WORTHY OF LOVE
It's been a part of his daily routine for so long that he sometimes doesn't even think about it. Even when he has the worst of hangovers, his hand automatically reaches for the length of fabric on the battered bedside table. Its presence is a comfort to him, whether the scarf is around his neck or not. It is a reminder of someone who believed him worthy of love.
Athos is 5. He is a shy, quiet child, who is fascinated by books. He loves nothing more than to spend hours lying on the floor of the library, thumbing through the picture books that his aunt sends him from Paris. His father takes this as a sign of intelligence, surely from his side of the family. After all, the boy has already shown interest in nature, and has a grasp of basic sums. Sebastian d'Athos begins to teach his son to read, but quickly becomes frustrated by the boy's inability to decipher words. When Athos tells his father that the words seem to move around on the page, his father slams the book closed, and scolds him for lying.
A month later, his Aunt Colette arrives for an extended stay. She is his mother's sister. Athos likes her, because she can make a game out of the dullest task, and loves to laugh. His mother has Thomas to care for, and has little time for her older son nowadays. He is a big boy now, and is expected to be learning the running of the estate, not longing to snuggle in his mother's lap and be read to. Aunt Colette has sharp eyes, and she sees his loneliness. She grabs an armful of books from the library, and takes Athos out to the garden. On a blanket spread under an apple tree, they sit together, and she has her nephew choose a book.
It is a lively tale of a small boy who lives near the edge of a forest. One day, he finds a baby squirrel that has somehow become separated from his mother. He takes the animal back to his the small cottage where he lives with his parents, and nurses it back to health. Soon the squirrel is tame enough that it will scamper up the boy's shoulder and sit on his head, calmly eating bits of apple that the boy hands him.
Aunt Colette reads to him several times, then says, "Now it is your turn to read, Olivier." He shrinks back, afraid to expose his ineptitude to his beloved aunt. What if she decides I am so stupid that I am not worth the effort? Just like Papa did?
"I'm not…I can't." His voice begins to tremble, and he stops, staring at the ground. "I tried once with Papa, and I couldn't do it."
His aunt senses his distress, and pulls him into her lap. "You are an intelligent boy, Olivier. Perhaps your Papa did not use the right approach. He may have been busy, or tired. Sometimes when I am tired, I am not as patient as I would like to be."
Athos looks up at her, and finds this impossible to believe. He has never seen his aunt cross or impatient.
"What was difficult about it?"
He is silent for a moment, then speaks, this voice earnest. "This will sound strange, Auntie, and Papa thought I was making it up….but the words on the page, I swear they were moving when I tried to sound them out."
Aunt Colette does not laugh at him, or accuse him of telling stories. She asks him to show her what he means, and his small finger traces a path across the page, demonstrating what the words do when his eyes focus on them. She thinks for a few moments, then replies, "Well, then we will just need to figure out how to tame them—just like the boy did with the squirrel."
They spend hours working together. Athos is never nervous, as he was when he sat with Papa. When his eyes tire, Colette takes him for walks along the river. She tells him stories of places she has been, and people she has met. When she speaks of a young sea captain, her eyes become soft and dreamy.
"You like him, don't you?" Athos asks. "That's how the kitchen maid looks when she talks about Jacques, the new stable boy."
Colette laughs, and hugs him. "You are very observant, Olivier." By the end of summer, she is engaged to be married, and Athos is able to read the book about the boy and the squirrel…all by himself. The words still dance, but he has learned to tame them.
Athos is 25. He is riding away from the tree where the woman he loved more than life itself is dying, struggling to breathe against the noose that is tightening around her neck. He knows it can take up to 20 minutes for someone to die in that manner, and the thought nearly drives him mad. He spurs his horse into a gallop, wanting to be anywhere but la Fère.
As he rides across the field and guides his mount onto the road, he feels nothing- not anger, grief, pain, or regret. He is completely numb. He continues on for an hour, intending to ride until he and his horse are exhausted. When he sees the fork in the road ahead, he halts for a moment, trying to process the fact that the executioner has likely already buried his wife in an unmarked grave, per his instructions.
He closes his eyes. The thought of her sparkling green eyes, fixed open in death, makes him physically ill. He wants nothing more than to forget. The taverns of Paris are beckoning to him, and he knows he has enough coin to remain drunk for a month. The decision made, he heads for the city.
When he reaches the suburbs of Paris, he guides his horse away from the grand houses along the Seine. The destination he has in mind is the most squalid quarter of the city. Wine and women are cheap there, as is human life. Whoring has no appeal to him, as all he can think about is the exquisite curves of her body, and the joy he took in making love to her. The urge to drink himself into oblivion becomes too powerful, and he reins in his horse at the next inn he comes to.
An hour later, he is deep into his cups, and begins to regret not having waited to reach the pubs on the edge of the Court of Miracles. The inn is pleasant and airy, and even the darkest corner forces him to look upon the families and friends dining together. He longs for a place where he can goad someone-anyone—into a fight. That will definitely not be happening here. With a sigh, he gets up, and grips the corner of the table, steadying himself. As he begins to make his way to the door, he hears a familiar voice at his elbow.
"Olivier?" That one word is tentative, and he senses fear. Turning, he finds himself looking into the bright blue eyes of his Aunt Colette. She sees that he is completely, utterly broken, and takes him into her arms. He breaks down, sobbing as if he was that little boy who could not make the words on the page stop moving.
He wakes up hours later in a soft bed. It is dark, but there is still noise from the street. He hates the fact that a world without her is his reality now, and begins to think how easy it would be to join her in hell-for that is undoubtedly where she is, and where he deserves to be as well.
Aunt Colette comes in, carrying a tray with an assortment of his favorite foods. He wants to eat, to please this woman who has been so important to him on so many levels, but takes one bite, then vomits. His aunt settles him back against the pillows, then takes his hand. "I am here for you, Olivier. Tell me everything."
And so he does. The whole tragic, twisted story comes spilling out, in more vivid detail than he ever intended. Colette succeeds in keeping her expression neutral most of the time, but there are moments when tears threaten to spill from her eyes. She knows what it is like to love fiercely, and to have that love destroyed in an instant. The sea captain she married twenty years ago had died a month after their wedding, his ship smashed to bits during a violent storm at sea. There is not a day that goes by that she does not think of him, and her heart aches for her nephew, who has to contend not only with loss, but betrayal.
He stays with her for several weeks, and she often lies awake at night, thinking of ways to distract him. She comes upon him in the dining room one afternoon, the fingers of his right hand wrapped around a bottle of brandy. She takes it from him and pours two glasses, then offers him one. "You have the right to mourn, but not to lose yourself in the process. If you must drink, you may not do it alone."
They fall into the custom of having a companionable drink together every evening on the terrace, and one night, she decides it is time to ask. "What now?"
His blue eyes, so akin to hers, gaze into the distance for a moment. Then he turns to her. "I have been thinking, and I know that I have no desire to ever return to la Fère. I need another purpose in life besides stewarding fields that have been mindlessly tilled by generation after generation."
Colette is silent for a moment, and they watch the hummingbirds that skirt the flowering bushes along the edge of the terrace, seeking nourishment to sustain their seemingly boundless energy.
"If you could do anything you want, what would it be?"
"I would join the King's musketeers." His answer is without hesitation, and she knows that he has given the matter a great deal of thought.
"Then go to the garrison, and present yourself to Captain Treville. He is an honourable man, and a fair one. You are one of the most accomplished swordsman in France, Olivier. Show him your skill with a blade, and I have no doubt he will be willing to accept you for training."
He nods, but says no more on the subject, turning instead to the topic of her garden. However, the next morning, she finds a note at the breakfast table. "Gone to seek my fortune, but I shall return the first chance I get. Thank you for bringing me back to some semblance of life. All my love, Olivier."
When Athos finally receives his pauldron, he spends a leisurely two hours at the Wren with Aramis. They have developed an easy rapport, and Athos trusts his new friend with his life. However, the moment Aramis' eyes rest on the pretty new barmaid, Athos sees an opening. He jokes that he will have to leave in order to give Aramis any chance at all with the girl. As the marksman rolls his eyes and settles the dark haired beauty in his lap, Athos slips out of the tavern and heads for Colette's house.
Her eyes are bright with joy when he proudly shows her his pauldron. She sees that the weeks of training have been good for him, and that he has recovered some of his old confidence. However, his eyes still retain some of the haunted, lost look he had when he first came to Paris. He is leaving on his first mission tomorrow, and she fears that if he has nothing to remind him that he is worthy of love, he will be careless with his life.
"I have something for you," she says, and goes to a drawer in the library. When she takes out a silk scarf, he looks at her quizzically. "I bought this for Roger the day before he left on his final voyage. I had insisted on accompanying him to Le Havre. I was a new bride, and the idea of him being out of my sight for more than a few hours was unbearable. I meant for him to wear it as a reminder that someone loved him, and not to take foolish risks. But the day he was to leave, we overslept, and he had to scramble to get to the ship on time. In the chaos, he left the scarf behind. I ran all the way to the docks, but as I arrived, the ship had already sailed out of the harbor." Her eyes mist with tears, and she looks up at him. "You know the rest of the story."
It has been a long time since she has handled the scarf, which she has taken great pains to preserve. The fabric looks as new as it did the day she bought it, and the pain of her husband's death, after all these years, is suddenly as raw as it was when she first received the news. It is now his turn to take his aunt in his arms, as sobs wrack her body.
When she finally calms, he asks quietly, "Are you sure you want me to have this?"
"Olivier, I was never lucky enough to have my own child, but you have been the child of my heart since the day you were born. Nothing would make me happier than to have you wear this with your uniform, and to remember that you are worthy of love."
His aunt dies several months later of a fever, and to his everlasting regret, he is by the King's side instead of hers when she takes her last breath. The morning after he first learns that his wife is very much alive, the despair he feels upon awakening threatens to crush his soul. Then his hand reaches for the scarf still knotted around his neck, and he remembers that someone once thought him worthy of love.
THE END
I thought I would complete my trio of emotional one-shots for the boys with this story...and big thank you to CB for giving me Athos and his scarf to contemplate when I was about to lose my mind at work yesterday!