Honestly, feels like I'd be late for my own party at the moment! Juggling phone calls to builders (work still at a standstill re lack of supplies) gardening, writing, beta project reading/feedback for the historical fiction company, choosing/sourcing interior things and up-cycling other furniture. Keeps me out of mischief! Then throw into the mix the first unexpected stirrings of another Musketeer plot this week which will break with the R tradition! This one is still a one word title but starts with M. Thank you, Mountain Cat, for that suggestion; I'm keeping it! :)

Thank you so much for reading and commenting on the previous chapter.

SO, what has happened to Tanquerel?

CHAPTER 18

I

Athos was standing in the middle of Tanquerel's room, his brow furrowed as he surveyed the disarray that an apparent struggle had created. He was slowly turning in a full circle when Fitzwilliam and Willoughby burst into the room and skidded to a halt before him.

"Tanquerel?" Willoughby demanded, his question economical.

"Aramis is tending him in our chamber with Porthos' help," Athos answered.

"He will live?" Fitzwilliam asked, concerned.

"I see no reason why not," the Musketeer answered, a strange edge to his words.

"What happened?" Fitzwilliam was no doubt considering the report he would have to deliver to the Earl and wondering if he would be found wanting in his responsibilities with what had befallen the French emissary.

"That has yet to be determined," Athos replied. "He had not regained consciousness when I left him in Aramis' care." His eyes ranged over the room again.

It was a move noticed by Willoughby. "What are you looking for and thinking?"

Athos took a deep breath before voicing his suspicions. "That all is not as it should be and that Tanquerel may at last have made a mistake."

"What do you mean? You are blaming the poor man for getting himself attacked? And where were you three whilst all this was going on? Surely you must have heard something!" Fitzwilliam's anxiety was giving way to anger as the questions streamed from him without a pause for breath.

"We were exactly where we were supposed to be and where Tanquerel expected us to be; in our chamber next door, in bed and asleep with the reliquary safely concealed," Athos said calmly, recognising what lay behind the Englishman's ire.

The very same thoughts had crossed his mind in the moments after Tanquerel had collapsed in his arms and then when he had seen the state of the emissary's room - that someone had been searching for the reliquary.

"And you did not hear a struggle? He must have cried out. And then there is all this mess, yet you heard nothing," Fitzwilliam persisted.

Athos shook his head. "We are soldiers and stir swiftly at any noise when in the field."

"You are not 'in the field' as you put it and, within this castle and with my men on duty, you had no reason to fear being at risk so you may have been more deeply asleep than you thought. Perhaps the alcohol during the evening helped," the English lieutenant argued but Athos was having none of it.

"We did not drink to excess and whenever we are absent from our garrison, we consider ourselves in the field, whether we have a roof over our heads at night or rest beneath the stars. We are light sleepers and me, perhaps, most of all. I put it to you that we heard nothing because there was nothing to hear."

"What do you mean?" Fitzwilliam's voice was rising. "Look around you," and he spread his arms wide to take in the entire room.

"You look," Athos insisted, hoping to appease the man. "Take a closer look at what is here and tell me what you see."

II

Aramis threw the cloth he had been using into a bowl of water which was tinged pink by blood.

"You were fortunate," he said softly as he saw Tanquerel's eyes flutter open. "Can you tell us what happened?"

Tanquerel groaned, winced and ignored Aramis' question. "Where am I?" he managed to mumble.

"You are in our room because you were attacked. What do you remember?"

The injured man frowned and began to breathe more rapidly. "I … I don't know… I can't …." He sounded panicked, confused. "Nothing. I can't remember a thing!"

Aramis smiled and patted his arm to quell his agitation. "Don't worry; it can wait. Just concentrate on getting some rest now. Are you in any pain? I can give you something to help."

Tanquerel shook his head and immediately regretted it. "I don't … need anything; thank you. Just sleep."

Aramis rose from his perch on the side of the bed. "I'll have to wake you a few times during the night, just in case you have a concussion."

Tanquerel nodded and grunted, his eyes already closing again.

As Aramis headed towards the door, he extended a hand to draw Porthos with him.

"What is it? What's the matter?" Porthos asked, sensing his friend's unease.

"Not here. He might still be awake," Aramis whispered, tilting his head to indicate the figure in the bed. Instead, he led the way to the outer room.

III

"I don't understand what you mean," Fitzwilliam complained. "It is a ransacked room. Someone must have been searching for the reliquary and gave Tanquerel a savage beating to try to get him to talk in order to reveal where it was hidden. If you ask me, he saved the three of you from something that could have been much worse."

It took every ounce of self-restraint for Athos not to roll his eyes in exasperation. He or his brothers might have received some hurt in the process but the notion of someone surreptitiously attacking three of the King's élite guard in a confined space without drawing some attention was preposterous. There was no such thing as a silent fight, just as it was impossible to overturn furniture and untidily search an adjoining room without making some noise unless …

"The ransacking has been staged," Willoughby suddenly broke in. He, at least, had done as Athos suggested and looked closely at the room and its scattered contents.

The Musketeer gave an audible sigh of relief that someone thought the same as he did. The Englishman might be young, but it was no wonder that Charles employed him as a spy and investigator for he was intelligent, observant and imbued with a maturity beyond his years.

Fitzwilliam, sadly, was not. "And how do you arrive at that conclusion?"

"Firstly for the reason I have already given," Athos intervened. "My brothers and I heard nothing. Secondly, it would be a foolhardy enterprise to ransack a room with three trained soldiers beyond the door."

"Perhaps whoever was responsible was desperate," Fitzwilliam interrupted.

"You cannot be quietly desperate or hasty," Athos patiently explained. "The chest lid thrown open and hitting the wall; the overturned table and chair; the bed dragged out of position to look behind and under it; the bed clothes dumped in a heap on the floor and Tanquerel's two bags, their contents emptied on the floor. All would have made some noise. Besides, those bags were not turned upside down. Items were carefully removed and placed on the floor in a half-hearted attempt to make it look as if they had been discarded, but no personal items are ripped or broken. Roughly pulled out of where they were stowed and dropped from a height, even on a wooden floor, items could be expected to suffer some damage and to be more widely scattered than they are."

"Everything was meticulous and quiet," Willoughby said.

"And what do you not see?" Athos pressed.

Fitzwilliam looked about him, his frustration mounting when he could not see what was so clear to the Musketeer. Willoughby, on the other hand, was calm and thoughtful.

"Where are the documents you said Tanquerel possessed?"

"Perhaps the thief took them. He may have been looking for them and the reliquary and when he failed to find one, he just took the papers," Fitzwilliam cut in eagerly, evidently pleased at being able to contribute to the discussion.

Athos bent to Tanquerel's saddle bag where it lay on the floor. He opened the flap and retrieved a calf-skin document case, still bound with a thin strip of leather. "Or perhaps it was where it was all along. Is it not remarkable that this, of all items, should remain undisturbed?"

Willoughby gave one of his disarming grins. "You knew it had not been stolen."

The corners of Athos' mouth twitched in response. "It was the first place I looked when I entered the room."

The intelligencer chuckled but Fitzwilliam was not so entertained. "You're saying Tanquerel is responsible for this? Was that before or after he gave himself a beating?"

Athos was spared from having to answer when the inner door opened and Aramis and Porthos entered.

"Well?" he asked when Porthos had closed the door again.

"He's fine; he's sleeping now," Aramis answered, running a hand through his hair.

"How bad are his injuries?" Willoughby wanted to know.

Aramis was a little perplexed. "That's just it; they're not bad at all."

Fitzwilliam frowned again; it was becoming his perpetual expression. "What are you saying? Has he told you what happened to him?"

"He says he can't remember."

"Bit too convenient if you ask me," Porthos muttered.

Aramis resumed his account. "Yes, he has cuts and bruises on his face and a couple appearing on his midsection but nothing serious and nothing to suggest that he would lose consciousness."

"You think he was feigning his collapse?" Athos said abruptly. "That and the loss of memory?"

"I don't know what to think; he's an incredibly good actor if so. I examined his head and could find nothing to indicate that he had received a blow or fallen and hit it. Bruising might be delayed but there is no apparent reason for passing out and forgetting the incident. It could be the shock at what happened, or bruising has yet to emerge, or I could have just missed something. Whichever it is, I am not taking any chances and will wake him periodically in case he has a concussion."

"You're saying that this man allowed himself to be beaten?" Fitzwilliam was incredulous at what he was hearing. "For what reason?"

"To make him appear the hapless victim," Athos answered.

"For whatever reason," Aramis continued, "Athos has been suspicious of him from the moment we left Paris and what Willoughby here told us during dinner, it now seems justified. I thought Athos was being too hard on the man but not anymore. This beating was made to look worse than it is; the injuries are superficial. If anyone were serious about getting him to give up the reliquary, he'd be in a far worse state than he is now."

"An' what was all that about 'im insistin' we remove the reliquary from where it was safely locked away?" Porthos' anger was barely contained. "It would've been fine there until we left in the mornin'."

"It gave a would-be thief a supposed opportunity to steal the reliquary," Willoughby added.

"But the reliquary could not be in Tanquerel's possession for then it would really have to go missing and if that were to happen, our departure would be delayed, everyone would be a suspect and a full-scale investigation would result. This way, an aborted attempt was made in order to make him look innocent. I have no doubt that Chesman was involved." Athos was thinking aloud.

"He could well have abrasions on his own knuckles," Aramis said.

"We'll check his hands as soon as we can," Athos asserted.

"Couldn't he have got someone else to attack Tanquerel though? He does not need to have done it himself," Fitzwilliam was worried at where the discussion was heading. "We have to have some firm evidence. Sir Roger is a good friend of the Earl." He turned pale. "Heaven forbid that the Earl is also involved!"

"I have no reason to believe that the Earl is a party to any of this," Athos quickly reassured him. "I also do not think anyone else was responsible for the beating; from their point of view, the fewer the number who know about the reliquary and what they are planning, the better. Admittedly, two of our followers are still unaccounted for and I had presumed they remained in Calais for we did not see them on board, only Chesman, but I could be wrong."

"I've not seen anyone matchin' their descriptions since we arrived, only Chesman. 'E can't really hide that blond 'air," said Porthos.

"But have we been looking for them?" Aramis asked, regret in his tone. "I confess that I haven't."

The men fell silent, only to have it broken moments later by Athos who directed his next question to his brother.

"Did Tanquerel have any defensive wounds?"

"None."

Athos rubbed at his tired eyes as they burned with exhaustion. It was going to be a long night; too many hours remained until dawn. "This was done for our benefit to divert our suspicions from Tanquerel. But where did it happen? They worked together to make the room look as if it had been searched but they had to go somewhere else for the beating because they could not risk us hearing that."

"If they left the keep, my men on duty would have seen them, especially if one returned hurt a while later," Fitzwilliam insisted.

"But would guards act if they thought two guests who were nobles 'ad a fallin' out after dinner? Wouldn't they think it was down to the drink?" Porthos said.

"They couldn't expect the guards to think that," Aramis reasoned. "It's too risky. As the Lieutenant said, someone could have seen them and intervened."

"And it could not have been in the hall or chamber on this floor as some people are bedding down in those rooms and servants are wandering about," Willoughby added.

"The stairs in this tower," Athos suddenly announced. "They used them to go up to the floor above to continue the evening with the Earl. The spiral stairs are not clearly visible from the main room. They left the Earl, came down here to mess up the room between them and then went back up the stairs, past the floor above to the gallery. There Chesman beat Tanquerel and possibly helped him back to here before retiring to his own bed. With him out of the way, Tanquerel hammered on our door to raise the alarm and the rest we know."

"So what now?" Fitzwilliam asked.

Athos clapped him on the arm, his decision already made. "We grab some torches and go up to the roof to see if we can find anything."