The Timekeeper Conspiracy

6

"Vacated their rooms, you say?" said Adrian Taylor. "And no sign of Silvera?"

Jimmy Darcy stood uneasily before the terrorist leader. Only a short while ago, Adrian Taylor had been a small, whipcord thin young man with violently blue eyes, a sharp, slightly crooked nose, and a thin, cruel mouth. He knew that Taylor was considerably older than he was, though by how much, he could not say. Taylor had appeared to be, judging by the standards used before the advent of antiagathic drugs, eighteen to twenty years of age. He was, Jimmy knew, at the very least three times that age. Now, however, Taylor was transformed.

The skills of Jack Bennett had reshaped his face, shortening and straightening out his nose and giving it a slight, delicate upward turn. His jawline had been restructured, more gently curved, the sharp planes of his face smoothed out, the cheeks rounded, the soft flesh around the eyes surgically altered to eliminate the beginning signs of age. His mouth was full and soft now, the lips were those of a voluptuary. The ears were small and shapely, without the pronounced lobes they had earlier possessed. A small beauty mark now graced Taylor's right cheek. His adam's apple had been removed and the skin of the throat smoothed out. Taylor's hairline had been depilated to give him a higher forehead. He had round, full breasts now and decidedly and unsettlingly feminine hips. The extensive operation had been a masterwork, complete right down to the very last detail. Taylor even had Milady's brand, the harlot's fleur-de-lis, burned into his shoulder.

Transsexual operations had been reversible for many years. The purpose of the procedure had simply been to enable Taylor to become a "woman" for the purpose of the mission. When it was over, Adrian Taylor would be able to have his male organs back, either exactly as they were or redesigned to his own specifications. But it had become much more than an elaborate disguise. Taylor took a perverse pleasure in being as he was now. With each succeeding day, he fell more and more in love with his new aspect.

Of all the Timekeepers, Taylor was the best known. The TIA had an extensive dossier on his activities. He was regarded as an expert in his field, ruthless, cold, and extremely dangerous. The one thing that no one outside the organization knew was what Taylor really looked like. Few people within the Timekeepers had ever glimpsed Taylor's real face. He changed his appearance almost as frequently as most people changed their style of clothing. Taylor was a true chameleon, but to Jimmy's knowledge, he had never gone so far before. It wasn't Taylor's sexual preferences that bothered Jimmy Darcy. There was nothing unusual in that. What frightened Jimmy Darcy was that Adrian Taylor appeared to have two personalities now. He was both Adrian Taylor and Milady. Sometimes he spoke as Adrian Taylor and acted like a man surgically disguised as a woman. Sometimes he spoke as Milady de Winter, living out the role. And sometimes, he spoke as Milady, referring to Adrian Taylor in the second person, as though Taylor existed elsewhere, as a separate and distinct being. He did so now.

"No sign of Silvera," he said once again, fingering his throat absently. "Adrian won't like that. I think we can safely assume that Silvera is no longer with us. Pity. He must have underestimated the opposition. You checked? You're certain? There was only Bennett and the woman?"

"They were seen getting into a carriage and driving away," said Jimmy.

"There can be no doubt that she's an agent," Taylor said. "Bennett has betrayed us."

"But he seemed totally committed to the cause," said Jimmy. "God, do you realize what this means? It's a complete disaster! They know who you are now! We're stopped before we've even started!"

"Not necessarily," said Taylor. He smiled. "That won't stop Adrian at all. Why should it?"

"I don't understand," said Jimmy. "How can we continue now?"

"You're not thinking, Jimmy." He was Adrian again, suddenly on his feet and pacing nervously. "Didn't I always tell you to have faith? All right, so they know that I've become Milady. So what? You forget that time is on our side."

"The chronoplate!" said Jimmy. "We can go back in time and outmaneuver them! Of course, we can go back and save Silvera and then-"

"Screw Silvera," Taylor said. "He made a mistake and he's paid for it. No, we don't need the plate, Jimmy, not yet. We can always use it as a last resort if need be, but we're still ahead. The scenario's progressing smoothly. They may know who I am, but for the moment, they don't know where I am. And, after all, we're the ones threatening to change history, remember? They're here to preserve the status quo. If they know that I've become de Winter, then they'll surely know that the real Milady's dead and that's just it. They need de Winter. Or, more precisely, they need a de Winter to insure that events in this period of history progress as they should. They can plant their own de Winter, but they wouldn't dare to do that as long as I'm around. No, they'd have to take me out first and that won't be so easy."

"But the very fact that they know," said Jimmy, "the fact that they're here-"

"Only serves to make the game more interesting," said Taylor.

"The game?" said Jimmy.

"Of course. It's a wonderful, fascinating game that just became more challenging. The TIA and I have been playing it for years and now it's reached its climax. They'll have their best people in on this, you can be sure of that. There's more than just the two we've spotted. The one Silvera killed was not one of the first-string or Silvera would not have taken him so easily. The woman, I'm not so sure about, but the man… He was expendable. Maybe his only purpose was to flush us out. Yes, that would be the way he'd do it," Taylor said, nodding his head and smiling.

"Who?"

"My old friend Mongoose," Taylor said. He suddenly seemed very happy.

"Who's Mongoose?"

"We've been playing cat and mouse for years," said Taylor. "He's the TIA's best agent. He's my doppelganger. Neither of us knows what the other looks like. Oh, Jimmy, this is going to be fun! Sometimes I've beaten him, sometimes he's beaten me, but this time, this time, I'm going to get him! I'm going to take him, Jimmy. I'm going to take him and I'll keep him for a while, we'll talk about old times, and then I'll kill him. It's going to be wonderful."

There was no doubt in Jimmy Darcy's mind that Adrian Taylor was insane. About everything else, Jimmy had a great deal of doubt. He had joined the Temporal Preservation League because his older brother had died in the time wars. And for what? To protect his family? To defend his homeland? Had Danny's death anything to do with protecting his own, with patriotic loyalty, with anything at all that made any sort of sense? No, it had all been part of some grandiose game, wars fought on paper, move a decimal point and another hundred people die. Just an endless escalation to keep the machine oiled and running, to feed its momentum until, sooner or later, the inevitable would happen. Man had already split the atom and now he was threatening to split time. The only movement that made any sense at all was that of Albrecht Mensinger. There was no alternative. The time wars had to stop. They were mankind's greatest folly. In his attempts to master nature and his fate, Man had gone too far at last. He had poisoned himself and the environment he lived in, he had stripped the Earth of resources, he had shown contempt for all the works of God. Nor was it enough to imperil his future. Man was now threatening his past.

The leaders of the league were fond of quoting Thomas Jefferson, saying that government was far too important to be left up to the people. The people had demonstrated a staggering irresponsibility, electing leaders whose own criminal stupidity surpassed even that of those who put them into office. It was past time for the elite to lead. Someone had to show the way.

There were those within the league who went by the strictest principles set down by Albrecht Mensinger, but there were also those who thought that what the league was doing did not go far enough. It was to this more militant group that Jimmy Darcy had been attracted. It was from this group that he had been recruited into the Timekeepers.

Jimmy Darcy had a great deal of anger roiling away inside of him. It had fueled his terrorist activities. He saw no ethical contradiction in using violence to achieve peace. In thousands of years of human history, the passive way had never worked. The ideology of peace was alien to the warmongers. Violence was all they understood. There were those within the league who believed that the end did not justify the means. Jimmy had once believed that too. Since then, he had become a great deal more pragmatic, more realistic. He understood that it was not up to him to justify the means. His course had been forced upon him by people who remained steadfastly unaffected by any other course of action. Let them justify the means, Jimmy had shouted at the doves within the league. They have handed us our tools. Those who are morally right have no need of justifying anything. A resistance leader by the name of Arafat had once said, upon addressing the United Nations, "I come bearing an olive branch in one hand and a machine gun in the other. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand."

The doves within the league held out the olive branch. It was repeatedly ignored. The Timekeepers fired the machine gun. To ignore it was to die.

At the core of his existence, Jimmy Darcy still believed in peace. It was what he fought for. He fought the war machine. When the war machine was beaten, he would be happy to let the machine gun fall from his hand into the dust, never to be fired again. He did not believe that Adrian would do the same. No, Adrian would find another battle, start his own war if need be. Even in the Timekeepers, Adrian was feared because Adrian was always at war, with the world and with himself. Yet they needed Adrian. He was effective. They have handed us our tools.

"It isn't a game, Adrian," said Jimmy. "It's a struggle for survival. Surely, you can see that, can't you?"

Adrian regarded him with amusement. "Of course I can see that, Jimmy. Can't you see that the struggle for survival is the most fascinating game of all? The stakes are high and it's winner take all. Life is a game, Jimmy. The idea is to play to win. And we're going to win, because for once, we control the board. We're on the offensive. Milady wrote a letter to an Englishman. Not just any Englishman, mind you. She wrote to George Villiers, the Duke of Buckingham. It was a love letter. It wasn't from Milady, even though she wrote it. Buckingham will think it's from the Queen. He'll have received it by now and, doubtless, it will have inflamed his passion for the Queen anew. I do have a way with words, if I say so myself."

"I don't understand," said Jimmy.

"No, you wouldn't, but Richelieu will and that's what really counts. He was quite pleased about it. In fact, he told me that he wished he had thought of it himself. He'll take the credit, of course, but that's all right. It all fits into the plan."

"I still don't-"

"Be patient, Jimmy, I'll explain it to you. There's a very charming lady here in town by the name of Camille de Bois-Tracy. She just loves intrigue, especially if it has to do with love. She can't resist it. For quite some time now, she's been an intermediary for Buckingham and Anne of Austria, a sort of patron of the heart, a role she dearly loves. Richelieu's been made aware of this, of course. It's brought Milady further into his good graces. When he receives that letter, Buckingham will surely come to France. He might be on his way to Paris even as we speak. He will come to Camille de Bois-Tracy and a rendezvous will be arranged. Richelieu, of course, will try to take him, Buckingham being an enemy of France."

"I remember now," said Jimmy. "Buckingham gets away, according to history. Only we're going to change that, right? Yes, it's a brilliant plan. If the musketeers are prevented from helping Buckingham escape, then Richelieu has him. If not, then we can grab him and then we'll have a hostage. They'll have no choice but to listen to us! Either way, they'll have an adjustment on their hands, an adjustment made that much more complicated by our being here to interfere with it."

"No, no, Jimmy, you see, you don't understand the game at all. I intend to make certain that Buckingham gets away."

"But… why lure him to Paris in the first place, then?"

"To set up the next act in this scenario," Taylor said. "But you won't have to worry about any of that for now. You'll have another job to do. I want you and Tonio to find Jack Bennett and that agent. See if they'll lead you to any of the others. Find out what you can, then kill them."

Jimmy left, feeling confused. Letting Buckingham get away made no sense whatsoever. Obviously, it would take an adjustment in order to attain their goal. The simple act of threatening to create a timestream split would never result in their demands being met by the warmongers. No, the threat would have to be brought home to them. They'd have to face an adjustment situation, one in which the interference of the Timekeepers would be a factor added to all the other difficulties inherent in such a task. They had a chronoplate now. That gave them the edge. They could create an adjustment situation, interfere with its resolution, and then clock out to another period and repeat the entire process. They could repeat their demands and continue to create one adjustment situation after another, forcing the warmongers to bring more and more attention to the problem, draining their financial reserves, putting a strain upon the Referee Corps and the TIA and the adjustment teams, nipping at the heels of the war machine until it was no longer cost-effective, until they realized that they could never win. It was the logical course of action.

But Adrian Taylor wasn't being logical. Or Jimmy couldn't see the logic. What was he planning? His cover was surely blown, yet he seemed completely unconcerned. He had created an excellent opportunity for an adjustment situation and he was walking away from it, using it to set up… what?

Jimmy was beginning to have a lot of doubts about the operation. Terrorist tactics had to be hit-and-run in order for them to be successful. They had an opportunity to hit-and-run now, but Taylor wasn't taking it. He was building up to something else, to some more elaborate game. Somehow, the TIA had received intelligence about their operation and they had brought at least one team of agents in. That didn't bother Taylor. Taylor's cover had been blown. That didn't bother Taylor, either. One of the group had disappeared, killed most likely, possibly taken prisoner to be interrogated, to reveal all the members of their cell. That didn't bother Taylor. What would it take to bother Taylor? Why this pointless stalking of the traitor, Bennett, and the agents? Why take unnecessary risks when all it took was to create an adjustment situation quickly, cut and run, and repeat the process somewhere else, tying up the opposition's manpower until they realized that they only had one choice-capitulate or face a timestream split? A split was something no one wanted, not the warmongers, not the Timekeepers, and certainly not the league. The key to success was to walk that ragged edge between adjustment and disaster, to exhaust the Referee Corps with adjustments until they faced their folly and brought the time wars to a halt. But to Taylor, it was all a game, a senseless, crazy rivalry with the agent who had dogged his heels for years. It was putting the entire operation in jeopardy.

Jimmy was wondering if Taylor could be trusted with leading the operation. Based on recent evidence, the answer had to be a resounding no. But Taylor could not be relieved. It would not be a matter as simple as holding a meeting of the cell and voting him out of office. No, if it came to that, Taylor would have to be eliminated and that would not be easy. Taylor was dangerous. Taylor was suspicious to the point of being paranoid. Taylor had that musclebound German, Freytag, a homicidal brute who could snap him like a twig with just one hand. And Taylor had the chronoplate. Jimmy was alone. He could sound out Tonio, but he would have to be very careful, very subtle.

There was nothing to be done now except to follow Taylor's leadership. Bennett and the woman would be found, questioned, and killed. It would be risky, but there was nothing else to do. He would follow Taylor's orders, but the operation would come first. He would sound out Tonio, he would watch Taylor carefully, and he would bide his time. In the end, it always came down to time.

D'Artagnan was in love. More to the point, he was in lust, though he had not yet attained either the age or the experience that would enable him to tell the difference. He and the three musketeers, having become fast friends following their run-in with the cardinal's guards, had spent the better part of the evening discussing the mysterious woman who had intervened on their behalf. None of them had ever seen her before and each of them was fascinated by her. Each vowed to discover her identity, each maintained that it was he whom she had meant to save, and each had his own unspoken amorous designs upon the lady.

Over the next couple of days, their attention was occupied by this delightful mystery, but not to the exclusion of yet another illegal brawl with Richelieu's guards. Due to Treville's intervention with the king on their behalf and Louis's own secret delight at seeing Richelieu's men embarrassed, the musketeers were not only spared punishment, but they were given the sort of praise a master might lavish on his hounds upon discovering that they had torn apart a larger pack of dogs. The king had been especially delighted with Cadet D'Artagnan and, seeing that he was poor, he had gifted him with a purse containing the sum of forty pistoles.

The Gascon had celebrated by buying himself a fine new suit of clothes and procuring the services of a valet, a bedraggled, flea-bitten, scarecrow of a man whose name was Planchet. Porthos had found him sleeping in a garbage heap. He smelled terrible, but he was as grateful as a stray responding to the kindness of a stranger. All this was very pleasant to the Gascon, but it did nothing to assuage his mounting passion. D'Artagnan was a young man of extraordinary simplicity. His attention could be completely occupied by only one thing at a time. The new distraction appeared in the person of his landlord's wife, the pretty Constance Bonacieux. He already had the mystery woman of the mud puddle on his mind and he was preoccupied with his plans for courtship and seduction. However, the mystery woman was still a mystery, nowhere to be found, unknown, intangible. Constance, on the other hand, was very real; she was nearby and she was, it took no great perception to discern, available. D'Artagnan, being an eminently pragmatic youth, simply shifted gears and redirected his attention toward a more accessible objective.

The fact that Constance Bonacieux was also a woman of some mystery and the fact that she was married only served to add spice to the situation. In fact, her about-to-be-cuckolded husband had approached him just the other day, offering to forget about the rent if the dashing Monsieur D'Artagnan, who was already gaining something of a reputation as a swordsman, would help to rescue Constance from her abductors. This, in itself, had piqued the Gascon's curiosity.

It turned out that Constance's godfather was the cloak-bearer to the queen and that he had secured for her a position in the palace as both maid and companion to Anne of Austria. It was in the palace that Constance had made her residence, coming home to see her much older husband twice a week. After she had missed a visit, Bonacieux had received a letter. He had shown it to D'Artagnan. It read: "Do not seek for your wife. She will be restored to you when there is no longer occasion for her. If you make a single step to find her, you are lost."

D'Artagnan had not been at all certain about how he would go about finding the lady, much less rescuing her from her abductors, but the story had intrigued him and he was in no position to turn down the offer of free room and board. He had barely given the matter any thought when two singularly interesting things happened. Bonacieux was arrested by the cardinal's guards and taken away for questioning and, in his absence, who but the kidnapped Constance should appear, having escaped from her captors by letting herself down from a window by the means of knotted sheets. She had made her way straight home to be sheltered by her husband, but in his place, she found D'Artagnan. The Gascon instantly perceived that it was a situation Madame Bonacieux found not at all unpleasant.

He saw that Constance was very young and pretty and quite obviously possessed of a strong sexual appetite. He knew that the opportunities for romantic diversion at the palace were not rare, but Constance, being a married woman, had her reputation to consider. At the palace, there would be no telling who was an informer. For many at court, it was a profitable occupation. Moreover, most of her time would be spent being a companion to the queen.

Constance did little to hide the fact that the possibility of a passionate and deliciously illicit romance so close at hand was having an effect on her. Her smoldering glances were not lost upon D'Artagnan. Her husband was much older than she was and the Gascon suspected that Madame Bonacieux's twice-weekly visits to her husband did little to satisfy her cravings. She had, after all, seen the handsome gentlemen at court and, compared with such cavaliers, Bonacieux paled into insignificance. D'Artagnan, on the other hand, was young, muscular, dashing, and good-looking and what he lacked in courtly manners he more than made up for in enthusiasm. What with the bowing, the hand-kissing, the putting of the arms around the shoulders to comfort an obviously distressed young woman, it took about twenty minutes for the comforting to travel from Bonacieux's front door to D'Artagnan's bedroom.

Between hugs and kisses and please-don'ts and no-I-really-shouldn'ts, Constance explained the circumstances of her abduction. She did not, however, go into too great detail. She did not tell D'Artagnan that word had reached Anne, through the usual secret channels, that the Duke of Buckingham had received her letter and had arrived in Paris in answer to her summons. Anne was understandably distressed, for she had written no such letter. Clearly, the whole thing was a trap to snare her lover, an enemy of France. Someone close to her was an informer, doubtless in the pay of Louis or, even worse, of Richelieu. Having no one else to trust, Anne had turned to Constance, pleading with her to go to the house of Camille de Bois-Tracy and warn the duke of treachery. She had been on her way to the house in the Rue de la Harpe when she had been taken by a group of men commanded by the Count de Rochefort.

The account she gave D'Artagnan was deliberately vague and it was accepted without prying questions because the Gascon's mind was less intent on conversation than on pressing his seduction of his landlord's pretty wife, which process progressed with faint cries of protestation and only token physical resistence. (Please-no, don't, oh-monsieur-I'm-only-a-weak-woman.)

There had been a lengthy pause during which the extent of her weakness was explored. All the while, Constance clung to him and chattered on about the terrors of her captivity, as though the shock of the ordeal had been so great that she did not quite know what she was doing. Upon hearing her denounce "that scar-faced lackey of the cardinal," D'Artagnan recalled the man in Meung and he pressed her for details. In due course, he learned that the man whose path had crossed his in the tavern was none other than the Count de Rochefort, Richelieu's right-hand man.

With the "explanation" out of the way, D'Artagnan was able to think a bit more clearly. As he dressed, he came to the conclusion that the house of Bonacieux would be the first place the guards would look when they discovered that their prisoner had escaped. Therefore, he elected to take Constance to the home of his friend Athos for safekeeping. When they arrived at Athos's apartment in the Rue Ferou, the musketeer was out. D'Artagnan had a key, however, and he let them in, informing her whose house it was and that she would be safe there. With Athos being out, something else occurred to D'Artagnan, but before she would agree to give him any further "explanations," Constance prevailed upon him to undertake an errand for her. He was to present himself at the wicket of the Louvre, on the side of the Rue de l'Echelle, and ask for one Germain.

"What then?" said D'Artagnan, feeling a great deal of impatience.

"He will ask you what you want," said Constance, "and you will answer by these two words-Tours and Bruxelles. He will immediately be at your command."

"And what shall I order him to do?" D'Artagnan said, not so curious about the peculiar task as he was anxious to get it out of the way.

"You shall ask him to go and fetch the queen's valet de chambre," Constance said, "and then send him to me."

D'Artagnan left in a great hurry, mindful of the fact that the sooner he returned, the sooner Constance could explain the whole affair to him. He did as he was told and he presented himself at the small gate at the Louvre. He gave the message to Germain and Germain replied, further perplexing him, by advising him to seek out a friend whose clock was too slow so that he would have an alibi, since the errand he was on could bring him trouble. It was all becoming quite mysterious.

D'Artagnan immediately set out to see Captain de Treville. Arriving there, he turned the clock back three-quarters of an hour and spent some time in idle talk with the old solider, during which discussion he made a point to remark upon the time. That being done and his alibi being secured in case someone should question him about his whereabouts that evening, D'Artagnan paused only long enough to turn the clock forward to the proper time before setting out to the house on the Rue Ferou and a further explanation of these mysterious goings-on. En route, he thought of Constance and the good fortune that had brought him to his present state. He had left home penniless and now he was in Paris, a cadet soon to become a musketeer, with friends as illustrious as Athos, Aramis, and Porthos and a sponsor as distinguished as Captain de Treville. He had new clothes, a situation, comfortable quarters for which, having restored Constance to her husband, he would no longer have to pay and he now had a lover who, being married, would be in no position to make unreasonable demands upon him. All in all, he had done quite well for himself. It only remained for him to become a musketeer, to avenge himself upon that scoundrel, the Count de Rochefort, and to discover the identity and whereabouts of that mysterious woman he had seen at the Carmes-Dechaux. But for the moment, he had Constance.

To D'Artagnan, she was femininity incarnate. She had soft blue eyes and long dark hair, a pretty turned-up nose and a trim figure with a full bosom and long, slender legs. At twenty-five, she was a little older than he was, but that only served to make her more desirable. True, she was extremely talkative, but then there were advantages to that as well; he would be put to no great strain to supply entertaining conversation. And the fact that she seemed to be involved in some matter of questionable legality meant that she would require a protector-and who better suited to the job than he?

As he passed the Rue Cassette, he spied a figure hurrying furtively out of the Rue Servadoni. The wind blew back the hood of the figure's cloak and it was hurriedly pulled back in place, but not before D'Artagnan had seen that the person so stealthily abroad in the darkening streets of Paris was none other than Constance Bonacieux. Having told her that he would return as soon as the errand she had sent him on had been completed, he was puzzled to see her rushing through the streets, obviously intent on something. Keeping at a distance, he followed her through several streets and alleys until she came to the door of a house on the Rue de la Harpe. She knocked three times upon the door, glancing all about her, paused, then knocked three times more. The door was opened and she could be seen to have some words with someone inside the house. D'Artagnan watched, puzzled. A moment later, Constance stepped back and a tall man enveloped in a long cloak and wearing a large hat pulled low over his face appeared. He took her arm and together they hurried off into the night.

"So that's it!" thought D'Artagnan. "I am sent on some fool's errand to be got out of the way so that she can run off and see another lover!"

Outraged, D'Artagnan hurried after them. He caught up to them in an alley off the Rue Vaugirard. He passed them at a run, then turned and drew his rapier, blocking their path.

"So!" he said, "This is how I'm treated, is it?"

Constance gasped and backed off a step.

"Monsieur, I do not know you," said the stranger. "It seems that you have taken me for someone else. We have no quarrel. Kindly step aside."

"D'Artagnan, have you gone insane?" said Constance.

"You know this man?" the stranger said.

"Indeed, she knows me very well, Monsieur," D'Artagnan said. "And I would ask how it is that you come to know her."

"D'Artagnan, don't be a fool," said Constance. "This does not concern you."

"Does not concern me!"

"The lady's right," the stranger said, "this is none of your affair. You are interfering in something you know nothing about and it would be well for you to sheathe your sword and continue on your way."

"Sheathe my sword? No, Monsieur, better that you draw yours and give an accounting of yourself!"

"Very well, if you insist," said the stranger, throwing back his cloak and drawing his own rapier.

"Milord, please!" cried Constance.

D'Artagnan frowned. "Milord?"

"Yes, you fool," said Constance. "Milord, the Duke of Buckingham! And now you'll ruin us all!"

Suddenly, it all became quite clear. For the prime minister of England to be the lover of a lowly lady's maid in Paris was laughable. If he desired a lady's maid, there would be no scarcity of them in London. But if he desired that maid's mistress…

"A thousand pardons, Milord," D'Artagnan said, lowering his sword. "I fear I've made a dreadful error. But I love her, you see, and I was jealous, and I… Please pardon me, Your Grace, and say how I may serve you."

"You are a brave young man," said Buckingham. "You offer me your services and with the same frankness, I accept them. Follow us at a distance of twenty paces to the Louvre and if you see anyone watching us, be a good fellow and slay him."

Buckingham took Constance by the arm once again, having sheathed his sword, and they hurried off toward the Louvre. D'Artagnan kept his sword out, counted out twenty of their paces, and then followed, looking all about him to see if anyone was watching. He did not see anyone. But that was only because he was not very observant.