The Musketeer's Apprentice

Fathers

PORTHOS’S pounding on the door of the manor house at Du Vallon brought an almost immediate response. There could be no other way, since they’d been traveling slowly, with the sealed coffin in a cart among them, and there would have been talk and comment about it.

The door was opened by Monsieur du Vallon, himself, in a towering rage.

“Good morning, Father,” Porthos said.

The old man half-flung the door. “I have no son,” he said.

“How strange,” Porthos said. “For you had one.”

“He’s dead.”

“No,” Porthos said. With his massive hand, he forced the door open wide, so his father could see the cart, with its black-draped bundle. “No, Father. My son is dead. And my son is going to be buried in the cemetery of Du Vallon, next to our ancestors. And the name on the tombstone, which I brought with me is Guillaume du Vallon. Do you understand me, Father?”

For a moment it looked like his father was going to flare up and scream back at Porthos. But he looked at Porthos, and at the cart, and at the other three silent men, and the dark-dressed little girl with them, then back at Porthos. “Do what you want and be damned,” he said. “Why should I care where a pile of bones rests?”

Which was how, a few hours later, they came to be standing around a small grave, newly filled, while Porthos carefully set the tombstone over it. The stone read Guillaume du Vallon, son of Pierre du Vallon.

In death, at least, Porthos thought, Guillaume had come home. Even if all the paternal care that Porthos could give him now was a father’s tears.