the musketeer's seamstress Read online

  And now a man pounded on the door and called out in French, “Madame, madame, if you do not open we’ll be forced to break down the door.”

  Aramis, well versed in the art of ordering palace staff knew that it would only be a matter of minutes before some sturdy lads were brought forth and their shoulders applied to the door. The lock was solid, but not that solid. It would open. And they would catch him here. Alone. With Violette’s corpse.

  How long before the gibbet was built and he was hanged? Or would he be lucky enough to be beheaded? One of his long, pale hands went, unmeant, to his long, elegant neck.

  It would kill his mother.

  He edged towards the balcony door. It was the only way out. And that not a true way out. All he could hope for was to fall to the hard ground that would break his body. But at least he wouldn’t die on the gallows or the block. He would not bring that shame onto his mother.

  Filled with a decision he could only half muster, his hands tore at the door, forcing it open.

  The warm air of spring rushed in on him, a scent of trees and grass and, beyond that, the scent of manure and cooking fires that was the essence of the great, bustling city of Paris.

  His ears unnaturally sharpened by his fear, he could hear somewhere on the grounds of the palace the rough laughter of musketeers on guard and the sound of dice being tumbled. Was Athos or Porthos on guard tonight? He could not remember. Truth was he could not remember what day it was anymore and his normally perfect knowledge of his friends’ guard schedules had slipped wholly from his mind.

  In the end, his wit, which had always been his defense, would desert him. The sound of the knocks on the door changed. Ah. Sturdy shoulders applied with a will.

  Aramis stepped out onto the balcony, which was semicircular, built of stone and surrounded with little cylindrical columns of stone topped by a carefully edged parapet.

  The polished stone felt rough against his nakedness, as he leaned over to look three stories below, to the paving of an ornamental patio surrounded by flowerbeds. On one of the flowerbeds, in front of the balcony, a lone tree stood, filled with the kind of tender green leaves that spring fostered, leaves still small enough that one could see the tree branches thrust skyward like the hands of beseeching sinners beneath their sparkling green livery.

  If Aramis flung himself out . . . If he threw himself out towards it . . .

  He narrowed his eyes, calculating the distance, which was more than that of his outstretched body were he laid in the air between it and the balcony. And worse, the thickest part of the tree was a good story below.

  His body had been honed through years of duels and sword practice. He knew his muscles could perform amazing leaps in the heat of combat. But here, in midair, with nothing to push against, how was he to reach for the saving branch of the distant tree?

  And even if he managed to get down there, how could he save himself, naked and—he looked down—somehow smeared with Violette’s blood? How could he escape the palace and its well guarded entrances? Everyone knew he was in here with Violette. Or, if not, everyone would guess when they found his uniform tossed casually over one of her chaises.

  He took a step in the room, not so much intending to retrieve the uniform, but thinking of the uniform, the image of his blue tunic in his mind and a vague idea that he should pick it up impelling him.

  And he heard the crack of the door, as it gave under the assault of young men’s shoulders.

  If he jumped, it would be suicide. But if he stayed here, they would kill him. Suicide was a sin.

  Without thinking, with no time to plan, he scrambled up onto the little stone parapet. He put the handle of the knife between his teeth. He could always use it on himself if it looked like he’d be captured alive.

  He would shame neither his mother nor his friends.

  He crossed himself. And then he jumped, somersaulting, his body twisting midair, his arms reaching hopelessly towards the impossible hold of the distant tree branches.

  A Hierarchy of Branches; Running from Fate; Where Fear Gives Not Only Wings, but Ears

  ARAMIS’S finger closed on twigs and an abundance of leaves, mere tips of branches and no stronger than a toothpick.

  Half disbelieving, he grabbed them, hard. But he’d barely got a hold on them, when he felt them give under his weight, snapping, as he fell. He scrabbled madly with sweaty fingertips, waving them around, till his left hand closed on another branch, scarcely thicker. Which in turn gave way letting him grasp a yet thicker branch, which also gave under his weight, letting him drop again, tilted and kicking out with his legs, waving his arms, trying to find—

  He fell hard, straddling a branch, bark and leaves and sharp twigs introducing themselves to his notice with a bump so sharp that his eyes teared and he managed a scream around the handle of the knife in his mouth.

  A scream which, his half-conscious brain realized, would only bring pursuers to him.

  Blinking the tears away from his eyes, he took stock of the tree, which was, fortunately, verdant and, this low, had dense enough foliage to hide him. Or at least, it would be if he weren’t straddling one of the lower branches, his naked legs, covered in fine blond hair, hanging on either side of it and his naked feet dangling freely below.

  Quickly, scraping both legs on the bark, he jumped up, and stood on the branch. He was aware that scratches covered his legs, and that his muscles hurt. But he had no time to think about it. He scurried along the branch, towards the center of the tree, trying not to disturb the foliage.

  Remembering his view from the balcony he judged that the outer wall of the palace should lay against the branch directly opposed to this one. He ran along the branch to the other.

  From beneath came a confused babble of sounds, a noise of voices raised in that tone people use when asking each other what to do next.

  Aramis reached the farthest point of the branch where he could safely stand. The wall of stone, which rose beyond that, was only visible as a glimmer of grey between the leaves. Too far away to reach even with extended arm.

  The voices on the ground became audible enough that he could understand what they were saying.

  “He must have gone this way,” said a shrill voice, clearly a woman’s or a young man’s.

  “He can’t,” countered the more sensible voice of a male. “How could he jump from the balcony and survive?”

  Aramis, his blood pounding in his ears, his vision dim, and all of his body hurting as if he had been flogged, wondered how he could have survived too. He only half believed it.

  “Well,” the shriller voice said. “Then where could he be? For he’s not in the room. Phillip yelled down he wasn’t. So he must have jumped. And you see that tree yonder? Look at all the broken twigs and leaves at the base.”

  Aramis bit harder into the handle of the knife that had killed his mistress. He stifled a moan of despair. They would find him. They would—

  “Ah, here comes Pierre, with the dogs,” said the man, over a low, vicious snarling.

  Aramis jumped. He jumped, hands extended, forward and up, towards the garden wall. And met a surface that some mason had taken great pride in making as smooth as possible.

  His fingers slid off the stone and he managed to muffle a whimper as he scrabbled with hands and feet and felt skin tear and nails rip. He found a foothold and one handhold, and scrabbled madly with his other hand, till he found another hold, higher up. His other foot found a place to lodge, a bare crack between two stones. More by force of will than by the strength of his hands and feet, he scrambled up the wall.

  Balancing atop of it, drawing a trembling breath, he heard the snuffles and whines of dogs. And jumped over.

  On the other side, all was dark and still. The evening had deepened and the road that ringed the palace was deserted. Save for the sounds of voices and dogs, now muffled by the wall, all was quiet.

  Aramis took a deep breath and wiped the sweat from his forehead to the back of his arm. He trembled
and told himself it was with cold, despite the warmth of the balmy air.

  Leaning against the wall, he tried to think what to do next. He could not run through Paris naked without being noticed. And besides, very soon they would send someone to his lodgings. They would be there, ready to arrest him before he could get clothes.

  He took another deep breath and faced the prospect of going into the night, naked and alone. And where could he go? Any half-wit would also take the precaution of sending guards to wait at his friends’ homes. The four of them were known as the four inseparables. And the Cardinal, who would soon enough make this his business, was no half-wit.

  And then he heard, from the left side, as he stood, the sound of dice rolled in a leather cup and a curt, low imprecation, “Damn.”

  It could have come from many mouths. But the choice of the single word and the tone in which it was said—as though the gambler had lost a great deal, but didn’t deem it important enough to allow for more than a word—made Aramis think of Athos. Athos always lost at games of chance. And yet he always played.

  The voice had been too distant and too faint in reaching his ears to be easily identified. To be sure, it could be almost anyone who had sworn so quietly into the evening air.

  But Aramis wanted it to be Athos. Willed it to be Athos.

  From the other side of the wall came the barking of dogs, and someone saying, “There’s blood here. He climbed the wall here.”

  Aramis ran towards the sound of dice. He would risk it. Knitting himself with the shadow, he ran, hoping that one thing in this disastrous evening would go right. Hoping to find sanctuary.

  Rounding the corner of the wall, he emerged into the shadow of the palace, where the bulk of the walls hid the scant light of the stars in the evening sky.

  In the dark, he saw three men, sitting in front of one of the palace gates, playing dice. He hesitated. With them sitting, like that, it was hard to tell what the men looked like, save that they were musketeers, wrapped in cloaks and wearing their hats. Three musketeers. But D’Artagnan wasn’t a musketeer.

  The one facing Aramis stood and said, “Holla, who goes there?”

  Athos’ voice. Weak with relief, Aramis surged forward. He removed the dagger from his mouth, held it tip down in his trembling hand. “Athos,” he said.

  Athos, tall, ivory skinned and blue eyed, graced with an incongruous cascade of dark curls down his back, normally looked like nobility incarnate. Less like a man than like a statue whom time and events could not touch. Now his eyes widened in shock; his face went paler yet; his dark blue eyes opened wide. “Aramis,” he said.

  The other two men stood and turned, swords in hand. One of them, the smaller one with the dark hair, wore not the musketeer’s uniform, but the similar uniform of the guards of Monsieur des Essarts, in a paler blue than the Musketeer’s clothes. He was very young, not yet twenty, dark haired and dark eyed, with the olive complexion of Gascony which was close to the border with Spain. He turned with the feline grace that was his characteristic.

  The larger one—a giant with red hair and beard—stood and turned with the gracefulness of a dancer or a fencing master. His handsome face was undeniably that of Aramis’s oldest friend, Porthos.

  “Please,” Aramis said, his strength almost gone, his heart beating at his throat from the sound of dogs approaching from behind. It was all he could do not to run and try to hide behind his friends. “Please. You have to help me.”

  A Fugitive in Need; Where Four Show They Think Like One; A Fine Predicament

  ATHOS heard the sound of approaching feet and, farther off, the sound of dogs and pursuit. He stood.

  Out of the gathering dark, gloomier here where the shadow of the wall hid the moon than in most places around the palace, a strange apparition came running. He was tall and blond and had, in general, the form and shape of Aramis.

  Athos’s mind told him it was Aramis, but his senses denied it. He’d never seen Aramis like this. It was not like his gallant friend to be running around naked, covered in blood, with a dagger between his teeth and an expression of pure panic on his regular features. And was that twigs entwined in the long blond hair that Aramis normally brushed till it glimmered?

  “Holla, who goes there?” that part of Athos that refused to admit this could be one of his oldest and closest friends asked.

  The man took the dagger from between his teeth, and held it in his hand, tip down, in such a way it was clear he had no intention of attacking. “Athos,” he rasped.

  There was such a tone of relief in the voice, such a tone of having found just the sanctuary he’d been looking for that Athos could no longer deny who this was. “Aramis,” he said.

  And on the name, his two other friends stood up, D’Artagnan quickly scooping the dice into his leather cup as he went.

  “Help me,” Aramis said. “You have to help me. They’re after me. They will catch me. They think I murdered—”

  “Silence,” Athos said. There was the sound of dogs and the sound of pursuit from behind, and surely Aramis didn’t mean to speak that loudly. There was only one thing to do, but Athos was afraid of saying anything, of calling any attention. At any rate, he was a man of quick mind but few words. The natural garrulousness of youth had been quelled in him for over ten years, since the day he’d hanged his wife from a low branch in his park and left his ancestral home and his title of count to join the musketeers under an assumed name.

  Instead of talking, he unlaced his cloak, threw it over Aramis’s shoulders. He looked at D’Artagnan and in the dark, quick eyes of their youngest friend, he caught comprehension. D’Artagnan removed his hat and shoved the mass of Aramis’s hair under it, before pushing the hat on Aramis’s head. It was a plumed hat and blue. True the blue was somewhat different than the one the musketeers wore, but in this dark place, only those who had reason to suspect it would look for the color difference.

  To Athos’s surprise, Porthos, a man who thought with his huge hands, his sharp, overdeveloped senses, didn’t need an explanation. By the time D’Artagnan stepped away— having pulled Aramis’ hat down over his face to hide his blood-stained features—Porthos was there, holding out what seemed like a pair of breeches.

  A casual glance revealed that he had not indeed exposed himself. The breeches he had on were embroidered velvet. The ones he held out to Aramis were over-breeches, slashed, to allow the embroidery to shine through.

  Count on Porthos to wear twice as many clothes as needed. However, the plain dark breeches, when on Aramis, were loose enough not to display the slashes.

  Athos nodded his approval, and nothing remained but to fish in his sleeve for his own, silken handkerchief and use it to clean Aramis’s face of blood enough to pass in the gloom.

  The whole had taken very little time, but the voices of Aramis’s pursuers sounded near now. Without speaking, with hasty gestures, Athos directed the rest of them to sit or kneel on the ground. He, himself, pushed on Aramis’s shoulders, forcing the younger musketeer to kneel down in the boneless manner of a man in shock. He adjusted the fold of the cloak he’d loaned Aramis over Aramis’s bare feet.

  At the last moment, noticing the ivory dagger in Aramis’s hand, Athos took it and slipped it into his own belt, in a place where the folds of the hem of his old-fashioned, Spanish style doublet hid it.

  Athos ran back to roughly where Aramis’s footsteps left off, took his own shoes off and then ran past them to a place near the road. He put his boots back on, and scuffed the sand, kicking and running around a bit, like a mad man. Then he jumped well away from the scuffled area, and ran back to them.

  His friends were looking at him as if afraid he might have gone mad. All except Aramis who looked down at the ground as if it contained the grave of all his hopes.

  What was Aramis doing, running around with a bloodied dagger? Whose dagger was it? Athos did not remember ever seeing his friend with an ivory dagger. What had Aramis done with it? Why were servants and dogs pursuing him?<
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  But the questions would have to wait, because the pursuers were on them. Just before they reached them, D’Artagnan somehow flourished the dice cup and threw the dice, a distinctive and non-frantic noise. The noise of friends relaxing together.

  Athos managed a smile at the young man, before the pursuers arrived.

  Then he turned, away from the men seemingly engaged in a game of dice, and faced the pursuers’ sword in hand. They were, as he expected, the sort of rabble that can be roused in the middle of the night and sent on any pursuit at all for the sake of being able to scare another human being, evildoer or not.

  There were five men, one of them almost as tall as Athos, all of them unkempt and clad in what appeared to be servant uniforms much the worse for the wear. Two of them held dogs straining at the leash, sniffing around disconsolately.

  They wouldn’t be used to tracking humans, Athos thought. They were primarily hunting dogs, who followed various animals through fields and meadows.

  Chasing Aramis must have been easy. There was just the scent of a human, a bloodied human, at that. But here, they would be confused by new smells. Aramis was wearing borrowed clothing with their smells upon it.

  Before the men handling the dogs could give a command, Athos said, “Who goes there?”

  The taller of the men, holding a large brown and black dog on the leash examined Athos from head to toe with a look Athos was not used to receiving from anyone, much less a peasant. “What business is it of yours?” he asked.

  “I guard the entrance to the King’s palace,” Athos said, straightening himself, and only managing to hold his temper in check because it wouldn’t do to call their closer attention to them or to Aramis.

  “A fine job you’ve done,” one of the pursuers said. “Considering that murder was done within.”

  “Murder?” Athos said. “Within the palace? Then why hasn’t the alarm been given?” He gave the servant a glare that implied that the man was a bit worse for the drink.