They refilled their goblets. Athos kicked back his chair to lean against the wall beside them. He frowned as he saw Aramis heading upstairs with yet another potential convert.
"Women," he said, scornfully. "They'll be the death of him yet." He was slurring his words slightly. "It's a wonder he hasn't gotten himself poxed already."
"You don't much care for women, do you?" Lucas said.
"I have no use for them."
"No romance? Never been in love?"
Athos stared out into the center of the room, eyes unfocused, seeing something other than the swordplay and the crowd.
"Once," he said, softly.
"What, just once?"
"It was enough, my friend. I will say, rather, that it was much more than enough. I was young and foolish and in love," he said those words as though they were an epithet, "and I did not do well in my selection of a mistress." Jerking his head slightly, as if suddenly aware that he had said more than he meant to, he reached out and grabbed one of the bottles off the table, knocking over two others in the process.
"I have another mistress now," he said, loudly, brandishing the bottle. "She's loyal and true and never strays far from my reach. She never fails to satisfy me; she never lets me down. She fills me to the brim with her warmth of loving kindness and she does not deceive me. Veritas in vino!" he shouted, raising the bottle high in a violent gesture that toppled him from his chair. He fell to the floor and remained there, dead drunk.
Lucas glanced down at him. "You were saying?" he said to Finn.
"On the other hand, maybe it's one of the others," Finn said.
Lucas didn't say anything. Delaney glanced at him and saw that he was staring intently out toward the center of the room. A young, elegantly dressed cavalier had come down the stairs and he was circling around the mock combat in the center of the room, heading toward the door.
Misinterpreting his stare as an effort to keep his eyes in focus, Finn rocked his chair back down, away from the wall, and set his goblet down upon the table.
"Hell," he said, "I've had about enough. What do you say we call it a night?"
Lucas glanced at him sharply. " What did you say?"
"I said, what do you say we call it a night?"
Lucas rocked his chair forward so hard that the few remaining upright bottles on the table were knocked over, spilling their contents onto the floor and into Delaney's lap.
"Christ, what's with you?" said Delaney, jumping up.
Lucas stared at the door, through which the young cavalier had passed seconds earlier.
"De la Croix" he said, softly.
"What? Lucas, what's the matter with you? You look like you've just seen a ghost."
"I have," he said. "Come on."
"What? Where are we going?"
"Come on, I said! Hurry, before we lose him!"
Simon Hawke
The Timekeeper Conspiracy
"Lose who?"
"The red knight!"
"The… what?" Lucas was heading for the door, pushing his way through.
They followed the young cavalier carefully, keeping their distance and staying in the shadows.
"Lucas, are you sure?" said Finn. "It couldn't be a mistake?"
"I told you, I never forget a face," said Lucas, vehemently. "The last time I saw that face, it belonged to the woman who was with Jack Bennett. And the time before that, it was in 12th-century England."
Delaney shook his head. "That's crazy. You've had too much to drink. It's a physical resemblance, that's all. It can't be the same man!"
"Then what was he doing with Jack Bennett, an underground contact? I told you I saw that woman before. No wonder I couldn't recognize her! She was a man dressed as a woman! I'm telling you, Finn, that's Andre de la Croix!"
Finn thought back to their mission in the 12th century and to a mercenary knight who had sold his services to Prince John of Anjou. Lucas had met him in the lists at Ashby and had taken such a battering that he hadn't been able to see straight for hours.
"He must have been in the underground all the time!" said Finn. "What's he doing here?"
"That's what I intend to find out," said Lucas. They were in the Rue des Fossoyeurs. The cavalier went up to No. 14 and knocked on the door. "That's D'Artagnan's house!" said Lucas.
Finn glanced behind them, but he couldn't see anything in the dark streets. "If Mongoose has his people tailing us, I hope to hell they're not sleeping on the job," he said. "This could get nasty."
They crept up to the window and peered inside. The cavalier was seated at a table, talking with an old man whom they had last seen entering the house in the Rue St. Honore.
"Jack Bennett," whispered Finn. "What the hell is going on here?"
"It looks like Mongoose was right," said Lucas. "Our friend D'Artagnan is a Timekeeper."
"I can't believe it," said Delaney. "D'Artagnan can't be an impostor!"
"You have any other explanation?"
"No, but… it just doesn't fit. It would mean that they've had us made right from the very start, before we even arrived in Paris!"
"Well, there's only one way we're ever going to know for sure," said Lucas. He went over to the door and pounded on it.
Someone said, "Who knocks?"
In a perfect imitation of D'Artagnan's voice, Lucas said, "Damn you, Bonacieux, let me in! I've forgotten my key!"
A moment later, the door was unlatched and as the person on the other side started to open it, Lucas shouldered his way in with Finn following close behind.
Jack Bennett was knocked back into the wall. Andre de la Croix leapt up, rapier drawn.
"We meet again, Sir Knight," Lucas said, speaking in Norman.
De la Croix hesitated, obviously taken aback. Bennett clawed for something in his pocket, but the point of Finn's rapier was at his throat in an instant.
"Don't do it," Finn said, in English. "Let's have it. Slowly."
With a look of resignation, Bennett handed over his laser.
"Who are you?" said Andre.
"It is you, isn't it?" said Lucas. "Andre de la Croix. What do you call yourself in Paris?"
"How do you know me?"
"We've met before," said Lucas. "In the lists, on the field of Ashby."
"At Ashby? Impossible. I don't-"
"I'll refresh your memory," said Lucas, switching to English. "You wore red armor and had a fleury cross for your shield device. I wore white and my shield device was an uprooted oak. I remember being quite impressed with your abilities. I never dreamt that you were underground."
"She isn't," Bennett said. "At least, she wasn't then."
"She?"
Simon Hawke
The Timekeeper Conspiracy
"Take a good, close look," said Bennett. "Andre is a woman."
Finn had put away his sword and was now covering Bennett with the laser. "What is this?" he said. "What are you trying to pull?"
Moving slowly, keeping his hands in plain sight, Bennett walked over to a chair and sat down.
"You're commandos, aren't you?" he said. "An adjustment team?"
"That's right," said Finn, watching him closely.
Bennett seemed relieved. "Andre, we have to cooperate with these men. They are soldiers from the future."
Andre nodded. She put her rapier and her dagger down upon the table and slowly approached Lucas.
"That's far enough," said Lucas, when she was almost within arm's reach of him.
"I am unarmed," she said, "and your friend can kill me easily."
She held out her hands to Lucas.
"Your hand," she said.
Hesitantly, Lucas lowered his rapier and stretched out his free hand to her. She came closer and took his left hand in both of hers, pressing it against her chest, then slowly moving it down between her legs. There was nothing sexual in the contact at all. She kept her eyes on his, watching for a reaction. She was surprised at what she saw. It was not at all what she had expected.