Author's Notes: If you squint hard enough, you might be able to see the inspiration in this story that had been derived from Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol." I hope that everyone who comes across this little tale enjoys it and has a holiday season that is prosperous and bountiful.
Disclaimer: I do not own "The Musketeers" in any capacity with the exception of the books written by Alexandre Dumas from where these characters originated. There is no money made from this hobby, but that does not stop my imagination from conjuring up new stories.
Summary: Takes place post-Season/Series 1 and prior to the start of Season/Series 2. A night in the tavern brings with it dark thoughts and gloomy memories but also something just a little unexpected. A holiday-themed character study presented as part of the December Fête des Mousquetaires challenge: Dark.
Darkness of the Heart
As assignments were completed and shifts ended, the men who were charged with the protection of Paris and her subjects had gathered one by one, or in small groups, depending on how their tasks had been delegated. Those that had a home were granted the evening and the following day to be with family and friends – under the caveat that they could be called back to duty at any moment, should it be required. However, for many the promise of a temporary reprieve was better than none at all, and they took their chances with the hope that the night would be without incident. Those that didn't have a home away from the musketeer garrison were offered the opportunity to meet at the tavern. As a gift for serving both France's crown and its citizens, the tavern owner had graciously invited France's loyal soldiers to his establishment, providing them food, drink, and shelter at no cost.
Reveling in the celebrations amongst the groups of soldiers, the last two hours had been full of noise and laughter, the caliber of which came only once a year. A number of the cardinal's red guards had joined the musketeers at the tavern, and both groups had shared in drink and the solidarity of their similar duties. They heeded to the traditions of times long past in which ill behavior on this special night was believed to forfeit prosperity and fortune for the coming year. It was the one night that the two factions shared in peace, though it was not without its own tensions, but it had become an unwritten agreement in the last few years that they put aside their differences for the solitary night of the Noel.
As the sixty-year-old tavern keep filled another round of ales and wines, he was grateful that he had yet to throw anyone out, and that meant tensions were as calm as they would ever be between the opposing ranks of soldiers. He called over to his two nearly-adult sons and asked them to check on the meats cooking in the back oven. Then, he tasked his teenage daughter with gathering another set of plates from the cupboards in the closet behind the stairs that led to the guest rooms on the second floor. Pulling another cork free from the barrel of wine, the tavern keep handed a tray full of mugs and cups to his wife to distribute throughout the soldiers who were occupying their humble establishment.
Off in the corner with a single candle to barely push the dark away sat a man nursing his sixth – or possibly seventh – cup of wine. His blue eyes were downcast, his irises staring into the opaque, blood-colored liquid. His light brown hair fell just below his eyebrows, the shadows covering his face as he remained a silent spectator away from the festivities around him. He wore the simple clothing of a man far below the means from where he was born – plain trousers, a simple white shirt under a dark, leather doublet, and a pauldron on his right shoulder that noted his chosen vocation. His boots were worn and well-used, having met the earth and the footholds of a horse's saddle regularly. His hands were callused and equally abused, much like the man himself. However, his abuse was not always physical and stemming from the hands of others throughout his hazardous occupation, but they were more emotional and borne from a life before the musketeers that Athos had once fought to keep shrouded in privacy.
Lost in his drink, Athos recalled the time in his life that had been bright and colorful, his heart light – full of life and boundless hope. He had been the king of his own castle, and he had a love that he swore was of the kind found only in poetry and adventures of heroic feats.
He blinked but for an instant, and her radiant face flashed before him again, the dark locks always spilling between his fingers, the memories of her warm flesh so compatible with his own. Then, as what happened every time he thought of her, Athos was reminded of the heartache of a death brought upon far too soon in her young life. But, only recently had he learned that death did not end the life he once loved. Instead death had rebirthed her into a creature who was vile and foul – a demon he had created that stole life from others in order to survive.
Athos now squeezed his eyes shut and lifted the cup to his lips, taking a hard swallow of the last mouthful from his quickly emptying cup. The wine tasted bitter as he was lost in these memories, its pungent taste burning his tongue and the back of his throat, dulling the agony that was upon his soul. Still, the bitterness of the wine was sweeter than the dark pain that forever hung on his heart.
A gentle whisper of air passed over him, shifting the hair that was nearly covering his eyes, and in frustration at his stray thoughts, he slammed the cup down as he looked up to find the source of the draft that was suddenly warm on his skin. To his surprise, he saw a servant girl standing before him in a long-sleeved, white dress with a white apron. Her long, sandy-blonde colored hair trickled down over her shoulders, the waves falling in soft ringlets near the ends. Her green eyes were placed with perfection within her porcelain-smooth skin, her eyebrows matching the color of her hair. Her age was not even twenty-years-old from what Athos could guess as he looked upon her flawless appearance. Without a word, her pink lips parted, and they broke into a smile that gave her an angelic glow.
Brushing a hand though his hair to settle the strands back in place, Athos wondered if he should maybe stop drinking for the night. Certainly, he was having drunken imaginings, as he had never seen such a creature in this tavern before, and he didn't remember seeing her upon his arrival earlier.
Moving silently as though not to disturb him, she refilled his cup from an ornately-etched pitcher of silver in her hands and then she melted back into the candle-lit room. Athos lost sight of her amongst the crowd and began to wonder if he had imagined her, but the refilled cup before him told him that she had definitely been real.
Lifting the cup of wine to his mouth, Athos took a sip and discovered to his surprise that the wine within it was sweet, a blend of fruit – comprised of more nectar than alcohol. He could only presume it was from a different batch of fermentation than the previous cups he had downed throughout the night.
Athos glanced up once more into the room and instead of the servant girl, his eyes caught sight of a young man with dark hair and dark eyes. He had a charming smile that beamed, his laughter lost in the noisy crowd. He wore the light brown leathers of a musketeer, his shoulder pauldron still too new, despite their best efforts to scuff it and dirty it appropriately. His face was hopelessly young and naïve, lacking in the scars that any veteran would proudly wear. While D'Artagnan may look like a young and naïve fool to those on the outside, his courage, intelligence, and recent experiences had quickly given him opportunities to show his merit as he performed his duties with King Louis' Musketeers.
The light in the tavern seemed to grow brighter for a long moment, and as the candle flames flickered with the movements from the people inside, D'Artagnan's laughter was suddenly spiked with a sadness that darkened his mood. His smile faded as he watched the soldiers around him tell stories of adventures and romances.
Feeling his eyes fall to the wooden tabletop, D'Artagnan employed his finger to absently trace an eye-ball-like knot embedded within the woodgrain of the lumber that had been used to create the furniture. The loneliness that fed the darkness in his heart began to grasp him, and he feigned smiles to the men around him, no longer interested in their stories. His thoughts drifted to the loss of his father, a man he admired and loved and wanted to make proud. His heart had a hole in it as it ached at the loss of the man who had been such a major part of his life, and he physically felt the absence every day. D'Artagnan would have loved to have written his father to tell him stories of his own exploits and that his life had taken a turn neither of them would have expected with the musketeers.
He also would have wanted his father's advice where the matter of his broken heart was concerned. While he was certain his father would have simply told him to move on and be patient to find another woman, D'Artagnan could not help feeling the darkening of his loneliness. He did his best to ignore and hide it, but that broken heart had become a common symptom whenever he thought of the woman he was not meant to have. While he could not deny that he truly and deeply loved Constance with all his heart, it seemed that the more they tried to share what they felt for each other the more they were forbidden to do so. Never did D'Artagnan think he would find such a woman with so much spirit and strength – her smile alone capturing him and imprisoning his heart to her. She was kind, brave, and everything he could ever dream, but she was also married and committed to that marriage – despite her discontent within it.
A sharp pain suddenly struck his finger, and with a subdued intake of air that was lost in the noise around him, D'Artagnan pulled his hand from the table to see the thick, wooden splinter stuck in his fingertip. It was not too deep, but it was deep enough to cause discomfort and a small trickle of blood. He tried to pull at it with his other hand, only to find that he did not have the meticulous dexterity required for such a small task.
Just as he thought about getting up to ask Aramis for a needle from his sewing kit to dig out the splinter, the scent of spring lilies came to him in a gentle breeze. D'Artagnan looked up to see a young woman in a white dress with a white apron suddenly standing before him. He thought it odd that none of the men around him had noticed her, and he felt compelled to protect her from their leering stares – had they actually been looking at her. She reached forward and took his injured hand in hers, her skin smooth and warm, devoid of calluses or scars. Fascinated by the candlelight that seemed to glow in her sandy-blonde hair, D'Artagnan watched her smile, and a child-like radiance emanated from her.
Just as he smiled back, he noticed that his finger no longer hurt, and when he looked down to the injured digit, he saw that the splinter was gone. The young woman reached into her apron pocket and pulled free a white handkerchief with a gray dove embroidered in one of the corners. She touched it upon the small wound, and D'Artagnan could only think of how she was staining the exquisite piece of cloth with his blood.
After a moment, she pulled the handkerchief away, and he noticed that the hole where the splinter had been was tender but already healing. The blood was no longer trickling, and as the warmth of her hand left his, he felt her place the handkerchief in his open palm. D'Artagnan was fascinated by the way she had so silently and painlessly removed the splinter that it took him a few moments before he finally realized that she was no longer standing before him.
Lifting his head to try and find the young woman to thank her for her assistance, D'Artagnan barely saw the faintest glow of her white dress as she blended into crowd. However, his attention shifted from her disappearing silhouette as his eyes instead fell on a large man who was throwing a pair of coins into a pile of money on the table before him. He was of dark skin and dark hair – the thick mane cut close to his scalp to avoid becoming a hindrance in his battles. Like so many others in the room, Porthos wore clothing that would move easily beneath a leather doublet during a melee, the pauldron on his shoulder marking his vocation in the musketeers.
After dropping the ante into the cash pot on the table, Porthos lifted his cards and viewed them carefully, his face revealing nothing of the hand he had been dealt. Instead, his dark irises shifted around the four men at the table with him – two of which were musketeers and two of which were red guards. He redistributed the cards in his hands into combinations, but none of them would yield anything of significance. Considering his options with the lousy hand, Porthos feared that the only way to keep from losing the week's wages he had gambled was to pull that card hidden deep in his sleeve. Cheating seemed to be one of the ways Porthos had known to survive, especially when fate was against him, and growing up in the dark world of Paris' slums brought him more opportunities to cheat than to be honest.
Like so many young ones in those slums, Porthos had lost his mother and never knew his father. Throughout the years, he had taken opportunities to leave behind numerous friends and acquaintances in that area of Paris, but the slums had always remained a part of his past.
Disoriented by the darkness of faded and unhappy memories that still clung to his heart, Porthos found that he lost his concentration on his card game and felt a wave of melancholy come over him. He had been saved from the hard life of those who were still forced to endure life in the gutters, surviving off scraps and living in whatever rags could be found. Stealing was an occupation, and pick-pocketing had become an art form. It should not be a surprise to anyone – least of all him – that he had grown adept at taking what belonged to others by unscrupulous means. It was imbedded in his persona now, and as his eyes fell again on the cash pot before him, he knew the only way to win what he was owed was to pull that card from his sleeve and become the cheat he had always been in those slums.
Moving his hands to reposition the cards in them as he remembered the sleight-of-hand techniques to misdirect his competitors' attentions, Porthos was distracted when a warm, but gentle breeze blew over his shoulder and he noticed the barmaid standing on his right. Her white dress brushed against his arm, a mere kiss of their clothing, and her green eyes caught his just before she offered a smile that could have melted the coldest snow. She wore a necklace of the brightest silver he had ever laid eyes upon, the heart-shaped emerald pendant bending and twisting the light around her smooth skin and giving a dazzling sparkle to her irises. Porthos was acutely aware of her thin fingers reaching into the pouch of her apron, pulling free a small coin, and he wondered why the men at his table weren't being even slightly ungentlemanly about her presence.
He watched the coin fall from her fingers, a small circle of bright light that cut the dimness of the candle-lit tavern. It landed softly onto the other coins, the sound not unlike the twinkle of a bell gently tolling in the dark hours of night.
Blinking, Porthos looked to his cards and saw that his hand was not nearly as badly dealt as he had originally thought, and he would not have to cheat his way out of the winnings. He turned his head to find the woman and thank her for her contributions to the ante pot, but she was no longer by his side. Searching the tavern, he barely caught sight of her sandy-blonde hair slipping between a group of men when he spotted a man with kind, but sad eyes holding a small metal cross in his fingers. The man known as Aramis, had become a brother of unshared blood with Porthos, and he was studying the small jewelry in his hand with a faraway look.
Aramis thought momentarily of Athos and himself sitting in the tavern as bookends – each of them on opposite sides of the room and each in their own solitude. Where Athos dressed in dark clothing to openly show his brooding, Aramis always wore the browns and grays in shaded hues that were dark enough to protect him from his rough lifestyle in the musketeers but light enough to match the outward charisma he offered. He was a light-hearted man by nature – at least to those who only looked at him from the outside, but beneath that exterior was a man who was wounded emotionally. That was where he and Athos were similar in that they both had woes not too unlike and were bound together by a secret between them that neither could share with anyone else.
Brushing a finger over the impossibly smooth finish of the cross awarded to him by Anne, the queen of France, Aramis had admired the pendant from the moment he was given it, silently remarking that it was an exquisite piece of craftsmanship. The cross was something Aramis knew he could never afford – not without doing illegal activities to acquire a fortune – but he was far too noble despite his humble breeding to become a thief just to afford trinkets.
It was his choices in women that were his downfall and where his illegal activities resided. Aramis often found himself drawn to women whose social statuses should have prevented them from cavorting with him – a mere musketeer. Yet, he was a man who fell too easily into the charms of the feminine gender, and he loved women deeply in return – whether it was a short affair to satisfy the cravings of the flesh – or an emotional one in which his entire soul was given in exchange for her companionship. Their social statuses had never mattered to him – he simply loved truly and honestly.
Feeling the pang of emptiness in his heart, Aramis wondered if he would ever see Adele again – if for no other reason than simply to put closure on what they had once shared. While he was still torn over her absence, he knew some part of him would also never forget how his heart had felt for his first love, Isabelle. She was the first woman for whom he had truly felt the excitement of romantic emotion, and Aramis knew that a good man should never forget the first woman who had stolen his heart, even when that woman had been given the permanent path to eternal rest.
Aramis felt the darkness closing in around his heart as he began to believe that he was always doomed for a lonely love that could only be felt in the shadows, and all his romances would remain hidden away from the light. Certainly, his affections for the queen were no different. He could never tell anyone what had happened between them, and he could never share in the experience of raising the child that the queen now carried in her womb – the child that they both were so certain was his.
A warm draft came across the table where he was sitting, and the candle beside him flickered. Aramis looked up to see a young woman – no, he suddenly realized as his instincts corrected his initial assessment of her. For all the prayers and all the meditations he had spent his time within, he was certain that this lovely life before him was no mere woman – but an angel. He could sense that there was something about her, something otherworldly that was different from anyone else he had met before, and his instincts were being pulled towards the silent message that she was carrying.
Feeling the cross in his hands that bound him not only to the queen but to his faith, he studied this young angel's distinctive features and felt no fear – just pure compassion emanating from her.
Aramis noticed that she was fair in complexion, her alabaster face kind and beautiful in a way he had never seen on any other woman before. Her youthful features could be eternal for all he knew, void of wrinkles or blemishes. Her white dress and apron had remained pristine from food and drink, and Aramis knew that if the drunken men around them had any inkling of her existence, they would have done well to feign clumsiness in order to soil her clothes with the hope to help her remove them.
Aramis held the cross within his fingers and caught her green eyes with his own, aware that there was something both experienced and innocent in her irises. She was but a child now, her smile unsullied and pure, her kindness washing over him and warming not just his skin, but his very soul.
For all the erratic ways life ebbed and flowed around him, he felt her message as she reminded him of the one constant that remained in his life – his faith in his brothers. Aramis shifted his gaze out into the room and saw that a single table had been left empty from the occupants of the tavern. There were exactly four seats, and the light from the candelabra above it shone brightly over the table, making the rest of the room seem dark around it.
Aramis brought his eyes back now to the angel in white, but she had already faded into the recesses of the crowd. Dropping his gaze to the tabletop where he was still sitting, he saw a single feather that had not been there before. He released his hold on the cross and let it fall back against his chest as he lifted the feather from the table. It was soft and velvety, the gray not unlike the winter skies just before a snowfall and speckled with the pristine white found only in snowflakes. As he twisted it in the candlelight, he came to understand that this feather was colored much like the soul within himself – dotted with pearlescent droplets of purity against an impure palette of gray.
Picking up his cavalier from the bench beside him, Aramis realized that the feather he had always worn on it was missing, and he had no idea when or how he even lost it. Sliding the feather that had been left by the angel into the slit on his hat, Aramis noticed that his brothers had the same idea he had and were all moving towards the same table.
Standing from his corner and carrying his cavalier, Aramis decided that he would heed the angel's message and join his brothers. The old woman they all recognized as the tavern keep's wife set down four cups of wine before them. As she smiled at them, the wrinkles in her face grew deeper, and she told the four men that if they required anything else to let her know.
The musketeers nodded their thanks and each of them handed her a small coin from their pockets in gratitude for her kindness. She headed back into the crowd, her movements that of a dancer whose steps were practiced and came easily to her as she glided around the soldiers.
Aramis took a moment to look about the table and smiled in the light from the candelabra above them. He lifted his cup in a toast to his three brothers, his words coming without thought but from his heart, aware of the darkness ebbing away for the moment.
"In darkness may we find light," Aramis declared with a wry smile, "In hatred may we find love. And, in despair may we find hope."
The other men offered a shared glance around their table, each lifting his cup to meet with Aramis'. Gently touching the cups together, the three men softly replied in near unison the last line of Aramis' words, "To hope."
They all downed a healthy mouthful of the wine, before placing the cups back on the tabletop before them.
Athos looked about his brothers, giving each of them a small smile and decided that if the wine he sampled earlier was sweet, then this was the smoothest and most honeyed wine he had ever tasted. For this one moment in his brothers' company, he realized that, perhaps, not everything in life was meant to be bitter.
D'Artagnan dropped his eyes to his finger and saw that where there was once a mark from a splinter mere minutes ago, it was no longer visible now. As he thought of how his minor injury had healed so quickly, he came to the realization that with time and hope, the gaps in his heart would mend just as the splinter wound in his finger had, and his new-found brothers were a family unlike any other, meant to help him heal.
Porthos felt a warmth come over him as he thought of the friendship the four of them had established in their time together. He pulled his chair in closer and as he did so, his hand gently slid off the table to land on his lap, where he felt the full coin purse resting against his hip. Running a finger over the leather and tracing the coins within it, Porthos had come to the conclusion that his winnings tonight would be better used in the morning to provide food and clothing to the children of the slums who, otherwise, would have nothing.
Aramis rested his hands lightly on the tabletop, using a finger to trace the lip of his cup, enjoying the company of his brothers as he always had when he felt most alone. While he would always have a love for each of them that was unmatched in camaraderie, he had resolved to know what it was to experience just one pure love in his life. He knew that his choices in women were always complicated and difficult, but it would be his child that would become the recipient of that purity in his heart, despite the distance that he would have to endure from his child.
Shifting their gazes again, the four men caught sight of a white dress and sandy-blonde hair silently moving towards the door of the tavern. As the breeze wafted by them once more, the candles flickered on the candelabra above, and as they watched her petite form slip into the darkness of the night, her fingers closing the door behind her, they swore they heard, a soft "Noel," whispered on the moving air.
Blinking against the change of light as the candles around them dulled back to their original brightness, D'Artagnan noticed that their gazes were all in the same place, and he couldn't help but ask out loud, "Who was she?"
Aramis glanced at each of his brothers in turn, convinced that they would not believe him, despite the certainty he had in what his faith had revealed to him about her. "She was an angel."
Athos raised an eyebrow, and briefly wondered if Aramis had been drinking more than he was, but as his eyes caught sight of his brother's cavalier, he noticed the feather now in it. Athos softly acknowledged Aramis' newly acquired plume, his statement needing no reply as he now understood. "That belonged to her."
Porthos felt his fingers once again trace the pouch against his side, and he thought of the silver coin that the young woman had thrown into the ante pile. He didn't know why, but he had fished it out of the winnings and stored it in a different pocket. As he brought it forth now and set it on the table, he saw that there was nothing extraordinary about the coin, other than it was highly polished to a bright silver.
"She gave me this just before I won that last game," Porthos said, looking at Aramis.
D'Artagnan reached into the breast pocket of his doublet to find the handkerchief she had left in his possession. When he opened it, he discovered that there was no blood on the cloth, and the embroidered dove in the corner was now a pristine white.
"She used this to heal a splinter I had acquired," D'Artagnan said, as he showed them the cloth. "No blood, and the embroidery was once gray."
"What did she give you, Athos?" Porthos asked.
Looking into his cup for a moment, Athos offered a small and distant smile, understanding now why his wine had grown so sweet.
"You," he answered and then brought his eyes up to his brothers. "All of you – here and now. This empty table was no coincidence."
Aramis lifted his cup into the center of their small circle. "Peace and Noel, my brothers."
Porthos smiled, raising his cup once again. "Noel."
"Noel," D'Artagnan repeated.
"Noel," Athos offered with his hidden smile.
An hour later, Captain Treville had joined his men at the tavern, and as Porthos brought over a chair for him to sit with them at their table, the captain told them of a beautiful young lady in white who had given him a compass. He explained that when he was distracted, she disappeared, and when he looked down at the compass he thought it was broken because it pointed in only one direction. However, he felt compelled to follow the direction of the compass and found that it had led him to them. As he pulled the compass from his pocket to show the others the broken needle, he realized that it was working without incident.
Preparing himself for the kind of teasing that was expected of his son-like soldiers, Treville was surprised when they all said nothing of the sort and merely smiled, offering to get him something to drink on this night of miracles. The noise around them had grown loud once more, and the tavern keep and his family brought out trays of food fit for a king's feast as they continued to keep the drink flowing. As midnight grew closer, the unspoken armistice between the musketeers and the red guards continued, and everyone took turns stoking the fire, keeping the special log in the hearth from burning out, knowing that its glow was harbored to bring prosperity for all present in its warmth throughout the next year.
As the bells of the cathedrals and churches in Paris tolled the stroke of midnight, the musketeers and red guards wished each other a good Noel before breaking apart their celebrations. Some of the men ventured into the rooms on the second floor of the tavern to get some rest and others returned to their respective garrisons. Five men, however, remained at the table with the candelabra shining brightly above them. The four musketeers and their loyal captain had given each other a gift that had no value but was priceless in its own right. They were reminded that they were a family which consisted of brothers who loved each other and fought just as equally and a father figure who was tasked with showing them discipline as equally as he did pride. And for one night, the darkness that had tainted each of their hearts for so long had receded into the shadows to give them this time to remember what it was to be the family they had all forgotten they needed.
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Author's additional notes:
The peace between the red guards and the musketeers was inspired by the Christmas Truce (or Trêve de Noël in French), which was the unofficial ceasefire that took place along the Western Front of World War I at Christmas in 1914.
I also did some research into French traditions of Christmastime in the 1600s. There was little to be found, but I did learn that they used the term "Noel" instead of Christmas, a long-burning yule log was thought to bring prosperity throughout the year, and the traditional night of the Noel feast was on Christmas Eve.