Chapter Seven: I'll Serve This Duke
Author's Note: It helps to have read my fic 'Broken Away' to understand this chapter, but is not necessary.
In the depths of the Louvre, Giulio Mazarin sat trimming his fingernails with a slim Florentine poniard. As he paid other people to fight for him he had little use for it other than as a letter opener, but he kept it as a memento. It had been a gift from his mentor and predecessor, Armand du Plessis, Duc de Richelieu.
Upon retiring, he had left Mazarin another remembrance as well: a web of spies and informants scattered throughout Europe, concentrated in France and most active in Paris itself. The Cardinal sat at its center like a giant red spider, attuned to any movement on outlying strands that might signal new prey.
For the past few months Mazarin had encouraged his talebearers, through bribes and threats, to direct their attentions toward the Musketeers. The corps was the King's personal regiment and so Mazarin took a special interest in their demise. The news he had received so far had been surprisingly bland: a brawl here, a cuckolded husband there, a bar tab left unpaid, a maid's petticoat stolen. The charges against the musketeers could have been brought against men in a dozen companies in the city. Nothing useful.
It had been Mazarin himself who discovered the piece of the puzzle that made him redouble his efforts. It had happened accidentally and-he liked to think- serendipitously A personal attempt on his part to implicate two of the cadets in an extortion scheme, and therefore humiliate the entire corps, had backfired, though he had managed to finesse the dénouement to the king. But on the barge supposedly carrying stolen gold, Mazarin had found gold in quite a different form: a marvelous underwater boat and its creator… whom he recognized all too well.
Someone he had searched for the better part of three years had been hiding directly under his nose. Mazarin had of course heard of the cadet called Siroc, in connection with d'Artagnan's brat, that ridiculous rhyming Spaniard, and the newcomer called Lepont. But until he'd seen his face Mazarin had not connected the boy with his runaway inventor.
'So Mathieu has taken refuge with the Musketeers,' Mazarin mused, remembering with chagrin the somewhat bald overtures he'd made the boy the day of the barge incident and again a few weeks later in his personal offices. Surprise had prompted the first, impatience the second, and as both had been rebuffed resolutely and articulately Mazarin knew more subtle methods were called for.
As he contemplated the nature of such methods, a knocking on his study door drew him from his reverie. "Come," he barked.
The door edged open, followed by a young Guard, who made him a slightly nervous but razor-sharp bow. "Your Eminence, we are detaining two…persons who claim to have information about the Musketeers."
Mazarin rolled his eyes. "Take it down and dismiss them then."
"Your Eminence-" the young man swallowed- "they say they will speak only to you."
"Very well." Mazarin waved a hand. "Send them in."
The Guard returned a moment later, with three of his fellows, holding between them a frowzy, badly made-up woman and a man sporting a bruised lump on his head. The two made a clumsy attempt at an obeisance and then stared frankly at Mazarin. Mazarin stared back.
When they seemed disinclined to volunteer any information, he said, "I was told you had information concerning certain of the Musketeers. I see that was incorrect. Take them away."
The man and woman both spoke at the same time, but he trailed off to let her continue. "It wasn't incorrect, Your Worshipfulness. We do. Me and Jock had a little run-in with two of 'em about a week ago. Friend of ours, Boisy, was with us, but, well, he ain't here to tell the tale, if you take my meanin'."
"I don't," Mazarin snapped. "What happened?"
The woman pushed a clump of hair behind her ear, shooting Jock a quelling look as he opened his mouth. "Well, me and Boisy and Jock was out at night, since we hadn't got any place to go, and there wasn't anyone about to take- I mean, ask a bit of help of. So me and Boisy got to arguing a bit, like, on account of he wanted to go west and I wanted to go east."
"Yeah, and I left and kind of bumped into this young fellow when I come out of the alley," Jock piped up, edging away from the woman. "And he was a Musketeer. And I tells him my sister's in trouble. And she is my sister, sir. Probably."
Mazarin waved the innocently earnest assurance aside, scowling. "And was she in trouble?" He'd had just about enough of this creatively interpreted truth.
"She might of been," Jock allowed, pock-marked face creasing in thought.
His probably-sister moved past the uncomfortably doubtful topic. "We asked him for a bit of help, Your Worshipfulness, and he was very rude! Said we could clear off, and other things I wouldn't like to repeat in your august presence. And so we decided he might want to make a little donation anyway."
"And that's when he kicked me!" Jock pulled up the tattered leg of his trousers to show a yellowing bruise.
"Yes, I can see that he did," Mazarin said, masking distaste with mock concern. "Put it down now."
"And while we was seeing what he had on him- I mean, what he might be able to contribute to our worthy cause, another one of 'em came up, and shot Boisy," the woman added indignantly.
Mazarin leaned forward, impatient with their cobbled-together lies. "Another Musketeer?"
"That's right. The first one called him 'Siroc,' if memory serves," the woman confirmed. "Very pretty fellow. Both of them was pretty, come to think of it, and seemed very fond of one another," she added with a leer.
Filing this information away for further use, Mazarin asked, "Oh? What did the first one look like?"
Brother and sister conferred for a moment. "Oh, about as tall as me," Boisy said. "Dark hair, parted here, back in a queue. Little beard. Maybe twenty, twenty-five."
Mazarin ran through his mental index of likely Musketeer cadets. "The other one didn't happen to call him 'Jacques', did he? Or 'Lepont?'"
The woman shook her head, smiling like the cat that knows the canary's about to offer itself for breakfast. "No, Your Worshipfulness, but I think there's one way you can be sure of getting the right fellow."
"And what is that?" Mazarin asked solicitously. If this pair of buffoons had murdered the Musketeers in retaliation, he thought, they would find themselves being recognized by the number of pieces they were in.
"Well," the woman confided, "he's a she."