Dying by the Sword

And with a Moo and a Cackle and an Oink Oink There

ARAMIS saw Marie Michon-his Marie-looking defiant and madcap. Unfortunately Aramis knew his Marie well. He knew she looked like that when the dice were down and the play definitely against her.

He wanted to rise. He wanted to go to her rescue. She wasn’t Violette. He wasn’t madly in love with her, as he’d been with Violette. But she was a gallant and brave soul, and he’d brought her into this. It seemed ridiculous that after all her intrigues, all her adventures, she should succumb here, at the hands of a brutish murderer.

And then, looking around, to see if anyone else was in a position to help her, he realized that Marc was gone. The Devil, he thought. I wonder where he has gone?

And then he heard a confused noise from behind him, in the yard, and realized that the door of the kitchen, into the outside yard, stood fully open. He had barely the time to look over his shoulder, as the noise grew deafening, and he was hit, full in the back, by a charging pig, and, as he fell, a confused chicken hopped up on his head.

Around him bedlam reigned. It took him a moment to locate Marie Michon, but when he found her, he realized in the confusion she had somehow managed to overturn the situation and had a small, dainty knife firmly held to Pierre ’s throat. She’d somehow managed to make him drop his knife, and from the way his wrist hung, Aramis didn’t think she’d done it with kindness. Now she told him in a stern voice, “And where were you going to take me, pig? You might enjoy going there, yourself.”

Aramis smiled despite himself. Looking up, he met Athos’s eyes, and was surprised to see him smiling as well.

Of course, their grins were nothing to Marc’s and Jean’s, whose expressions bordered on sheer, manic glee.