Death in Gascony (27 page)

I
N
the middle of the night, Monsieur Athos woke up—starkly awake, he sat up in his bed, staring.

It took him more than a moment to realize it was neither a sound nor movement in his room that had awakened him, and that there was nothing besides his bed, not even that ghost that he sometimes believed he could see out of the corner of his eye, in the dead of night.

No, he was simply and unavoidably awake, in this room, in Gascony, in D’Artagnan’s house, in the night.

Perhaps it was, he told himself, no more than that his friend’s life appeared to be threatened and there was nothing at all he could do for it, nothing he could do to protect D’Artagnan. After all, in the last six months since he’d met D’Artagnan, they’d all faced down terrible threats and emerged victorious. But, alas, one thing it was to face a threat you could understand and another—altogether different—to face this danger, here, in Gascony, where murder seemed to flash from every corner and yet the murderer remained hidden.

Athos groaned, thinking to himself that he was too old for this and, furthermore, that he’d been a fool to ever come to Gascony. What could he do but uncover more mysteries to keep him awake? And if D’Artagnan were killed, what would it have availed him, all of Athos’s friendship, save that Athos—and Porthos and Aramis—should he escape with his life, would forever carry in his mind and heart the sense of having failed once again at his responsibilities.

Now, when Monsieur Athos woke like this, in the middle of the night, there was a sure treatment for his melancholy. Well, perhaps treatment was not the best name for it, for it did not cure his sadness and guilt and his endless replaying of what might have been. But it did, in the silence and darkness in which he didn’t dare ask another human being’s help, give him a palliative and, if nothing else, allow him to sleep.

He now got up and stumbled to the corner where Grimaud had stowed the two saddle bags Athos had brought with him. Most of their contents were changes of clothes, his razor, a small book with Suetonius’s life of Augustus, which he would read to while away idle hours. And at the bottom of all this, a dozen bottles of his best wine, sent to him from his own domains by a cousin who knew he was alive but chose to pretend he was dead or at least missing.

Athos found the bottle by touch and pulled it out, its cool exterior seeming to calm his nerves. He would drink and then he would sleep. Though drinking seemed to increase his grief, it did, at long last, bring him calm and relief.

Normally the relief he required was to forget his past and his own misdeeds. Now…Now he wanted to forget the danger he was in. And if death came for them all, let it come and at last welcome.

Holding the bottle, he collected his dagger and went to the window to use the light of the moon to better see the string that held the glass stopper in. But as he applied himself to cutting the string with his dagger, he heard clearly in his mind—as though they were repeated in front of him that minute—D’Artagnan’s words on their arrival home:
I find it hard to believe that there is no connection at all between Father Urtou’s death and this.

Athos frowned down at the wine bottle, as though it were somehow guilty of that thought, then carefully set it on the windowsill, illuminated by the light coming in through the shutter slats, and backed all the way to his bed, where he fell to sitting more than sat down.

It was hard to believe, indeed, that Father Urtou just chanced to be killed at the same time that another spate of deaths seemed to have overtaken the countryside. In fact…He bit at the inside of his cheek…It was very strange that there had been so many seemingly unrelated deaths. The elder Monsieur de Comminges; D’Artagnan’s father; Father Urtou; the attempts against D’Artagnan’s life itself.

Seemingly, all of these had clear explanations. Seemingly, none of them involved any of the others. But between the seeming and the truth, there had to be a gulf in this case. There had to be, else they were all fools and Gascony was, in fact, a much more dangerous location than could be supposed. Either all these murders and attempted murders were connected, or one must believe that there were, loose in the Gascon countryside, many people intent on killing someone else, without it much mattering who.

Oh, old people and spinsters and children frightened by their nurses would believe the countryside a vast trap populated by homicidal maniacs. But Athos was neither aged and infirm, nor a spinster lady, nor a child. No. These deaths must be all related.

To start with Monsieur de Comminges, it would seem that the Cardinal had disposed of him—or perhaps ordered D’Artagnan père to dispose of him. The matter of the safe-conduct found in D’Artagnan’s father’s trunk came to mind and Athos frowned. That he knew, the man hadn’t killed anyone. Not even in duel, much less by those means that would make it harder to escape punishment.

He frowned, and his temples throbbed, at the thought that there might be yet more deaths they had not discovered.

But he wouldn’t allow himself to think on that. It seemed to be so much foolishness as speculating on what constituted virtue or sainthood, much the type of silliness that Aramis would engage in, and not at all a profitable exercise for the mind.

Instead, Athos went back to the beginning. Supposing that the first death that mattered had been that of Monsieur de Comminges, who would benefit from it?

The Cardinal, he supposed. He frowned at this, as it was quite possible the Cardinal had decided to rid himself of Monsieur D’Artagnan, an agent who had fulfilled his duty and who might have, at any rate, grown if not a conscience then greed. Hard to believe the whole matter of the horses hadn’t been a bit of freelancing on Monsieur D’Artagnan’s part.

But this brought on, then, that the Cardinal must have attempted to kill D’Artagnan. Athos couldn’t quite conjure a motive for that. Oh, the Cardinal hated them all, Aramis perhaps a little more than the rest, but all of them with admirable inclusiveness. Still…

If the Cardinal had attempted to kill D’Artagnan—and at least the first set of bandits had carried one of those damned safe-conducts from his eminence—it must profit him some. This, Athos could imagine, would tie in with the inheritance of D’Artagnan’s domain. Perhaps his eminence had decided that nothing would make the young de Bigorre give up on his engagement but the provision of another domain for his taking. Such a plot was ruthless enough for the Cardinal to undertake.

However…try as he might, Athos could not think of a reason for the Cardinal to order Father Urtou murdered. The priest was just a provincial priest, and, had the Cardinal wished him silenced, there were other means to accomplish this, including perhaps calling him to Paris and instigating in him a taste for honors and recognition.

So for now, and until he could discover a motive for the Cardinal to want the priest killed, he would consider Richelieu—if not innocent, because he clearly was deeply involved in the matter—at least not exactly involved in directing the deaths.

And then he came to the next suspect—the young de Bigorre. While it was true that Edmond was present at the duel and therefore couldn’t, at the same time, be attacking Monsieur D’Artagnan by stealth, yet it was possible the wounding had taken place earlier than the peasant woman remembered. Perhaps D’Artagnan’s father had lost consciousness a while and seemed dead, before reviving, with disturbed mind. If he had bled on the plowed field it would be quite invisible.

Edmond might very well have killed Monsieur D’Artagnan and attempted to kill young D’Artagnan, but here the mind beggared. How would he contrive to pay for mercenaries to kill Henri D’Artagnan? Surely a man who had ruined himself with unwise gambling would be in no position for so expensive an enterprise. And beyond that, why kill the priest? If the priest had seen something or known something, he would surely have talked about it.

Athos frowned at the darkness intercut by moonlight. No. Oh, it was possible that Edmond de Bigorre had contrived it. He certainly stood to gain by the death of both men who might have a claim to the title of D’Artagnan. As a second son of the de Bigorre house, if no other heir obtained from this line, the title would naturally devolve to him.

And while Athos was quite sure the young man would rapidly expend all his patrimony in gambling and soon be as penniless as he was now, he would also be sure that Edmond Bigorre did not think so. Gamblers never did.

Therefore, it must be someone else. Who else—always barring agents of the Cardinal—could have profited by the deaths of de Comminges, Monsieur D’Artagnan, the priest and young Henri D’Artagnan himself?

De Comminges’s son, a creature that Athos did not find particularly pleasing, might very well have profited from the death of his father, who seemed to be of Monsieur D’Artagnan’s generation and therefore sullied with all the splatter of the wars of religion.

Monsieur de Comminges the younger might even have profited from the death of Monsieur D’Artagnan. Unless Athos misread the situation with the horses—as he very much doubted he did—then Monsieur D’Artagnan had used blackmail to obtain horses from de Comminges, who was involved in treason.

So, getting rid of Monsieur D’Artagnan made perfect sense. But what use could it possibly be to get rid of young D’Artagnan, or the priest, yet?

Athos thought of the wedding record for the older de Comminges. Something about the wedding with Marie R. being a fake one. And then there was that gown that Aramis had found in the trunk, and the challenge to a duel, stained, presumably with de Comminges’s blood.

What kind of events could have taken place at that time that would cast their shadow upon the present, like a tree that once cut down will return from the roots to occupy the space it occupied before? Something to do with Madame D’Artagnan. That much was sure.

There was much about Madame D’Artagnan that Athos could not like, and some of it, probably, had to do with the present situation. He just couldn’t imagine what. He also couldn’t imagine what attached her to de Bilh. Something was there, but he could not believe it was the infidelity that Bayard was so ready to impute upon her.

For one, from what D’Artagnan had said of how de Bilh referred to his mother, then certainly Monsieur D’Artagnan would know about it too. Any relationship, Monsieur D’Artagnan would have known about. And yet the one thing none of them had found evidence of was any true animosity between the two men. On the contrary. Despite the fact that de Bilh had killed D’Artagnan, even the witnesses to the death ascribed it to accident.

To imagine that de Bilh had faked friendship for D’Artagnan for so long only to kill him was something out of a crazed novel or Roman myth, something that even Athos’s wild imagination, plaguing him with chimeras and monsters, would not countenance.

So, what could have happened those many years ago, before D’Artagnan’s birth, that could have caused the younger de Comminges to want to exterminate the family, root and branch?

Athos thought of the note in the registry again. And he remembered, cloudily, from the days D’Artagnan had spent recovering at the last inn, the boy saying something about the ruffians wishing to kill him so papers wouldn’t come out.

Papers. Marriage record. Suppose the note on the de Comminges marriage record had referred to Marie D’Artagnan. Suppose it had been wrong. Suppose…

Athos felt his hair stand on end at the back of his neck, but he forced himself to go on, ruthlessly. Suppose that in fact Marie D’Artagnan as she called herself had been truly married to de Comminges, who had, somehow, through some contrivance, and with who knew what intent, decided to repudiate her and remarry. And on remarrying, he had convinced Marie the marriage had been false.

Then that would make the de Comminges heir illegitimate—which gave him double the reason to kill D’Artagnan, and perhaps to kill the priest. At least if he believed the priest had the papers. That too would explain the ransacking of the sacristy, as no other of the ideas would have.

Athos sat up straighter. The only thing that remained and made no sense whatsoever was both the Cardinal and the younger de Comminges attempting against D’Artagnan’s life.

If this scenario were true, then, perforce, D’Artagnan was himself a bastard. Whether he inherited the D’Artagnan domain or not in that case was much of a question, but not one that he could imagine would excite de Comminges’ interest, though it might interest the Cardinal.

He thought of this drama he’d dreamed up, lost in the time before D’Artagnan’s birth, and frowned. None of it made sense nonetheless. Perhaps he’d simply sat around dreaming of improbable tragedies well befitting a Greek playwright for no reason at all.

In his mind, Marie D’Artagnan’s pale blue eyes looked out at him in wounded outrage. She’d trusted him. She’d begged him—as the oldest and most responsible of them all—to keep her son safe. And Athos, instead, had sat here thinking up calumnies about her.

He thought of the portrait of Monsieur D’Artagnan, downstairs, in the great salon, with its bluff appearance, and despite its blond hair, looking like nothing so much as like Porthos.

And then the monstrous idea he’d been keeping submerged in his thoughts for so long emerged. Like a beast, long forgotten, it rose from the depths of his consciousness.

He thought of the portrait again, and he was not sure of anything anymore. He’d looked at it, but not with the intent of deciding what had happened so long ago.

He must see it again.

Rising swiftly, he lit his candle wick upon the banked fireplace. With it in hand, dressed only in his shirt which, not being tucked into his breeches, covered him to the top of his thighs, he started out of the room and down the stairs.

He turned along shadowed corridors, forever afraid something or someone would jump out of the shadows, and all the while telling himself he was a fool.

The great salon was deserted, tables and chairs carefully arranged, probably by Marguerite. And the portrait on the wall was undisturbed and seemed to smile at him, by the twitching light of the candle, an ironical, mocking smile. Its dark blue eyes seemed to flicker and dance by the moonlight, just like D’Artagnan’s dark brown ones did when he was most amused.