A/N: All this waiting for for the Beeb to air its own show is apparently inspiring me to write stuff. Um...yay? This one's a bit of a departure from my usual style, so any thoughts would be much appreciated.

Hangman, Hangman

Truth be told, I've never been one for a hanging. Watching a man strangle on the end of a rope until the life goes out of him … well, it makes my stomach twist and that's the end of it. So I was none too pleased to be there that day, herded into the marketplace with the rest of the village and all of us crammed in together, like fish in one of my husband's salting barrels. The sun was beating down like it had a point to make, dust and sweat was all about, and the only thought running through my head was that I didn't want to see a man die.

Now, don't you go thinking I'm getting soft in my old age. I've a number of years behind me and I feel every one of them getting up in the morning, my bones not being what they were. But I've never, not once, seen reason to enjoy goggling at a man's death and I see no reason to start doing it now.

My husband, Gerard, well, he's another matter. I could see him there at the front of the crowd, his hat clutched tight between his thick hands and that bald head of his reddening under the beating sun, looking like nothing so much as some kind of stuck pig roasting over an open fire. No doubt the fool would be complaining of it later, but for the moment he had his neck craned back to look at the gallows, sitting up high and lordly on their scaffold like they were King Louis himself. To me, they seemed an ill-looking thing, all new wood and nonsense, with that dread noose of theirs hanging still in the dead-as-dust air. To everyone else but … well, they must have been looking at something different, for a real murmur of excitement went through all those about me as the man accused of last week's murder at last appeared in the doorway of the town gaol.

He was ringed by half a dozen of those puffed up peacocks who call themselves guardsmen and I had to crane my neck to see him, but what I first noticed was that he was younger than your common criminal. It's a strange thought to have had, sure enough, but true as anything that's what went through my mind as I watched him be shoved through the jostling, gawking crowd and up the stairs to the gallows. One time he stumbled as the chains at his ankles clanked tight, and he fell near enough to the ground, but his guards pulled him up and all too soon he was stood on the wooden platform, with the noose that would kill him bumping at his shoulder as he stared down at the people come to watch him die.

Now say of it what you will, but I took the chance to stare right back, and I don't mind admitting that if someone had asked me back in my younger days, I would have called him handsome, murderer or no. His jaw was as stubborn as any I've ever seen and it was shadowed with several days growth, but it showed off the cut of his cheeks as well as the hook of that nose of his. He was lean and lanky and looked like he needed feeding up some, but that was no doubt the result of too many days chained up in the town gaol and was something that could be fixed with a few square meals. Either way, the baggy, blood-stained shirt he wore did him few favours, outlining the growing he had yet to do, but that's all besides the point, because with those long legs of his and the dark hair that hung loose and long to his shoulders, well, he reminded me of nothing so much as my own son. And that - that was a punch to the gut.

My throat tightened something fierce as the captain of the guard, the buttons on his uniform glinting brightly in the sun, stepped forward to loop the noose about the lad's neck. As he did, a few jeers rang out from the crowd and I realised people were getting restless. No doubt they were starting to feel uneasy about the boy's fate - thinking how glad they were it wasn't them up there - but I'd seen enough hangings to know that if something wasn't done soon, it would only take a spark to ignite the unpleasant, edgy feeling that was starting to build, made worse by the hot summer sun.

The captain clearly thought so too, for he finished tightening the rope, gave the noose a quick tug to bring it snug, and then he took from one of his fellow guardsmen a roll of parchment before unfurling it and beginning to read.

'By the governor's orders,' he called, his voice pitched slightly higher than I was sure he was aiming for, 'this man has been found guilty of murder, larceny and-'

I wasn't the only one who started when that first stone struck. It hit the lad's temple with enough force that his head snapped back and he staggered, his feet going out from under him and the noose jerking tight. There was a moment of silence, then the crowd about me in the square erupted as if the very devil had taken them; some people shouting the act down, others calling for more, and the world turned to an ugly roar of sound until the captain up on the platform pulled out his pistol and fired it once into the air.

The shot rang out, deafeningly loud. It startled everyone to silence and I found myself watching the criminal, who was being jerked back onto his feet by a couple of the guards. A thin line of blood marked where the stone had struck his forehead and when he was finally righted he stood there for a moment, his head hanging low, and I have to admit that I thought to myself that that was it, he was done, any spirit he had left after his days in the gaol beaten down in the face of the crowd's anger. But then he looked up and there was defiance sparking in those brown eyes of his, and I'm not saying he was the brightest tool in the shed for it, but nevertheless I found myself near holding back a cheer at his sheer stubbornness as he glared at the crowd as though daring them to attack him again.

Unaware of this show of defiance going on behind him, the captain had stepped forward to the front of the platform. Switching my attention back, I realised he was asking the crowd for calm so that justice could be done, and I couldn't help but let out the snort such fool words deserved.

'Why protect the lad from one death only to have him die by another?' I muttered to myself, not expecting to be heard, and so I was surprised when a man standing just in front of me, clad in a non-descript brown cloak, turned around.

'You disapprove then, Madame?'

I eyed the man suspiciously, taking in his too-handsome face and the sweat-darkened hair beneath his feathered hat. 'And what if I do?' I retorted.

The man only shrugged his shoulders, nonchalant and charming all at once. 'I simply thought it a good sign that not everyone in this town supports this barbarity.'

I had a reply on the tip of my tongue when I noticed two other men approaching, edging through the crowd with their hats pulled low and likewise draped in cloaks that were far too hot for this weather. Dangerous men, was the first thing I thought, but I had got no further than that when the shorter of the two, sharp-eyed and bearded, strode right up and cast me a swift, reckoning glance before placing a hand on my companion's shoulder.

'It's time,' I heard him mutter in a voice purposefully kept down low, and before I knew what was happening, the first man had tipped his hat to me and was gone, he and his fellows lost to the crowd in a matter of moments.

I looked after them, then shook my head and switched my gaze back to the scaffold, where I found the lad staring right at me, his dark eyes shining bright with either defiance of fear, I couldn't figure. For a moment, our gazes locked and I'll swear to it, a shiver crossed my spine as though placed there by God himself, but then a cheer sounded through the marketplace as the captain gave his order, and there was a thunderous clap as the trapdoor on the platform gave way.

The lad dropped, the noose about his neck snapping tight, and I caught my breath, hand going to the throat of my blouse only to realise that the lad's neck hadn't broken and he was choking instead, his legs jerking desperately as he twisted at the end of his rope. For a moment I watched, unable to turn away and fighting back a stupid, useless feeling that I should do something to help him, to save this man who had killed someone, who I'd never met before in my life, who reminded me so much of my own son that it was like having a knife sunk into my heart to watch him die.

But finally I forced myself to wrench my gaze away, to take one step and then another, and then I was off, shoving blindly through the howling crowd and leaving the ghoulish scene behind me as I headed straight for home.

Behind me, a gunshot cracked and for a moment I paused, wanting to find out if someone had seen fit to put this lad who looked so much like my own out of his misery. But I didn't, too afraid to see his dead body twitching from that god-forsaken noose of theirs, so instead I continued on, badgering myself for being a sentimental fool every time I reached up to brush away a tear from my daft, old-woman's eyes.

The shouts of the crowd died away as I moved into the back streets of the town, finally reaching my own home, crammed narrowly between two others in the shadow of the bell-tower that sat alongside the tall town wall, erected back when I was a child to protect the town from invaders, both human and animal.

The house was silent when I opened the latch and entered inside to be hit by a cool rush of air, so different from the sweltering heat of the day outside. Closing the door behind me and setting the latch back in place, I breathed out a grateful sigh, relieved to be away from the roar of the crowd and the sound of the chains as the lad had been forced up those scaffold stairs, let alone the clap of that wooden trapdoor dropping out from beneath his feet…

I shook my head. The lad – the man – had been a murderer and there was no use dwelling on what had happened because I couldn't go back and change it, no matter whether I thought the judge who had done the sentencing was a corrupt, prejudiced old crook or not. So, instead of thinking, I picked up my apron from the back of the chair where I'd left it when the guards had coming banging on my door, summoning everyone to watch the hanging, and I headed in towards the kitchen to check on the day's bread.

I had only just put the loaf in the oven in its round tin when the first thump sounded. Startled, I froze, only for the noise came again, and I made it into the front room just in time to see the door rattle furiously on its hinges as though it had been struck from the outside.

I'll tell you, my breaths started coming fast then and my thoughts were going even faster, and I beat a hasty retreat back to the kitchen to grab the large metal skillet I keep hanging on the wall for situations just as this. With it safe and solid in my hand, I hurried back towards the front room and took cover behind the wall that seperated it from the kitchen just as another thump came, this one louder, and then the door gave way with a cracking of wood and there was the noise of heavy boots tramping on my clean floor.

The door slammed closed, and seconds later I heard the screech of a piece of furniture, most likely the dresser I had got from my old father, God preserve his soul, being pulled over the floorboards.

'Do you think anyone saw us?'

The voice sounded familiar, as though I had heard it before, but before I could place it another voice interrupted, this one harsh with the snap of authority.

'Close the shutters and get him on the table. Hurry!'

There was the sound of harried footsteps, a slam as the shutters in the front room were pulled to and the light all around me dimmed. Then, with a massive crash, I heard my best silverware, which I had laid out that morning ready for the next meal, be swept onto the floor, without the culprit taking the slightest care for the effort I'd made when setting it out.

That was the last straw.

Grabbing my skillet more tightly between my hands, I took a perfunctory step out from behind my protective wall.

'Out!'

The three men standing in what had a short while ago been my tidy front room spun as one, the first two going immediately for their weapons, one drawing his sword and the other a pistol which he dared level at me as though I was the criminal out of us. Only the largest of the three took a step backwards, but his arms were hooked around a body slung over his shoulder like it was a sack of grain and I realised he couldn't have reached his weapons even if he had wanted to.

'Out!' I shouted again, my courage burgeoning I took in the mess - the silverware on the floor, the shutters all slammed tight, my father's old dresser pulled across the front door to block anyone else from coming in. 'Or I'll whack you so hard with this you'll see stars for a week!'

Yet one of the men, the one holding the pistol, had already lowered his weapon, clearly thinking me no threat. 'We mean you no harm, Madame,' he said, and with a jolt I recognised him as the man from the marketplace, the one who had spoken to me so charmingly.

'You!'

Glancing back, Charming exchanged a look with his companions before taking a step forwards, raising his free hand palm-upwards, his other holding his pistol pointed down low. 'Madame, I can explain-'

He stopped talking as I brandished my skillet higher and shook it at him. 'Get out! All of you! And don't you take another step!'

Charming halted, but his eyes remained fixed on my own as his voice turned softer, imploring. 'Please, a moment of your time is all that I ask. We need your help-'

'You won't get anything from me-'

'My friend is injured. Please.'

I glanced at the body slung over the big man's shoulders and did a double-take as I recognised the long legs with the chain still locked between them, the blood-stained shirt, and the dark hair that flopped forwards. 'It's him! The criminal!'

The third man, the one I now recognised as Charming's companion from the marketplace, snorted. 'Criminal? He is as guilty of that murder as I am.'

'I beg you not to help me right now,' Charming said to his friend over his shoulder, before turning back to me. Slowly, he holstered his pistol in his belt and raised his hands again, both of them this time. 'My friend is innocent, Madame. I swear it by everything I hold dear.'

But my eyes were firmly fixed on the small metal charm that I had just caught sight of hanging off of his wide leather belt, outlined against the bright blue cloth resting behind it. 'That's the fleur-de-lis,' I said slowly.

The three men looked at each other, something silent passing between them until, finally, Charming nodded.

'That means you're Musketeers.'

Again a pause, before Charming affirmed it.

'We are.'

In an instant, I made my decision. 'Then follow me.'

And I turned and headed up the stairs.

I opened the door to my son's bedroom gently. It had been a long time since I had been inside and I was none too sure I wanted to go there now. But desperate times call for desperate measures and all that, so I pushed my emotions aside and led the way in.

'Put him down on the bed,' I said, moving out of the way and turning to face my unexpected houseguests as they entered the room behind me, appearing as little more than shadows in the dim-lit room. I moved to open the rough cotton curtains a crack. 'He'll be safe in here.'

The big one, whose hair I noticed was curling its way out from under the brilliant blue bandana he wore tight against his head, nodded silently and edged past me to set the lad down on the straw-stuffed mattress. Charming followed him, taking a seat on the dusty bed-clothes so he could press his fingers to the lad's neck before running them lightly over his forehead where a bruise was starting to blossom purple – from the stone that had struck him, no doubt. The last of the three, the one with the sharp eyes and the sombre twist to his mouth, hung back at the door, his hand still on his sword hilt.

'There are blankets in the cupboard,' I said. 'They haven't been used since my son was last home, but they'll do.' Charming and Curly both nodded before turning back to their friend, and as for me, well, I turned around and met the sour-grave gaze of their companion. 'And you, come with me.'

With Sombre trailing behind me, his footsteps almost silent on the wooden floorboards, I headed to the room I shared with my husband, pushing the door open and going straight away to the large locked chest that sat at the end of the bed. Conscious of the strange man standing in the doorway, I removed the rough folded rug that sat on top of it, then I drew a small key from the neck of my blouse and placed it in the narrow iron lock. A soft click sounded and I slowly lifted up the lid of the chest, then drew back the linen cover inside. Underneath was a set of blankets, and I took them out too, setting them carefully on the floor before reaching for the shirts that were lying beneath.

Removing one, I held it up and shook it gently out, eyeing it for size before I held it out to Sombre. 'Here.'

'We don't need-'

'He can't go about in what he's wearing,' I snapped. 'It's covered in filth and blood and I won't have it in my house. This should fit him fine.'

His eyes went flat. 'Won't your husband mind us using his shirt?'

'It's not my husband's.'

'Your son then?'

'He won't mind.'

Sombre eyed me a moment longer, then removed his hand from the hilt of his sword and took the shirt from me. 'Thank you.'

I snorted. 'Nice to finally see some manners from someone other than that friend of yours.'

'We can't all be so chivalrous.'

'More's the pity.' I reached into the chest again and drew out a couple of blankets, which I also handed over, and then a pair of breeches. Unfolding them, I noticed a small hole in the knee and shook my head. My son never could figure out how to darn, not even if you gave him the needle and thread yourself and showed him where to sew. I'd have to do these myself as soon as I'd put the house back to sorts.

Setting them aside, I reached into the chest again, this time drawing out a second pair of breeches which looked in better repair. I eyed them consideringly. The size might not be quite right, but still, beggars couldn't choose.

I gave them to Sombre, who took them and added them to the growing pile in his arms. 'Where is your son now?'

I knew he was asking if he would come in and find him and his friends. 'He's dead,' I said brusquely. 'Twenty-one years now.'

There was silence for a moment. 'He was a Musketeer?'

'He fell in battle, or so I was told. His first skirmish. A waste of all the training they gave him, I suppose.'

Again there was silence and I took advantage of it to close the lid of the chest and stand up, dusting off my hands.

'I'm sorry.'

I shrugged off his words, used to the emptiness that had been in my life ever since that missive had been delivered to my door all those years ago. 'It's been a long time.'

'There are some wounds that don't heal easily.'

I paused, then reached up for the small key I'd kept around my neck since the day my Andre's belongings had been delivered back to me from Paris. 'Then we'd better hope that young friend of yours is still alive.' Bending down, I locked the chest and then I cleared my throat. 'Now come with me. There are cloths in the kitchen we can use for that throat of his.'

One glance out the front door late that afternoon revealed there were guardsmen roaming the streets, no doubt searching for the four men I had hidden upstairs in my house.

I didn't dare go outside just yet, so I headed back upstairs and shared the news, and after some discussion we decided that they were best off waiting for morning before trying to make a move, especially with their young friend still lying unconscious on my son's bed. Charming had assured me that Handsome, as I'd christened the lad for obvious reasons, would be well and that his body was just recovering from a week of hard treatment in the gaol along with his near miss with death, which Charming insisted was nothing out of the ordinary for him, but still I took it upon myself to keep a close eye on the lad, stationing myself in a chair by his bedside with his friends dotted about the room and with nothing for any of us to do but wait.

That's how it was that I ended up speaking with the three elder Musketeers for hours, well into the night in fact, because Musketeers or no, I wasn't going to sleep with strange men in the house. They told me of the garrison where my son had lived the last few months of his life, how new recruits were trained these days, and even all about how Handsome had none too long ago received his own commission by winning a duel before the King. Their stories reminded me of the letters I used to get from my Andre, now kept folded at the very bottom of the chest that sat at the end of my bed, and to this very day I believe that it did me some good to hear them talk. And so it was all too soon that I heard the rattle of the front door in its hinges to tell me that my husband had arrived home from the tavern at last, and the night was finally nearing its end.

The Musketeers had each gone still at the first sound of the door opening and I held my finger to my lips, shushing them, before shutting the door carefully behind me and heading downstairs to make sure that Gerard was settling into his usual stupor by the fire and would not be bothering us. But I had no more than heard the few words he mumbled at me than I turned around and headed straight back up.

'Quick!' I hissed as I burst into my son's room. 'You have to leave!'

Charming, lounged on the bed beside his young friend with his arms crossed over his chest, raised a curious eyebrow. 'But I thought we had come to enjoy each other's company, Alyce?'

I glared at him. 'This is no time for your jokes! From what my husband says, the guards are searching the town, house by house. The judge, the one who convicted him, he's made the order not an hour past, sent everyone in the town to their homes!'

All three men were awake in an instant. Charming started pulling off the cool damp towels he had draped around Handsome's neck and began patting him on the cheek, trying urgently to wake him. Sombre and Curly were reaching for their weapons, dragging on sword belts and loading their pistols, and then Charming had shaken his head at Curly and it was Curly's turn to start tugging at Handsome, still unconscious on the bed, before letting out a curse and reaching down to sling him onto his shoulders with a huffed out breath.

Putting a finger to my lips as soon as they were ready, I led them down the stairs and through the front room, hushing them as we passed the low chair where Gerard was passed out by the fire, having drunk away his troubles for one more night. And then we were outside, padding along the street under a dark sky that was hung with buckshot silver, heading past the bell-tower and pausing every time we heard a noise.

Down the side of the blacksmith's yard, then left to duck between two alleyways, and finally we were standing at the town wall, looking up at it where it loomed tall and solid in the warm summer night. Behind us, shouts were starting to rise in the streets and I heard the sound of the guards running, their voices harsh as they pounded on every door, demanding it be opened so they could search the household for the escaped criminal and his allies.

'What are we doing here?' Charming whispered, then he caught sight of the slanted, narrow gap that was pressed up against the side of the tanner's house, just half the height of a man.

'My son found this,' I told them all, my hand pressed to my heart as I tried to catch my heaving breaths. I hadn't moved so fast in years. 'He was playing one day and disappeared. I was near out of my mind with worry by the time he got back and told me he'd found a way out of the town other than the main gate.'

'Thank God he did,' said Charming fervently, then he was pushing on the wooden boards, forcing the gap further open as quietly as he could, then he reached back to press a deep kiss into the palm of my hand before he disappeared through and was lost to the darkness beyond.

Curly paused just before he ducked through the gap with some difficulty, Handsome's limp frame still slung over his broad shoulders. 'I knew someone else with the name Alyce once.' He looked me straight in the eye, and I could see this was something he didn't tell just anyone. 'She was a good woman. Like you.' He nodded at me, then left.

Sombre was the last to go. He looked at me with respect, or perhaps even gratitude, in his grave eyes. 'Your son would be proud,' he said simply, and then he was gone, vanishing into the night on the heels of his friends.

I stood watching after them for a while, holding the wooden planks open with one hand, safe in the shadows from the eyes of the searching guards.

It was a long time before I went back home.

The fierce heat of summer had faded when I saw them next. Things had changed in town – for the better, what was more. The judge who had sentenced Handsome on what turned out to be particularly suspicious evidence had been removed of his post and a new judge put in his place, a man called Reynes with forty years experience behind him and the wrinkles to show for it. He was grave and stern and wouldn't know fun if it tumbled in front of him waving its underclothes, but he was fair as buttons and the town was the better for it.

I had heard that the orders for the old judge's removal had come from Paris, but even so, I was surprised when I straightened up one day from hanging out my washing to see a young man standing in front of me, draped in a dark blue cloak that hung just a little too big on him and with brown eyes that promised something that looked suspiciously like mischief.

'What do you want?' I snapped suspiciously, for it was not every day that a stranger popped up in front of my house.

The lad reached out, took my hand and bowed over it, delicate like, for a man, at least. 'My name is d'Artagnan of the King's Musketeers,' he said smoothly. He bestowed a chaste kiss on the rough, wrinkled skin of my knuckles, then glanced up so that he was looking me right in the eye. 'And my friends tell me that I owe you my life.'

Oh.

Someone cleared their throat loudly and I looked up, no doubt blushing all manner of red, to see three faces I had never thought to see again. The men who broken into my home without so much as a by your leave, Charming, Sombre and Curly, were standing at the young man's back, decked out in all manner of fancy hats and dark blue capes that matched the lad's own. Which made him…

'You're Handsome!' I blurted out, then cursed inwardly as the young man let go my hand and straightened, his mouth curving into a grin that was just this side of cocky.

'You wouldn't be the first to say it.'

There was a groan from the direction of his companions and Curly strode forward to cuff the back of Handsome's head. 'Don't give him any ideas,' he grumbled. 'His head's big enough as it is.'

'It's good to see he still has one,' I managed, my eyes still on Handsome – or d'Artagnan as he was apparently known.

It was difficult not to stare. Clearly recovered from the trials of the last time I had seen him, he was all charm and easy grace, and it was hard to compare him to the pale-faced young man that had been laid out in my son's bedroom. His companions had changed as well. Gone was the tension that had haunted them, and instead they stood loud and confident, buckles glinting and giving off every impression of their surety of their own abilities.

Realising I had been staring at them for far too long, I cleared my throat, sudden and abrupt. 'Would you like to come inside?'

'Thank you, but no.' This time it was Sombre who spoke, his hat pulled low over his forehead, shielding him from the morning sun along with the rest of the world. 'We were just passing.'

Charming interrupted. 'What Athos means is that we thought to stop in to allow d'Artagnan to pass on his thanks, as the last time you saw him he was…' he paused delicately, '…how best to say it… otherwise indisposed?'

'What we're saying is it's thanks to you that d'Artagnan's standing here at all,' finished Curly bluntly.

I fought the flush I could feel heating my cheeks. 'I did no more than anyone else would have.'

'Anyone else,' repeated d'Artagnan, cutting into the conversation with a directness that surprised me, 'would have gone straight to the guards and had me hang a second time.'

'You have our thanks,' said the man Athos bluntly. 'If at any time you have need of us, send word to the Musketeer garrison in Paris. It will reach us.'

I forced a chuckle, swallowing back the ridiculous lump that had risen in my throat at his words. 'What could an old woman like me ever need from the Musketeers?'

'And here we are having always thought the reverse,' announced Charming.

I blushed. 'Away with you,' I muttered, and the four of them exchanged a glance that allowed them somehow to reach a silent decision, then made their bows as one before turning away, with Charming having the audacity to blow me back a kiss.

I watched them leave, my eyes drifting from the back of their heads to somewhere a little lower as they strode away, the first autumn wind sending their cloaks billowing tight about them. A smile tugged at my lips at the view that was presented and I nodded to myself, feeling that I had at least some sense of propriety to do what I did. After all, I had saved Handsome's life. And if that was all I would accomplish in my last few years on this good earth, well, I'd be more than content with that.

END