“Yes, mon bon Jean?”
“You never told us your plan.”
“Oh, it’s simple. You take a word, any word. The word this week is inscrutable. And you learn that word for a week. And when the word is-” Aramis stopped because his intended audience had run in opposite directions, away from him, as fast as their legs could carry him.
Looking forward, Aramis discovered the cause of their fright. There were not one, not two, but at least six men, wearing dark cloaks and armed with swords. “I knew you would come back,” the leader of them said, advancing towards Aramis with drawn sword.
Aramis had a vague idea of having met with this treatment before, but the adventure he’d just undergone had given him fresh insight into the possible causes of this. “I think,” he said, as he crossed his arms, “that you have quite the wrong man. You see, I’m not Pierre.”
“Not Pierre?” the leader said, and looked so confused that, for a moment he halted his advance and lowered his sword. “What do you mean by this, that you’re not Pierre?”
“Well, I would think that is glaringly obvious,” Aramis said, hearing creep into his voice the peevish tone that he normally used to explain some point of theology to his religion-blighted friends. “If I were Pierre, I would be Pierre. But as it chances, I’m not Pierre. I am Re-I mean… I am Aramis.” He took his hat off and bowed, very correctly.
At which point the furies of Hell broke loose. At least that’s what Aramis thought at the time, though later on, on reflection, he realized that someone had got into the backyard of one of the nearby houses and opened the pens containing the usual collection of domestic animals. Or perhaps more than one backyard, since a veritable bedlam of pigs, chickens, and a few very frightened goats rushed onto the street at the same time.
Bewildered, not quite sure where he was, thinking that perhaps he had gotten off at one of the various isolated farmhouses they’d stopped at, Aramis heard, through the din of bleating, oinking and cackling, a familiar voice saying “Run, your musketeerness. Run.”
It seemed like as good an idea as any, and, besides, Aramis had always had a horror of living poultry, since, at the age of two, he’d been attacked by the family farm’s very territorial rooster. He ran.
He dodged a pig, stepped over a chicken, might possibly have stepped on another chicken’s neck, and thought it was a pity that Mousqueton wasn’t there to put it out of its misery and bring it to his friends, and then, running along a broad thoroughfare, realized that he was supposed to go to his friends. He was supposed to warn them that something was very seriously wrong.
From the color of the sunset, in the horizon, he suspected that his friends might very well be home, that is, if whoever she was-this woman-hadn’t got their heads, as she wished to. Either that, or Paris was burning, and Aramis hoped Paris wasn’t burning, otherwise all the chickens would get roasted before they were plucked and cleaned.
Vaguely recognizing the area he was in, he changed directions, and ran towards Rue Ferou, where Athos’s residence was. He arrived there out of breath, and knocked on the door, until it was opened by a very disapproving-looking Grimaud.
Aramis thought someone might overhear him, since he was outside, on the doorstep, so he leaned in close and said in what he thought was a whisper, and yet boomed confusingly in his ears, “Grimaud, fetch your master.”
“Monsieur Aramis!” Grimaud said.
“Yes, yes,” Aramis said. “I’m out of breath. I was running. The thing was, she’s out to kill us all, and the chickens are about to get roasted.” At which point and unaccountably, he lost his hold on verticality and started tilting forward. Grimaud stopped his fall and yelled, “Bazin, curse you, leave your rosary beads, your master needs you!”
And then the world went a long way away from Aramis.
Where Athos Is Inspected; The Lady Is the Tiger; And Porthos Disappears
ATHOS separated from Porthos, taking only the time to ask a passing gentleman in what appeared to be the livery of the Queen’s house, where exactly the duchess lodged. She was, as he should have expected, quite close to the Queen’s own chambers, in the sort of spacious apartments that were the envy of late-arrived provincials come to Paris to beg for royal favor.
It wasn’t till Athos found himself outside her door that it occurred to him to wonder if perhaps she wasn’t in at all. But a knock on the door brought him a sharp command to identify himself, and Athos, deciding that obfuscation was the best part of value and that he wasn’t actually technically lying, said, “The Comte de-” and mumbled the rest.
The door flung open, and he stood staring at a child who could be no more than eight, attired in a becoming maid outfit, with a much-beribboned apron. She looked up at him with huge eyes, and he made her a very correct bow, all the while conscious of being watched. He knew, without looking up, that the duchess was just on the edge of the door and looking at him, evaluatingly. “Mademoiselle,” he said, using his most polished accents, which were very polished indeed. “I crave the favor of a word with the Duchess de Chevreuse.”
Fast footsteps approached the door, and an amused voice said, “Don’t be silly, Josephe, let the count in.”
The woman who appeared fully in Athos’s field of vision was, quite frankly, a vision to behold. She was blond, and had the sort of rounded face with perfect features that always makes its possessor look very young and very innocent. Wide open grey blue eyes and a slightly tilted-up nose contrasted with a full, luscious and very adult mouth, to make the countenance bewitching. What followed beneath the neck was bewitching as well, as the pink and white neck gave way to the pink and white, rising breasts, nestled in a dress that was so low-cut that all it did was hold them up without covering them in the least. Athos could quite easily see the pink edges of her aureolas, and turned his head away before his eyes might discern that he could catch a glimpse of pink nipples amid the cream lace.
Looking away and up, he found himself being scrutinized with equally intent gaze and, from the lady’s slightly parted lips just breaking on the edge of a smile, he had to assume that she approved of what she saw. Her eyes shone appreciatively as she took in the wealth of very slightly wavy silk-fine black hair and she said, “You’re the Comte de… I’m sorry. I didn’t catch the rest.”
Athos smiled back, one of his practiced smiles that meant very little. “I would prefer not to give my family name. In the musketeers I am called Athos.”
“Athos!” Her hands met, in an almost clap at her chest. “You are a friend of a very great friend of mine, then.
“Aramis, madam, if that is whom you mean.”
“Aramis, exactly.” She smiled at him, almost mockingly. “While I completely understand, monsieur, the need to go into hiding and wear an assumed name-in fact I’m sure if I were a man, I’d have killed a great many men in duels-I cannot understand why both of you must choose such strange names. And there is a third to your group of odd names, isn’t there?”
“That would be my friend Porthos, madam.”
“Oh, yes, the big one that everyone says is seeing a foreign princess. He always scares me a little. Too much man there, if you know what I mean.”
Athos had not the slightest idea what she meant, and, as in all such situations, contented himself with bowing deeply.
She giggled as if he’d performed a particularly clever trick. “Please, come in, Monsieur le Comte,” she said.
Athos thought that lately everyone seemed obsessed with his dignity, but he went in, all the same, and bowed again to the bewitching duchess who, while watching him as if he had been a particularly luscious pastry, said, “You may close the door.”