The Musketeer's Apprentice

Family and Familiarity; The Complications of an Inheritance; The Lot of the Youngest Son

DE Termopillae got up from where he had been, sitting on a low stone bench, casting dice with his fellow guard.

Aramis suppressed an irritation he was very aware of being hypocritical. It was all very well to fume at de Termopillae for playing the dice while he should be guarding one of the many entrances to the royal palace, but the truth was that every musketeer did it, and Aramis not least of all.

“Porthos,” de Termopillae said, as the redheaded musketeer stepped in front of him and then, with a more pleased tone, “And Aramis.”

The truth was that de Termopillae was, for lack of a better explanation one of a few young musketeers who idolized Aramis and tried to copy his style of dressing, his manner of speaking and his gestures, down to the careful examination of their nails when in a tight spot. What none of them could imitate, of course, was Aramis’s intelligence and his ability to find his way through complex situations.

At least, this was what Aramis liked to think. But none of this helped him feel better about de Termopillae who, to own the truth, was the most successful of Aramis’s imitators, and for that the one he detested the most. Just looking at de Termopillae, who combed his blond hair exactly like Aramis and who wore venetians in a shade of grey that exactly matched some that Aramis often wore, and who tied his doublet in the exact same way. And-what was most galling-he pinned a lovelock to the side of his hair in the exact same way as Aramis, with a pin that looked almost exactly like Aramis’s save for being of cheap construction. This made Aramis’s blood boil, and something like a shade of rage fall in front of his eyes.

Porthos was looking at de Termopillae with a frown. And when Porthos frowned people were likely to pay attention. Oh, Aramis knew that frown. It was Porthos’s confused frown, and Aramis would bet he was trying to imagine in what way this foppish man, almost half his size and looking very much like a dandy, could be related to the du Vallons.

But de Termopillae, clearly, had no idea why either of them had taken an interest in him. He took a step back, and then another. “I… er…” he said, and stared at them. “I… er… used the balm you sold me, Aramis, and it has worked wonders. You’d never know I was stabbed almost clean through the arm. It is almost completely healed.”

Porthos made a sound deep in his throat, and then rumbled something half under his breath. De Termopillae jumped and stared. “I beg your pardon?” he said.

“I said,” Porthos said, making each of his syllables a small work of art, polished and perfectly set out for examination, “that it is a characteristic of the family. I never need a salve. I just heal.”

“The… the family?”

“My family,” Porthos said.

De Termopillae’s throat worked. He was looking up at Porthos, his eyes wide, and he had lost color so that what was normally a triangular and catlike, impish face looked like a tallow sculpture or the face of someone about to die of blood loss. “You know,” he said, his voice low.

This, Aramis could have told him, was the most stupid thing he could say. He clearly didn’t know how Porthos’s mind worked. Porthos was here about Guillaume’s murder, and though Aramis very much doubted that by “you know” de Termopillae meant to confess to it, to Porthos’s direct mind it would seem exactly like he had.

Porthos moved forward, a siege engine slipping its moorings. Aramis made an ineffective grasp for his sleeve, but it was all for nothing.

Porthos’s huge hand caught de Termopillae on the chest and lifted him, under the sheer impulse and force of its own movement, pressing him up against the wall. “Why did you do it, wretch?” he asked.

“Porthos, I don’t think-” Aramis said.

“I…” De Termopillae, his wound healed or not looked like he was about to lose consciousness. “Do what? I couldn’t help being born to whom I was, could I?”

“What does your birth have to do with this, sirrah?” Porthos asked. “How does your birth make you a murderer. And a child, yet?”

From the other side of the gate, la Roselle, the musketeer who was standing guard with de Termopillae, stared. He stood, transfixed, his leather dice cup in his hand and looking like he was not sure whether to run for help or just to run, since Porthos had, clearly run mad.

De Termopillae stared at Porthos. “What child?” he asked.

“My son,” Porthos said. “Why would you murder my son? Did you intend to dispatch me as well? And fat good it would do you. The manor house is a pile of stones, and I would bet you none of the fields about, none under my father’s care, are worth any more than the largest farm in his domain. Bless me if any of them are worth as much, considering how the farms go around there.”

De Termopillae, pinned against the wall by the force of Porthos’s hand, half bent over the stone bench, blinked. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. “I don’t know anything but that we’re cousins. Or at least, that’s what my father said when he visited last year. He said you had the mark and body of my mother’s family, and that bet it, you were my cousin. Other than that, I don’t even know your real name, much less that you have a son. And I couldn’t care less for your father or your son.”

“You don’t?” Porthos looked puzzled. He pulled his hand back, and de Termopillae fell, nervelessly upon the stone bench, and leaned against the wall.

“What did you think I had done?” he asked. “You have a son? Or did you say someone killed your son?”

Porthos glared. “It is none of your business,” he said.

“Granted, granted,” de Termopillae said, in the voice of someone who, just at that moment, would have granted anything, half the world included, if only Porthos would leave him alone.

Porthos seemed done with him, and ready to go, but Aramis was not quite of the same opinion. Instead, he held Porthos’s arm, now the giant looked as ready to retreat as he had been, first, to press de Termopillae to the wall. “Porthos, stay,” he said. Then, to de Termopillae, “Your father visited you in town?”

De Termopillae looked at Aramis. Aramis could tell, the way his gaze measured him that de Termopillae was totting up all the similarities and the differences between them, trying to decide how to make himself look more like Aramis, if that were possible.

“My father came,” he said and ducked his head, then started brushing at his collar in a gesture so reminiscent of Aramis’s own that it made Aramis seethe. “To talk to me of my affianced wife, who is but waiting to marry me, as soon as it is safe to go back to my home.”

“Why should it not be safe to go back to your home?” Aramis said. “And you have a wife waiting for you?”

“She is my cousin,” de Termopillae said. “On my father’s side. An only daughter set up with extensive lands and property, and wanting only a man’s hand on the rudder of her ship.”

Aramis bit back a terrible impulse to ask which man de Termopillae meant to find for the task, and instead said, “Then why can’t you go back home and be married.”

De Termopillae sighed. “I killed a man,” he said.

“I knew it,” Porthos said, starting forward towards de Termopillae again. “You are a vile murderer.”

Aramis put an arm up in front of his friend, without even looking. He knew very well that should Porthos not choose to stop-should he push forward-he could push Aramis’s arm and overturn Aramis too. But he also knew, with the comfort of long-accustomed friendship that Porthos would stop, and he did, even though de Termopillae, who had no such assurance, was doing his best to knit himself close with the wall.

“How did you kill a man?” Aramis asked.

“In a duel. Just a duel,” de Termopillae said. “And because of the edicts…” He shrugged.

“How likely would you be to get any inheritance from your mother’s side?” Aramis asked.

De Termopillae blinked in confusion. “I beg your pardon? My father describes his marrying of my mother as rescuing her from some forsaken place in the middle of nowhere where people lived still as in the time of Charlemagne. Why would I want to inherit any of it, even were any of it worth inheriting?”

Aramis felt the pressure of Porthos against his extended arm, as if Porthos had almost taken a step forward, doubtless eager to defend his domains. “Never mind that,” he told de Termopillae, quickly. “Just tell me-if there were no heir on that side, would you inherit?”

De Termopillae stared at Aramis as if he thought the musketeer likely to grow a second head. “No. How could I? My mother was the youngest sister, and all her three sisters have children. And then there’s my brothers who’d inherit before I ever did. You see, the reason that my father arranged me a marriage with an heiress is that of my three brothers, Charles will inherit my father’s land, and Felix will go into the church and Henri, enfin, is well in his way to become a general. That leaves me, and Father thought the best thing to do with me was marry me to my cousin, and I do not mind, only Father thinks we need to wait another year, till the scandal of the duel dies down.”

“Very well,” Aramis said, and turned to Porthos. “You see, it is all explained.”

He could tell from Porthos’s blank expression that nothing was explained, or at least not to Porthos’s satisfaction. But Porthos, used to trusting Aramis took a step back and nodded.

And Aramis said, “Thank you for answering our questions, de Termopillae. You’ve been very helpful.”

De Termopillae nodded, somewhat dazed looking, still casting a suspicious glance at Porthos, as if he suspected the huge redhead of who knew what. But he said nothing- being a wise man and intending to live-and Aramis turned as did Porthos, and they started to walk away, before Aramis turned back. “Oh, one last thing.”

“Yes?” a shaken de Termopillae asked.

“Where were you…” Aramis calculated mentally. “Five days ago, early morning?”

“Here,” de Termopillae said. “I was keeping guard from midnight till almost high noon, as I was taking my shift and Firmin’s on account of Firmin being pickled.”

“And did you see a skinny auburn-haired lad, named Guillaume?”

“I saw no one, really, except a veiled lady who went out. One of the Queen’s maids and the goddaughter of Lavalle. No one else. Right, la Roselle?” and, in an aside, “We stood guard together.”

“There was no one unusual, and certainly no lad,” la Roselle said.

“Right,” Aramis said, and bowed gracefully. “Thank you very much for helping us.”