Either type of conference usually took no more than a few minutes, though the musketeers could often swear that the first type took whole days or perhaps weeks. But now, something was very different. Worrisomely different, Porthos noticed, as he settled himself on a small chair with a cushioned seat, whose dainty proportions hadn’t been designed even for the normal musketeer much less someone of Porthos’s overlarge and over-muscular frame.
He held his breath and tried to keep his weight at least partly on his feet, afraid that if he shifted it to his behind the chair would splinter and crash to the ground in pieces beneath him. But even this concern wasn’t enough to keep him from noticing that Monsieur de Treville looked ashen pale, and his brow was knit in a frown of worry.
“The devil,” Porthos’s mouth blurted out. “Don’t tell me Mousqueton’s case is that difficult, Captain.”
The captain’s dark eyes turned to Porthos, in something like wonder. Many people who met Porthos looked at him in wonder when he spoke at all. It seemed to be against the laws of nature that someone that tall and that bulky, let alone possessed of the type of features that made people think of Viking longships, should be endowed with the French tongue and speak it without the least hint of an accent. Other people were surprised when Porthos perceived their intentions or saw through their motives. Because Porthos was not facile of language, and sometimes in fact said quite the wrong word at the most inappropriate time, people tended to assume he was stupid.
But Monsieur de Treville had known Porthos for years, and knew, furthermore, that none of his friends would associate with a dumb person because, all of them being quick of mind, the intercourse with a mental inferior would grate. Porthos knew he knew this, yet he looked upon Porthos with an astonished, wandering look for a long while.
At last he sighed. “It’s not Mousqueton, Porthos.” He frowned slightly and leaned forward on his desk, interlacing his hands atop of it. “I’m afraid it is far more complex than that, and perhaps…” He shrugged. “You could not have chosen a worse time, nor could have poor Mousqueton, to put himself in the hands of Richelieu.”
Porthos felt bewildered “But we didn’t choose-”
“No, of course not,” Monsieur de Treville said, and looked up, his dark eyes, despite their worry, managing to look somewhat amused at the idea of Mousqueton voluntarily getting arrested by Richelieu. Monsieur de Treville was from Gascony, D’Artagnan’s compatriot. And, like D’Artagnan, he had the olive skin of the region, the quick eyes, the piercing gaze, and the sense of humor that surfaced even at the moment of greatest tension. “No.” He looked around the room, fixing each of them with his gaze in turn and arresting, at last, on Aramis. “I would guess you know what this is about?”
Porthos now turned to Aramis, arguably his best friend among the inseparables, in utter bewilderment. “Let me tell you what this is about,” he said, before Aramis-who was studying his nails-could speak. “Captain, I don’t know what you’ve been told, but here is what happened. I broke my sword, and I sent Mousqueton to the armorer to mend it-you know, the one on Rue des Echarps. I didn’t have money for it, but Mousqueton and the armorer knew each other, and I thought they could… well, Mousqueton often arranged to trade one of my old cloaks or something, you see… So, anyway, I sent him. And next thing we know, he’d been arrested for murder and attempted theft. And you know he never stole anything.” And then, with sudden recollection of his servant’s habits, and seeing the quickening of humor in Monsieur de Treville’s eyes. “Well, not as such. Getting the occasional loaf of bread or bottle of wine isn’t stealing. It’s… it’s keeping from starving.” He said, opening his hands in a show of helplessness.
And Monsieur de Treville, who knew just how often Louis XIII’s encumbered finances meant that he must delay paying his musketeers, and to what straits his musketeers could be driven, nodded and opened his hands a little in sympathy. “Yes, I know the facts of the case, Porthos. The musketeers all bring me news sometimes before the principals of the event, themselves, know. In fact, just before you arrived, I was going to have you called, in case you’d chanced to come in, because…” He paused, and looked, this time to the chair by Porthos’s side, where D’Artagnan, the youngest and smallest of them all, sat, prim and proper like a schoolchild. “D’Artagnan,” he said. “Did nothing about what happened strike you as odd?”
“Only one thing,” D’Artagnan said. “Why five guards of the Cardinal were right there, on hand, to arrest Mousqueton. It might mean nothing. They might have simply been getting their swords mended, as Mousqueton was, but…” D’Artagnan took a deep breath. “All the same they seemed a little too quick, almost gleeful to arrest him. Of course with the edict hanging over our heads, they knew we wouldn’t dare fight them, and yet it seems a little…” He seemed to hesitate. “Intemperate to arrest the servant of someone like Porthos, on no more than the cry of the mob.”
“And to take him to the Bastille!” Porthos said, in a tone of outrage.
Monsieur de Treville nodded at D’Artagnan and turned to Aramis. “And you, Chevalier, I believe know why they were so quick to arrest him, even if none of us can be sure what brought them there?”
“Yes,” Aramis said. “Or rather…” He hesitated. “I believe I do, though since I intend on taking orders as soon as it is possible, I’m not very interested in these worldly affairs.” This was roughly, Porthos thought, the equivalent of an ant not liking to be immersed in sugar. Aramis was always alive to every rumor and knew the heart of every conspiracy. He watched as his friend, apparently unaware of the irony of his words, looked at his nails again and scratched, absorbedly at one with the index nail of the other hand. “But I have heard that a certain duchess who is close friends with the Queen… That is, I heard that who some of their correspondence has been intercepted, and that the Queen fears the duchess will be taken from her as… as so many of her friends have.”
“I see,” Monsieur de Treville said. “And you lack all knowledge of the contents of this correspondence.”
“I’ve been given to understand,” Aramis said. “That someone of a suspicious turn of mind might think that it fomented conspiracy against him or even…” He shrugged slightly. “A plot to assassinate him.”
“You speak in riddles,” Porthos burst forth. “Who is this duchess? And what can she mean with the Queen? And what does all of it have to do with my poor Mousqueton? And when you say duchess, is she yet another of your seamstresses?”
The shocked look from Aramis might mean anything-including that the duchess was indeed one of his seamstresses, the name Aramis had used for many years to signify whichever noble lady he was, at the time, having a carnal liaison with. But before Aramis could answer, Monsieur de Treville cleared his throat calling their attention.
“I’m not going to credit Aramis’s rumor,” he said. “But I have heard rumors myself and, what’s more…” He shrugged. “As you know, I have friends among the guards of his eminence as, doubtless, he has friends among my musketeers.”
“If I find the dogs,” Porthos said, understanding that by friends Monsieur de Treville meant spies, “I will cut out their tongues.”
“You’ll do nothing of the kind,” Aramis interposed. “Do you not think that Monsieur de Treville knows who they are? A known spy is almost an ally. You can make sure he knows only what you want him to know and furthermore that he knows a lot of things that aren’t true.”
Porthos, who was quite bright enough but disdained this type of underhanded intrigue, turned to the captain, only to be met with a nod of acquiescence. “Indeed, my dear Porthos,” he said. “I beg you you will leave his eminence’s pet musketeers alone,” he said with the hint of amusement. “However, this is how it stands-rightly or wrongly, his eminence has interpreted some correspondence which he intercepted between the Duchess de… well, I need not name her, only to give her her nom de guerre, Marie Michon, and the Queen. And he has taken it into his head that the purpose of the two ladies’ conspiracy is to kill him and install another one in his place, in the King’s favor.” He shrugged. “I’m sure it’s all overblown suspicion, however…” He shrugged again. “You can see how this would make him wish to have one of your servants in his power.”