The musketeer's apprentice (32 page)

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Authors: Sarah d' Almeida

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“Yes, yes, but still,” Porthos said. “Monsieur Coquenard wouldn’t be likely to know that. He doesn’t set great stock in the work of the sword.”
“Oh, yes, but doubtless he has informants,” Aramis said. “All merchants do. And you know, it might give Monsieur Coquenard greater satisfaction to see you killed on the gallows than to have you murdered on the streets. Can’t you see?” He looked at Porthos, who shook his head, at Athos who shrugged, and then at D’Artagnan who was aware of looking blank. “Oh, do none of you understand women?” Aramis said, in a tone of great exasperation. “A lover killed in a duel, or a lover killed in an alley, by stealth, would remain in any woman’s mind and heart for the rest of her life. But one who was put to death by the King’s justice after having killed a child? A woman would be likely to recoil and repent from such an unworthy attachment and turn back to her husband all the more faithfully for feeling she had wronged him.”
“So, Monsieur Coquenard,” Porthos said.
“Yes, yes. And of course the Cardinal.”
“Why would the Cardinal concern himself . . .”
“Who knows?” Athos said. “Perhaps he wants de Termopillae to inherit. The Cardinal seems to spend half of his time disposing the noble families of France as though they were chess pieces on a tray. If he disposed of you for that reason, it would not surprise me in the least.”
“And the fact remains,” D’Artagnan said. “That there is no other way to explain all the attacks we’ve suffered from men who are clearly sent by the Cardinal, a lot of them guards, not wearing uniform, but guards nonetheless.”
“We’ve not been attacked in very long,” Athos said. “Not since we came out to Du Vallon.”
Aramis crossed himself. “That is the sort of thing you should never say aloud, Athos.”
But Porthos was looking past all of them, at the countryside which, though half a day’s ride from his home, must still look much like that in which he’d passed his childhood. “And let’s not forget my father in that list of suspects, ” he said. “Let’s not forget my dear father.”
He wiped his hands on some grass by the wayside and got up. “Let’s go,” he said, preparing to mount. “I want to be in Paris. The countryside is even more confusing than the city, and I fear that there are more plots brewing here than there.”
Where a Roadside Ambush Is Not In Fact a Roadside Ambush; The Effect of Country Air on Parisian Ruffians
THEY
arrived to the hostelry late in the evening. D’Artagnan longed for nothing so much as a bed, and a respite from the continuous bounce of the saddle. While their servants took the horses to the stables, the four of them entered the inn.
The first impression D’Artagnan received was that it was full. Very full. Which struck him as odd since, on the way out, they’d found the place empty, its tables dusty and half its candles unlit, two of its three cooking hearths cold.
Now every table was occupied and not only the wenches who had helped serve them, but also three or four stable lads were circulating amid the tables carrying food and drink.
That was his first impression, and second upon it a more startling one. Half the people in the inn were dressed in good attire that yet bore no marks, no shield, no note of any particular house or patron. And the other half wore doublets and plumed hats of bright blaring red. D’Artagnan stepped back, straight into Athos, and said, “The guards of the Cardinal,” as he took his hand to his sword.
A look over his shoulder showed him that Athos was already drawing his out, and he jumped aside and drew his, even as Aramis stepped fully in, his demeanor as elegant and composed as ever, although his lips tightened in an expression of displeasure and his hand went to the pommel of the elaborate sword at his hip.
And at every table, the men were standing, drawing their swords.
Counting the opponents and passing thirty, D’Artagnan was aware of Aramis, composedly and with great aplomb, crossing himself. He knew, without looking, that Athos’s face would be composing itself into the mad expression of half resignation but mostly fury that distorted the noble features when Athos was sure that he must die, and took pleasure in the mayhem he would cause before death.
And D’Artagnan closed his eyes and opened them again. And all the men stood, hands on swords. Only, here was a saving grace, that there were two contingents of them—the red-attired one looking suspiciously at the secretive one— and the foes eyeing each other with as much animosity as they showed the three musketeers and D’Artagnan.
The lead of the guards spoke first—he was a tall man, with a scarred face, and it seemed to D’Artagnan they’d met before in the many skirmishes that marked the life of musketeers and their allies in Paris—bowing, and removing his hat. “You led us a good chase gentlemen, and I admit you do the Cardinal credit as foes, but if you think we are going to allow you, here and now, to mock us and confound all the Cardinal’s plans, you are very wrong. Give yourself up to us, now, and we shall go easy on you.”
“That is nonsense,” a pale-haired man with a vague foreign accent said, from the other side. “I’m sure these men had no more intention of doing the Cardinal a wrong than they had of anything else.” He looked at them all and fixed D’Artagnan earnestly. “Sir,” he said, “if you give me a few minutes of your time I’m sure that all will be solved to the mutual advantage of both us and our friends.”
D’Artagnan would very much have liked to believe him, only he remembered this same face all too well, and he remembered this man as one of the dark-attired attackers who had attacked him in Paris. Between these and the guards of the Cardinal there was little to choose and indeed, little certainty that they weren’t acting in concert.
D’Artagnan dared a look over his shoulder and to the side, to see Porthos looking aggrieved, Aramis looking mulish and Athos looking almost gleefully bellicose. There was no doubt in his mind that his friends, too, had recognized their attackers.
“I thank you for your kind words, sir,” D’Artagnan said. “But I find talking to people who have attacked me before, under cover of darkness, extremely distasteful. You will, therefore, do me the honor of crossing your sword with me. En garde!”
The fixed scene of the tavern broke into a panoply of violence. If both their enemies had converged on the musketeers and D’Artagnan, the four of them would have been quickly overwhelmed. But the two factions seemed as intent on fighting each other as on fighting the four of them.
It was not something that D’Artagnan had much time to understand as he found himself fighting, at once, the blond man with the foreign accent and the scarred man who was the leader of the guards of the Cardinal.
The guard—whom D’Artagnan remembered was called Remy—pressed D’Artagnan the hardest, pushing close, and speaking between his teeth, “Come, come, Monsieur D’Artagnan. You’re little more than a child and you can’t think you’ll survive getting involved in such dealings that far surpass your ability.”
D’Artagnan didn’t answer. He had no idea what Remy meant by dealings. He had some vague notion he had displeased the Cardinal and he was not quite sure how. Perhaps by escorting Constance Bonacieux to her mysterious rendezvous or perhaps by interfering with the Cardinal’s plan involving Guillaume and Porthos. In either case, he would fully agree with Remy that these plots surpassed his ability to comprehend. All of which meant nothing. He was honor bound and duty bound to defend his friends, and Remy attacking him like this, pressing him across the bar as he defended himself, crossing amid other duelers, didn’t predispose him to cooperate with whatever the Cardinal might want.
Across the bar, Porthos roared, a sound followed by the noise of breaking crockery and the scream of several people. Through the corner of his eye, D’Artagnan could see that Porthos had grabbed a tray full of drinks from one of the serving wenches and flung it in the face of several of his opponents, in what seemed to be an attempt to clear the path to the bar. What Porthos wanted with the bar, D’Artagnan could not say, except that, knowing how Porthos’s mind worked, he rather suspected that it had something to do with getting himself a drink.
Closer at hand, Athos jumped on top of a table, from which position he could more easily battle six determined opponents four of whom wore the red guards’ uniform.
And to the other side, Aramis was battling half a dozen opponents, all the while lecturing them. “It is an interesting theological question,” he said, between brilliant parries and fulminating lunges, “exactly how—and when—violence is allowed in defense of self, or of a cause deemed just. The very concept of just war, as exposed by St. Thomas de Aquinas in
Summa Theologicae
. . .” Aramis’s voice went on and on, and D’Artagnan was sure that if he paid attention to Aramis he would presently feel dizzy and be unable to continue defending himself. And, despite his long theory in fighting, he had never, in practice met two such seasoned fighters as these foes.
While the two leaders of the attackers didn’t cooperate, neither were they as foolish as their followers, that is, stupid enough to fight each other. Instead, they each pressed for advantage with him and might, occasionally, bare teeth at each other but without, ever, allowing their enmity to distract them from the task at hand.
He was having a hard time keeping his place, and guarding his back, in case either of the two got ideas.
Hearing Porthos yell from the corner of the room, nearest the counter, “Five roast chickens and four bottles of wine, host, now,” did not exactly make him feel better. Oh, Porthos was the best of friends and a man who had, countless times, helped D’Artagnan out of tight binds. But what could he mean by ordering dinner in the middle of this devilish situation?
D’Artagnan, fighting as hard, as fast, as cleverly as he’d ever fought, half expected to hear Aramis rebuke Porthos, as he often did in these situations. When Aramis’s voice didn’t sound, D’Artagnan wondered if the blond musketeer had perhaps died in this fray. A fine sweat beaded D’Artagnan’s forehead at the thought. Would any of them make it out of here alive?
“Athos, catch,” Porthos’s voice called and something— something white and large sailed over the heads of the combatants.
D’Artagnan, half turned away from the door where Athos was fighting, had the impression Athos had indeed caught whatever it was, but before he could think, Athos sounded out the call that so often resounded in Paris, “To me, Musketeers.”
Normally that call, sounded out by a musketeer who’d just been attacked on the streets of Paris, called to the victim any number of willing swords, ready to join the fray. Here, in the middle of nowhere, in a tavern filled with enemy combatants, the call could only mean one thing, and that was that Athos expected D’Artagnan, Aramis and Porthos to flock to him.
More by sound than by sight, particularly since by then most of the candle flames had been extinguished by the candles being used either as projectiles or weapons, he started retreating towards Athos. He was aware of Porthos’s progress in the same direction, from the other side of the room. As usual, the giant made use of whatever he could get hold of as weapons. In addition to the heavy blows of his nimble sword, his progress was marked by sounds of furniture breaking, crockery being flung, and always, the startled screams of those who were not ready for such unorthodox means of combat.
Aramis, on the other side, seemed to still be alive and also moving, in the same direction. At least, D’Artagnan could hear the polished voice of the musketeer who insisted he was practicing for the priesthood, calling out, “May God have mercy on your soul,” just before an opponent’s death scream.
D’Artagnan managed to wound Remy, and had only the blond man to contend with as he approached Athos. He heard Aramis ask Athos, “We retreat?”
“Against such odds,” Athos said. “Only rational option.”
“Besides,” Porthos said. “I want my dinner. Let’s hope that Mousqueton has the horses of Monsieur de Treville ready to go.”
D’Artagnan, still engaged in a fight with the blond man, felt Porthos drag him backwards through the door of the hostelry at speed. Outside, fire and smoke were thick in the air, as well as the screams of men and the terrified sounds of horses, many of whom appeared to be milling free in the yard, or running scared through the open gate of the hostelry and the streets below.
The cause was easy to see, as the stables, a vast edifice that used to be opposite the hostelry, across a well-appointed yard, were on fire, their red glow lighting up the area like the setting sun, and the heat from the conflagration making the late summer night feel like full summer day.
And coming towards them, at speed, were their servants, each of them leading a horse alongside the one on which they were mounted. Athos jumped onto the saddle of the horse led by Grimaud, while Porthos climbed onto the saddle of the horse that Mousqueton led, and Aramis mounted the horse led by Bazin.
Before D’Artagnan could do more than reach for the reins of the horse that Planchet led, there was a sharp pain at the back of his head, and darkness descended over him.
He woke up mounted, somehow, in the front of Athos’s horse, being firmly held. He felt seasick, and his stomach pulled, and there was a devilish weight on his eyelids that seemed to prevent them from climbing fully up.

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