The D'Artagnan Romances and the characters are the creation of Alexandre Dumas pere. They are now in the public domain.

This is rated M for many reasons, mainly gore and violence, with some disturbing imagery. Warning for rape scene. Nothing too graphic.

Chapter 7

She never expected him to come to her that very night. She had begged him but he only laughed at her protests and pleas. Her head was still spinning from the violent blow which had stunned her enough for him to rip the clothes from her body, throw her upon the bed and claim her for his own. Grevaise was no gentle lover. His coarse hands mauled her tender breasts and his fetid kisses smothered her. She trembled at the lewdness he slobbered into her ears. When he took her so roughly, the pain was immense, even more so than when she had surrendered her maidenhood.

She wanted to be away from him but he was far too strong for her. How she regretted not having defied her father and running out after the other. The bed creaked with her assailant's every grunt and heave of his buttocks. Her father would be too far gone with drink to care what befell her and her brother was a cripple who could not come to her aid even if her screams roused him from his slumber. All she would do was weep silently and endure the assault on her body by her soon-to-be husband.

She wondered if this was some punishment for her sins. Over the shoulder of the rutting Grevaise, she thought she spied the bedroom door glide open an inch or two.


"Aramis, do you see Constance? Where is she?" D'Artagnan was fretting beside him on the tower as they watched the Queen and her ladies file out into the palace gardens far below. They were assigned to be on guard duty within the palace, a most rare occasion. Most of their duties were involved patrols in the city.

"We're too high up, D'Artagnan…" Aramis grinned. He could only see the colourful gowns of the women and the tops of their heads as they passed below him. He turned to reach for his spyglass.

"Constance is the only lady-in-waiting with fair hair… the rest are all redheads or brunettes, I thought you knew that already…" D'Artagnan's teasing voice sounded so distant. Aramis turned. He was alone on the roof.

"Georges, no! You're not allowed in the house!"

Aramis awoke to find a wolf pup sniffing at his beard. With a surprised yelp, the pup leapt off Aramis' chest. Jean-Baptiste grabbed the struggling pup amidst barely coherent apologies. The outraged pup clawed and nipped at his owner. He had fallen asleep on a bench by the fire and no one had thought to wake him up. Porthos and Athos were already awake and partaking of some bread with cheese.

"Jean! I told you to get rid of that wolf!" Marianne cried out when she came with more food for their guests and saw the pup in the boy's arms.

"Wolf? I thought that was a dog…" Porthos exclaimed. "It was acting so tame we thought it was someone's pet…" Athos remarked.

"Go fetch!" Jean-Baptiste dropped the pup on the floor, grabbed a short stick from the top of the woodpile and tossed it out the open door. The wolf pup yipped and ran after it, catching it in his jaws and worrying it like a fresh-caught rabbit. Then he ran off with the stick still in his mouth. Then the wolf saw the geese... and took after them with the stick still clamped in his jaws.

"Wait, come back!" the boy ran after his furry playmate. A gruff chuckle sounded from the stairs. Athos looked up to see D'Artagnan's father coming down the stairs with his wife.

"Perhaps we should let him keep the little monster," the older man chuckled and eased himself into a chair at the table with the help of his wife, who took her place beside him.

"Monsieur, we are most sorry but we might have to impose on your household for a while," Athos spoke to their host. He reached for his purse.

"Please, the pleasure is ours, to repay the kindness and care you have shown my dear boy in Paris…" D'Artagnan Sr. replied and pushed away the money Athos was on the verge of handing him to pay for their food and board.

Marianne clucked her tongue in disapproval. "Should accept the gold, monsieur, to pay for the food this big boy puts away…" She plopped another platter of cheese and bread before Porthos, who muttered his hearty thanks.

"Athos, we were talking about young Roland's lady love going to Paris to be a lady-in-waiting…" Aramis sat down next to his friend at the table. Their conversation with Marianne the night before was still fresh in his mind. "As I recall, there were no other fair-haired ladies-in-waiting besides Constance… It may not mean anything but that Celine ran off with someone else…" He paused. His letter might have reached Paris by now and he wondered how poor Constance would react to the ill news.

"Now, that's very odd… Madame Marie received letters from her granddaughter in Paris until her death. Her eyes weren't too good so she had me read some of them to her, when Lady Isabelle wasn't around…" Madame D'Artagnan remarked. "Celine might be a bit flighty but she'd never neglect her grandmother… We thought it odd she never came back even though Lady Isabelle sent her word when Marie took a turn for the worse."

"Isabelle?" Athos pondered if he should risk incurring Comte Reynald's wrath upon not only their heads but those of the comte's own children as well. He had to return to the keep and find Isabelle. Aramis was starting on his breakfast after having said grace. Porthos was getting started on his second wedge of goat cheese.

"Monsieur D'Artagnan!" a farmhand came running into the house, trudging mud from the fields in his wake. "T-the T-there has been another attack!"

"Good God! Which poor girl this time?" Marianne exclaimed.

"N-no… not a girl… It's Grevaise the huntsman…" the farmhand replied.


The body or what remained of it was strewn in a field left fallow, a short distance from the keep. The huntsmen gathered in a tight knot, stunned by the grisly fate which had befallen their leader. It had been found by a shepherd who had been looking for a wayward ewe. He raised the alarm and the news had spread like wildfire. The villagers gawked at the sight from a safe distance as the trio trotted up on their horses.

Hoof beats caused the trio to turn and look back the way they had come. It was Jean-Baptiste. He was perched atop a skittish Buttercup with the wolf pup loping about the mare's hocks. The mare was not amused by the pup's antics and dealt him a kick to the haunches which sent the hapless canine into a ditch. Porthos cursed under his breath. They did not need someone recognizing the pup as a wolf. The boy managed to rein the mare in before she trampled on the pup.

"Boy, you stay here…" Athos ordered. Jean-Baptiste shook his head as he dismounted. The wolf pup shook himself off and came to his master's side. No one else seemed to notice the unusual canine among the hounds and farm dogs present.

"I was there when they brought Master Georges in. I was there when they found Susanne Barrett and Angeline Manott." The stubborn lad replied.

"Merciful Lord…" Aramis murmured and crossed himself. Athos noticed Jean-Baptiste turn a shade paler. The pup sniffed at a suspicious lump of flesh and whimpered, trotting back behind their boots. The corpse was lying on its back. The trunk of the body had been ripped open, the limbs ravaged and entrails scattered. The throat had been savaged so badly Grevaise was almost decapitated. The crows had already pecked out his eyes. The wet earth must have soaked up the blood like a sponge.

There was something wrong about the corpse… Aramis stared at the scene and tried to make sense of it.

"What was he doing in his shirt with his breeches about his knees? Having a late-night piss in a muddy field?" It was Porthos who voiced Aramis' doubts. There were large paw prints around the corpse, clearly imprinted in the mud.

"So my daughter is to be a widow before she's wed…" Comte Reynald strode up, pushing past the huntsmen and red-nosed from drink. "Move him into my store and send for a priest… God, he reeks…" The comte spun on his heel and returned in the direction of the keep. The deceased's comrades immediately set to work fashioning a crude bier.

"Look here," Aramis called his friends' attention to a rut on in the mud. There was an identical rut next to it. They were most likely the marks left by a wheelbarrow. However, there was no way of knowing where the tracks came from as the milling spectators had churned the dirt road into a mire.

"Perhaps Georges can help…" Jean-Baptiste set his wolf down beside the track. The pup sniffed at it, whimpered and plodded back behind Jean-Baptiste's ankles.

"Looks like your pup is not much help…" Porthos shrugged. "Back to the farm?"

"To the keep. I have to see Lady Isabelle…" Athos declared.

"Perhaps we can get a better look at the body as well…" Aramis added.


Mingling with the hunters and servants, the musketeers managed to enter the keep without Comte Reynald's notice. They left Jean-Baptiste to tie up their horses while Athos sought out Isabelle.

"My sister is ill and does not wish to receive any visitors…" Roland said quietly. They found the young man reading a book in the yard where some servant had left him in his chair.

"Has a physician been sent for?" Athos asked. Roland shrugged without giving an answer and resumed his reading. Athos decided to seek out the lady himself.

There was an old wheelbarrow by the courtyard wall. Athos did not know what drew his attention to it first. Then he saw the mud clinging onto the wheels. It was fresh. A torn piece of cloth had been caught on a seam in the wood. He cautiously removed it from the crack. All this while, he was aware of Roland's eyes tensely watching his every move. The rag was of a dirty white. It could have come from anywhere. There was a dark stain in the bottom of the wheelbarrow, the colour of dried blood.


Aramis had convinced the huntsmen to leave the room while he and Porthos washed and dressed the body. They had laid out the remains on the large kitchen table. There was extensive damage done to the lower abdomen and groin. Aramis had to admit that things looked so much neater in the medical tomes he had come across in his seminary days. Was the liver supposed to be there? Should he try pushing the exposed bowels back in and bind everything up with bandages? He wondered if they had been too hasty in not asking for a helper or two from the Comte's servants.

"Turn him over onto his side," Aramis instructed. "We need to get the clothes off him." Porthos grunted and rolled the body onto its side.

"Aramis, do wolves use firearms?" Porthos asked.

"Why?"

"Because it looks like someone shot him here…" Porthos pointed at a neat burn mark and hole on the victim's upper back. The ball would have pierced his heart or lungs. "Methinks our hunter was shot…"

"By wolves walking on two feet and using wheelbarrows…" Athos added as he walked into the kitchen. "The wheelbarrow used to transport the body is in the yard. Blood on it… The man was a lecher and bully in life and there are no doubt many who hated him…"

"How's your Lady Isabelle?" Porthos asked.

"According to her twin, she's not receiving any visitors today…" Athos admitted. "I'll try to call on her later…" He glanced out the window into the yard. Jean-Baptiste was showing his wolf pup to Roland. The invalid had the pup in his lap and was chatting animatedly with the farm boy.

They had a series of wolf attacks on fair-haired maidens in wolf attacks with only D'Artagnan as the odd death in the series. No, young D'Artagnan had been trying to protect a fair-haired girl when he was slain. No, Grevaise's death was the odd one out. He had been killed not by wolves but by a well-placed shot and later staged to resemble a wolf attack. Had they loosed his own hounds on his corpse? Was it one of the other huntsmen? Or perhaps a servant in the keep?

Author's Notes:

The lout Grevaise is out of the picture for good. Don't know how forensics in those days worked. Given that anatomical study was still in its infancy then, the books Aramis read were probably inaccurate. However, I am sure they would have recognised a bullet wound when they saw it.

Perhaps I should do a scene change to Paris just to show how de Treville, Constance and the others are taking the news of D'Artagnan's demise.