“We’d like to know if this boy has been seen in this neighborhood,” Athos said, pulling his drawing of Guillaume from his sleeve, where he’d secreted it, and displaying it to Madame Bonacieux. “He’s given his name as Guillaume Jaucourt, but we’re not sure it is his true name…”
Madame Bonacieux took the picture, opened it and looked at it for a moment, with a little wrinkle of puzzlement between her eyes.
“Have you seen him?” Athos asked.
“No,” she said. “I’m sure I haven’t. But I’m also sure I’ve seen a face very much like his at court… Though I’d be at a loss to tell you precisely whose it was. I can assure you that it is not someone who is much in her Majesty’s circle and company, where I reside, but… someone I’ve seen before, and my mind tells me it was at court.”
“At court,” D’Artagnan said, jumping in. “How much did this person look like the boy? Could it be his brother or his father?”
Madame Bonacieux shook her head. “I couldn’t tell you any clearer,” she said, and her voice seemed to say she regretted not telling D’Artagnan anything at all he wanted to know, and some more besides. “I just… There is an air of family to it. Same cut of the chin, same tilt of the eyes, perhaps. Can’t tell you who it was, though, so it is probably not someone of the highest nobility.”
“And you’ve never seen him here? On this street?”
Madame Bonacieux sighed a little-a sigh of confusion and exasperation. “I spend so little time here. If I… would you wait a moment?”
Athos nodded, and so did D’Artagnan. At least he hoped he did. The fact was that around Madame Bonacieux he felt as if his head were floating several meters above his neck and could only be felt at a distance, as if in a dream.
Just before coming to the capital-and perhaps it had been at the back of his mother’s mind when she’d recommended that he go and make something of himself-he’d developed a sort of smoldering passion for his cousin, Genevieve. He’d loved her desperately and passionately. Her image had filled his mind during the day and visited his dreams at night. She’d allowed him one kiss, and that kiss still seemed to linger upon his lips, in mingled sweetness and pain.
Pain because Genevieve was the daughter of his father’s older brother and betrothed from before she could even speak to a Spanish lord whose lands, on the other side of the border, delineated the limits of D’Artagnan’s uncle’s domain. Even had she not been pledged already, the chances of her father, who’d inherited the larger portion of the lands that fell to the family, accepting the suit of his penniless nephew were not very high.
But even at the height of his infatuation with Genevieve, D’Artagnan had not felt quite so out of his depth and as if he were walking in an unreal world. No. To hark back to a time when he felt this confused, he needed to go back all the way to when he was seven and had caught the small pox and lain feverish, between life and death, for many days.
As if from outside a fog that surrounded his mind and thought, he heard Athos. “Ah, D’Artagnan,” the older man said. “Women are dangerous. Better play with fire than with a woman. Fire will only burn your body.”
D’Artagnan, startled out of his reverie, looked back at Athos. The musketeer appeared both concerned and amused, an expression that made him look at once younger than he was and somewhat sickly, as if he too were burning with a fever, or at least remembering a time when he was.
“I don’t know what you mean, Athos,” D’Artagnan said from the height of dignity conferred by his unfinished adolescence. And if his cheeks flamed, let them. He felt embarrassment at being caught in his admiration of this woman-this married woman. But is also took effort to refrain from telling Athos that it would help if Athos did not choose women as others played with unguarded flame. Being attracted to women that were less than murderous might have made the older musketeer’s experience with love very different.
The problem was that D’Artagnan actually didn’t know anything for sure about the musketeer’s life. All he knew had been inferred and could not be spoken of in the full light of day. The other thing was that he, himself, had no idea what type of women attracted him. It was easy to pass judgement on another man’s taste when he knew so little of females that he had no idea how his own love life would unroll. So he contented himself with saying, “I’m simply making a search for this boy, on Porthos’s behalf and to find the boy’s family.”
Athos made a sound in his throat. It might have been suppressed laughter.
Madame Bonacieux was gone some moments, before coming back, carrying the drawing. She handed it to Athos.
“No one seems to know him,” she said. Her fair, high brow was knit in puzzlement beneath a straggle of blond hair. “No one. And no one knows a Guillaume Jaucourt. Only…” she hesitated.
“Only?” Athos asked.
“Only my husband’s clerk who takes care of large-volume orders says he remembers the boy vaguely in something connected with wine, sometime back. I really don’t know if I’d put much faith in it, though. His memory seems to be like mine-he remembers the boy or a face like his.”
“Well,” D’Artagnan said. Her absence had given him time to clear his head, time to get his thoughts in order. “Since we’re looking for his family, I would like to know if you think of anyone who might resemble him.”
For the first time Madame Bonacieux looked curious. “You are looking for his family? Why? What has he done? Has he stolen something or…?”
D’Artagnan shook his head. “No,” he said, thinking fast. “It’s just that a friend of mine has undertaken to teach the boy swordplay and the boy has missed his last lesson.” That much was true. “My friend is worried and would like to make sure nothing untoward has happened to the child.”
The woman’s expression changed. D’Artagnan couldn’t quite say how, but it shifted, softened. He realized, suddenly, that she was probably younger even than he’d first estimated. In fact, though she was married, she couldn’t be much older than he was. Twenty-one, maybe, or twenty-two. He also become aware that in her mind he’d just gone from a law enforcer attempting to capture a thief to a man worried about a child.
Even D’Artagnan was not so inexperienced or so innocent that he didn’t know how appealing that would be to a young female. He felt warmly rewarded for his efforts and hoped he never needed to inform the lady that the child was already, in fact, dead.
As they walked away, D’Artagnan said, “At least we’ve heard he looks like someone that she knows, so he’s probably truly related to someone at court. You know, Athos, there’s something you haven’t taken into account.”
Athos looked at him, raising both eyebrows.
“That the child might indeed be the son of a nobleman, but not of a noblewoman.”
Athos’s lips trembled into an almost smile that was, in him, a sign of extreme amusement. “Oh, D’Artagnan, I’ve thought of that. The existence of bastards of noble houses is not something totally unknown to me.”
D’Artagnan recalled, with a pang, that some trouble before had involved what was almost certainly a bastard of Athos’s very noble house. “I didn’t mean-” he said.
“No, of course you didn’t,” Athos said. “Forgive me if I seemed to overreact. It’s just…” He frowned. “I too have the impression he resembles someone, but it’s not… I cannot place my finger on it.” He shook his head as if to clear it. “Let’s go ask around some of the places in town better known for lodging noblemen.”