Dying by the Sword

The Spider’s Web; Where Old Enemies Are Much Like Old Friends; The Loyalty of a Worthy Man

“SIT down, Monsieur le Comte,” Rochefort said. He had led him into an office that was the exact, if poorer, replica, of his master’s. Where Richelieu ’s study was surrounded by a profusion of bookcases, each filled with leather bound volumes with gilded edges and covers, this one had only two bookcases. And where Richelieu ’s chairs were majestically carved and ornamented, Rochefort’s-while looking quite comfortable-were undeniably utilitarian affairs. His office also lacked a writing desk. What it had in its place was a sword, mounted on the wall, a sword that looked much like Athos’s ancestral sword, mounted on his own wall.

“I wish you wouldn’t call me that,” Athos said. “You might know it, and the Cardinal might know it, but other than courting my vengeance if you reveal it, there is nothing you can earn by letting me know you have my secret. I don’t use the name. What I have done has darkened it forever. Perhaps some yet unborn La Fere can resume it with pride, but I can never. So long as I live, that name must remain unknown.”

“Or at least until the crown has forgotten the small matter of your wife,” Rochefort said, casually, shrugging. “That’s normally why people take the uniform, isn’t it? To serve a while until one’s crimes are forgotten and the King owes one enough he’d never dream of punishing them. And then one can return to one’s former life, untouched.”

Athos felt a muscle work on the side of his jaw. “Do not mention… the lady. I committed no crime,” he said. “But as for returning…” He shrugged. “There are events and… and decisions that alter one forever. I don’t think I would be the best custodian for my lands or my people.”

Rochefort said nothing to this, simply sat down and joined his hands on his lap. “You’re not going to require,” he said, “that I call you Athos, are you? It is a demmed silly name. A demon, wasn’t he?”

“A mountain,” Athos said. “A mountain in Armenia on which a famous monastery is set.”

“A monastery!” Rochefort said, with every sign of alarm. “Are you then, like your friend who calls himself Aramis, merely wearing the uniform of the King’s musketeers until you can exchange it for the habit of a priest or a monk?”

“I?” Athos said, almost in shock. “Heaven forbid. I hope I have as much faith as the next man, but if I find myself inadequate to care for my lands or my people, how much more inadequate am I to look after God’s affairs? No. I’ll remain myself. The name is just… what it is.”

Rochefort shrugged. “Those of us who serve the Cardinal,” he said, “are not ashamed to do it under our own names.”

“Perhaps,” Athos said, “because you had nothing left to lose.” And let the idea sink in, seeing the sting of it at the back of Rochefort’s eye, even as the man looked away. Rochefort was, as Athos knew, as noble as himself-a man from an ancient family.

They’d been on the opposite sides of the secret war between King and Cardinal for so many years that the two of them knew each other as well as old friends might. Two things divided them beyond their opposing loyalties-which either considered inexplicable-that Rochefort was willing to stoop to the most dishonorable actions in pursuit of his master’s aim; and that Athos had no expectations, ever, of regaining the honors he had lost, while Rochefort was hoping to rebuild his domain and the fortune his ancestors had squandered.

“His eminence says you have agreed to work for him on this matter of the… conspiracy,” Rochefort said, politely.

“On this matter only and only because he’s holding Mousqueton, Monsieur Porthos’s servant, as a hostage to this.”

“I understood you offered,” Rochefort said, drily.

“One offers, when one is compelled,” Athos answered with equal dryness. “I do not want the boy harmed. You know Porthos. He took to the boy as though he were his own son.” He held back from saying that Porthos had already lost one son. Not that he wasn’t sure Richelieu knew this. There were very few things in France that escaped the attention of the éminence grise. But either Rochefort knew it and it didn’t bear mentioning-or he didn’t know it, and Athos would spare Porthos’s pride. “It would be devastating to lose him.”

Rochefort raised an eyebrow, “Is he perhaps, in fact-?”

“Not that I know, or Porthos knows,” Athos said.

“Or find it necessary to tell me?”

Athos shrugged. No use making Rochefort and Richelieu think that their hostage was, in fact, more important than he was. “That I know,” he said, “Porthos met him when he came to Paris. I understand Mousqueton tried to relieve Porthos of some of his possessions and… Well, you know Porthos.”

“Mostly I know his prowess in duel, but yes. I have heard rumors about Monsieur Porthos’s soft heart.”

Athos inclined his head. He supposed that there were rumors about all of them and that somewhere, if not actually written down, in the Cardinal’s hand, there was a list of their weaknesses-Porthos’s soft heart and his vanity; Aramis’s faith and his inability to stay away from the fair sex; D’Artagnan’s tendency to leap before he looked and his romanticism and Athos’s-he paused. He knew himself well enough to realize he had faults aplenty. But he was at a loss to choose which of them would be the fatal one. His drinking? His reluctance to deal with any women at all? Or his shattered and embittered heart, forever burdened with the sense of guilt for having killed his wife. She might have been a criminal and her death an execution, but in the dark of night, Athos stared dry-eyed into the darkness and suspected very much that he’d made a mistake and slain the only woman he’d ever love, the woman whose memory still haunted his every moment.

“So you offered to help us with this conspiracy to murder the Cardinal,” Rochefort said, suddenly businesslike, as though something in Athos’s expression had scared him. “And I think perhaps you should know what we know for a fact and… and what his eminence fears.”

Athos did not say that his eminence’s fears might have very little to do with reality. He knew that this was probably a slander. The Cardinal was many things, but none of them was either coward or insane. In fact, he was-always, in Athos’s experience-realistic and exact and fully aware of the truth of a situation, no matter how much he chose to distort it in his favor. Instead, he settled himself, with his hands folded on his lap, and waited.

Rochefort seemed surprised he had passed up a chance to engage in a battle of wits. “His eminence,” he said with something like a twang of disappointment in his voice, “has intercepted some correspondence between the Queen and some of her friends.”

Athos inclined his head. “Not the first time,” he said. “Nor the last.”

Rochefort shrugged, as though to signify this did not matter. “The Queen is very loyal to her brother the Emperor,” he said. “Sometimes it seems inexplicably so. She has also conceived the most vehement dislike of his eminence, for no reason anyone can understand, since you must know his eminence has always had her best interest-” He stopped, and shrugged and Athos was very much afraid he’d allowed a chuckle to escape him. “At any rate, you see, the Queen’s loyalties are divided, and having the King’s best interests-and, aye, those of the kingdom-at heart, the Cardinal can’t help but monitor her conversations. We are not going to beg pardon for doing what must be done.”

“I assure you, Rochefort, we never expected you to beg pardon.”

He got a look of dubious enquiry for that, followed by an exasperated exhalation. “The thing, my dear Count, is that…” He hesitated. “This correspondence hinted that there would be a great change in France soon, and it was clear they meant that the Cardinal would be dead and…” He paused. “And the throne might be better managed. We believed the implication was that they meant to murder the King.”

He paused. Athos caught himself halfway out of the chair, rising by the force of his arms upon the armrests, and he forced himself to sit down again. He noted Rochefort’s gratified expression at what Athos was sure was his alarmed face, and Athos forced his face to relax; forced himself to discipline his emotions. This was Rochefort and Rochefort was an echo of the Cardinal. They-both of them-told the truth only when they couldn’t tell lies, or when the truth served their purpose better than a lie. The chances of this being truthful were less than none.

Yet, Athos’s voice still sounded altered and distorted by emotion, as he said, “You cannot know what you’re saying. You cannot mean it.”

Rochefort was looking neutral, his pleased expression gone. “I wish I didn’t,” he said. “Though in the beginning it was just… a suspicion, or less than that. A thought that the matter should be followed up. A vague idea that things were not all they seemed to be. So I… followed up on it. The Queen’s correspondent, the Duchess De Chevreuse, who you know, is like the worst half of her majesty, and has already been responsible for one miscarriage of her majesty’s, for encouraging her to behave in a very irresponsible manner in the halls of the palace…”

“Or at least that was the reason given,” Athos said.

Rochefort shrugged minimally. “We intercepted correspondence of the Duchess’s, next. The names this brought to us were a little… odd. It appears Madame la Duchess has for some time entertained correspondence with Captain Ornano, the governor of the house of Monsieur, the brother of the King.”

Athos, completely confused by the introduction of the governor of Monsieur, the heir apparent, Gaston d’Orléans, could only raise his eyebrows and try to appear more knowledgeable than he was and yet less enlightened on the matter than he felt he should be.

Rochefort smiled and shook his head. “Perhaps I should explain,” he said. “I understand your friend Aramis is quite au courant of every possible affair in the court. I judge it will not be a surprise to you if I say that we’ve had some strange reactions to the announced marriage of Monsieur to Mademoiselle de Montpensier?”

“Is he to marry her?” Athos asked.

“But… It has been announced by his majesty himself,” Rochefort said, as though shocked that anyone at all could have missed this all-important news. “Surely-”

Athos shook his head. “My only interest in the royalty is to serve them,” he said. “Not necessarily in the person of the present occupant of the throne.” And, added, hastily as Rochefort raised his eyebrow in turn, “No, I don’t mean anything disloyal by that. I am a musketeer of the King’s and I will serve him to the utmost of my understanding and my ability. That is not what I meant. I meant…” He steepled his hands, then shook his head. “When I was… fifteen, I ascended to the dignity of Viscount de Bragelone, the junior title in my family. As such, my father judged that I should be knighted according to the true and ancient rites. What occasioned the knighting-the performing of an act of valor-all that matters not. It was an organized tourney, in which I could display my prowess.” He was aware of a rueful smile distending his lips. “Such as it was, at the time. Good enough for my father’s blessing, at any rate. And he took me to the Abbey of St. Derris where the crypts hold the bones of the kings of France. There he made me aware that the occupant of the throne such as he is, remains, for all he is our sovereign and King, a passing being-a mortal like all other men. What I must serve, he then told me, and made me understand, is the monarchy of France. The present occupant is merely the… vessel of that sacred line, that power which represents and rules all of the kingdom.”

In Rochefort’s eyes, for just a moment, there was something of a fellow-feeling and a look of understanding. “As I assume the Cardinal would say, we must worship the presence of Christ in the sacrarium and not the vessel itself.”

Athos shrugged. “I would say something akin to that. But while one might, on occasion, destroy the sacrarium, one should never destroy the King. Which doesn’t mean one should take a great interest in his life or that of his relatives, either. I have gathered, from gossip, that the King’s marriage is an unhappy one, and the only reason that matters to me is that it reduces the chances of France’s having an heir and, therefore, lays the kingdom open to the depredations of foreigners intent on seizing the throne. My only interest in Monsieur, therefore, is that he is the heir to the throne and stands between us and a disputed throne. Whom he marries signifies little, next to the imperative that he marry and sire children for the crown.”

“It is the Queen Mother’s only interest, also, I believe. That and that Mademoiselle de Montpensier carries with her a large dowry as well as all the ancient dignities and powers of that branch of the Bourbons. Her mother was a Joyeuse and the Queen made much of her and… indeed, of the daughter. In fact, you could say the Queen Mother has been planning this match since before Monsieur was breeched. The sum of this all is that, Monsieur being seventeen, the King has granted permission for the marriage to take place.” He looked at Athos, half in wonder, as though meeting a strange creature, and half in amusement. “If you do not listen to gossip, it is possible you don’t realize this would throw into disarray several people who have an interest, direct or indirect upon the throne and the fate of Monsieur and any heirs he might sire, in particular.”

Athos frowned. He did not, in fact, take any interest in gossip. However, he had been born and raised as a nobleman, sitting night after night at his father’s table, in their domains de la Fere, and listening to the discussions that washed up in their rural province, like echoes of a far-off sea. And then, after all his ambitions and hopes and desires had come to an end in the person of a beautiful blond woman marked with the fleur-de-lis of infamy upon her peerless shoulder, he’d come to court. There, he could no more hope to avoid being immersed in gossip than a fish could hope to avoid being immersed in water.

And the gossip ran rife, of course, as it would, since the twenty-five-year-old King had no heir and his fraught relations with his wife made it very unlikely indeed that he would have any. For a time-and perhaps still, though Athos refused to enquire-there had been a running pool among the more daring of the musketeers about who might sire the heir of France.

Oh, not themselves. The duchesses, princesses and minor noblewomen at court might disport themselves with the dashing young men, though even they-themselves-were not so zany as to allow their heir to be conceived by one such. Stories might abound-they always did-about how this or that heir to this or that domain favored this or that nobleman. But it was all nonsense, and of this Athos was fairly sure.

The Queen, like Caesar’s wife, must be above reproach and as such, she could not have it rumored about her that she slept with this or that musketeer-and in as crowded an environment as the palace, the gossip would fly far and wide, if she so much as favored one of them with a look or permission to kiss her hand.

No-the names on whom the hope of an heir for France rested, at least to believe some irreverent musketeers, were higher and more carefully guarded: Buckingham had for a time been a favorite, lending an air of intrigue to every one of his visits to France; then came Richelieu himself, though it was rumored by many that he had indeed made the attempt and been spurned; after that were many would-be contestants-almost every nobleman in France, truth be told.

But to Athos it had always seemed that-though the gossip didn’t scandalize him as it scandalized Porthos who had more than often threatened to duel someone for it-as much as they ran pools and gossiped and amused themselves with such, the musketeers didn’t believe the Queen would stray. Nor indeed did anyone else.

In fact, considering the position of queens as almost strangers and often suspected of insufficient loyalty to their adopted land, it seemed strange to Athos that any of them ever strayed. It was a brief pleasure, surely, and not worth the beheading that would follow.

Therefore, everyone expected the throne to, eventually, devolve on Monsieur, Gaston d’Orléans, the King’s younger brother. And after that, he knew that some families were waiting, in the full expectation that neither of the royal brothers would produce heirs, and the throne would thereby devolve to them. “I have,” he admitted, “heard the princes of Conde and Soissons speak as though they quite counted on the throne being theirs one day. In fact…”

“In fact?”

“In fact, to the extent that I’ve paid attention to such gossip, which, if you permit me, seems exaggerated considering his majesty is still young and, though not in the best of health, might yet live for decades-it was to worry that if ever it came to such a pass, those two houses between them might tear the kingdom apart.” And, afraid that Rochefort would think this fear hyperbolic, “They have pride and greed enough for that.”

“I agree, they do,” Rochefort said, his voice expressing his surprise that Athos and he might agree on anything. “And I confess they were two of the people on whom the news of Monsieur’s intended marriage fell heavily. They cannot, after all, count on the throne, if Monsieur sires a child at eighteen. So, you see… they were unhappy. All the more so since Monsieur de Soissons has for some time been trying to make his own arrangements with Mademoiselle de Montpensier.”

“You think the Duchess de Chevreuse is acting for them?” Athos asked. It didn’t seem an impossible idea. After all, De Chevreuse had a reputation for intriguing for the sake of the intrigue itself.

“It is possible,” Rochefort said. “All the more so since there are intimations that the fair lady has had some veiled correspondence with the two of them. And we’ve heard their names fall in conversation with the Queen.”

“But then her interest in this Captain Ornano must be…” Athos said. “That he might yet convince the Prince to refuse to marry Montpensier.”

Rochefort smiled. “You are wasted in the musketeers, Monsieur le Comte,” he said, and bowed. “If you worked for the Cardinal, your genius for intrigue would be rewarded as it deserves.”

“If I worked for the Cardinal,” Athos countered, “my good manners forbid my explaining what I would deserve, since you, yourself”-he gave a small bow-“have that honor. Reward would not be exactly the word for it though. Remember my father made me a speech on serving the monarchy.”

“We each serve it as we see best,” Rochefort said.

“And if De Chevreuse is doing this,” Athos said, changing subject, “what proof have you it is not at the behest of Soissons, who perhaps still wishes to marry Mademoiselle de Montpensier?”

“Or her dowry,” Rochefort said.

Athos bowed. He knew why most men married. He had not done so, but that was perhaps to his detriment. Certainly, considering whom he had, indeed, married, to the discredit of his good sense and judgement.

“It might be at the behest of Soissons,” Rochefort said. “But the truth is, she has talked to the Queen about replacing the Cardinal with someone more amenable.”

“Which you must know is the dream of most of the nobility in France, and not exactly treason in itself.”

“Perhaps not, but we know how attached our King is to Richelieu.”

“Or how attached he pretends to be,” Athos said, remembering more than a few times when Louis XIII had shown himself overjoyed at his musketeers thwarting some plot of the Cardinal’s.

Rochefort bowed. “But you must see,” he said, “that it would be the worst for the Queen if the King’s brother were to have children before… the royal marriage is fruitful. It would be a reproach to her, and, doubtless, lead to her loss of importance. So you must see…”

“That she would lose by it, yes. That she would conspire against her husband and her kingdom thereby, no, I do not need to see that.”

“Perhaps not,” Rochefort said. “But the Cardinal and I would very much like it if you should investigate in that direction, shall we say.”

Athos all but paled. Through one of their previous adventures, they had managed to keep the crown on the head of Anne of Austria, despite the Cardinal’s best efforts to unseat it. Was he truly fated to remove it this time? The Cardinal, with his fine lessons on the theory of chess, should understand that the knight was more often used to protect the queen than the pawn. If it came to that, Athos would have to resign himself to the loss of Mousqueton.

Or perhaps, he thought, ensure his freedom by other means.

But what could he do if the Queen, herself, was part of a play for the King? The horrible prospect put a shiver up his spine.