As Aramis came back into the room Athos was awake again, still no one dared to make a noise as the three musketeers eyed their brother with worry.
"Want to talk about it?" D'Artagnan offered, as Aramis took a bottle of wine, opened it and gulped down half of it's content. "No." He answered, voice icy.
"I'm sorry that you were forced to come here because of me." Athos pointed at his thigh, which was wrapped in white dressings – fortunately they weren't stained with blood like the last ones. The wound was healing well now that he got some rest and Aramis hoped that they could leave in a few days.
"It's not your fault, mon ami." Aramis took another sip of the sweet liquid before he let himself fall into a chair and groaned in frustration. "I think we can leave in three days, maybe earlier. We will ride only a couple of hours until we reach the next village, there you can heal properly." Athos wanted to argue that he was able to ride the whole way back to Paris but deep down he knew that he wasn't fit enough.
"You know, you could ride back to Paris, send message that we're late." Porthos now offered but Aramis shook his head. "No, I won't leave him like this." He pointed at Athos' wound with his head and looked up to the ceiling. "You really should stop worrying about me."
"We will when you can be with your family in the same room for more than five minutes without shouting." D'Artagnan huffed.
Aramis groaned again, annoyed that all the attention is on him. "It's not THAT bad."
"Justine ran away crying minutes ago." Athos answered blankly and pointed at the window behind him. The others followed his finger but Justine was already out of their sight. Aramis sighed, his fingers ran through his messy hair. "Why do I always have the feeling that everyone just assumes that all is my fault?"
"We do not." Porthos assured and tried to catch the eyes of his brother, but Aramis' look was already unfocused from the alcohol in his system. He took another sip, wiping his lips dry with his hand.
"We just don't know what's going on. The only thing we DO know is that you left your family years ago and never came back or wrote a letter. I assume you had your reasons, but what could have been so grievous that you did it? I mean we saw how close you and Justine are, and Aramis – you're no man who breaks the heart of a woman light-hearted. So just, please, tell us what happened. Maybe we can help." D'Artagnan frowned as Aramis gulped down more of the wine that his father had made in the cellar.
"Maybe I don't want to talk?"
"Athos is the one who's brooding alone and silent, not you." Porthos raised an brow at his brothers and felt a small glimpse of triumph as he heard the marksman sigh.
"It had not been one particular thing… It was just everything. I – I came here as I was around eight years old. I became to old to live with my mother – started to understand what she did. She wanted better for me and send me to Pierre. That's what I always thought. Actually she was quite sick and died only a few months later, but Pierre never told me. I found out the morning before I left."
"You were angry that he hadn't told you?" Porthos asked with sorrow in his eyes. He could understand well how it was to lose a mother. Aramis nod, taking another gulp.
"But it wasn't only this. I've never have been happy here. My mother has always been so lovingly to me, so caring – Pierre was different. Quite strict and you know I never was good with rules. We fought a lot – I wasn't allowed to speak Spanish, wasn't allowed to talk about my mother. He put me in priest school, hoping that I would get better but then there was Isabelle. She got pregnant, we wanted to marry but then she lost the child and left. Her father had always been angry with me for impregnating her and as she lost the child he said that it was my fault. Justine had been engaged with Isabelle's brother Josef but after the miscarriage Josef didn't want to have anything to do with the d'Herblays and left Justine. So I've not only ruined the reputation of my father but the one of my sister too, I think that's the reason why she's still not married. She really had loved Josef."
"So you were… ashamed? Felt guilty?" D'Artagnan asked carefully as he tried to make out all the reasons why Aramis had left. "Yes, but I would have stayed. But Pierre wasn't happy with me after this ordeal. He got even stricter than before and forced me to find absolution." Aramis emptied the bottle as he stared at his hands. "Praying?" Porthos asked, not really understanding what had been so bad with it.
The marksman shook is head, chewed on his lip as he thought if and how he could explain this to them. But it wasn't necessary, as Athos seemed to understand. "There are still some religious people who think that pain leads to absolution. They often flog themselves, sometimes put salt in the wounds afterwards."
Porthos eyes widened in shock and tried to recall how the back of his brother looked. But then, he couldn't really remember having seen it ever in all this years.
"It was never enough for him. He told me I would burn I hell for my sins, that I was a shame for his family. That I should have stayed with my mother and became a whore just like her – I had the right face for it, he told me. I punched him, broke his nose. After that – I found the letter of my mother's death and it was just too much. I took a horse and left, sold it in Paris to afford some food. I wrote Justine twice, telling her about my work as a soldier and then as I became a musketeer. But I just didn't feel like I longer belonged to the d'Herblays – actually never have. I had the musketeers as my new family and forced myself to forget them. I didn't want to remember any of this and I certainly didn't want to have feel guilty for leaving them."