The Musketeer's Apprentice

A Lady’s Boudoir; The Commerce Stain; The Matter of the Jewels

"WITH Madame de Comeau?” the little maid asked Athos, giving him the once-over with a shrewd evaluating air.

Athos had dressed in his best and least-patched uniform, brushed his hair and tied it back. He held his best hat-the one with the plumes still feathered out and in good condition-against his chest as he spoke. He was aware that he looked, if not regal-it was hard to look regal in a patched suit-at least noble and dignified. He was also aware-had been aware since he’d reached manhood- that there was a certain air he could put on, a certain way of moving, that gave people the immediate impression he was highborn and much too good for his surroundings and their company. He now threw his head back, with just that expression, and the maid gaped at him.

“Does the lady know to expect you, milord?”

Athos shook his head. The woman ran up the stairs, leaving him in a small entrance room. This was a different entrance than the one he’d used with Madame de Comeau’s husband. Athos suspected that this was the main entrance of the house, and the one that normal guests would use.

The entrance room was narrow but long, fashionably tiled in dark green marble. The walls were a pale yellow that looked, rather, like the paint in some Italian noble houses that Athos had visited with his father, in his youth-freshly applied over still-wet plaster and looking, for that, whitish and faded. On the walls hung what looked like very good portraits, cast about with that look of familiarity that denoted ancestors. Athos, noticing one of a cavalier of the time of Francis I-as least denoted by the man’s attire-was quick also to realize that the painting was far superior to the quality then obtaining and, in fact, so different from his own portrait of his own ancestor of that time that the two couldn’t be from the same era.

He would not expend the time needed to walk around and examine all the portraits, but he permitted one of his small smiles to slide across his lips. He thought he understood, and very well, too, that Madame de Comeau’s sin, like Porthos’s was vanity. Only hers rested on a far less stable foundation than the musketeer’s who, for his continued certainty of superiority, required only his own strength and handsome appearance.

From this small room, a staircase climbed, broad, up to a door that had been painted yellow and studded all over with golden nails. Through that door the maid had disappeared and from that door, there now sounded a cackle that reminded Athos-conscious of being ungallant-of the sound of a disturbed henhouse.

Presently, the door opened a mere sliver, and there was a suggestion of someone peeping through the opening. Athos, suspecting it was the lady of the house, trying to decide of his eligibility for an audience, straightened himself and squared his shoulders. The door closed. And a few moments later, it opened again, to let a smiling maid through.

“The lady,” the wench said, curtseying, “will see you now, monsieur.”

She led Athos up the staircase and, at the top, opened the door and announced, “Monsieur Musketeer,” as if this were some sort of title.

Athos entered the room to find it handsomely outfitted with a profusion of chairs, settees and a reclining couch in the Roman manner, upon which a young woman was lying daintily, holding silken embroidery upon which she seemed to have worked an intricate pattern of very diminutive flowers.

Not a man to judge others by their material worth and-being descended from an old and noble house- even less accustomed to thinking of objects as displays of good breeding, Athos was not yet so unworldly that he didn’t recognize, in the large, gilt-framed mirror on the wall, a Venetian masterpiece worth a king’s ransom. This, taken with the new yellow velvet covering the sofas and chairs, and the newly painted walls with their profusion of just-too-new, supposedly ancestral portraits made Athos think to himself that horse trading might be the way to go.

But he said nothing of the kind. Instead, he bowed, with every appearance of respect, and said, “Madame de Comeau. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I am, as your maid said, a musketeer, but my name is Athos.”

This so provoked her that she sat up, from her reclining position, and fulminated him with an almost glare from very fine, honey-colored eyes. “Oh,” she said. “But that’s not a person’s name. That’s no one’s name. That is a mountain, isn’t it? In… Armenia?” She was petite, rather than small, designed on a small frame, but with everything that the most lavish sculptor could want. Her oval face, with its slightly too prominent nose, betrayed more than a hint of Roman blood.

It was a face well adapted to frowning, and while she frowned at him, he bowed hastily. “Madam,” he said. “Few women know that. Few men, even.”

“Oh,” she said, a sound of peevishness, not of surprise. “My father had all of us excellently educated, boys and girls alike. He said a well-trained mind was the best weapon in the world and he did not intend to send any of his children out unarmed.” She frowned at him, dark eyebrows brought low over golden brown eyes. “But it is very provoking of you to call yourself after a mountain. What is your real name?”

Athos thought that, had he not enough reason to be weary of women, reason that had trained him as a dog or a horse could be trained, through severe pain instilling aversion, he would be in some danger now. There was to the woman a combination of peevish childishness and sharp reasoning which would doubtless prove the downfall of better men than himself.

As it was, and because he knew better than to court Madame de Comeau’s-or indeed any woman’s-favor, he permitted himself to grimmace and bow again. “That, madam, is known to my confessor and to very few other people in this world.”

She set her embroidery aside and stared at him. “It is a noble name, that much I know,” she said. “From your way of standing and your address. So why would you hide it? Have you done something to so displease the King that… But no.” She flicked the thought away with a careless gesture of her fingers. “No, of course not. If you’d displeased the King, you’d not be in his musketeers.” She frowned again. “But it is some great wrong here, something you very much wish to hide.”

He bowed again, in silence.

She slapped the sofa by her side, with some energy. “Oh, you are a very trying man. Why wouldn’t you tell me? It’s not as though I’m trying to interrogate you so that I can babble it at court.”

He bowed yet again and she sighed. “Very well,” she said, and from the tone of her voice she might have been a queen dispensing a high favor. “Very well, if you must be that way. Please sit down.”

He chose an armchair not too far from her, and sat down. And she sat primly now on her original reclining perch. Her hands folded on her lap spoke of a careful upbringing, as did the attentive glance she bent upon him. “You wish to see me,” she said.

“Yes,” Athos said. “Very much. I’ve asked your husband some questions, but I wish to ask them of you as well. Your husband… might not have apprehended the situation as well as you will.” He’d meant to say this all along, knowing that flattery was a good part of questioning people about things they might not, otherwise, wish to share. But in this case, it might very well be true.

“Oh, my lord…” She shrugged, a gesture that effectively and tactfully dismissed her husband’s discernment. Then she looked at Athos, giving the impression of turning her whole mind to his speech. “Very well. Tell me what you wish to talk about.”

It had an odd effect of his being interrogated but, lacking Aramis’s interest in and ability to speak to women, Athos felt it was just as well if he progressed quickly to the matter at hand. “I don’t know if you ever even heard of this person, though your maids, apparently think you talked to him. However, there was a young boy, thirteen or so, with auburn hair, who used to come and-”

“Guillaume,” she said, quickly, with no attempt at disguise. “From the Hangman.”

Athos inclined his head, partly to avoid showing her his expression of surprise. “Your husband told me that Guillaume tried to get him to give him a stipend and claimed that he was your husband’s natural son.”

Madame de Comeau put her head a little sideways, a clear expression of doubt that didn’t necessitate her saying anything about her husband.

Athos smiled a little. “I don’t know if he told you the truth.”

The little hand rose and fell in what seemed to be her peculiarly dismissive gesture again. “Oh, as to that, he might very well have. The whole thing is the sort of foolishness that Guillaume would contrive and that Monsieur de Comeau might even find amusing. He has a soft spot for rogues and cheats.” She shrugged. “But you know, he never could be my husband’s bastard. There are plenty of those around my lord’s domain, and they are all, like my lord, small and dark. Guillaume is, as you say, auburn haired, and tall and rawboned enough that you know he’s going to be a great hulking man when he’s done growing.”

Athos, amused by her attitude towards her husband’s profligacy, nodded. “No. He isn’t your husband’s siring. But your husband had him beat and thrown out nonetheless. ”

She nodded, approvingly. “Well, it wouldn’t do for him to go about thinking he had the power to force my husband to dance to his tune, now would it?”

“But he didn’t prevent the boy from coming and hanging around the yard again.”

“Which was his folly,” Madame de Comeau said, her gaze merry. She seemed to view all of this as much of a game. “Because he found out my husband’s secret.”

“That your husband trades in horses?”

At this she raised her eyebrows. “If it is an open secret, then my money was ill spent. Or did Guillaume tell you that? Are you perhaps his attempt to extract more from me? Have a care sir. I neither have the money to give you, nor the disposition to submit to constant fleecing.”

Athos shook his head. “I have no intention of fleecing you.” This idea actually got a smile from him, but it vanished as soon as he realized what she had said. “You gave Guillaume money?”

She shrugged, a very expressive gesture. “What else was I to do?” she asked. “Otherwise the horrible boy would bruit it all around town that Bernard… Monsieur de Comeau deals in horses. And while I couldn’t care much where our money comes from, the rest of society is so tiresome about it.”

Athos raised his eyebrows. “Indeed. How much did you give Guillaume?”

She shook her head slightly. “Tell me, first, how did you come to find out about Bernard’s dealings?”

Athos smiled. He guessed very well that there might be some wifely loyalty there. In fact, thinking of the Lord de Comeau, with his single-minded interest in horses, his tolerant deference to his wife’s attempts at civilizing him, he guessed that the man might, very well, be a good match for this woman who seemed to observe social proprieties as some other people said rote prayers-something done for the others, not oneself. “My friend Porthos found out,” he said. “And please, don’t alarm yourself. I don’t think he’ll be in the least likely to divulge it to people.” Not the least because to divulge it, Porthos would need to explain how he’d come by the knowledge, which would involve confessing Athenais’s husband’s profession. Athos was so sure of this that he was able to meet the lady’s eyes square on, with every expression of reassuring honesty.

“Oh, but it is vexing,” she said. “What if… Why is your friend Porthos concerned in this at all?”

“For Guillaume’s sake,” Athos said.

“What’s the brat to do with it? With the money the wretch got from me, and a good velvet suit besides, which he forced me to choose, and only secondhand, he should be admirably provided for. Why would anyone concern himself with him?”

“He’s disappeared,” Athos said.

“Ah,” Madame de Comeau said. “As to that, the brat seemed intent on becoming a gentleman or a counterfeit of one. I wouldn’t put it past him to have gone to quite a different area of Paris and there impose on some unsuspecting nobleman to become his squire or what not.” She shook her head. “He’s a bright boy and seems capable of any degree of deceiving and extortion. He’ll do well for himself.”

“Well… perhaps,” Athos said, and here he couldn’t meet her eyes. “But… you see, he disappeared a few days ago and we are all very anxious for him.”

“All?”

“My friend Porthos and I and a couple of other people in our close acquaintance.”

Madame de Comeau wrinkled her perfect brow. “Athos… Porthos… Oh. You’re two of the inseparables. You must be, for no one else would have such odd names.”

“You rub elbows with musketeers, ma’am?”

She smiled, an impish smile. “No, but to tell you the truth, my little maid rubs elbows with musketeers servants. Or at least the servant of one of the inseparables, whose name I can not now remember… Oh! The boy is a Picard, and she says he’s amazingly clever, though to me he only looks pimply. I believe his master is a Gascon.”

“I believe I know of whom you speak, madam,” Athos said, once more marveling at how easy it was in Paris to have connections with practically everyone, or at least everyone in a certain circle. Though it could also possibly be said that musketeers and their servants, much like tom-cats, covered a wide territory.

“Well, I’m pleased to have met one of you. All the ladies speak of the four of you, you know?”

“You do me great honor, madam,” Athos said, rising. “But before I go, I don’t suppose you’d tell me how much money you gave young Guillaume?” And as she started to speak, he said, “Don’t be offended. If you tell me at least the general amount, I shall be able to guess, easily enough, how far he might have gone with it and what folly he might have taken upon his head to commit.”

“But…” Madame de Comeau said. “But what business is it of the four of you? Oh, I’ve heard you often concern yourselves with… well, with the King’s work that can’t be entrusted to anyone else.” She fluttered her hand desultorily. “Secret things. But what can the boy have to do with it.”

“Why nothing, madam,” Athos said, though not absolutely sure he told the truth. There were, after all, the repeated attacks by the Cardinal. And yet, he was almost sure… almost absolutely sure that whatever that was, it involved something quite different. “It is that my friend Porthos is the boy’s father.”

“Oh,” Madame de Comeau said, and put her hand in front of her mouth. “Oh. Of course. No wonder the boy was so intent on being a gentleman. Of course. Though it’s unhandsome of your friend not to supply him the means to do so.”

“My friend,” Athos said. “Didn’t find out until…”

“Until Guillaume had in fact vanished?” Madame de Comeau said. “Oh, it’s just like a story. I do hope you find the boy.”

“I do too,” Athos said, and inwardly told himself he hoped at least they found the boy’s murderer and gave both Guillaume’s memory and Porthos some measure of rest. “Only, if you’d tell me how much money you gave him?”

“Well, I didn’t have very much money on hand,” she said. “Not as such. But I had jewelry. Bernard is a great fool and always buying me some trinket or another.” This was said in the complacent tone of a woman who knows she is worth any tribute her husband might bestow on her. “So… I sold some pins and a necklace I didn’t like very much.” She made a little dismissive gesture with her hand. “I believe it all came to five hundred pistoles. Not that much at all.”

Not that much. Athos wondered in what class the lady had been reared, exactly, that five hundred pistoles was not that much. A hundred pistoles could keep the four of them in style for quite a while, and their needs were greater than most. Five hundred pistoles would certainly have bought a lot for both Guillaume and Amelie. Perhaps not enough to make her a lady, as he had promised her, but enough to see them lodged in some comfort and without daily drudgery.

But there had been no money at all on Guillaume, when he had been found. Where could the money have gone?

Athos bowed to Madame de Comeau and made his good-byes in his most correct fashion, somehow thinking the only way to deal with this very unconventional lady was with the utmost civility. She responded and rose as he turned to leave.

And then by the door, he noted a small table, piled with perfumes and creams, and he turned to look at the lady. “Milady, do you use belladonna?”

She blinked. “Not very often. Only now and then on my eyes. Why?” Her reply was quite innocent and devoid of guilt.

“No reason,” Athos said. Hat in hand, he bowed low. “Madam, your most humble servant.”

She smiled at him. “Do come back when this is all resolved and you’ve found the scamp,” she said. “I’d like to know how the story turns out.”

So did Athos.