Dying by the Sword

Where Athos Courts Danger; And a Lady Takes Up Arms

ATHOS intercepted the lady as she came out of her carriage. He’d managed to do it by telling Aramis that he, more subtle and experienced at the nuances of such things, should keep an eye on the discussions within, with Pierre Langelier, who looked like a rather coarser Aramis, sitting at the table and arguing that he needed far more money to take the hapless Marie for his wife.

Besides, Athos had told Aramis, quite mendaciously and remorselessly, Aramis was needed on hand in case one of the two farmers needed reassurance and came through the door from the kitchen into the little pantry, where the musketeers hid behind vast jars that Athos presumed contained butter, but might very well contain wine.

And so, while Porthos, Aramis and D’Artagnan stayed in the pantry and followed the negotiations that were little more than delay tactics, Athos-whose anxious ears had picked up the faintest sound of wheels in the yard-went out to receive the lady.

She had driven in very quietly, so that the sound of her horse’s hooves, the noise of the wheels, could be mistaken for nothing more than a carriage going by on the nearby road. But it was her carriage, with the De Chevreuse arms on the door. She descended from it, heavily cloaked, but in a cloak of cream satin, and when she threw the hood back from her head, her blond hair glimmered under the moonlight.

He bowed to her. “He is a murderer,” he whispered. “But we will be in the pantry and ready to come to your rescue. I hope you’re not afraid.”

She turned her head up to look at him, her eyes glimmering insolently and shimmering with excitement. “If I told you I was afraid, would you kiss me for courage, Monsieur le Comte?”

He felt like a knot at his throat and managed a quickly stifled chuckle. “I’m not that brave,” he said.

He escorted her to the door to the kitchen-not the door to the pantry, to which he hurried, to rejoin his friends.

When he got into the darkened pantry again, she had knocked and been admitted, and Marc was saying, “But I’m not sure I want you to marry our sister, at all. Not unless this lady is mistaken in her report.”

“What report, what?” Pierre said, half rising from the table.

“That I saw you kill Hermengarde in the palace gardens,” Marie Michon-for Athos could not doubt it was her, and not the more proper, or at least more socially conscious duchess that stood there-said. “You asked her to meet you and then you ran her through with the sword.”

“Bah,” Pierre said, and an ugly flush came to his cheeks, and made him look very much not like Aramis. “And who will listen to you?”

“I think everyone,” Marie Michon said, drawing herself up, and supplementing her scant inches with the force of her personality. “Do you know who I am?”

“A busybody?”

“No. I’ll have you know I’m the Duchess de Chevreuse.”

“Oh, I still say you are a fool of a woman, and that you saw wrong. Everyone knows it was the blond musketeer.”

“No. Of a certainty it wasn’t. The blond musketeer is a good friend of mine, and I’ll be willing to swear to any magistrate that he was with me at the time.”

Before she’d finished pronouncing the words, Aramis had leapt forward and towards the kitchen and Athos, who had seen the same ugly glimmer in Pierre Langelier’s eyes was racing him towards the man. But it was too late.

He wore a dagger. There had been no way of removing his dagger without making him suspicious. And now he’d grabbed the duchess around the chest, and he had the dagger to her neck. “Very pretty, milady.” He looked towards the musketeers. “But who will believe any of this, if you are dead?”

“There is Monsieur le Cure,” Marc said, pointing towards the door, where a grey-haired man stood, looking rather shocked. “He has seen it, and people will perforce believe him.”

Langelier looked wild, and stared around at the musketeers and at the priest. “Very well, but you’ll never take me alive. Come with me, pretty lady. We’re going to take a long ride through the country.” And with a sneer, at the musketeers said, “Put up your swords, or I slit her throat.”

Athos, who had been watching De Chevreuse’s face as it flushed, and as her eyes shone with the unmistakable light of battle, wondered what she meant to do. Courting danger was not always a good characteristic. Sometimes danger might court back. He looked at the blade near the pale throat, and wished very much he was in her place.