Death in Gascony (14 page)

“Bah,” he said, at last. “Women!”

Getting up, he locked his door and set about washing and dressing for the day.

S
TRANGELY,
D’Artagnan’s memories of early childhood were devoid of any contact with this family so closely related to him by blood and whose lands bordered his father’s along the eastern edge of their property.

The first he remembered going to the house, he was four, and his father had dressed him in his best clothes and mounted him ahead of himself on his horse, and taken him around to introduce him to his uncle, his aunt, his three cousins.

Of all his cousins only Irene, who was his age, had regarded him or treated him with any kind of friendliness. The older boys, Bertrand and Edmond, had acted as though D’Artagnan were an interloper, and his uncle and aunt seemed scarcely to look on him any more warmly than that.

In fact, even though his relationship with his cousins had improved—particularly his relationship with Irene—he had never become a favorite with his uncle and aunt. Instead, they had a way of looking at him with disdain, as though he were too baseborn to darken their threshold.

Riding his horse across the fields, in the brisk autumn morning warming up to midday, D’Artagnan thought perhaps it was just his inconsiderate kissing of Irene when both of them were little more than babes. Perhaps they were afraid that Irene would forget herself and throw off her brilliant arranged match for the sake of her penniless cousin.

He had to snort with laughter at the thought. If they truly thought that, they didn’t know their own daughter.

Despite himself, the mild morning cheered him. He rode across a path between the fields that separated their properties, then took the main road—the one that the peasants used to go to the fair at the bastide every week. The road was paved, which was easier on the horse, and besides, after his absence and given that he was now Monsieur D’Artagnan, the lord of his own domains such as they were, he thought he should approach the house via the front door. He should not come around the back like little Henri had, once, looking for playfellows and company.

He crossed over a creek on a little whitewashed bridge and found himself in his uncle’s lands. Even here, at the periphery of the domain, it was obvious that the de Bigorres were the wealthy branch of the family. For one, on either side of the road, bordering it, were carefully planted bushes that were verdant in winter and flowered in spring and summer. This made the roadside pleasant, but was more refinement than the D’Artagnans could afford, in either material or the effort of their vassals.

Farther on, D’Artagnan veered from the public road into the path that led to the gates of the de Bigorre house. The gates were eight feet tall, made of iron, and creaked when the porter opened them for him. Inside, they disclosed a meandering path amid impeccably manicured gardens—the whole ending in a huge…palace—there was no other word for it—of golden stone. He’d once accompanied Athos to the home of a duke, Athos’s childhood friend. The de Bigorre house, though a little smaller, did not look more humble than the duke’s palace. It sprawled, golden and carefully designed—balconies and glazed windows giving it an air of being, by far, above the common herd and as though in an entirely different world from peasant hovels or comfortable farmers’ houses, even.

Despite his mind knowing better, D’Artagnan found it hard to believe his father—once soldier of fortune, scapegrace, teller of great tales and peerless duelist—had grown up in this house. When he thought back on his father as a young man, he always imagined him living in the D’Artagnan’s house which was little more than a glorified farmhouse.

It was nonsense, of course. His father had not inherited his home, and his junior title from his grandmother’s family, till well after he’d become a man. In fact, he had been living less than ten years in that house when D’Artagnan was born. Until then he had been the younger son of de Bigorre, living in this house, surrounded by a battalion of servants. D’Artagnan could not picture it.

He gave his horse to a servant who came to meet him and hastened up the front steps of the house, to the entrance hall—a vast room, in the Roman manner, or at least what someone in D’Artagnan’s family had once believed to be the Roman manner. The room was crisscrossed by utterly unneeded columns; busts of deceased classical somebodies sat on pedestals here and there; and the floor had been done in an elaborate mosaic showing what D’Artagnan suspected was supposed to be the war of Troy—horses and men and a whole lot of blood; though the men wore the French attire of a hundred years ago.

He looked about him for one of the ubiquitous servants, ready to request an audience with his younger cousin, Edmond.

Oh, he knew all too well that he was supposed to visit his uncle and aunt and pay his respects. But then, neither of them had come to visit him, on his arrival, or to present condolences on the death of his father. Head of the family or no, he was the grieving party, here.

So he would simply talk to Edmond and confirm the truth of the priest’s description of his father’s last duel, and then he would leave. He still had to see Monsieur de Bilh for complete understanding of what had happened.

“Henri!” a female voice called. And then, half swallowed, as though she were correcting herself, “D’Artagnan!”

He turned towards the voice, and saw his cousin Irene. There was a time, in fact just before he left for Paris, when the sight of his cousin was enough to set D’Artagnan’s heart aflutter.

Irene was tall for a woman and more so for a Gascon woman. It was said her mother had English blood and it was probably true, because Irene was taller than D’Artagnan by a full three fingers. With all that height, she was slim and straight.

This she used to full effect by standing very upright, to display her long, clean length, broken only by the very appropriate curve of her bosom. This was displayed to further advantage by being more cradled than covered in a peach-colored gown of daring design. Even her neck rose like a white column to support a more than uncommonly pretty face: oval in shape, it had a small but straight nose, shining blue eyes, and the sort of lips that always seemed to be on the verge of a sigh.

D’Artagnan had spent a considerable portion of his adolescence dreaming of kissing that white throat and meeting those lips with his. It was clear from the way Irene stood watching him—blushes and confusion mingling with the certainty of being admired and desired—that she thought she retained her hold on him.

But the truth was that though D’Artagnan could look at her and judge her as being very pretty indeed, his eyes hastened to uncover flaws—at least when he compared her to his Parisian lover, Madame Bonacieux.

Irene’s blond hair had a brassy tone that seemed to indicate that she’d used some wash or tint to make it golden. Its natural color might very well be closer to D’Artagnan’s own black hair, or to Irene’s brothers’ dark brown locks. And her half-parted lips gave the impression of a studied pose, and of her having bitten them to bring up their color. In fact, in her whole pose, with hands lifting the sides of her skirts to display admirably small feet in embroidered slippers, there was the feeling of one who knew she was worthy of admiration, and who set herself to be admired.

This in itself was enough, in D’Artagnan’s mind, to make her inferior to his Constance, who never considered how she would look to him, but only showed how pleased she was in seeing him.

“Oh, hullo, Irene. I came to find Edmond. I don’t suppose you know where he is?”

“Oh,” she said. Surprise was obvious. But then the playacting reasserted itself. She crossed the space between them, anxiously. “Edmond? Why do you wish to see Edmond, Henri?”

“I must ask him some questions,” he said. “About my father’s death.”

“Oh,” Irene said again, and this time the sound was pure playacting. She put her hand in front of her mouth and said the “oh” echoingly, in the most becoming manner she could find. “Oh, your father, Henri, how terrible for you. How sad we all were when he heard he had died.”

“Yes,” D’Artagnan said, thinking of his own revelation—of his mother’s letter in his hands, of the thought that he would have to give up everything: friends and lover and his newfound independence. He realized he still hadn’t gone to the grave; couldn’t bear to think of it. He’d go, he thought, when he’d found out who his father’s murderer was. “Yes, it was a great shock to all of us,” he said. “But Edmond saw the final duel and I want to ask Edmond how it happened.”

Irene frowned at him. “Why? I mean, your father is dead. Surely…” And then with sudden animation, she let a little gasp escape through the carefully half-parted lips. “Oh. You mean to challenge de Bilh for a duel and avenge your father. I know it.”

“Don’t talk nonsense,” D’Artagnan said, impatiently, before he could stop himself. “From all I hear it was not de Bilh’s fault in the least.”

Irene stared. D’Artagnan realized he might very well be the first person in her life who had ever told her anything to remotely curb her playacting. She stammered, “But…but…why else…”

“It is nothing, really.” D’Artagnan embarked on a detailed examination of his lace cuff, a gesture he’d often seen Aramis engage in. He now wondered if Aramis did this when he didn’t wish to laugh out loud in someone’s face. “It’s just that I feel it to be my duty as a son to know how he met his end. I’ve talked to Father Urtou and I simply wish to speak to Edmond for some details that might have escaped the good Father’s eyes.”

Irene looked at him, her gaze for once reflecting genuine curiosity. D’Artagnan wondered if she had never before met anyone who displayed genuine filial piety. Or if she simply found herself shocked that his attention wasn’t wholly focused on her.

Frankly, seeing her again after his six months in Paris, D’Artagnan felt like a fool for ever having regretted that she was above his station. He had met—though fortunately not been involved with—her type at court. It seemed to him as though Irene never did anything without watching herself on a mirror, real and imaginary. If the mirror were wholly removed, if she didn’t think on the effect she was causing in others, Irene would not know how to behave at all.

“Edmond isn’t here,” she said, at last, as though this were a reluctant admission, torn from her lips. “He has gone to Bordeaux this last week, to meet with some friends of his for a gaming party of some sort. Edmond gambles to an appalling extent. In fact, I’m surprised he has enough money left to dress in creditable fashion.”

“So Edmond is in Bordeaux?” D’Artagnan asked, wondering if his cousin had found it necessary to leave the region when his uncle had died. And if so, why? What was he afraid might come to light?

In his mind was the image of Edmond hitting his father on the back of the head, and then hastening to the threshing floor to talk to the priest and de Bilh. Perhaps his father had attacked not because de Bilh was there, but because Edmond was. And perhaps it had just been poor luck that had put de Bilh and his sword in his way.

“Well…he went to Bordeaux,” Irene said, giving him a very odd look. “But he’s meant to return any moment. Father said he would be back today.” She tilted her head a little, in what, doubtless, she thought was an endearing and fetching way. “You could walk with me in the garden and see if Edmond arrives in the meanwhile.”

D’Artagnan’s immediate impulse was to reject the suggestion. After all, everything considered, his being found alone with Irene would only make his uncle and aunt uncomfortable, and it might, in fact, cause some sort of rift. But the truth was, he had no interest in Irene, and if his family forbade him the house, then he would simply have to find another place to meet Edmond. From what he remembered of his male cousin’s habits this shouldn’t be hard, as Edmond was known to attend the village tavern when other opportunities for entertainment failed.

And D’Artagnan remembered that Irene knew everything that was taking place everywhere in the surrounding area. She knew everyone’s dirty secrets and whatever each family was trying to keep quiet. If those attempts on him had come from here, Irene was likely to know from whom. Or at least, she would be likely to know something that would illuminate the situation. And she was very likely too, to be able to give him some idea of what work his father might have been doing for Richelieu.

Thinking this, he bowed slightly to her, and led her, or allowed her to lead him, out a side door and into a garden that was magnificent in spring and merely coldly beautiful in autumn.

In spring, when he’d taken his last stroll with Irene, the rose bushes now denuded of leaf had exploded in a riot of color amid the statues of fauns and ancient goddesses whose patina proclaimed them to be almost certainly the real thing, plundered from some ancient temple.

Now the only green was evergreen, clipped into fantastic shapes of horses with riders and birds taking flight. They walked along a pebbled path, Irene’s hand resting on his arm, as she said, “There can be no harm in it. We are cousins.”

They strolled in silence a few steps and D’Artagnan could almost hear the rearranging of thoughts in his cousin’s head, as she tried—he thought—to work out how to restore her old influence over him.

“Did you know,” she said at long last, “that I’m not married yet?”

D’Artagnan chuckled. “Considering that you are still here in your father’s house, I’d surmised as much,” he said.

“Well…I might have been visiting,” she said. And then, again after a pause, “You know, I’m not even sure I want to marry him.”

“Your fiancé?” D’Artagnan asked.

“Yes,” she said. “Sever de Comminges is so…” She shrugged as though she had run out of words.

“You’ve been engaged to Sever since you were six,” D’Artagnan said. “I don’t think your wishes have much to do with the plans of your families.”

“Oh,” Irene said. Her hand squeezed his arm a little, if in surprise or to punish him, he did not know. “You are so cruel. You’re still exactly like you were when you were a little boy and you used to pull my kitten’s tail.”

“I never pulled your kitten’s tail, my dear. You’re mistaking me for Bertrand.”