“True,” Aramis said. “First of all we must use tact in asking.”
“And that,” Porthos said, “is why I didn’t go in on my own. I thought I’d need tact, and immediately thought of the three of you.”
Sometimes, D’Artagnan thought, it wasn’t easy to tell if Porthos was being serious or ironic. But he guessed at serious, in this case, because Porthos seemed genuinely pleased at the thought of his friends coming with him to the tavern and helping him ask questions.
“There’s only one thing,” Athos said. “We can’t quite eliminate the chance that the Cardinal is involved in this.”
“But if the boy is a simple tavern boy,” Aramis said. “Surely-”
“There’s nothing sure in this,” Athos said. “Yes, he’s just a plebeian boy, but how many times has the Cardinal not reached into the lowliest ranks to get his spies, his agents, his enforcers? Granted, Rochefort is as noble as I am, if perhaps poorer. But there are others…”
They all nodded. They’d run into others. Grocers and prostitutes, beggars and wine sellers who, surprised by the condescension of the Cardinal in even speaking to them, were more than willing to do the great man’s bidding. It could almost be bet that the lower the origin of the recruit, the more slavishly he’d do everything that the Cardinal asked.
“But…” Athos said. “Whether the Cardinal’s or someone else’s, the truth is that he must have been in someone’s pay.”
“Why?” Porthos asked, frowning.
“Two things. If he were not, there is no possibility he could have-on his own-afforded such a nice suit as the one he had on. And neither would there be any reason for him to have a list of your ancestry in his pocket.”
“Right,” Porthos said. And frowned. “At least no reason we know.”
“If you’re going to tell me again that your mind knows things you don’t know…” Aramis said.
Porthos shrugged. “Not anything that defined, no. It’s just that… well… there might be more complex reasons than we know now.” He frowned. “Or at least… We usually end up finding that there are, don’t we?”
As he spoke, he turned and started down the stairs, followed by Athos and Aramis. D’Artagnan followed, thinking that Porthos was right about that. Around the four of them, particularly when murder was involved, things were usually stranger than they seemed to be at first.
The Hangman; Another Nobleman; A Young and Quiet Girl
AS soon as they entered the Hangman-its name represented by a leaping man holding a noose and looking almost maniacally inclined to mirth-Athos knew why they didn’t frequent it much. It wasn’t so much that the wine was overpriced. It was more like the whole tavern was out of the musketeers league.
While the Cardinal, in a fit of passion, had been known to declare that no drinking spot or bawdy house in town was free of the scourge of the drunken, brawling, whoring musketeers, he was in fact wrong. The more expensive bawdy houses were very free of them, as were the more expensive taverns, like the Hangman, with its clean tables, its well-scrubbed walls, the candles that burned wax and not some smoky mixture of tallow, and its sour-faced proprietress behind the bar, looking menacingly at the four men with their uniforms and swords, as they came in.
A jovial fat man-possibly her husband-scrubbing one of the nearest tables, looked up at them as they entered, too, and his face did a quick succession of expressions, from surprised to worried to frantically jovial, the last the expression of a man who does not wish to see a brawl start in his tavern. “Sirs,” he said, looking up. “Glad to see you. Find yourself a place to sit. Amelie!” This called over his shoulder towards the shadows and definitely not in the tone he would dare address his imposing wife. “Amelie, where have you got to, girl?”
A girl of about ten, stick thin, with dark eyes and lank brown hair came out of the shadows. She was attired in a clean, probably third- or fourthhand dress and other than her thinness could have been the couple’s daughter. But Athos doubted very much that any child of the couple would have been allowed to grow so thin. Also, the woman behind the bar looked on the girl as though she were something that had crawled from beneath a rock, and moved her lips as though muttering something under her breath.
The musketeers and D’Artagnan sat at the nearest unoccupied table, and the girl approached, hesitantly. Athos’s phobia towards women did not apply yet at this age, when girls were more children than anything else. He felt towards the girl as he felt towards boy children the same age-as he would view something young and in distress. A vague feeling that he should protect her crept over him, and his voice was kinder than it would be to any adult as he said, “Hello, Amelie.”
He fumbled in his almost empty purse-it was getting so tallow candles would soon look good for dinner-and brought out a coin, which he tossed in the middle of the table and to which Aramis, silently, added two more. “Get us what wine those will buy, would you? A mug for each of us.”
The girl bowed and scrambled towards the bar and the woman behind it. Soon they could hear her whisper and hear the woman answer in harsh tones.
Athos ignored the exchange. No matter how tempted, it was neither possible nor desirable for him to save every stray waif in Paris. For one, there was a good chance he’d end up killed if he tried. And for another, his duty was somewhat more immediate. He’d sworn to serve king and country. And, in this particular case, he’d sworn to defend Monsieur de Treville, and to find out who’d killed this boy so that the boy’s death could not be used in a plot against the musketeers. Then there was his loyalty to his friends, and to Porthos, most of all, who was suffering from shock and grief at the death of the boy he’d considered some sort of apprentice.
“Holá, host,” Athos said, towards the tavern keeper.
The round-cheeked man looked up from the table which, to own the truth, he seemed to be only pretending to polish while he kept an eye on the four newcomers.
“Yes, Monsieur Musketeer?” he said, looking up, his hand still on the rag with which he’d been polishing the already gleaming table with some sort of oil he kept in a clear bottle by his side.
“Could you come here for a moment,” Athos asked, giving his whole countenance, his whole speech that tone of command that he knew other people resented but obeyed in equal measures. Porthos called it putting on his noble airs, and Aramis looked on enviously, whenever Athos did this, as though he wished he, too, could command people by assuming a natural superiority of look and manner. D’Artagnan merely watched, which was perhaps the boy’s greatest quality.
The tavern keeper hesitated and glanced towards his wife. But as his wife was very busy setting cups of wine on a broad tray, he shrugged and approached them.
“How may I help you?” he asked.
“You may tell us if you know this boy,” Athos said and pulled, from his sleeve, the picture of Guillaume as drawn by Aramis.
There was recognition in the man’s eyes, as soon as they fell upon the drawing. Then there was a frowning, momentary look, as though the man were considering whether he could lie and have his lie believed. He looked up and, in Athos’s dark blue eyes must have read the certainty that his first expression had been detected.
The man scrunched the rag he still held in his right hand, and frowned, then sighed. “It’s Guillaume,” he said.
“Guillaume who?” Porthos asked.
The man looked at him and opened his mouth, then closed it again. He shrugged. “Just Guillaume, sir. He was born in our stables and I guess he grew up here. I never heard of his having a family name.”
“His… mother’s, perhaps?” Athos asked.
The man shrugged. “His mother was a…” He looked at Amelie who approached with a tray laden with mugs. She sagged under the burden which was clearly too heavy for her. The tavern keeper’s eyes softened, and he looked back at the table. “His mother arrived here with child. She came, she said, to find her fiancé. She never found him. She stayed and helped serve.” He shrugged. “Amelie was born a few years later, and then a few more years later, Pigeon- as the clients called her-their mother, died of a fever. We let the boy and the girl stay in the stable, but other than that, know nothing about them.” While Amelie put the mugs of wine on the table, the man gave Athos as clear and untroubled a glance as ever man bent upon customer. “Has the boy done anything that has got him in trouble?”