A/N: A response to the photo posted for the May Fetes de Mousquetaires challenge, and I'm double dipping so also a prompt fill for 'a knife to the throat' on the bad things happen bingo card I'm slowly slowly slowly working my way through. My thanks to Issai for always being there as my beta-reader - the remaining errors are all my fault.
You can get a link to the photo at the fete forum site on ffn - and see all of the responses to the challenge posted! - but in case you can't access it imagine a man in leathers, two pistols drawn, standing before an ornate wall, its massive doors closed behind him. The room is clearly on fire, burning debris surrounds him, but he has planted himself before that door, ready for a fight. A crazed madman willing to lose his life for the sake of killing his opponents? Or the stupidest rescue plan ever….
The men who had captured him had not been kind. Of course, he had tried to escape, so he didn't expect they would have been gentle with him after that. But D'Artagnan hadn't realized how desperate these men were. Desperate men lost some piece of their humanity and they had handled D'Artagnan far worse than he would have treated a recalcitrant beast on his father's farm.
He had been kept almost entirely in darkness, blindfolded when he wasn't locked in a dark cellar somewhere. His hands were bound with thick hemp, and after he had wriggled out the first time, they had wet the knots before tying them and they had tightened as they dried. The only way out now was for the rope to be cut. At least his hands were bound in front of him or relieving himself would have been impossible. They had moved him twice, binding his ankles in a similar fashion, a rag stuffed in his mouth and tied in place with a gag and then thick sackcloth tied over his hands so he could not get the gag off. That was by far the worst as he felt he was choking, his tongue thick in his dry mouth, a sack over his head making breathing even more difficult.
He had no idea where he was anymore. He might be far from Paris for all he knew. Nor did he yet have any idea what these men wanted with him. No one had questioned him and from what little he had seen, he was their only prisoner. They gave him water regularly but fed him stale bread and dried meat only occasionally. D'Artagnan could feel the effects as hunger sapped his strength and gnawed at his painfully empty belly.
This last time when they had moved him they had not bothered untying his ankles - they had dragged him down a set of stone stairs like a sack of potatoes and deposited him slumped against a wall. They gave him water, tepid and bitter but he drank it greedily and they seemed content to let him have his fill. It was as kind a gesture as anyone had shown him since his captivity but any hope of better treatment was dashed when they gagged him again, although this time thankfully without the rag shoved in his mouth as well. The gag was uncomfortable and prevented him from shouting, but he did not feel like he was choking. Earlier on in his captivity, he would rub his face against the wall or anything he could think of to try and push off the gag or blindfold, but they only tied them tighter any time he was successful.
He'd lost track of time as he was left so much alone and in the dark. These men didn't seem to want anything from him but for him to be alive. There was no questioning, no torture, no threats. They kept him isolated enough that he could not really hear much of their conversation, but when it became heated he could hear the bitterness in their voices. They seemed uncertain in their course of action but convinced that D'Artagnan's life was worth something. They had shot one of their own who seemed to think otherwise . . . That argument D'Artagnan had heard clearly as it had happened when a pistol was pressed to his skull. No matter, they had shot their own comrade, his bloody body slumping over D'Artagnan's. They had dragged the corpse off to bury in the woods, leaving D'Artagnan covered in the man's gore.
No, they had not been kind.
D'Artagnan slid down the wall they had left him propped against and shifted onto his side, drawing in his limbs and curling like a cat before a fire. Although there was no fire, just cold flagstones. At least it was dry, not the damp, earthy root cellar he had been in for a while, its scent making him think of death and graves. They had not removed his blindfold nor the cloth over his hands so maybe this was just a temporary stop. He had been far more uncomfortable than this over the last few days - how many days he did not know - so D'Artagnan made the best of it. He slept.
He woke as he was pulled roughly to his feet. Still tied, he staggered, losing his balance and stumbling against one of the men. With a curse, the man shoved him and then backhanded him hard across the face. With no purchase, D'Artagnan crashed heavily to the floor, smacking his head hard enough for his ears to ring and to see lights flash behind his closed lids.
"Hey," someone said above him as he was pushed over onto his back by a booted foot, "Keep yer 'ands off 'im." D'Artagnan felt a tug at his bound hands and he was pulled into a sitting position and then leveraged up again. But this time he kept pitching forward until he was caught by a big shoulder and found himself slung over someone's back. "'e 'as to be in one piece."
"Dirty musketeer," someone else muttered but then they fell silent as they made their way up the stairs, D'Artagnan dangling uselessly over the big man's shoulder and using all of his will not to be sick behind the gag. He should have struggled, should have worried about what they needed him to be in one piece for, should have questioned why the man had referred to him as a 'dirty musketeer,' but his head was swimming, his stomach churning and it was hard to keep hold of a thought beyond that.
The ground leveled out and D'Artagnan realized they were in a larger space, voices echoing around the chamber. He worked hard to listen, to focus, to understand the words.
"See, here's your musketeer," someone was saying, "Now where is my brother?"
"Is he alive? I'm not interested in a corpse," and D'Artagnan's heart leaped because that cool smug careless voice was Athos and it didn't matter now why they had him or what they wanted because Athos was going to kill them.
D'Artagnan's world suddenly shifted and he was upright, only managing to stay that way due to the men holding him up. His legs were weak and he had no balance with his ankles tied together. He leaned heavily against the broad chest behind him as someone else gripped him under one arm. Something tugged at the back of his head and the blindfold fell from his eyes. D'Artagnan blinked owlishly, the light painful to eyes long used to darkness. But he tried to make out the blurry, over bright shapes before him. They were in a large room, a manor house? The shapes didn't make sense, there was a tower in the middle? He tried to shake his head but a hand clamped down on his forehead, pulling it back against the shoulder of the big man holding him. He tried to shift but the press of steel against his throat stilled him. Tied and off balance as he was, he was completely at the man's mercy. And he knew from his past experience with them that there was little if any of that to go around.
"Alive," someone beside him said. D'Artagnan shifted his gaze to focus on the man who had been holding him captive all these days. He was broad-shouldered, silver-haired. Treville's age perhaps. His hands looked strong - he had an ax in his belt and a sword in his hand. A former soldier? D'Artagnan didn't know. His vision swam and he had to close his eyes. Something was not right. Maybe he had hit his head harder than he thought in the cell?
"My brother," the leader demanded
"Porthos!" Athos called out. D'Artagnan forced his eyes open again, his eyes adjusting better to the light but still, things seemed unclear. He looked past Athos, standing a few feet below him - below? Was he on a stair or a landing? He could see the tower in the room was scaffolding, but then the rows of brown benches, and thick columns. A church? He was on the altar. That didn't bode well for having a knife at his throat.
There was a clattering and two big oaken doors at the opposite end of the church were flung open and bright sunlight streamed in. It all looked like a blazing ball of light to D'Artagnan and he squinted to make out a bulky figure emerging from the glare. It had to be Porthos. He had something - someone? - in his hand, which he tossed to the floor. Then the large man reached out his arms like Christ on the cross, grasping the two great doors and slamming them shut behind him. Porthos took a stand with his back to the door, thumbs looped in his belt, the bundle of cloth huddled at his feet. D'Artagnan blinked as the cloth seemed to move - and sit up, a man raised to his knees.
"You have what you want," Athos said coolly, "Hand over my man," he added stepping forward. Around him, D'Artagnan heard the swish of drawn blades.
"Don't move," the leader spat, "Take down his hood, let me see him." No one seemed to move. "Do it," the man sneered, "or this one will be a corpse."
D'Artagnan felt the knife press against his throat. Tied as he was, limbs weak and head fuzzy, D'Artagnan did not think he had ever felt more vulnerable. Even with Vadim, he had been able to move, to have some opportunity to fight against the circumstances. He swallowed thickly, feeling the blade more keenly. His life's blood coursed just below the surface. He had seen men die from an injury to the neck, blood fountaining from a severed artery. He felt his breathing turning ragged beneath the gag.
D'Artagnan forced his gaze away from the man on the floor that he knew with all his heart would not be anyone other than Aramis. There was no way the Musketeers would agree to any trade such as this for a prisoner or a noble. His eyes found Athos's, the man's head cocked in just a way that the shadow from his hat didn't stop D'Artagnan from finding the bright blue eyes that locked immediately to his. Athos must have been desperate to try such a useless plan, hoping to be close enough to rescue D'Artagnan when the ruse was found out. But he was too far away from the altar standing as he was in the center of the church and Athos had to know it. His eyes bored into D'Artagnan's and he knew Athos was trying to tell him something. But it didn't matter. D'Artagnan felt his heart pounding. Helpless as he was, he could not bear to accept death. His heart was fighting even if his body was not.
"I told ya this wouldn't work," Porthos's voice growled from the other side of the church. He raised a beefy hand and slid the hood off of the man kneeling beside him. It was no surprise to anyone that the man on the ground was not the leader's brother. The two men exchanged a long look between them.
"Needs must, Porthos," Aramis said, patting his hand over his heart, his mouth set in a grim line.
"I'm not the fool you think I am," the leader growled, "I expected duplicity from Musketeers." From out of the shadows of the archways a dozen more men appeared, weapons drawn.
"The King will not negotiate for the life of a musketeer," Athos said calmly, "Your only option is to surrender."
"Surrender," the man laughed, "The three of you are outnumbered, and if you move, the first one to die is the boy," D'Artagnan felt his head pulled back, his throat further exposed. He lost eye contact with Athos. Above him, his eyes found the colorful rosette of a leaded glass window, the sunlight showing the dove descending into the holy fire of the sacred heart of Jesus. A tremor shook his body as D'Artagnan tried to focus on the light of the window and the hope of eternal life that the image represented. He felt his eyes fill - he did not want to die. Not here, not now, not like this. A muffled sound escaped from his throat, masked by the gag, but it was enough to elicit a small rumble of laughter from the man holding him.
"Gonna enjoy cutting you," the man growled in his ear.
"This is your last warning," Athos said. D'Artagnan wasn't sure if he should laugh or cry at the man's cockiness.
"Enough," the leader sneered, "Louis might not negotiate for one musketeer but when I send the boy back dead with the promise of three more corpses, he will listen. Take them," the leader ordered and the men started to move along the rows of pews, converging toward Athos. A few split off toward the back of the church where Aramis still knelt by Porthos's side.
"Porthos, now!" Athos yelled, and several things happened at once. Porthos threw a heavy round object up into the air. Surprised, all eyes tracked up to the ball as it reached high up into the vaulted ceiling - all except Athos who did just the opposite, hurling himself to the ground and rolling beneath a pew just as the crack of a pistol sounded. The sound of the bomb blast was deafening.
Ignited by a shot from Aramis, the bomb exploded in the rafters sending shrapnel of burning wood and shattered glass raining down on the unprotected men in the asp of the church. D'Artagnan forced his head down instinctually, even as the blade dragged across his throat. His shout was stopped by the gag but he felt a searing pain and the warm slick of blood falling. His captors dropped him and he landed heavily on his knees, still bound, feeling his life's blood coursing from his neck and down his shirt front. The world was hazy but the Musketeers were fighting hard to get to him. Athos had popped up from under the pews and was fighting the men who had not been felled by the debris from the ceiling. Fire licked down the sides of the church and the smoke made lungs and eyes burn. The timbers in the vaulted ceiling were burning, great chunks of wood starting to drop down over the fighting men. Many had abandoned Athos to try to make their way past Porthos, who stood with his back to the door, three sets of pistols strapped to his body and two in his hands. Like the archangel Michael guarding the gate of heaven, he rained fire down on any who sought to pass through the door.
D'Artagnan's sight was greying, the sounds receding as he panted in fear and pain into the gag strapped tightly around his mouth. Tears formed in his eyes from the smoke and ran down his cheeks to mix with the blood gushing from his throat. Time was still and D'Artagnan thought he was taking a very long time to die. Then hands were on him, pulling him physically backward even as the motion tugged his consciousness back into focus. He hurt. His neck throbbed with every heartbeat, the bindings tight around him, the gag choking him. He bucked and struggled but was laid out on his back and something was pressed heavily against his throat. The pressure was firm and insistent, not enough to choke him but with the gag still in his mouth, D'Artagnan felt like he couldn't breathe. He struggled to move only to have something - a knee maybe - press hard into his chest.
"D'Artagnan stay still," Aramis's voice was urgent, "Don't fight me, I have to stop the bleeding." D'Artagnan fought to still his body from its instinct to push the obstruction away from his throat. Unable to breathe through his mouth he was sucking air rapidly through his nose, panic rising with each choking breath. He forced his eyes open, pleading for someone to understand that he couldn't breathe, small strangled sounds slipping past the gag.
Aramis was sitting on top of him, hands in a cloth pressed against D'Artagnan's throat. The pressure on his throat was terrifying. Desperate, he banged his head against the floor. Once, twice and then Aramis caught him at the back of the head the third time. The marksman looked down at him, eyes blazing, as D'Artagnan choked and sputtered into the gag. Aramis's eyes narrowed.
"Hang on," Aramis said, laying D'Artagnan's head back on the ground. The marksman reached behind him and drew his main gauche from its carrier at his back. In one swift cut, the gag dropped away and D'Artagnan started to gulp air, his chest heaving despite the weight of the musketeer sitting on top of him. Aramis ignored him, choosing to focus again on staunching the wound at his neck. As his breathing steadied D'Artagnan found himself whimpering as he gasped but he didn't care as fear, exhaustion, and pain took hold of him. He closed his eyes but the tears slid down his cheeks nonetheless. He felt a warm hand on his forehead, someone said something soothing but his ability to think was receding. The hands at his neck shifted, the pressure let up a moment and D'Artagnan cracked an eye open. A bright red cloth, soaked through with his own blood, was tossed to the side and something else placed under his throat. The pressure resumed and then Aramis was saying something but D'Artagnan was too far away to hear it. His eyes focused on the cloth, completely saturated, wondering how much blood he would lose before he died. Fixated by a thought of Constance trying in vain to wash the blood from the cloth, he slipped away into unconsciousness.
—xxx—
He woke gently, noticing the warmth around him first. Blankets he realized and something softer than the cold ground below him. His limbs felt too tired to move, but the burn and sting of the ropes were gone, as were the cramps in his muscles from being bound. He shifted slightly under the blanket to find soft cloth wrapped around his abraded wrists. His boots were off as were his leathers but he felt safe and warm and not very interested in waking up. He was uncertain where he was but he heard the crackle of a fire and his empty stomach responded to the smell of something being roasted. The voices of his three companions rose softly on the cool night air but none of that was enough to pull him truly to wakefulness. But his throat was dry and scratchy and he was thirsty. Very thirsty. And very alive. D'Artagnan opened his eyes even as his hand drifted up from under the blankets to press lightly at his neck, swathed in bandages. D'Artagnan turned his head toward the voices of his friends, sitting closely together just on the other side of the fire. They were bandaged too and their clothing full of soot, ash, and blood, but here they all were basically none the worse for wear. D'Artagnan smiled.
"He's awake," Athos's low voice carried from the other side of the fire. There was a small bustle of activity and then the others shifted out of his sight only to crowd around him on his pallet on the ground. It was Aramis who reached to put a hand on either side of his face, looking for eye contact from D'Artagnan.
"How are you feeling?" Aramis asked. D'Artagnan tried to answer but all that came out was a croak followed by a raspy and rough choking cough. His hands flew to his neck, pressing in fear against the bandages as if he might fall apart.
"Easy, easy," Aramis shushed him and pulled his hands away, even as Porthos got a grip on his shoulders and raised him to a sitting position. The coughing started to subside and D'Artagnan found Aramis's hand under his chin pulling his head up to look at him again. "Your throat is intact, it is just dry from thirst and the smoke. Yes?" Aramis held his gaze, a question in his eyes until D'Artagnan was able to process what had been said. His throat was fine. He was fine. Just thirsty. He nodded.
"Here," Athos said, putting one of their tin camp cups into D'Artagnan's hands. Still leaning on Porthos to stay upright, D'Artagnan raised the cup to his lips and let the cool water slide down his tender throat. He finished off the entire cup before letting out such a contented sigh that the three men around them laughed.
"Sounds like you after you finish a bottle of wine," Porthos teased Athos.
"Better?" Aramis asked D'Artagnan. He nodded his response, not trusting that he would have a voice, and extending the cup, wanting more water. Athos took it to refill it and Aramis brushed a hand over D'Artagnan's forehead. He knew the marksman was checking for fever but still the gesture was comforting and after all he had been through the small act of kindness overwhelming. He ducked down his head, afraid for the emotion that might show in his eyes.
"Hey," Porthos nudged him, "Happens to all of us," he rumbled reassuringly, "It's Aramis, he's such a flirt." At that D'Artagnan laughed but the coughing returned and another cup of water followed.
They got him settled with a plate of the chicken that Porthos must have nicked from a farm somewhere and as much water as he wanted. While he ate the others told them about how he had been taken by a man called Etienne Rambert who wanted to exchange him for his brother, Laurent, who had been taken into custody by the Musketeers a few weeks before D'Artagnan had petitioned joined their ranks as a cadet. The court had found him guilty of extortion and he was sentenced to 5 years in the Chatelet, but apparently, Etienne thought he had been framed by Treville. Hence their kidnapping of D'Artagnan and the days of hiding and rough handling as they bargained to set up a prisoner exchange. Of course. Louis was never going to agree to allow a Musketeer let alone a non-commissioned one to be used as leverage against him, but Etienne was not likely to know that or D'Artagnan's true status. The set-up took time but once the wheels were in motion they moved swiftly. Still, they came up a bit short when they arrived at convent of Santa Maria, still under construction just outside Paris.
"We didn't think he'd have that large of a force," Aramis explained, passing another piece of bread to D'Artagnan. "And with the guards he had patrolling it seemed unlikely we could sneak in and rescue you. We weren't even sure where they were holding you."
"In the cellar," D'Artagnan croaked, his voice still hoarse from the abuse to his throat. That earned some dark glances between his comrades, clearly still angry about what had been done to their young protege.
"Then I was right," Aramis said with a hard shift in tone, "Your plan would have never worked," he directed that last comment at Athos. The only response he received was an arched brow.
"Etienne 'ad over a dozen men," Porthos picked up the tale, "We couldn't take on that many so we 'ad to figure 'ow to even the odds."
"We sent Athos in to negotiate since he's so good at that," Aramis raised his glass to their Lieutenant and got a friendly smirk this time.
"Of course I demanded he show that you were still alive," Athos continued the story, "So once we knew where you were we had to draw out his men."
"I knew right away that they would see through that terrible disguise," Porthos said as he filled his wine cup, "Aramis should have bandaged his face like I said."
"And then maybe missed the shot at the bomb?" Aramis chided, "Don't be foolish."
"Wait," D'Artagnan rasped, "Your plan was the bomb? You weren't improvising?"
"A pretty good plan I thought," Porthos said with a grin, clearly the one who had instigated it.
"Your plan," D'Artagnan sat up straighter, putting down his plate, "was to blow up a building — with us still inside?"
"It worked," Porthos shrugged. D'Artagnan sputtered and choked, unable to find any words at the sheer idiocy of their plan.
"That was a terrible plan even if it did work!" he finally coughed.
"I told you it was a bad plan," Athos said over the brim of his cup.
"You…." D'Artagnan croaked, "You let them do it!"
"To be fair," Athos said, "We did have the element of surprise."
"Surprise," D'Artagnan was not happy, "You surprised the guy with a knife at my throat. Did you think of that?" Exasperated, D'Artagnan picked up a stick from the pile and start poking angrily at the fire. He had almost died. His throat cut. These men he had taken up with were reckless, foolish and quite possibly insane. Not for the first time since he had petitioned to join the regiment, he wondered what he was doing.
"D'Artagnan," Aramis said softly. With a sigh D'Artagnan looked up, the three men staring at him with curiosity and also . . . something else. An unabashed tenderness that he had only ever thought to see in his father's eyes. He felt his anger start to seep away even before Aramis continued on, "The circumstances of your injury are . . . regrettable to say the very least. But we knew the odds when we came up with the plan."
"I knew I could take at least half of them, but we had to eliminate the others somehow," Athos said.
"We had to get in the door," Porthos explained, "and the easiest way in was the most obvious. We knew they would suspect a trick so we gave them one to draw out the rest of the troops."
"I came up with the explosion in the rafters," Aramis said sheepishly, running a hand through his hair, "I knew that fire raining down from Heaven would confuse everyone and yet from where we were all standing, we were protected from the debris. Except for Athos of course, but he had the pews for protection."
"When we saw what bad shape you were in," Porthos said, "We 'ad to act fast. I saw the situation, I asked Aramis but he said what we all knew was true."
"You asked him?" D'Artagnan was confused.
"Not everything needs words," Athos replied, giving D'Artagnan a soft look that pierced him right to the heart and proved his statement.
"As I said then," Aramis sighed, "Needs must. We had to do what we had to do. We have seen enough fights to know it is not as easy to cut a man's throat as you might believe. More times than not unless a man knows what he is about they go too low - they miss all the important things but cut into the tissue below the Adam's apple and gruesome as all the blood appears, it is not fatal if treated quickly."
"You knew you could save me," D'Artagnan breathed.
"We knew your chances were better in our hands than in theirs," Athos corrected.
"What happened to them? Did you bring them to the local authorities?" D'Artagnan asked, "We are not taking them back to Paris?" The three men exchanged a look between them that D'Artagnan could not understand but knew it to be more talking without words.
"Those men are dead," Athos said, uncorking the wine bottle.
"All of them?" D'Artagnan whispered.
"All of them," Porthos answered.
"Did you think we would settle for anything less?" Aramis asked pressing another cup into D'Artagnan's hands, this time though it was full of wine.
He looked up at them. They all looked so earnest. Hardened soldiers. Reckless men. Often foolish. Quite possibly insane. And D'Artagnan was in every way grateful that these idiots, were his idiots. He smiled and lifted his glass to them. Athos was right, sometimes you need no words at all.
A/N: I thought I should mention that I did a lot of very careful googling about slit throats and survival, so this story is plausible from a"if you cut too low you miss all of the important stuff but it bleeds a lot" point of view. But I'm not a doctor or a musketeer, so what do I know really? Also, the fire at Notre Dame has very much been on my mind and I think that is why the burning building and falling debris demanded to come from a church when I sat down to write this story. I just couldn't bear to burn Notre Dame again (I visited there for the first time in December 2018 and it was overwhelmingly beautiful) so a convent to Mary instead. My heart still remains with the people of Paris and their loss.