Though none of this applied, in fact, to Aramis, it would be asking more of him than human soul could bear, to hear his supposed self ridiculed in such terms. After a while, in sheer desperation, he let free the voice that had been the pride of his seminary teachers, and launched in a beautiful Te Deum. It wasn’t easy, of course, because he was half folded over, and a box didn’t exactly have the proper acoustics, but not only did it keep him from listening to the rustics commenting about him, but it also reminded him that the box was not a coffin and that he himself was very much alive.
Reaching the end of his song, triumphant but breathless, he was pleased to note that there was silence from the front. In fact, the silence stretched so long, that Aramis wondered if his singing had finally caused his captors to see the truth.
But instead, he heard at length, one of the miscreants clearing his throat. “Holla, Jean, did you ever know that Pierre could sing that well?”
“No, and in Latin no less. Who would have thought that he paid attention to any of the Mass, even if it was the singy parts.”
“Yeah.”
“Perhaps we were wrong, Marc. Perhaps Pierre is not a worthless bastard.”
“Perhaps not, or perhaps he is a worthless bastard who can sing.”
Their roar of laughter managed to push Aramis past whatever the point of insanity had been. He was now furious. In fact, he was sure if he had a mirror, his eyes would be shining with the same light of absolute, concentrated fury he had so often seen in Athos’s eyes.
Something like a roar escaped his lips, a roar that was lost in the laughter of his two captors and whatever passed for witty repartee between them. And then Aramis twisted himself around, put his shoulder against the lid of the box, and shoved hard.
Nothing happened. But he was too angry to stop. He’d heard somewhere, though he couldn’t remember where, that wood that was still “green,” meaning it still had the sap in it, was in fact less resilient than cured wood. He hoped so, but at this point, it did not matter.
Though he had been raised for the monastery, and the soft work of reading the scriptures, preaching, and perhaps writing his own interpretations of it, Aramis had for years now been living by the sword-which is to say by his agility and his strength too. In battle and on guard, and occasionally when he took the holy scriptures to the poor blighted souls who were female and insufficiently able to elude the guard of brothers or husbands, he had often had to lift heavy weights, climb up or down trellises, swing himself from balconies and other feats that demanded one cultivate muscles, as well as brains and piety.
Now his muscles would serve him well, or he would break himself trying. Bracing his feet, he put his now bruised shoulder up once more, and up against the lid of the box. He pushed, as hard as he could, continuously. For a moment he thought the lid was giving, but then he realized that it was his shoulder that had slipped against the wood.
Gritting his teeth, moving around with small movements, he started to turn himself completely around. It had occurred to him that while his back and his shoulders were strong, his legs had carried him about the length of Paris for several years now, several times a day. And their agility and strength had seen him through several duels. He should be able to break this box with his feet, if his shoulder wouldn’t operate.
“Oh, listen, Marc, it sounds like he’s slithering around inside the box.”
“I’m sure he is, Jean. He’s trying to crawl out the keyhole.”
The first comedian rapped sharply on the box lid. “Eh, Pierre! You’ll have to lose quite a bit of weight to fit through that hole.”
“Oh, I’m sure there’s a part of him that would fit. If Marie is right, it’s not that big.”
Right, Aramis thought, and pulled his knees as close to his chest as he could, to give his feet as much chance of hitting the lid with force as could be hoped for. It wasn’t as much as he would like to employ, since the space inside the box allowed for very little movement, but all the same, he tried, and pulled back all the way and then he kicked out, with all his might.
The lid of the box splintered under the soles of his boots, the two rustics yelled and rose from what appeared to be a bench seat up front, and Aramis, completely conscious of being at a disadvantage, jumped out of the box and landed on his feet.
He realized he was standing on an oxcart proceeding at a bucolic pace through a landscape of fields and trees. He also realized that his blond, wavy hair, having come completely loose from its bind, was hiding most of his face. He pulled it back, with his fingers, and turned a very angry face onto his captors.
They were portly middle-aged man, attired in the clothes of peasants. And they seemed to be trying to figure out a way to jump off the cart-which was easier said than done, as they were hemmed in by the bench at which they’d been sitting, the box in which Aramis had been, and the oxen. One of them, looking over his shoulder, looked about ready to vault over the oxen.
But the other one had the presence of mind to pull off his hat, and to bow in an awkward, if willing, way. “Your worship,” he said. “Oh, Lord help me, your worship. We didn’t know it was you. We thought it was our friend Pierre.”
Through gritted teeth, Aramis said. “Only because you refused to listen.”
“Yes, your worship. That’s us all over. I’m always telling Marc here as we’re too stubborn for our own goods and one day we’ll come a cropper, won’t we, Marc? But you see, Marc’s sister, Marie, she is with child by Pierre, who came to the country some time ago when his father… but that matters not. He came to the country, and he left Marie with child, and it is said he intends to marry a hussy, as works in the palace of the King. And we thought to ourselves, we thought-if we just go into Paris and grab Pierre, we’ll make him see the error of his ways, and he won’t leave until he’s married Marie all right and tight, see?”
Now Marc too was regarding Aramis with a faintly hopeful air and a completely maniacal grin, and holding his hat, squashed, in his blunt-fingered hand. “You can’t refuse to acknowledge,” Marc said, “that a brother should love his sister, can you?”
Aramis, eyes blazing, was quite beyond controlling his tongue. “No, but I do think perhaps if your ancestors had indulged in a little less of that, you’d have been able to understand my words before now, wouldn’t you?” And seeing Marc’s mouth open. “And for the love of heaven, don’t call me worship and don’t agree with me or I shall not be responsible for my actions.”
The sad thing was that though his bruised shoulder still hurt like the blazes, and though he felt as though he’d dislocated something moving about in that infernal box, he found the complete and unredeemable cowardice of the two of them very funny indeed. And if he let himself go, he would start to giggle and guffaw, which could not possibly happen. So he spoke through gritted teeth that, they weren’t to know, were being held together against laughter. “Do you still have some wine? And some bread? I haven’t eaten since yesterday. And turn this infernal cart around and take me back home.”
Jean, or perhaps Marc, resumed his place on the bench of the driver, and started executing what seemed to be a complex maneuver of pulling the reins this way and that. It had absolutely no visible effect, and eventually his comrade got tired and said, “Jean, wait. I’ll dispose his… I mean… this person… I mean, Monsieur…”
“Aramis.”
“Monsieur Aramis,” Marc said, not even bothering to enquire the provenance of such a strange name. “I’ll dispose Monsieur Aramis with something to eat, and then I’ll help you turn the animals around, for you know it’s going to take a rod on their noses. A more stubborn couple I never met, if very reliable.”
Moments later, Aramis, sitting down with a linen napkin-procured from the depths of another box and surprisingly very clean-on his knees, was the sole proprietor of the delights of good dark bread, a glass full of wine that, from wherever it had come, was much better than even Athos’s vintage, and a handful of dried figs. As hungry as he was, this seemed to him like a banquet from the gods. And as for the spectacle of watching the two men trying to turn around oxen that were fully as stubborn as they were, it was doubtless as good as anything the theater had to offer.