Grimaud had closed the front door and now went by them, on the stairs, cleaving to the opposite wall. The look he gave Athos made Athos aware that if he got his sleep any more disturbed, it was, after all, Athos’s fault in allowing his insane musketeer friends the liberty of the house.
Athos looked up and managed to keep his countenance-barely. The boy’s fear made that easier. It wasn’t something to sport with. “What happened? How come you here, in this attire.”
“It is the only clothes I could find on my way out of her bedchamber. She was after me with a dagger.” D’Artagnan shuddered.
“She?” Athos asked.
“Milady. Your… wife.”
Athos felt as if an ice-cold hand had clutched at his innards, but all he could say was, “I see.” And then, louder, “Grimaud, if you could bring some water to my room. I’ll help Monsieur D’Artagnan dress, while we speak.” And, ignoring Grimaud’s mumbled complaints, as he came towards them on the stairs again, Athos helped his friend up the stairs to his room. The only reason D’Artagnan needed help at all was that he appeared to have been running barefoot through shards of clay. “Some tiles that fell from a roof,” he said.
By the time Grimaud had come back with warm water in a jug, Athos had found D’Artagnan some underwear, and was digging through one of his clothes presses for a shirt. He didn’t see any point giving the boy doublet and hose now, since he would, doubtless, be going to bed. “Here,” he said, extending a shirt to D’Artagnan, only to find it rudely ripped off his hands by Grimaud, who went to the trunk and brought out quite a different shirt. “We can send for your clothes in the morning. I assume you left Planchet in your lodgings?”
D’Artagnan nodded. And added, half under his breath, “I hope he’s safe.”
And Athos looked up, helplessly, at Grimaud, who huffed. “I’ll go, and take Bazin and collect the boy. And we’ll get you your clothes for tomorrow.”
“Thank you, Grimaud,” Athos said.
“But first I’m going to bring you another jug of water, Monsieur D’Artagnan, and don’t you dare put those feet on Monsieur Athos’s bed. You left a trail of mud all up the stairs and across the floor.”
After Grimaud left to collect more water, Athos said, “You must forgive him. He’s anxious lest I should be disturbed. I have a feeling this is a truly bad night for him to feel this way.”
D’Artagnan gave him a serious look. “I’m afraid so,” he said, and proceeded to pour into Athos’s ears a tale as chilling as it was unbelievable.
“You believe,” Athos said, “that she set it up so you came upon her just as the ruffians appeared to be threatening her? Why? And how?”
“The how wouldn’t be difficult,” D’Artagnan said. “I suspect she has had us followed. If she is one of the Cardinal’s creatures, this can’t be wholly difficult.”
“No,” Athos said, but still felt the cold, clamped on his guts.
Water was delivered, and Athos told D’Artagnan, “I believe it would be best if you laid down and attempted to sleep. I don’t know how well you may do next to Aramis, since he alternates between snoring and telling people about the danger of chickens.” He smiled a little at D’Artagnan’s expression. “I assure you it’s true, and I assure you I have no more idea what he means than do you. I’m sure he means something, at least in his own mind, but what that might be, I cannot tell you. He is, needless to say, drunk.”
D’Artagnan looked at the blond musketeer curiously, as he snored, faceup on the bed. “It seems like something Aramis… I mean, it doesn’t seem like him.”
“Indeed,” Athos said. “And after your story, I’m beginning to wonder whether he did in fact get drunk or whether something was added to his food or drink, and, in that case, what that might be.”
He helped D’Artagnan rinse his feet, and then saw him climb onto the bed, on the opposite side of Aramis, before he headed out the door.
“I might yet come and try to sleep on a chair,” D’Artagnan said.
“You’re welcome to,” Athos answered and was, by that time, so tired that he couldn’t ever remember getting to the sitting room or crawling into his mound of cushions and cloaks.
He could however remember being startled awake by a loud knocking. For a long time, it seemed, he lay there, wishing that Grimaud would answer. But after a while, it occurred to him Grimaud couldn’t answer, since Grimaud had gone to fetch D’Artagnan’s Planchet. He grabbed a candle, which he’d forgotten to blow out, from the little table in the corner, reached for his sword, and pulling it from its sheath, held it in his hand, as he went down the stairs and threw the door open.
To find Porthos, holding what seemed to be a covered clay dish, staring at him. Athos blinked at the sight then tried to sheathe his sword, realized that he wasn’t wearing a sheath, and bowed slightly. “Come in, Porthos,” he said, stepping around his friend as he did so, and closing the door. “I presume that’s a dish of pigeons?”
Porthos looked down at the vessel in his hands and seemed for a moment quite confused. Then he said, “Oh. No. That is, it used to be. Now it’s just the empty dish.” As he spoke, he set it on the last step of the stairs, and looked up at Athos, who had gone up half a dozen steps, candle in one hand, sword in the other. “I used it to break into the Bastille.”
“I see,” Athos said, thinking that, in fact, those words were starting to have an apposite meaning to him.
“And I must tell you what Mousqueton said,” Porthos said. “Because I think it is deucedly important and in fact it might solve the whole mystery for us… only… only I’m not sure how. You know I’m not good at seeing the picture until it is all completed.”
“Yes,” Athos said. “Yes, of course.” And, making a sudden decision added, “Here, take my sword and candle up, Porthos. Put the sword with my clothes, then go in and wake D’Artagnan and Aramis on my bed. I can see all efforts at sleeping tonight will be blighted, and that I might as well give up and stay awake. Tell them it is time for a war council. And if Aramis speaks of chickens, for the love of heaven, pour a jug of water over his head. I believe there is still half a jug left from D’Artagnan’s washing.”
“But…” Porthos said. “Where are you going?”
“Myself? Only to the cellar to get a bottle of wine. Sobriety has proven much stranger than I can endure, and I believe a bottle might improve my feelings.”
A Head Like a Case of Rapiers; Where Some Ladies Must Be Protected and Others Delight in Danger
ARAMIS did not like being awakened. He tried to protest, as Porthos, ignored twice, finally grasped him by his shirt, at the nape of the neck, and bodily lifted him from the bed, carried him to the window, threw the window open and poured a good half a jug of water over his head.
While this worked admirably to clear Aramis’s head, it also left him spluttering, shivering, and with his wet hair and wetter shirt clinging to him.
“What is the meaning of this?” he asked Porthos, even as every one of the words he pronounced echoed inside his head in a fiendish way, coming back at him as both sound and pain. “Why did you pour water over my head?”
“You should thank the saints it’s water,” Porthos said. “Only because I didn’t have time to look and see if there is a chamberpot about the place. You tried to hit me.”
“You yelled in my ear,” Aramis said.
“Hardly, I merely told you to get up. It is not my fault that you are hungover.”
Aramis regarded Porthos with full disbelief, aware at the same time that they were both being watched by D’Artagnan with something very akin to the fond amusement of the adult watching two children fight over trivial things. Aramis knew he could not be hungover. He had not gone out drinking. Or at least, he didn’t remember going out drinking. He remembered, however, the long hot ride in the agonizingly slow oxcart. And he remembered the many farms each with a vintage worth sampling.