must have shocked him,” Athos said. “When Rouge and Morgaine told him you were still alive. Fortuitous they got it across before he’d given himself away by proclaiming you dead.” He gave Porthos the weary eye. “Did you write to them and tell them you were joining the musketeers? ” he asked. “They seemed to know it.”
Porthos sighed. “Yes. It seemed like someone should know.”
“But why not write to your father?” D’Artagnan asked, puzzled.
“Because my father doesn’t know how to read,” Porthos said.
“Oh,” D’Artagnan said, looking somewhat shocked.
It was something that Porthos thought his friends would never fully understand, the difference between their upbringing and his. His father thought a lord should care about war only. While Aramis had been brought up for the church. And Athos had grown up with the examples of the men of Greece and Rome, who had left dialogues and memoirs and who knew what else. As for D’Artagnan, from what he said, his life had been half lived in books filled with sagas and legends of heros.
“That’s why I wrote to Rouge and Morgaine,” he said. “So if I came to a bad end in Paris, and somehow word made it out, or Monsieur de Treville sent word out, someone would understand. And so if they needed anything . . . If anything happened to my father . . .”
Athos nodded. “Provident, almost. But I wonder how much they told the boy, and further how he contrived to get it out of them without ever giving away the fact that he hadn’t grown up with you and hadn’t, in fact, the slightest idea where you might live.”
“I think,” Porthos said. “That he was very cunning.”
“Certes, he must have been,” Aramis said, his mouth set in something that might have been humor or regret, or a bit of both.
“And then, after learning you were alive and in the musketeers, and, having seen your father, and perhaps having heard from your friends how much he himself looked like you and how much you, in turn, looked like your father, he decided to approach you. I wonder if he got the parish records of your family before or after finding out. If after, it was clearly with intention of approaching you.”
“By God’s Blood,” Porthos said. “I swear he never brought it up. He never told me I might be his father or tried in any way to extort money or protection.”
“No,” Athos said. “No. And like you, I wonder what that meant.”
“But surely,” Porthos said. “If he didn’t even know I was alive, he couldn’t be part of the Cardinal’s plot against me. Surely if the Cardinal plotted . . .”
“It was without Guillaume’s connivance?” Aramis asked. “Using him rather than enlisting him? I was thinking the same.”
“But then who could have done it?” D’Artagnan asked. “Other than Monsieur de Comeau. Would your father . . .”
Porthos sighed. “In the old days, I would tell you no. My father would be more likely to fell someone with a blow to the head, or attack them with the wood chopping ax than to use poison against them. But then, I don’t think my father ever went up against a boy child. And then, you know, my father despised cunning—the same way he despised reading and all those other arts he called effeminate. And I don’t know how he would choose to counteract someone he’d perceive as cunning and . . . sly. Plus there is the fact that my father is older than he was, and might not have known much about Paris or how to set about things in Paris. He could not have challenged Guillaume to a duel, at any rate.”
“No,” Athos said. “But would he resort to poison?”
Porthos shrugged. “He probably would not, still. Father is . . . a direct thinker. But he might have hired . . .”
Athos nodded. “Indeed he might. As might Amelie’s parents. Or did you not think of that?”
“I did think of that,” Porthos said. “I think we should talk to them tomorrow.”
The Comforts of the Bourgeoisie; Bees and Dogs; Where a Daughter Might Not Exist, but Her Shame Remains
ARAMIS
had to admit that the comforts of this mill house were perhaps greater than the comforts of his mother’s house—a noble manor that was, granted, far more comfortable and cheerful than the abode of Porthos’s father, yet far from this world of fluffed sheets and blankets that smelled of rosemary and other herbs, as if they’d been rinsed in aromatic water.
had to admit that the comforts of this mill house were perhaps greater than the comforts of his mother’s house—a noble manor that was, granted, far more comfortable and cheerful than the abode of Porthos’s father, yet far from this world of fluffed sheets and blankets that smelled of rosemary and other herbs, as if they’d been rinsed in aromatic water.
Early morning the smell of baking bread pervaded the abode, as well it should have, he supposed, since its owners dealt in flour. But their trade did nothing to diminish the credit of having servants who brought warm water for washing and shaving as they did, with all the promptness and politeness that could be managed. And Aramis found himself thinking that perhaps he had been born entirely to the wrong class. He should have been born in a bourgeois household, growing prosperous and full of comforts. There wouldn’t then have been the idea of sending him to the church for the atonement of his mother’s youthful sins.
But then it occurred to him there just might have been. After all, these people seemed to have more of a care for their honor and more of a hidebound honor than even Aramis’s mother could manage. And that reflection of that thought on Aramis’s face seemed to cause a chill in the graceful smile of the wench who delivered the water.
Aramis summoned Bazin who had slept in what he described as a very adequate room at the back, a room shared between the musketeers’ servants and a group of young men who were either servants or young relatives of the master of the house—Bazin was not sure which.
Bazin had helped Aramis shave and brush his hair and dress with the efficiency of long experience. Afterwards, Aramis had read his breviary and said his prayers while the other three rose and proceeded to wash and shave and dress—though Aramis suspected D’Artagnan’s shaving was still more hopeful than necessary. Oh, the boy had a neat beard and a small moustache, but their very neatness, their appearance, was characteristic of hair growth that hadn’t fully come in yet, and not of hair that was carefully trimmed everyday.
At the table, over soup and bread, and honey—apparently the millers had their own bees—and while his wife struggled to keep a semblance of order amid their children, Rouge had said, “I suppose you’ll be going to Amelie’s parents, now, to see what the boy might have done there?”
“Yes,” Porthos said. “Yes. I must find out why they’ve been going to Paris and what they’ve been doing there.”
Rouge nodded. “There must have been a reason, if they didn’t go to reconcile with you and Guillaume. Though perhaps they visited Amelie’s grave.”
“That is possible,” Porthos said, suddenly melancholic, wondering where that pauper’s grave would be and if the sad parcel of ground was even marked.
The rest of breakfast passed with desultory conversation, before Rouge saw them out, with his best wishes, and Morgaine flung herself into Porthos’s arms for one last embrace before leaving. “You take care of yourself, Pierre,” she said. “And that boy of yours. And bring him to visit us soon, will you?”
Looking at Porthos, Aramis was amazed at how his un-subtle friend managed to keep a straight—and even cheerful—face through this, amazed that Porthos did not break down at these words. Oh, he understood his friend enough to know how the words must cut at him. But there was no way Morgaine could have guessed it.
It wasn’t till they were on the main road of the village again, riding into the morning sun, that Porthos permitted himself to wipe his face with the back of his hand, all the while complaining of the sun in his eyes and how it was making them tear. Aramis chose not to divest him of his disguise for his emotion.
They followed Porthos for a while, till they came to a road leading off the main road with its miserable hovels. Down amid fields they led the horses slowly because the road was too rocky and prone to sudden turns. Porthos made pertinent observations as they went. “This was all woods, or maybe sometimes pasture, when I left,” he would say now and then, when passing some verdant field, or some just-harvested one, or rounding the corner of a well-grown orchard. “All woods, and not very good land. I guess Rouge really did make a difference with his mills that pull water from the stream.”
None of them answered. It was doubtful whether their servants behind could even have understood a word of their exchange or what it all meant.
At the end of the road with its border of fields, they came upon a compound that rivaled the houses in Paris— with two pillars supporting a tall iron gate, and the area walled high all around. “
Holá
,” Porthos said. “And this wasn’t here either.”
Holá
,” Porthos said. “And this wasn’t here either.”
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