Dying by the Sword

Coffins and Boxes; Where When Praying Fails and Threats Wither, a Good Solid Back and Shoulder Shall Set You Free

“MONSIEURS,” Aramis said, very civilly through the keyhole, though he had to control the rage building in him to maintain civility. “Monsieurs. You have the wrong man. My name is Aramis. I am a musketeer of his majesty the King. I’m sure if you open the box, you’ll see that you have the wrong man.”

Laughter answered him. Distressingly, there was the noise of something that sounded suspiciously like bottles, followed closely by a crackle of something being broken and the smell of bread. Aramis’s stomach growled. He hadn’t even had a proper dinner the night before. Just wine with Athos.

“Listen, what can I say that will prove it to you that I am not your friend?”

“Nothing, Pierre. We already know your honeyed tongue, and we’re not young women whom you can convince. And you were never our friend. Friends don’t do things like seduce each other’s sisters. You might have friends, I don’t dispute that, but we’re not them.”

Aramis pounded on the lid to the trunk. “Open in, or, God’s Teeth, I shall come out and slaughter you.”

This one occasioned far more laughter. “Ah, Pierre, if we don’t let you out, how do you propose to slaughter us?”

“I am not Pierre and trust me, I will find a way.”

For a while there was a silence, and Aramis had time to hope that they were perhaps considering the ways in which he could reach them through the box. But then the two started trading epithets about the supposed Pierre, his brains, his hygiene habits, his morals and-of course-his appearance.

Though none of this applied, in fact, to Aramis, it would be asking more of him than human soul could bear, to hear his supposed self ridiculed in such terms. After a while, in sheer desperation, he let free the voice that had been the pride of his seminary teachers, and launched in a beautiful Te Deum. It wasn’t easy, of course, because he was half folded over, and a box didn’t exactly have the proper acoustics, but not only did it keep him from listening to the rustics commenting about him, but it also reminded him that the box was not a coffin and that he himself was very much alive.

Reaching the end of his song, triumphant but breathless, he was pleased to note that there was silence from the front. In fact, the silence stretched so long, that Aramis wondered if his singing had finally caused his captors to see the truth.

But instead, he heard at length, one of the miscreants clearing his throat. “Holla, Jean, did you ever know that Pierre could sing that well?”

“No, and in Latin no less. Who would have thought that he paid attention to any of the Mass, even if it was the singy parts.”

“Yeah.”

“Perhaps we were wrong, Marc. Perhaps Pierre is not a worthless bastard.”

“Perhaps not, or perhaps he is a worthless bastard who can sing.”

Their roar of laughter managed to push Aramis past whatever the point of insanity had been. He was now furious. In fact, he was sure if he had a mirror, his eyes would be shining with the same light of absolute, concentrated fury he had so often seen in Athos’s eyes.

Something like a roar escaped his lips, a roar that was lost in the laughter of his two captors and whatever passed for witty repartee between them. And then Aramis twisted himself around, put his shoulder against the lid of the box, and shoved hard.

Nothing happened. But he was too angry to stop. He’d heard somewhere, though he couldn’t remember where, that wood that was still “green,” meaning it still had the sap in it, was in fact less resilient than cured wood. He hoped so, but at this point, it did not matter.

Though he had been raised for the monastery, and the soft work of reading the scriptures, preaching, and perhaps writing his own interpretations of it, Aramis had for years now been living by the sword-which is to say by his agility and his strength too. In battle and on guard, and occasionally when he took the holy scriptures to the poor blighted souls who were female and insufficiently able to elude the guard of brothers or husbands, he had often had to lift heavy weights, climb up or down trellises, swing himself from balconies and other feats that demanded one cultivate muscles, as well as brains and piety.

Now his muscles would serve him well, or he would break himself trying. Bracing his feet, he put his now bruised shoulder up once more, and up against the lid of the box. He pushed, as hard as he could, continuously. For a moment he thought the lid was giving, but then he realized that it was his shoulder that had slipped against the wood.

Gritting his teeth, moving around with small movements, he started to turn himself completely around. It had occurred to him that while his back and his shoulders were strong, his legs had carried him about the length of Paris for several years now, several times a day. And their agility and strength had seen him through several duels. He should be able to break this box with his feet, if his shoulder wouldn’t operate.

“Oh, listen, Marc, it sounds like he’s slithering around inside the box.”

“I’m sure he is, Jean. He’s trying to crawl out the keyhole.”

The first comedian rapped sharply on the box lid. “Eh, Pierre! You’ll have to lose quite a bit of weight to fit through that hole.”

“Oh, I’m sure there’s a part of him that would fit. If Marie is right, it’s not that big.”

Right, Aramis thought, and pulled his knees as close to his chest as he could, to give his feet as much chance of hitting the lid with force as could be hoped for. It wasn’t as much as he would like to employ, since the space inside the box allowed for very little movement, but all the same, he tried, and pulled back all the way and then he kicked out, with all his might.

The lid of the box splintered under the soles of his boots, the two rustics yelled and rose from what appeared to be a bench seat up front, and Aramis, completely conscious of being at a disadvantage, jumped out of the box and landed on his feet.

He realized he was standing on an oxcart proceeding at a bucolic pace through a landscape of fields and trees. He also realized that his blond, wavy hair, having come completely loose from its bind, was hiding most of his face. He pulled it back, with his fingers, and turned a very angry face onto his captors.

They were portly middle-aged man, attired in the clothes of peasants. And they seemed to be trying to figure out a way to jump off the cart-which was easier said than done, as they were hemmed in by the bench at which they’d been sitting, the box in which Aramis had been, and the oxen. One of them, looking over his shoulder, looked about ready to vault over the oxen.

But the other one had the presence of mind to pull off his hat, and to bow in an awkward, if willing, way. “Your worship,” he said. “Oh, Lord help me, your worship. We didn’t know it was you. We thought it was our friend Pierre.”

Through gritted teeth, Aramis said. “Only because you refused to listen.”

“Yes, your worship. That’s us all over. I’m always telling Marc here as we’re too stubborn for our own goods and one day we’ll come a cropper, won’t we, Marc? But you see, Marc’s sister, Marie, she is with child by Pierre, who came to the country some time ago when his father… but that matters not. He came to the country, and he left Marie with child, and it is said he intends to marry a hussy, as works in the palace of the King. And we thought to ourselves, we thought-if we just go into Paris and grab Pierre, we’ll make him see the error of his ways, and he won’t leave until he’s married Marie all right and tight, see?”

Now Marc too was regarding Aramis with a faintly hopeful air and a completely maniacal grin, and holding his hat, squashed, in his blunt-fingered hand. “You can’t refuse to acknowledge,” Marc said, “that a brother should love his sister, can you?”

Aramis, eyes blazing, was quite beyond controlling his tongue. “No, but I do think perhaps if your ancestors had indulged in a little less of that, you’d have been able to understand my words before now, wouldn’t you?” And seeing Marc’s mouth open. “And for the love of heaven, don’t call me worship and don’t agree with me or I shall not be responsible for my actions.”

The sad thing was that though his bruised shoulder still hurt like the blazes, and though he felt as though he’d dislocated something moving about in that infernal box, he found the complete and unredeemable cowardice of the two of them very funny indeed. And if he let himself go, he would start to giggle and guffaw, which could not possibly happen. So he spoke through gritted teeth that, they weren’t to know, were being held together against laughter. “Do you still have some wine? And some bread? I haven’t eaten since yesterday. And turn this infernal cart around and take me back home.”

Jean, or perhaps Marc, resumed his place on the bench of the driver, and started executing what seemed to be a complex maneuver of pulling the reins this way and that. It had absolutely no visible effect, and eventually his comrade got tired and said, “Jean, wait. I’ll dispose his… I mean… this person… I mean, Monsieur…”

“Aramis.”

“Monsieur Aramis,” Marc said, not even bothering to enquire the provenance of such a strange name. “I’ll dispose Monsieur Aramis with something to eat, and then I’ll help you turn the animals around, for you know it’s going to take a rod on their noses. A more stubborn couple I never met, if very reliable.”

Moments later, Aramis, sitting down with a linen napkin-procured from the depths of another box and surprisingly very clean-on his knees, was the sole proprietor of the delights of good dark bread, a glass full of wine that, from wherever it had come, was much better than even Athos’s vintage, and a handful of dried figs. As hungry as he was, this seemed to him like a banquet from the gods. And as for the spectacle of watching the two men trying to turn around oxen that were fully as stubborn as they were, it was doubtless as good as anything the theater had to offer.

Aramis, having also found his sword and his lost hat at the bottom of the cart, was starting to feel very much like himself again. So much so that, when the men had accomplished their purpose of getting the oxen turned around, he’d had time to think of how to take advantage of this very strange situation. He must talk to them. If Pierre was Pierre Langelier, and Aramis was almost sure he was, then Aramis would be able to find out more about the man, more about what interested him, and more about what might have caused the murder of the armorer than he would have otherwise been able to find out.

So when they took their place back on the bench, he said, “So, you took the oxen all the way into Paris?” he was marveling at the feat of logistics, since most streets in Paris were not wide enough for a carriage, much less a broad oxcart. And the idea of having to turn the oxen at close confines, even in a main street, caused Aramis to shudder.

They shook their heads. “No, your musketeerness,” Jean said. “We left it with my cousin, just on the outskirts, you know… And we went into the city on our own.”

He gave them an appraising look. “And you carried me out in that box by the force of your arms?” They looked sturdy enough, but not that strong. From where they’d been to the outskirts of Paris it would have taken at least an hour’s walk and maybe more.

Jean squirmed and Marc cast a significant look at Aramis’s sword. “Well… it wasn’t really like that. You see, we didn’t know what we were going to do at first, so we thought, you know, we’ll see if we can find Pierre and talk to him. And this we did do last night.”

“When you say Pierre, it is Pierre Langelier you speak of?” Aramis asked, taking a bite of the fig and savoring its delicate sweetness. “The armorer whose father was killed?”

“Yeah,” Jean said. “You see… we heard about it. We have cousins in the city and…” He shrugged. “So we knew that Pierre had come into his inheritance. And he’s a fine armorer, don’t get me wrong your worsh… your musketeerness. But he is that fierce for the gaming, that, you know, I think he might have to sell the workshop, and all the swords and all the tools in it, just to be able to pay back his debts. And that’s if his father didn’t leave a provision in his will for his precious Faustine, which I will promise you he did, because he thought the sun rose and fell out of the brat’s crossed eyes.

“So we thought… we go and talk to Pierre, like a reasonable human being, no? And we point out to him that Marie won’t come to him barefoot, as it were, but well shod, and with a little something on the tip of her shoe.”

Marc must have seen Aramis’s utterly confused look, as he tried to imagine what the girl’s choice in footwear would have to say to the case and particularly what she might have in the tip of her shoe. Everything that he could think of that one might catch on the tip of one’s shoe weren’t anything to brag about. “What Jean means,” he said, in the tone of a man lecturing to the mentally impaired, “is that my sister has a dowry. My parents were wealthy farmers, and friends of Monsieur Langelier. And if Pierre married Marie he would be able to pay all his debts, see? And keep the workshop and his trade and reputation and his means of making more money. So we thought… well… he cannot resist it, can he?”

“And he didn’t resist it… in a way,” Jean said. “Instead, when we talked to him, he sounded very interested. Many questions about what Marie would bring, and how it would be bound and all.”

“He’s a mercenary fool,” Marc said, in a tone of annoyance. “Any man privileged to enjoy Marie’s love… but it matters not. Such as he is, he’s my nephew’s father, and so I said, yes, of course, Pierre, we’ll give you anything you want as soon as you marry Marie. And he said he would come with us at nightfall and do it. But, instead, he disappeared, don’t you know? Just vanished. We waited and waited for him, and finally we saw you, monsieur, and you see, we thought that with you being roughly the same build, and both of you having straw hair, at least as it appeared to us by moonlight, you would for sure be Pierre.”

“For which you felt yourselves justified to hit me on the head and carry me out of the city… in your arms? Wouldn’t that have attracted attention? Or had you had the providence to carry this charming clothes press in?”

Marc sighed. “No, it was like this-when we saw you looking around we thought of a sure thing it was Pierre. We didn’t… you don’t wear the uniform like the other musketeers wear the uniform, so we never thought that it could be…”

“A uniform,” Aramis said. “I quite comprehend your point. So you thought it would be a great idea to hit me over the head. And afterwards?”

“Well, afterwards,” Jean said. “We thought-what we really need is a good clothes press… and we can hide him in it. And then if we can find someone to lend us a wheelbarrow.”

“And you found a clothes press and a wheelbarrow in the dead of night, in the middle of Paris? I take my hat off to you gentlemen,” he said, though he didn’t really, because frankly, he was afraid they might think of something else creative to do with his hat or his head. Like, lift his hat and hit him on his head once more.

“Well,” Jean said. “I do have cousins in the neighborhood, so yes. We borrowed a clothes press, and a wheelbarrow.”

The idea of himself being wheeled about by these geniuses, in the middle of the night, made Aramis very angry, but it also gave him an incongruous wish to laugh. And behind all this, he was thinking that Pierre Langelier definitely would bear more looking into. Very closely.

Meanwhile, he looked at his erstwhile captors. “Well,” he said. “You’ve made a right muddle of it. For all you know, Langelier is in his workshop, waiting anxiously to tie the knot with your sister, while you two are running about the countryside, ignoring the complaints of the musketeer you’ve sequestered in a box.”

“I wouldn’t say we were running,” Marc said. “Not with Bossy and Betsy pulling us. They’re used to the plow, somewhat, but they’re the slowest-” He caught the look in Aramis’s eyes and stopped short.

“Right,” Aramis said, sighing. “Just get me to Paris as soon as humanly possible, and we will never speak of this debacle again.” And he hoped, hoped with all his heart, hoped on the fervent edge of prayer, that he would find all his friends alive and well.