Dying by the Sword

Where D’Artagnan Wakes Up in a Strange Bed; The Doubts of a Loving Heart; A Woman of Dazzling Beauty

D’ARTAGNAN woke up with his hand on a mound of silken-soft hair. He tugged at it, experimentally, and was answered with a low grunt that brought his eyes fully open and showed him someone who was most definitely not his Constance. For one, the person in his bed had dark hair. For another, from the width of the shoulders and the doublet stretched across them, he was male. He was also, as D’Artagnan realized, once he’d blinked the sleep from his eyes, Athos.

A glance above showed him he was in Athos’s bed, in Athos’s lodgings. And that Athos was asleep, curled entirely away from him, save for his loosened curls. Athos was still wearing his full day attire, including his sword, in its sheath strapped at his waist, which bespoke his either having collapsed on the bed, dead tired, or his having been carried to the bed by Porthos and Aramis, who probably had carried D’Artagnan to bed also.

D’Artagnan sat up, experimentally, to a chorus of what sounded like bells, and a pull of nausea from his stomach. His eyes hurt with the light. His arm hurt too, but he wasn’t so confused he did not remember he’d got wounded the day before in a duel. He’d been about to go see Constance. He remembered that. And then there had been men in black cloaks who fought as if possessed by the devil. And he had got wounded. After that, Porthos and Aramis had brought him to Athos’s place, and they’d proceeded to make him drink more alcohol than he’d ever drunk before. And since he’d met the three musketeers, he’d drank quite a bit of liquor in almost painfully strange combinations.

He glared at Athos. Athos had given him brandy and wine, he remembered. What he couldn’t remember was why. He was sure Athos had been angry, or at least at that edge of anger to which he allowed himself to go without ever tipping over. And he was sure, angry as he’d been, Athos had felt a need to get drunk. It had been a deliberate effort. One doesn’t order up six bottles of burgundy all at once unless one means to get most seriously and intently drunk.

“Athos?” he said, slurring the word. But his comrade only grunted again, and curled yet tighter upon himself. “I see,” D’Artagnan said.

What D’Artagnan needed was a good pail of cold water over the head, and then to find breakfast in the nearest tavern. He’d lost blood, and he’d never taken more than wine. That was a recipe for disaster.

He swung his feet off the bed, picked up his sword which-at least in this case-his friends had been kind enough to remove and prop against the wall, and sheathed it. Then, he stood up. They’d never removed his boots, which was fortuitous, as he did not wish to struggle with them.

Porthos was asleep on the floor, next to a chair, all rolled up in his cloak. D’Artagnan wondered if Porthos too had gotten drunk, and decided it truly wasn’t worth his while to look for Aramis. For all he knew, he was perhaps on the other side of the bed, between bed and window, or maybe under the bed.

Instead, D’Artagnan opened the door, tiptoed out of the bedroom, and stepped over Planchet who was asleep in the hallway. He stared at his servant for just a moment. Planchet could not have been drunk, could he? There was no saying. Perhaps they’d finished up whatever wine their masters had left. Should D’Artagnan wake Planchet up? That was very doubtful. After all the young Picard had a worse head for wine than anyone that D’Artagnan knew, Bazin-who could get drunk off communion wine-included. If he had been drinking, he would be irascible and also sullen. And D’Artagnan was in no mood to drag a sullen, dismal servant behind himself.

So, he would go without Planchet. And joining action to word, D’Artagnan tiptoed down the stairs-avoiding waking anyone else who might be suffering from hangover in some other place in the house-and into the front hall, then opened the front door and slipped out into the bright morning.

He hadn’t lived in Paris so long that he had learned to be indifferent to the city in the early morning hours. Perhaps because he rarely woke up this early-though sometimes he went to bed this early-he loved the look of the buildings under the early dawn light, enjoyed the pealing of morning bells that called various monastic orders and convents to matins, and enjoyed seeing people with their morning faces, still fresh and surprised by the daylight.

He enjoyed it so much, in fact, that before he had gone more than one block his sour mood and his frown had vanished, and he was thinking clearly, as he breathed in the cool, clear air.

Constance had sent him a note to meet her at the palace. Of this he was sure. She had sent him the note in some distress, and this was not normal, because when Constance was in distress, she came to see him-she did not send him notes. That meant the situation must have been unusual, and, as such, she must have needed him more than ever. And he had failed her.

So, he was willing to concede that he’d been attacked and wounded and finally made very thoroughly drunk by his very misguided friends. But did this excuse him? Would Constance forgive him?

And suddenly he was not hungry at all. He just wished to go and see Constance as soon as possible. He took the shortest route possible for that purpose, and got to the royal palace before the sun was fully up in the sky. The man on guard, he noticed, was De Jacinthe, one of his friends from the musketeers. He was a little confused when D’Artagnan told him he needed to speak to someone-a lady-within. It wasn’t until he was on the point of giving his Constance ’s name, that his mind caught up with his racing mouth.

Yes, yes, Aramis had his affairs with married women. Countesses and duchesses and the occasional foreign princess, at least to believe gossip. But the thing was, gossip there was, and aplenty, and only the fact that most of the husbands of these illustrious beauties had their own amusements and could not care less what their wives did in their spare time, kept it from being a problem, leading possibly to a duel or worse, to the setting aside of the lady.

Porthos, whose lover, Athenais Coquenard, was married to a mere accountant, had to be far more circumspect with his behavior, because Athenais could and would suffer, should it be discovered that she had a gallant. How much more so would Constance suffer, whose husband was twenty years older than her and besotted and far more alert and capable of obtaining revenge than Monsieur Coquenard. Let alone that he could turn D’Artagnan out, or demand that D’Artagnan pay him back the several months his rent was in arrears, there was the very real possibility he would divorce Constance. And much as D’Artagnan longed to marry his ladylove, he much doubted that anyone who had a say in it, including her godfather who was steward to the Queen’s household, would allow her to marry a penniless eighteen-year-old guard with not a pistol to his credit.

He sighed. No. He must be discreet. And being discreet, he cast about for the name of a lady whom he could claim to be courting without in any way being compromising. The only name that came to mind was that of Mousqueton’s inamorata, Hermengarde, and her name D’Artagnan gave with no remorse.

De Jacinthe sent word for her to come receive him, and when Hermengarde appeared at the door, her blushes and confusion on seeing D’Artagnan lent a credence to his story that the musketeer could not possibly have anticipated. She led him into the palace, and it was only once inside that she turned to him and smiled. “You’ve come to see your lady, have you not, Monsieur?”

It occurred to him, belatedly, that she might take it amiss that he’d given her name when it was another he wanted to see. He looked at her, somewhat fearful of incurring her wrath, but found her smiling at him and shaking her head, indulgently. “She was very worried about you, yesterday, and she confided in me and asked me if there was any chance perhaps that you were out and working on behalf of my Mousqueton.”

D’Artagnan shook his head. “I was… I think I was.” He told her, rapidly, everything that the baker’s family had said.

Hermengarde smiled. “Oh, that is so much nonsense. His daughter, Faustine, is a true fright, and Mousqueton would never marry her, if she were the only woman in the world. Though you know, it is his fault that the Langeliers entertained such thoughts, because he was so jealous of young Langelier that he used to go to the armorer’s simply to be around and make sure he wasn’t saying anything about me or that I… that I wasn’t visiting. So he had to justify it and he pretended he was courting Faustine. But for all the money Monsieur Langelier would have given her, Mousqueton has too much sense to want to be married to a cross-eyed shrew. And as for me…” She shrugged. “It is said that Pierre Langelier spends as much money as he makes-and he makes a lot, for he was his father’s best apprentice-upon the gambling tables. I don’t think being married to me would have made him any better and, anyway, you see, I am probably carrying Mousqueton’s child, so it is all to naught.” She smiled hopefully at D’Artagnan. “Have you heard anything of Mousqueton? How does he fare? Is he in health? He has not…” She crossed both her hands at her chest. “… been tortured? Has he?”

“No, no. That of a certainty he has not,” D’Artagnan said, and was rewarded for his lie-or at least his affirming of something he could not at all know-with a bright smile. Encouraged, he continued. “And I shall do my best to find the true culprit soon and to ensure that he shall not be detained much longer.”

“Oh, good,” Hermengarde said. “And then we may speak to Monsieur Porthos and get married.”

D’Artagnan was sure of it, though he did not inform her, because if Mousqueton hadn’t already, it would be useless to attempt it, that making Porthos understand what the situation was and what they meant to do might prove considerably harder than it would at first seem.

Instead, he sent Hermengarde to Constance to inform her that he was waiting. As Hermengarde was about to turn away, she turned to D’Artagnan. “Oh, your friend Aramis lent me such a pretty embroidered handkerchief yesterday, to dry my tears. I’m sure I was very silly to be crying at all. It must be a side effect of my condition, for never have my tears been more abundant.” She smiled shyly. “At any rate, I have washed the handkerchief, and here it is back again.”

She handed D’Artagnan a square of lace and D’Artagnan, who was quite sure that in the confused babble of last night, between brandy and wine there had been a talk of monogrammed handkerchiefs, looked uneasily down at the monogram, which was MAR. Since he knew for a fact that Aramis was in another life Rene Chevalier d’Herblay, he could but marvel at those initials. And then he remembered the Duchess de Chevreuse who apparently-and for reasons known only to her, or to those more adept at court intrigue than D’Artagnan-called herself Marie Michon. He put the square of lace into his sleeve, and thanked Hermengarde, determined to ask Aramis what all this could mean at the first opportunity.

Not many minutes went by, before Constance came out of the little door through which Hermengarde had disappeared. D’Artagnan started to her, with both hands extended, but the lady made no effort at all to meet his hands. Her own were kept where they were, at the end of her crossed arms.

Instead of the affectionate greeting which the twenty-something blond was likely to give him, frosty accents echoed from her soft and luscious mouth. “So I see,” she said, “that my summons are for nothing. I call you to me with the utmost urgency, and you decide to ignore me and instead”-she gave a pointed look to his arm, where the bandages were perfectly obvious by the lump beneath the borrowed shirt and doublet-“you choose to go to the duel you’d set before.”

“A duel?” D’Artagnan said. He stared at her aghast. “Who told you there was a duel set?”

“Someone,” she said, primly, “has said it. It is common knowledge at court. I heard someone say you and your friends had a duel set for yesterday. And you must know that his eminence is daily in expectation of getting the King to sign that edict which would make it fatal for you to fight. And yet, the marchioness tells me that you would have fought anyway, for you care nothing for your life, nor for how much you’d leave me desolate, should you die. No, you’d rather be killed and leave me quite alone.”

The words came out in such a torrent that D’Artagnan’s mouth dropped open in surprise. “ Constance,” he said. “You cannot meant it.”

“What, that you should not fight so many duels? Of course I mean it. How many times have I imagined-”

“No, that you believe all this nonsense about my meaning to fight a duel. I never did.”

“You weren’t home when I delivered the note on my way to visit Monsieur Bonacieux.”

“Yes, that is true, I wasn’t. I spent most of my afternoon trying to find out something about who might have killed the armorer that Mousqueton is accused of killing. You must know, my dear, that we cannot let the poor boy rot in the Bastille. Not when… well.” He couldn’t bring himself to give away other people’s secrets, so he finished in a halting tone. “Well, Hermengarde loves him, you know.”

Constance, who had been examining D’Artagnan’s features, as though desperately trying to fix in her mind any reason to believe him or disbelieve him, now sighed. “I cannot believe you. I’m sorry. I left the note, and you never came.”

“I came,” D’Artagnan said. “I came and Porthos with me. Ask whoever was at guard last night, to whom I gave Monsieur de la Porte ’s password. I came, and in that courtyard over there, before I could get to you, we were attacked by six men in dark cloaks. They… They wounded me,” he lifted his arm slightly, in vain hope for sympathy. “And then some guards of the Cardinal appeared, and they accused my friends and I of dueling. ‘Dueling’ he said. Among us. And when Porthos proved to them that it wasn’t so, they let us go, but by then I had lost so much blood, that the only thing to be done was to take me to Athos’s place. And then I don’t remember much of anything, save that, for some reason, I was given more brandy than I’ve ever drunk, and some excellent red wine.”

At this point, he realized Constance was crying softly. He said, “No, no. What’s this?” as he fished madly in his sleeve for a handkerchief. He found a square of lace and gave it to her. “Don’t you believe me?”

“I know I believe the drinking,” she said. “But I don’t know how much more. You don’t understand my fears,” she said, and touched her eyes with the handkerchief. “I know you’re out there, free, and so much younger than I, and I know how all the ladies of nobility make it a point of picking out the most handsome of the musketeers. And I am not noble-born, not even of very good family. All I have is my gentle upbringing, my familiarity with the Queen and my beauty, such as it is, and sure to fade fast, as much as you worry me.”

D’Artagnan said, “To me you are more beautiful than any princess.”

It is almost sure his honeyed words and that charm of manner for which his countrymen were known would have carried the day. It would, that is, had not the fair lamenter’s eyes fallen upon the square of lace in her hand. And then she stared at it, in something like horror, dropped it on the ground, and stomped on it with the tip of her dainty, slippered foot. “As beautiful as any princess, am I? Am I as beautiful as any duchess, also?”

Bewildered, D’Artagnan said, and meant it, “To me you are the most beautiful woman in the entire world.”

She sneered at him. She actually curled her lip in disdain and said, “Oh, I am done with you. I know you Gascons and your love of words, often empty of all meaning. How long have you been sleeping with the ladies of the court? Oh, answer me not. Probably before you met me, and probably it will go on long after you’ve ceased to care for me. I will not speak to you anymore. I will not…” She shook her head. “I married Monsieur Bonacieux at the behest of my family. Until I met you, Monsieur D’Artagnan, my heart was as innocent and untouched as that of a young girl in a convent. I could have lived my whole life long without knowing love. But you woke me to that emotion, and now it turns out it was all a lie.” She stomped again on the square of lace on the ground, then reached into her own sleeve and threw a key at his feet. “I shall not be needing the access to your lodgings that you so kindly bestowed on me. It was only a matter of time before I detected you in some other woman’s arms.”

And D’Artagnan, who in his whole life had only one lover, and that lover Constance Bonacieux, stared at her in horror, quite convinced his beloved had taken leave of her senses. Such words as came to his mind-mostly her name and protests of his innocence, he knew too well than to say. Indeed, he didn’t recover his voice till she had left and until, reaching down, he retrieved the maltreated handkerchief and saw that it was the one he’d meant to return to Aramis.

“The devil,” he said to himself. He had suspected it all along, but the thing was that Constance had never given him a chance to defend himself. And that she could believe in his perfidy like that, without need of proof, without a single doubt. That cut into the center of his young heart. “Perhaps Athos is right,” he told himself. “Perhaps all women are the devil.”

In this sullen mood, he left the courtyard, and went through the door barely saying a word of thanks to De Jacinthe. In fact, his rejection of all of the fair sex lasted exactly until he walked less than twenty steps from the palace entrance, towards his lodging, and saw a beautiful woman cowering against the wall, while two rough-looking men, with knives, tried to convince her to come with them.

“You’ll come with us,” one of the men said. “And there will be no debate. You are too tasty a morsel to escape us.”

The woman was indeed a tasty morsel, D’Artagnan thought, as he rushed to her rescue. She had hair so blond and so shiny that it might as well be pure moonlight. It was braided simply down her back, over a pale grey cloak edged with some sort of fur. Her features were as beautiful as her hair or her attire, something that didn’t seem quite real. Oval, perfect face, huge grey eyes, that matched her cloak, a straight nose, and lips so full and promising that they quite cast Constance ’s into shade. In fact, while Constance was beautiful, this woman was stunning.

His sword out of its sheath, D’Artagnan rushed in, and-in a mood of reckless chivalry-charged the two ruffians. “Leave the lady be,” he said. “Or face me.”

Clearly his demeanor was more fearful than he’d thought, for they didn’t even wait for him to come near, but instead took to their heels. D’Artagnan, somewhat bewildered by so easy a rescue, reasoned that perhaps they were, out of reason, afraid of guards. Or perhaps they’d mistaken his uniform for that of a musketeer.

He now found his hands taken in both of the cool, soft hands of the woman, who was as beautiful as an angel. “Oh, my hero,” she said. “You’ve saved a foreigner from a fate worse than death.”

Her accent, though present, didn’t so much sound foreign as like the accent of someone who’d spent a long time abroad. But then, D’Artagnan was quite willing to understand he knew nothing of accents.

He did however know of beauty, and this beautiful woman was curtseying to him. He bowed in return, removing his hat. “Henri D’Artagnan, madam,” he said. “At your service.”

She smiled. “I am Lady de Winter,” she said. “And quite a stranger and friendless in Paris. I wonder,” she said, “if you’d do me the honor of dining with me tonight?”

Before D’Artagnan had fully recovered, he found himself in possession of the beautiful woman’s address and the time to present himself at her door. And standing there, in the full sun of morning, he thought that if Constance was going to accuse him of dallying with well-born ladies, by the Mass, he was about to give substance to her accusations.