“Yes, oh yes. If indeed it was my fault that he got wounded; that he might easily have got killed, it is dangerous for me to do anything else that might bring a trap upon him. I shall be as silent as the grave.”
He felt so guilty for having suspected her of perfidy earlier, that he bowed over the hand she proffered to him, and lightly touched it with his lips. Yet he waited till he and Porthos had gone some distance before deciding to speak. But then, Porthos spoke first.
“The devil,” he said. “I wonder what she means by that, that Hermengarde was seen with a musketeer before she was killed.”
“Well, she might not have meant anything at all,” Athos said. “It seems that D’Artagnan did come to the palace earlier and spoke to Hermengarde, even I have gathered that. So it would seem that he was seen with her. You know what people are like about places and times. Quite likely this is what they refer to, and nothing of more import.”
“Quite likely,” Porthos said, but he was biting at his moustache. “The devil of this,” he said, “is that now everyone will naturally think we are involved. I wish I could see Mousqueton and ask him what exactly was happening and what he thought he was doing, to be getting in this sort of trouble.”
Athos felt a sudden stab of enlightenment. “I wish you wouldn’t try to talk to Mousqueton, Porthos, not unless you can arrange it through Monsieur de Treville.” This because he could think of many other ways for Porthos to manage the thing-ways that were more in keeping with Porthos’s peculiar mind. They could involve all or anything, including fomenting an armed revolt that took over the Bastille. Porthos’s capacity for admirable and transforming action was only comparable to his inability to understand the world at large.
“Well,” he said, dolefully. “I don’t think Monsieur de Treville is going to arrange for me to see him at all. And the devil of it is, we might likely find out who killed the armorer by talking to Mousqueton.”
Athos mentally added to his excellent friend’s qualities-or lack thereof-his complete inability to imagine how his words sounded to other people. “You cannot possibly mean that,” he said. “The only way for us to discover that would be to find that Mousqueton had murdered the armorer.”
“What? No. What I mean is that clearly there are other circumstances surrounding this, including Mousqueton’s proposed marriage. It’s all inscrutable without his view of the matter.”
Athos was so surprised that he stopped, stock-still. “Porthos, my friend, did you just say it’s inscrutable?”
“Yes, yes, I did. It means it can’t be penetrated with eye or mind, depending on whether it’s a physical darkness or a darkness of the spirit.” He looked at Athos’s expression, and Athos must have looked back in total shock, because Porthos guffawed. “It’s this new plan of Aramis.’ ”
“Oh?” Athos said, somewhat fearful, because when a plan of Aramis’s involved Porthos in it, the results were usually incalculable and often bizarre.
“Yes. He thinks that if I learn a new word every week, soon I will not feel about long words the way I do, and I won’t confuse their meanings either. So this week, he taught me the word inscrutable, and he has told me to make sure I use it in all possible cases. I presume I used it correctly.”
“Admirably so,” Athos said, suppressing a smile. The friendship between Aramis and Porthos was in itself one of the inscrutable mysteries of life. The two men could not be more different if they’d been knit from entirely different clay, on opposing shores of different continents. And yet, they bore each other’s quirks with greater kindness than the rest of them often could.
They were now at the gate through which they had come, and Athos demurred. “Porthos, I believe I should go and talk to… to the duchess the lady mentioned, but I am not sure any of us should be outside alone. We can’t help that Aramis and D’Artagnan are, though we can hope they met with each other and that one is guarding the other, but…”
“I see,” Porthos said. “This is what I propose to do. You go and speak to your duchess, and then you come and talk to me in the kitchens of the palace.”
“The kitchens?” Athos said. He knew from their previous adventures-though it had never fully been explained to him-that Porthos had conceived an almost fear of one of his majesty’s head cooks.
Porthos sighed resignedly, and combed his moustache with his fingers so that the tips pointed upwards. “It is a cross to bear,” he said, “to be so handsome that women fall in love with one at a glance. The cook was more than usual importune. But I am hoping that I can get information from her without… without its going too far.”
Half amused, though he had to admit that maids, cooks and peasant women did indeed seem to fall in love with Porthos at a first glance at his shining head of red hair, his strong features and his sparkling eyes, Athos nodded. “Well, I’ll come and find you in the kitchens, then, when I’m done interviewing the duchess.
The Disadvantages of a Hot Day; Many Ways to Slacken Thirst; Evangelists and Pigs
ARAMIS had realized, about an hour into the drive-no, the journey, for it was epic and involved shades of odyssey-that he probably could get to Paris earlier if he got down and walked. This because not only did the oxen move at a snail’s pace, but also the two men in charge of the oxen felt it incumbent upon them to stop at every roadside stall and every isolated farmhouse to purvey themselves with the necessities of life.
There were two reasons he hadn’t actually jumped off the oxcart. The first was that while the oxen were probably slightly slower than Aramis could walk, by sitting in the cart he was sparing his legs, for what he expected would be a run all over Paris to locate his friends, once he got to town. The second, and no less pressing, was that the necessities of life-according to his ex-captors-included a great deal of food and wine, which, of course, they shared freely with him, by way of reparation.
On the road so far, he had tasted some very good ham, some excellent bread, a strong-smelling cheese and a dozen boiled eggs. All of this-the day being hot for the end of winter-had necessitated washing it down with a great deal of wine.
So, by the time they stopped on the farm at the edge of town, where his amiable hosts had friends or contacts or cousins, or whatever it was they had, Aramis was feeling quite at ease with the world and, indeed, of a warm and glowing disposition, where all would be forgiven.
They let him off and explained they were about to go back to the neighborhood where they’d first mistakenly importuned him, so they could capture the original miscreant.
“Well,” Aramis had said airily, “only, be sure to take a box with you, in case he resists.”
This had resulted in many laughs, which had eventually dissolved into giggles and a never end of “your musketeerness,” and Aramis was never to understand exactly how, but he found himself walking along the street with Jean and Marc in the best of understandings.
Or at least, he hoped they understood him correctly, since he was attempting to lecture them on the biblical significance of their names and explaining that if they were evangelists, and his name were Luke, they would be three of a set of four. This seemed to impress them profoundly, and Marc expressed the earnest hope that, if he had his life to live again, he could become knowledgeable in Latin and Greek “and all that horse manure.” Forgiving his way of expressing himself, which was clearly due to his lack of exposure to the belles lettres, Aramis said, “My friend, Porthos, he has the same problem. That’s why… that’s why we have this plan.” He walked along for a while in silence, his mind assuring him that he’d said absolutely everything he needed to say, until Jean said, “Your musketeerness?”