Death in Gascony (8 page)

And Athos received a shock. However he’d imagined Madame D’Artagnan, the mother of that fierce duelist, his friend, D’Artagnan, this was not it.

It was clear from the way D’Artagnan hugged her, shouting “
Maman
,” and the way the woman clung to him, crying a little, that she was, indeed, D’Artagnan’s mother. It was, however, a puzzle how this could be since she looked scarcely older than D’Artagnan and almost certainly younger than Athos himself.

In fact, the woman looked hardly out of her childhood. Small, with a round face and honey blond hair, she had the kind of very pale, even complexion that seems to belong to a doll and not a living human. Her eyes, huge and blue and round, added to the impression of youth and guileless innocence.

Her midnight black dress—modest by court standards, since it wholly covered her bosom and revealed her girlish, plump arms only from the elbow down—and her black headdress only added to the impression of frail innocence.

She looked, Athos thought, like a postulant in a strict convent—all youth and innocence submerged in darkness and discipline. Though he could tell on second glance, by the light of day coming through a thick-paned window, that she had faint wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and lips, none of this detracted from the impression that she’d just moments ago left her playfellows to come pray in front of grim saint statues.

And now Athos looked at the saint statue and his mind stopped working altogether, because the statue showed a female saint holding her severed head in her hands. From the intent expression in the face, it was clear the head was alive and the lips speaking.

The oddness of it confused him long enough that he was barely aware of D’Artagnan’s performing the introductions, though he bowed when his name was mentioned. And he hoped, in a flash, that Aramis wouldn’t find it necessary to exert his usual fatal charm upon his friend’s mother. He did not think D’Artagnan would accept that very well.

And then he realized that D’Artagnan was talking of his father.

“
Maman
, how did it happen? How could it happen? He was the best duelist ever.”

“Everyone has a bad day, my son,” she said with a resigned expression.

“But,
Maman
, my Father!”

“Well, well…then, Henri, you know, your father was getting old. He was no longer the man you remember.”

“But I’ve only been gone six months!” D’Artagnan protested, heatedly.

“Six months are a long time when one is as old as your father was,” his mother said, soothingly. And as she spoke, her eyes turned towards Athos, as if in silent appeal.

Athos wasn’t sure why he was being appealed to, and felt his cheeks color. Why did the woman keep emphasizing how old her husband had been?

A horrible thought crossed his mind that Marie D’Artagnan, still beautiful and clearly far younger than her husband, had seen it fit to get rid of the husband she disparaged. And was now making excuses.

Did they know there had truly been a duel, beyond her witness? Did anyone know?

Athos bit his lip and tried to banish these ridiculous fears. He could not and he would not allow himself to suspect D’Artagnan’s mother of being a murderess.

D
’ARTAGNAN
could not convince his mother that his father would not have died in a fair duel. At least, he could get no more than that from her in front of his friends.

Instead, he submitted to her motherly concern, as she had a light meal of roast chicken and bread served to them, and then endured with good grace as
Maman
made her domestic arrangements, assigning each of the visitors to a room in the older part of the house—the south wing.

D’Artagnan himself, of course, was given his childhood room. Or perhaps there was no “of course” about it. Perhaps he should have been given his father’s room. But D’Artagnan could no more imagine sleeping in a chamber so recently vacated by his parent than he could imagine flying. And therefore, followed by the tottering but determined Angel, he took his saddlebags to his childhood room which looked exactly as he had left it.

This was not exactly difficult, as the whole room contained no more than a curtained bed and a trunk in which he stored whatever belongings he prized. The hooks on the wall, which normally held his clothes, were now notably devoid of them, since he’d taken all his possessions to Paris with him. In the trunk there would be books and interesting rocks he’d picked up on his walks through the fields when he’d been very young.

On the wall hung his most prized possession, given to him by his father when D’Artagnan had first held his father at bay in a duel—at fifteen. It was a sword, so old that it would be no use at all in a duel. This was the reason D’Artagnan had left it behind, rather than risking it on the road to Paris or in uncertain lodgings in the capital.

Normally he looked at the sword—which had belonged to some de Bigorre of almost forgotten memory—with great pride. Pride at his achievement in winning such a trophy from his father and pride too at the ancestors who had once wielded that sword in war. An ancestry as old, if perhaps not as noble, as Athos’s.

But now he stared at it and frowned. The emblem blazed upon the sword’s guard was that of the de Bigorre family. Two lions, mouths open, roaring at each other upon a field of azure.

What did it mean? How could a dagger with that same emblem have been in the hands of the dishonorable assassins who’d tried to kill D’Artagnan just days ago?

He shook his head at his own folly. It couldn’t mean anything. The men had been murderers, probably robbers, as well. Surely they had stolen that dagger from a member of D’Artagnan’s extended family. And yet…

And yet, the thought worked at D’Artagnan’s mind as the sort of nagging pain that issues from a wound that should be healed and yet continues to flare.

Thinking of all his cousins—his two male cousins, Edmond and Bertrand, and his one female cousin, Irene, he tried to imagine why any of them might want him out of the way. None of them had any reason for it, not that he could tell, he thought as he undressed and washed away the travel dust perfunctorily with the water provided beside the wash basin.

Bertrand would inherit D’Artagnan’s uncle’s domains, a land so vast that D’Artagnan’s modest keep could fit in it twenty times over. There would be no reason for him to kill D’Artagnan’s father. At least no monetary reason. And then there was Edmond. Last D’Artagnan had seen him, before leaving for the capital, Edmond was well dressed and well spoken. Though the family had, initially, spoken of Edmond’s entering into orders and making his career in the church, by the time D’Artagnan had left for Paris, this seemed to be wholly abandoned.

Instead, it was almost sure that well-spoken, handsome Edmond was on his way to marrying the heiress of some domains that bordered his parents’ lands. These domains were large enough and prosperous enough that Edmond would never want for money or finery. And he too lacked a reason to attack his relatives—in the open or by stealth.

D’Artagnan put on a clean shirt and doublet, and laced it, thoughtfully. He was grateful he no longer needed to bind his wound. In fact, all that remained of that troublesome injury was a very little scab on his otherwise unblemished skin.

As for his cousin Irene…He flinched from the thought. Irene had been his first love, long ago, when he’d first become aware that women were different. He prided himself in its having been returned. Or, at least, Irene had allowed D’Artagnan to kiss her behind a hay bale, at five years of age.

D’Artagnan remembered too, all too well, the scolding that had ensued when they’d been discovered at their pastime. Irene was, after all, an heiress, and destined for better things than marrying the penniless heir of a second son.

In fact, spurred by their indiscretion, Monsieur de Bigorre had immediately contracted his daughter to Sever, the heir of Monsieur de Comminges—the lord of the largest domains in the region.

Though D’Artagnan wasn’t sure why, exactly, that marriage had been delayed and she was still single when D’Artagnan had left for the capital. He doubted very much that would still be the case, but even if it were…

What danger could D’Artagnan be for the fair Irene? Was she afraid he would reveal to her fiancé or husband that he’d kissed her behind the hay bales when both were less than six?

Even in his current somber mood, D’Artagnan couldn’t imagine this to be true. He smiled sadly at his reflection in the mirror.

No. It couldn’t be any of his cousins who’d sent a man to kill him. And his uncle, frankly, didn’t even seem to be aware of D’Artagnan’s existence. He was that sort of man, blood proud, who’d prefer to pretend the less pecunious side of the family did not exist at all.

The dagger must be a coincidence. Nothing more. And he would not allow it to get in the way of the real investigation.

No. Instead of thinking anymore on that ill-fated weapon, he would go to the room his father had called his office—the small room in which he had done his accounting and other necessary pen-and-ink tasks. And there he would look for enlightenment on his mother’s statement that his father had worked for the Cardinal. And perhaps he would find a clue to it all.

Outside his bedroom door, he ran into Porthos’s servant, Mousqueton—who had, before Porthos took him into his service, been a larcenous street urchin by the name of Boniface.

Though Mousqueton would proudly tell one and all that he had abandoned his thieving ways when he’d become a musketeer’s servant, D’Artagnan was all too well aware of many chickens that seemed to get run over by carriages when Mousqueton was around—leaving the servant no other option than wringing their necks to put them out of their misery. He was even more aware of the peculiar way in which bottles of wine and loaves of bread and the occasional leg of mutton seemed to get run over by carriages around Mousqueton.

Given that, he had to start a little at finding Mousqueton here, so far from the room assigned to his master and any sleeping space that might be allotted to a servant.

“Mousqueton,” he said, betraying his surprise.

“Monsieur D’Artagnan,” Mousqueton said, and bowed slightly with something very akin to military discipline. “I am come to tell you that my master has decided he needed a ride among the fields to clear his head.”

“And he didn’t need you?” D’Artagnan asked, wondering how much Porthos might be in need of a ride to clear his head, when they had arrived from a days-long ride just hours ago.

“Monsieur Aramis has accompanied him,” Mousqueton said. “And Bazin with them. So, you see, I am quite unnecessary.”

D’Artagnan nodded, frowning a little, because he could not determine whether Porthos or Aramis might be following a trail or hunch of their own, or whether they’d simply gone in search of the nearest tavern with good wine and agreeable wenches. Knowing the two of them, it could be either. Or both.

Instead, he said, “Very well. Thank you for letting me know.”

Though it was clearly a dismissal, Mousqueton gave no indication of knowing he’d been dismissed. Instead, he bowed again, a small, controlled gesture of respect. “My master said I was not to leave you, monsieur. Your own Planchet is very busy looking at all of your family’s horses, this, apparently, having taken him quite back to his childhood in his father’s place. Grimaud is attending Monsieur Athos. Bazin is away with Monsieur Aramis. This leaves me, I’m afraid, to make sure that nothing happens to you.”

He said the last in an embarrassed tone, as well he might have. D’Artagnan couldn’t help a snort of derisive impatience. “Mousqueton! I am a guard of Monsieur des Essarts. I can scarcely need anyone to protect me in my own house.”

But Mousqueton only set his lips, and gave every impression of becoming as mulish as Porthos himself could be in this type of dispute. “Monsieur,” he said, in an injured tone. “While this might be your own house, I’d like to remind you someone attempted twice against your life on the way here. Also, while you might be a guard of Monsieur des Essarts, and while that noble regiment is often treated as a cadet regiment to the incomparable musketeers, yet I would like to remind you that this post—no matter what its honor—does not have the ability to confer eyes on the back of one’s head.” He bowed again. “Do not mistake me. I have seen you fighting and I know no one can equal you in fair duel. But this does not mean you can’t be killed by a dagger slipped by stealth in between your shoulder blades.”

D’Artagnan started and would have protested, except that Mousqueton’s words were so patently true. He thought of the dagger in his luggage, which had fallen from the hands of the ruffians. A dagger with the emblem of his own relatives. It was all he could do not to shiver.

“My master told me to guard you and stay beside you, whether or not Planchet was on hand to perform the like service,” Mousqueton said. “And, as you know, it is not prudent to disobey Monsieur Porthos.”

D’Artagnan nodded. “Very well, then. But I am only going to my father’s office, to look at his papers.”

Without a second glance at Mousqueton, he hastened down the long stony corridor, with its curved ceiling, that had probably once been part of some much grander building, before the D’Artagnans had taken possession of the site. The windows to the left, also elegantly curved, gave out on a panorama of fields, just above the city walls. D’Artagnan remembered those fields in spring, filled with singing women helping in the planting.

For just a moment, he felt regret that he had come back in the beginning of winter, with the fields denuded and his beloved land covered in frost. And then he remembered he wouldn’t be leaving these domains again. There would be springs and springs and springs, and winters too, stretching to the end of D’Artagnan’s life.

He turned from the windows and hurried through the hallway and up a flight of stairs whose stone steps were so worn as to show an indentation in the center. He didn’t turn, but he knew Mousqueton was following him.

D’Artagnan’s father’s office was one floor above, in a jutting observation tower that protruded from the roof of the otherwise relatively modest house. At one time it had been a guard tower, ready to warn the owners of incoming attack. His mother said his father had made his offices up there because—a man of action and always reluctant to undertake accounts or correspondence, or indeed anything that required him to put pen to paper—he had needed the silence and the isolation to force himself to work upon the dreaded tasks.

D’Artagnan, however, who had often gone up there to consult with his father on horses or swords, or other urgent issues of his early youth, suspected what drove his father to his isolated aerie was less of a desire for solitude and more of a desire to see all around him—the open vistas of fields and vineyards. As a man of action, a man who had traveled, the elder D’Artagnan must have found Gascony and the walled precincts of Tournon sur l’Adour terribly confining.

And his son, sighing, arrived by means of a winding staircase to the door to his father’s office which, to his dismay, proved to be locked.

He rattled it in some impatience. His father had kept the keys on his own key ring, which would now be in possession of D’Artagnan’s mother. D’Artagnan didn’t anticipate his mother’s barring him access to his father’s papers, but first he must perforce go and find her in whatever dim recesses of the house she might be, doubtless supervising preparations for supper.

He made a sound of impatience, and found Mousqueton at his elbow.

“Monsieur,” he said. “If you’ll allow me, I can open the door for you.” In his hand he had what looked like a key ring, except the “keys” depending from it were not like any that D’Artagnan had ever seen. They were, in fact, no more than a curious collection of various metal wands twisted this way and that.

D’Artagnan stepped aside, curious as to what Mousqueton proposed to do. He flattened himself against the wall while the young man, who was almost as tall and powerful as his master, stepped forward and worked on the lock with his metal implements.

For a moment it seemed to D’Artagnan as though he weren’t sure what to do. He used now this implement, and now the other, and they made curious sounds as he inserted them in the keyhole, but nothing happened.

“Bon,”
D’Artagnan said, ready to declare it a lost cause and go in search of his mother and the right keys.

But just then, there was the unmistakable sound of a lock turning and opening.

Mousqueton stepped back. “There it is,” he said.

D’Artagnan pushed at the door and it opened. Over his shoulder, he told Mousqueton, “I thought you were done with illegality and larceny now that you work for Monsieur Porthos.”

Mousqueton smiled. “Why, monsieur. Of course I am. How could you think otherwise? It’s only that having learned the art of breaking in early enough, I hated to part with such a skill. So I keep my implements. But I assure you, I only use them for entertainment and emergencies and, occasionally, you know…to do someone a favor, as for instance, if one should need to go into a room that happens to be locked, due to some oversight. The Duchess my lord has befriended,” he said, with the slightest of smiles betraying that he knew very well that Porthos’s lover was, in fact, an attorney’s wife, “often has need to get into rooms that her husband has accidentally locked, you see.”