The Musketeer's Apprentice

The Disadvantages of a Pious Servant; Yet Another Conspiracy; Not the Expected Murder

HENRI D’Artagnan had arrived in Paris four months ago and so far his experience of the city was both better and worse than he could have anticipated. This mixed result could be directly traced back to the influence of Monsieur D’Artagnan’s two parents.

An only child and just barely out of adolescence at seventeen, Monsieur D’Artagnan looked very much like his mother-a small Gascon with olive skin, straight dark hair and piercing, intelligent eyes. From her, beyond appearance, he had inherited a certain hardheadedness of mind and manner and an unwillingness to let any perceived event rest till he’d ascertained the cause behind it.

From his father, a veteran of the religious wars, Monsieur D’Artagnan had received a more romantic inheritance, to wit, an old sword which had broken in two in his first skirmish; an orange horse of uncertain parentage which Monsieur D’Artagnan had seen fit to divest himself of; a letter of introduction to Monsieur de Treville which had been stolen from Henri on his way to the capital; and the advice to fight often, fight much, and not to tolerate any disrespect except from the King or the Cardinal.

The letter having been stolen had made it impossible for D’Artagnan to get a post in the musketeers as he had hoped. He had instead been offered a position in the guards of Monsieur des Essarts, a sort of probation he was enduring with all the determined stubbornness of a not very patient man.

However, the advice to fight often had led him-on his very first day in Paris -to challenge all three of the best duelists in the musketeers. Such his luck, when Athos, Porthos and Aramis made good on their planned confrontation, they had been interrupted by guards of the Cardinal. In a moment-one of those sudden moments of youthful enthusiasm that can and often do decide a man’s whole life-D’Artagnan had thrown his allegiance with the musketeers and against the guards of the Cardinal. Even better, his fighting had been material in turning the duel in favor of the musketeers.

This had set seal to an unlikely friendship in which the trio of inseparables was transformed into a quartet. And four months, many fights, many duels and countless drunken revels together later, D’Artagnan was not sure he would trade his three friends for a shiny, new uniform of the King’s Musketeers.

At any rate, he thought, as he sat in his quarters, eating a sparse meal of bread and cheese-having just come off his guard duty and preparing to sleep before whatever revels or duels his friends might have planned for this afternoon-this friendship had earned him the confidence of Monsieur de Treville and it bode fair to win him, also, a place in the musketeers, should one open up.

A sharp knock on the door startled him and woke his servant, Planchet, who had been asleep on a nest of blankets on the floor. Since D’Artagnan had often heard that sleeping was like eating, and since food was often too scarce in these lodgings for the still-growing Planchet, he’d advised the young man to snatch a sleep-meal whenever he was not urgently needed. Having scarfed down his portion of bread and cheese Planchet had gone to sleep almost instantly. He now rose, rubbing his eyes, his thatch of dark red hair standing on end and looking like nothing so much as an uncertainly piled haystack.

D’Artagnan waved him towards the door, and, for his part, drank up the rest of the somewhat sour wine in his white ceramic cup, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. His lodging consisting of exactly two rooms- the inner chamber in which he slept and this outer chamber, with a table, chairs and a blanket in the corner for Planchet-this was where he must perforce receive all visitors.

The entrance door was down some stairs, at the same level as the door to the ground floor where D’Artagnan’s neighbor, Monsieur Bonacieux-a worthy merchant- lived. But since D’Artagnan didn’t hear any sounds of arguing and nothing that sounded like Planchet’s heated avowal of his master’s being asleep or on guard duty, D’Artagnan assumed this would not be the landlord in search of his overdue rent. And because he didn’t hear any protests, he assumed also it was not either a merchant seeking payment or an enemy trying to find D’Artagnan.

Instead, there was a soft murmur of voices, and then the sound of two steps up the stairs. D’Artagnan rose, half expecting one of his friends to come into the room.

But the man who came in was Bazin. Bazin looked much like a particularly rotund medieval monk and dressed like a monk, in dark and dreary wool. His hair loss imitated a tonsure with some credibility and he walked in small and measured steps well suited to treading a monastery’s hallowed halls.

That he was not a monk was not in fact his fault. From childhood, Bazin had attached himself to Aramis as Aramis’s servant, reasoning that when the young man achieved the religious orders towards which he was being raised then Bazin could at the very least be a lay brother in the same order.

The interruption of this course through Aramis’s impetuous if successful duel, and Aramis’s entrance into the musketeers were events which had shattered Bazin’s world as unexpectedly and surely as though a comet had struck through the endless stratosphere and hit the Earth. He couldn’t fully comprehend what would cause his master- whom he was used to thinking of as a well-mannered and pious youth-to abandon such a sure course or to embark on such violent ways.

Long ago, and through no particular course of thinking, but more through the blind resentment of an animal who must blame someone for his misfortune, he’d settled upon blaming the other musketeers for Aramis’s downfall. That D’Artagnan was too late a comer to their friendship to be in any way guilty for Aramis’s present life did not in any way change this resentment. D’Artagnan wenched and drank and dueled with the other three, and therefore D’Artagnan too was to blame. D’Artagnan too-should Bazin be allowed to expound on the matter-encouraged Bazin’s master’s fondness of a sinful world.

All this-which D’Artagnan had heard expressed in voice once or twice-was written in the servant’s sullen expression as he bowed in D’Artagnan’s general direction, all the while glaring at him out of eyes that seemed too small for the large and round face.

“Ah, Bazin,” D’Artagnan said, seeking to appear pleased. He should be pleased, because Aramis was-after all-a good friend. And yet, why would Aramis send his curdle-faced servant to D’Artagnan if he knew how Bazin would resent it. Out of the corner of his eye, D’Artagnan saw Planchet settle himself on his blankets to watch, smiling a little.

Planchet being who he was, and a genius in his own way, D’Artagnan was never too sure what amused Planchet more-Bazin’s sullen dislike or D’Artagnan’s attempt to disguise his own antipathy. Ignoring his own servant, he looked at Aramis’s. “So, Bazin, what brings you here?”

“My master sent me, sir,” Basin said with that excess of humility that betrays someone very sure of talking to an equal if not to an inferior. “He would like you to come with me to Monsieur Porthos’s house.”

“What? Now?” D’Artagnan asked, because Aramis knew his schedule and very often one or the other of the musketeers would stand guard with him at Monsieur des Essarts. “But I just came off guard and was about to…” His words slowed down. “Is it a duel?” he asked, reaching for his sword on the table.

Bazin crossed himself and shook his head, and, as D’Artagnan moved away from the sword, sighed and said, “Not a duel, sir… and yet it might not be a bad idea to bring your sword. There are… It pains me truly, but my master seems to always end up setting himself against men of the church and the Cardinal…”

“The Cardinal!” D’Artagnan said, trying to reach for the sword and his hat at the same time and managing only to kick his chair out of the way-since his sword was on the table and his hat on a chair in the opposite direction. “The Cardinal. Is one of my friends in danger of arrest, then?”

Bazin started to shake his head, then shrugged. “Well, monsieur, the life you gentlemen live, are you ever more than a few moments away from being thrown in prison for one reason or other?”

D’Artagnan opened his mouth to retort, then closed it with a snap. Part of the problem was that Aramis made no attempt to control his servant’s mouth, the other part was that Bazin was in fact not a real servant and certainly not a musketeer’s servant. Rather, he was a monk playing at being a servant. And every chance he could possibly get to sermonize he would seize with the enthusiasm of a preacher on a mission through heathen territory.

Before he answered, D’Artagnan could see himself goading Bazin into a never-ending, spiraling argument, which would include the fate of those who lived by the sword as well as a plethora of details and curiosities on the lives of obscure saints and martyrs, at least one of which Bazin would-invariably-compare himself to.

So instead he inclined his head in less than an affirmative and reached first for his sword in its scabbard, which he fastened to his waist, and then for his hat, which he slapped on his head with grim determination. In doing so he caught sight of Planchet’s mildly amused look. “Planchet,” he said for no better reason than to spoil the young man’s amusement. “Follow me.”

He felt inner satisfaction in seeing the young man’s startled and worried face, but didn’t stay to savor it, nor did he wait for Bazin to take the lead. D’Artagnan knew his way to Porthos’s place well enough. And besides, while Aramis and even Athos might think they needed a servant to walk ahead of them and cut a path through the Paris crowds for their impressive selves, D’Artagnan had no such great idea of himself.

Oh, his family was the wealthiest and noblest in their village. Which wasn’t saying much. All told his father’s land, all small inherited parcels put together, wouldn’t equal the amount used for the children’s cemetery in Paris. His father had been a glorified farmer with better pedigree, and the whole of the servants in their commodious farm-house had been two-his father’s valet and helper, and his mother’s maid. A couple married to each other and inclined to treating D’Artagnan as one of their own children.

He was no more used to having a servant to separate him from the populace than he was used to regarding himself as a great lord. He ran down the stairs and opened his door and stopped.

Before him stood a vision of loveliness. She was blond and her features were of the sort young men dream angels might have. D’Artagnan stared at her, shocked, none too sure she hadn’t come out of his own disordered dreams.

Oval faced, slim but with an ample bosom shown to great advantage in a well-cut gown of the sort worn at court, the sort that D’Artagnan had only seen from a distance while helping his friends guard the entrance to the royal palace. It was velvet and pink and… it pushed up where it should and it molded where it must.

Its owner was looking at D’Artagnan with the thunder-struck expression and the slight blush that made him absolutely sure that he was dreaming. Women-particularly women as beautiful and delicate as angels-never smiled at him and certainly not this way.

“I… I…” he said, and realized he had his hat still on his head and whipped it off with a flourish. “I’m sorry, madam. I’m not used to seeing duchesses in this neighborhood. My name is D’Artagnan and I lodge here. I am a guard of Monsieur des Essarts.”

The woman smiled wider, a slowly widening smile that made D’Artagnan feel his cheeks heat as though in the full blaze of sun.

“I thank you,” she said, inclining her head. “But I am not a duchess. My name is Constance Bonacieux and I live here too,” and with her hand she indicated the door to Monsieur Bonacieux’s dwelling.

D’Artagnan tried to imagine the wizened old man and this beauty and shook his head. “You are his daughter?” he asked. “His niece?”

But she only laughed. “His wife. Though most of the time I stay at the royal palace where I serve her Majesty.” She blushed and looked down. “I am Madame Bonacieux.”

D’Artagnan registered the disappointment that she was married at the same time that he thought she’d looked down as though embarrassed at being married. And he thought that Porthos’s lover was married. And Aramis’s lover had been. And then he couldn’t think anymore because his mind was too full and his heart ready to burst and he could neither move nor speak looking at her.

A throat was cleared loudly behind him and he turned to see Bazin glare. “My master said-”

“That I should hurry, of course,” D’Artagnan said, and turned back to see Constance curtseying at him. Again his heart was full to bursting, but this time it compelled him to action. He ran to the side of the house where roses with broad satiny pink petals spilled over the garden wall. Late blooming roses, their fragrance intoxicating in the air. He reached for one, ignoring the bite of the thorns on his fingers, and pulled it free of the vine, then scraped the thorns off with his fingernail and, bowing, with hat held to chest, proffered Madame Bonacieux the rose.

She blushed as pink as the rose and for a moment looked as young as D’Artagnan’s seventeen years of age. A glimmer of tears appeared in her eyes as she said, “You shouldn’t, monsieur.”

“The flower deserves to be ornamented by you, madam,” D’Artagnan said, and bowed.

She blushed darker. “Thank you,” she said. And she took it.

He bowed to her again then ran, since Basin and Planchet were already walking a bit down the street. It wasn’t till he’d caught up with them and passed them, on the crowded sidewalk that he realized he’d given her one of her husband’s own roses. And it wasn’t till he was almost at Porthos’s door that he realized that the way she had blushed she must not be used to such gallant gestures. Well. He’d never had too good an opinion of Monsieur Bonacieux and now this decided it all. The man was a low creature, not deserving such a wife.

With this thought in his mind he started towards the front door of Porthos’s lodging.

“Not there, Monsieur D’Artagnan,” Basin said. “The practice room. At the back.”

“The practice room?” D’Artagnan asked. Basin nodded and D’Artagnan started down the alley towards the back gate, then trotted along the garden to the broad door at the back of the house which led to what he assumed was an abandoned cellar where the four of them often practiced sword fighting.

That they were meeting here must mean he was required for second in a duel that demanded extraordinary skill. He flung the door open and stopped, shocked.

The three musketeers were there, assembled around something lying on the floor of the room.

Not something. Someone. A corpse. But it was not a corpse as D’Artagnan was used to seeing them, after duels or brawls. It was smaller, more delicate. A child. It was a child.

“Sangre Dieu,” he said. “What is this?”