Before she’d finished pronouncing the words, Aramis had leapt forward and towards the kitchen and Athos, who had seen the same ugly glimmer in Pierre Langelier’s eyes was racing him towards the man. But it was too late.
He wore a dagger. There had been no way of removing his dagger without making him suspicious. And now he’d grabbed the duchess around the chest, and he had the dagger to her neck. “Very pretty, milady.” He looked towards the musketeers. “But who will believe any of this, if you are dead?”
“There is Monsieur le Cure,” Marc said, pointing towards the door, where a grey-haired man stood, looking rather shocked. “He has seen it, and people will perforce believe him.”
Langelier looked wild, and stared around at the musketeers and at the priest. “Very well, but you’ll never take me alive. Come with me, pretty lady. We’re going to take a long ride through the country.” And with a sneer, at the musketeers said, “Put up your swords, or I slit her throat.”
Athos, who had been watching De Chevreuse’s face as it flushed, and as her eyes shone with the unmistakable light of battle, wondered what she meant to do. Courting danger was not always a good characteristic. Sometimes danger might court back. He looked at the blade near the pale throat, and wished very much he was in her place.
And with a Moo and a Cackle and an Oink Oink There
ARAMIS saw Marie Michon-his Marie-looking defiant and madcap. Unfortunately Aramis knew his Marie well. He knew she looked like that when the dice were down and the play definitely against her.
He wanted to rise. He wanted to go to her rescue. She wasn’t Violette. He wasn’t madly in love with her, as he’d been with Violette. But she was a gallant and brave soul, and he’d brought her into this. It seemed ridiculous that after all her intrigues, all her adventures, she should succumb here, at the hands of a brutish murderer.
And then, looking around, to see if anyone else was in a position to help her, he realized that Marc was gone. The Devil, he thought. I wonder where he has gone?
And then he heard a confused noise from behind him, in the yard, and realized that the door of the kitchen, into the outside yard, stood fully open. He had barely the time to look over his shoulder, as the noise grew deafening, and he was hit, full in the back, by a charging pig, and, as he fell, a confused chicken hopped up on his head.
Around him bedlam reigned. It took him a moment to locate Marie Michon, but when he found her, he realized in the confusion she had somehow managed to overturn the situation and had a small, dainty knife firmly held to Pierre ’s throat. She’d somehow managed to make him drop his knife, and from the way his wrist hung, Aramis didn’t think she’d done it with kindness. Now she told him in a stern voice, “And where were you going to take me, pig? You might enjoy going there, yourself.”
Aramis smiled despite himself. Looking up, he met Athos’s eyes, and was surprised to see him smiling as well.
Of course, their grins were nothing to Marc’s and Jean’s, whose expressions bordered on sheer, manic glee.
A Surfeit of Roasted Chicken; A Letter from a Lady
ATHOS looked down the expanse of his dining room table. Very rarely was Grimaud’s insistence that they eat in the dining room justified as it was now. The table was, in fact, almost too crowded. In addition to his four friends, all four of their servants were present and sitting at the table. Though after Grimaud’s arguments, they had decided to allow the servants to sit at the foot of the table.
And from Grimaud’s glare, he would keep the others in place if it killed him.
The top of the table itself was entirely covered in roast chicken, ham, and a multitude of bottles of wine. The chicken and the ham were from the farmers. Jean and Marc had sworn that the chickens-about a dozen of them-had got badly trampled or burned in the hearth after being stampeded into the kitchen, and so, the only thing for them was to kill them, roast them and send them to the musketeers as a gift.
No one had explained why they’d also sent the ham-since it was cured and therefore at least weeks old-and the bread, but Athos, who had listened to the two of them go on, guessed they were quite likely to tell them that these had gotten trampled in the stampede, as well, and therefore must be put out of their misery. They lied with the same glib ease as Mousqueton, on whom the news of Hermengarde’s death had fallen like a lead weight. He still looked teary and had that expression of a man whose hopes had come crashing around his head.
All he’d told Athos was, “You were always right, monsieur, women are the devil. I don’t know which hurts more, that Langelier had to kill her so she wouldn’t insist he marry her or… Or that she is dead. But it hurts all the same.”
And Athos, knowing himself at risk, could do nothing but silently sympathize.
“It was a lovely wedding, though,” Porthos said. “Even if the groom was tied up.”
“And gagged,” Aramis said. “Don’t forget gagged. I had to reassure the bon cure that the man meant, indeed, to say yes.”
“Well, he scarcely had any other choice,” D’Artagnan said, as he disposed of a full chicken, heaped on plate. “You pulled his hair so his head must perforce nod.”
“I was only doing my duty, to preserve a poor lady from sin,” Aramis said, piously.
“And the ways of the Lord are inscrutable,” Porthos said.
“Besides,” Aramis said, totally ignoring the proffered bait, “you have to agree there was something in the way of poetic justice, to bringing him back to Paris in a box and presenting him to the Cardinal all tied up.”
Athos was about to open his mouth, to say that he wondered if the Cardinal still thought that Athos was working on his behalf, even now, and to remind them there was a good chance he’d already agreed to let Charlotte have her way with him, and that she would be an adversary to reckon with in the future. In fact, for all their present joy at having Mousqueton back, Athos wasn’t sure that all-or any of them-could survive long enough to defeat the woman who had briefly been Countess de la Fere.
Before he could speak, there was a loud pounding on the door.
Grimaud, who got up to go answer, came back almost immediately, looking baffled and holding up a sheet of expensive cream paper, from which a delicate perfume wafted.
“Ah, that will be for me,” Aramis said.
But Grimaud only directed a glare at him, then a glare at the letter, and finally a glare at Athos, in whose lap he dropped it.
The letter said only, “To Monsieur le Comte de-”
The seal was blank and Athos lifted it impatiently. Inside, a well-formed hand said, “There is a public feast given by the court in a week. Marie Michon would like to meet the count at it. Will he meet her there? She shall be wearing a cream dress, with a blue hat, and a rose at her bosom.”
Athos felt as though his hand went nerveless. He dropped the note in his lap.
“What is wrong?” Porthos asked. “Is it from milady?” Athos shook his head. “No, no. It is nothing, just a silly dare.”
And in his heart of hearts, he wondered if he did dare.
Sarah D'Almeida
