Disclaimer: The characters aren't mine, they're Dan Angel's, Billy Brown's, and PAX TV's, except for Monsieur Vieaux, Cecily, Bastelier, the doctor, Jeanette, Francois, Madame Vieaux, and my throwaway villains. All inventions mentioned herein are real, you can look them up if you want. Still tacky/campy, intentionally anachronistic, and historically iffy. Deal with it. ;-) Still rated teen reader and up for owies, angst, mild language, and action-type violence. Still not profiting except in kind readers from this. Still hope you enjoy it ;-)
3
All Roads Lead to Paris
"…and so, comforted in the knowledge that our brother is now in the hands of our heavenly Father, we commit his body to the Earth in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen."
The funeral was a small affair. As the priest completed his prayer, those few gathered at the quiet, hillside cemetery filed slowly past the casket, laying roses on it or stopping to lay one hand on the lid in farewell. A few women sniffed or dabbed at their eyes with handkerchiefs. Even the sounds of the hillside were subdued---there had not been the twitter of a bird or the rustle wind in the grass to disturb the proceedings. One-by-one, the mourners made their way down the hillside, back to waiting horses, wagons, and carriages and began their journey back to their homes and their lives, until only three remained. The two men stood back a respectful distance as the woman approached the casket to add her rose to the pile.
"He told me once that when he died, he should prefer to be buried beneath his laboratory so if the Lord saw fit to send his spirit back to Earth, it could spend the hereafter in his second favorite place in this world. His humor was a bit wanting for taste sometimes." Madame Vieaux dabbed at her own eyes with a handkerchief. "I expect I'll have some explaining to do when I see him again for not honoring his request." Finally, she turned away from the coffin to face the teenager who was standing a discreet distance to allow her privacy. Siroc had tried to keep a rein on his own grief, to be strong for the elderly woman's sake, but she knew that, like herself, he had cried until he had no tears left to offer.
The year since Siroc and Vieaux had sat together at the dining table, negotiating room and board over tea, had been a difficult one for both of them…more difficult than the teenager had ever imagined. Siroc's days---if possible---had become all the busier when he took on responsibility for Vieaux's business and attempted to earn extra money to pay him for the use of the laboratory. The teenager had discovered what Vieaux had told him the first day they met was true---there was little call for a scientist or philosopher among the common population of Guierre. Work was difficult to come by. Families seeking tutors or schools seeking professors turned their noses up at the young scientist, preferring older and more reputable instructors, and only a very few would pay for the occasional tutoring (then only if they were desperate).
Therefore, Siroc spent his days at his routine of mending anything in Guierre that needed mending. Before sunset, he would return to the Vieauxs, tend to the ancient Gaston, and then rush to wolf down dinner while running back to the city for whatever work he'd secured for the week. He was still surviving on four hours sleep, only now it was by necessity than the drive to spend time in the laboratory.
Madame Vieaux was still quite resolute in her intent to make the teenager take care of himself. After a thorough scolding when she discovered the boy was skipping dinner in his haste not to be late for his evening jobs, she'd taken up the habit of packing dinner into a small metal pail. No matter what time Siroc raced home from his day's work, the elderly woman was waiting, pail in hand, in front of the barn when he arrived at the farm.
He looked forward to Sundays---his only day of respite. After seeing the Vieauxs safely to church and home again, the day was his. In fact, his tendency to hide himself away in the laboratory on Sundays, cramming a week's worth of ideas for inventions into a short twelve hours, drove poor Cecily to distraction. She'd taken quickly to ambushing him on his way home from the day's work during the week, professing a need for a ride back to her own home, as a way of spending time with him.
It had been very early that Sunday morning (or very late that Saturday night) when the knock had come on the laboratory door. He'd been awake, naturally, already elbow-deep in the projects he meant to accomplish on his only day off. A kind woman who had offered him temporary work cleaning up her boarding house had inadvertently inspired that evening's bit of innovation. She'd happened upon the teenager while he was putting one of his creations to the test. Siroc had been bored with dragging her heavy rugs into the alley to beat the dust out of them, so he had improvised a cloth, coated in epoxy, which would pick the surface dirt off the carpets. Kneeling on the carpets with the cloth was no less backbreaking, so Siroc had wrapped the cloth around the bristles of a broom instead.
The innkeeper had frowned at his 'carpet sweeper'. "And what about soil that has been tromped in---how can that broom of yours get it out?"
Siroc hadn't considered that, but his mind went to work on the problem at once. That had been Saturday morning. Before the sun rose on Sunday, Siroc had rigged a hollow tube, a bag, and pieces of blacksmith bellows into a device that he thought might create suction that would lift the dirt out of the rugs. Unfortunately, the contraption came apart during the first test, and the hollow tube detached itself from the bag and bellows—creating a cloud of dust---and went sailing right through the laboratory window. Well, that was predictable…
Siroc expected that the knock on the door was Monsieur Vieaux, come to inspect the damage and make sure his former pupil had not injured himself. He must surely have heard the shattering of the glass. Instead, he found Madame Vieaux standing on the other side of the door. Her red eyes and the slightest of trembles in her hand told the teenager all he needed to know.
"I have no use for the laboratory." Madame Vieaux took the teenager's arm as Siroc escorted her from the quiet cemetery to the carriage waiting for her. "He'd hate for it to go to waste. He'd want them put to use…the books, the tools, all of it…he'd want you to put them to use, Siroc. You were always his favorite student and his dearest friend---and that's saying quite a bit." Her eyes sought the man standing beside the waiting carriage. She nodded to the man. "I've sold the house. My nephew and his wife have asked me to stay with them, and I've accepted." Her nervousness showed only in the barest tightening of her grip on the teenager's arm. "What about you. What will you do, Siroc?"
"I don't know. Return home, I suppose."
Madame Vieaux was silent for a minute, collecting her thoughts. She stopped halfway to the carriage and stared at the horizon below and the road that stretched and disappeared over the horizon---the road that lead to a large city that could not quite be seen from the vantage of the hillside: Paris. "I wish you'd reconsider that, dear boy," she said. "Gilbert told me once that being my husband and your mentor were the two finest privileges the Lord had given him in this world. So, listen to an old woman: Your 'home' is that way---behind you. Whatever the Lord has in mind, I know He didn't intend for you to live a life of waiting tables and mending fences and wagon wheels. You'll only discover what He has planned for you by moving forward." For emphasis, she pointed to the horizon, indicating the city that lay not far beyond it.
"Paris?" the teenager asked.
"Paris." She smiled. "It would be a sin to stand before the Lord and tell Him that you squandered the gifts that he gave you---especially since Gilbert is up there telling Him all about you now…"
Present Day
"Anyone! Help!"
The force of her shout had been almost painful. Jacqueline had yelled with every fiber of her being, the cry echoing even louder and farther than the crack of the shot she'd just fired, and still, no one appeared in answer. Confound it… Jacqueline glanced skyward. If you're watching, I would appreciate some help, she pleaded with her father, with Monsieur Vieaux, or any other angels who would listen to her pleas.
Thunder answered. She wondered if it might be a response from a deity angry with such an insolent prayer…until she realized it wasn't thunder at all.
It was hoof beats.
Jacqueline was on her feet at once, whirling in search until she spied the riders approaching. Instead of the black uniforms of her and Siroc's attackers, the two riders bearing down on them now wore familiar gray overcoats. She knew those horses and their riders. Gazing skyward again, Jacqueline said aloud: "Never thought those two would be the answer to a prayer, but thank you."
"Jacque?" D'Artagnan reached them first, with Ramon only a few paces behind. She'd never been so grateful to see anyone.
Instantly sizing up the situation, both vaulted from their mounts before the horses could come to a full stop. Ramon raced to the unconscious figure and quickly checked Siroc's injury. The Spaniard let out a curse that would have embarrassed a sailor. He gestured to D'Artagnan, and the Frenchman kneeled to help lift Siroc into a sitting position. "What happened?" D'Artagnan asked Jacqueline.
"Our friends from the chapel. Lead us right into an ambush."
D'Artagnan's mouth drew into a grim line. "Why?" His eyes and Ramon's blazed in a level of ferocity Jacqueline had never seen from either of them in their short time together. She was certain the same fury must be in her own eyes. It had been there once before for her father, and during her time among the Musketeers, these three men in particular were becoming just as much a family to her as he had been.
"The pyramid. They took it."
D'Artagnan's eyes widened a bit---whether because of the mention of the pyramid or the fact that Jacqueline knew about it, she didn't know.
Ramon showed no reaction to the mention of the stone. His attention was focused on his friend. The cloth wrapped around Siroc's shoulder was soaked, so Ramon laid a clean handkerchief over top of the old bandage and pressed hard with his palm to staunch the flow. At the pressure on the injury, Siroc's eyes finally snapped open and he let out a curse that rivaled the Spaniard's. Siroc reflexively grabbed at the hand causing the pain and might have actually succeeded in pulling Ramon's hand away if he'd had his normal strength.
"He needs to go---now," Ramon said. To the blonde Musketeer, he added, "Are you ready?"
Groggily, Siroc wondered why people kept asking him that when they obviously intended to lug him all over the countryside whether he was 'ready' or not. He knew an answer of some sort was expected, so he managed to nod and gritted his teeth as Ramon and D'Artagnan lifted him to his feet. Between the two of them, D'Artagnan and Ramon maneuvered Siroc towards Ramon's horse. Siroc grimaced---there was no chance that bouncing around on a horse with a bullet in his shoulder would be a happy experience…
"Where are they now?" D'Artagnan asked Jacqueline.
She knew who 'they' were. "Long gone…all except the dead one. Siroc wanted me to go after them, but---"
"Thank you for not listening to him," D'Artagnan said.
Ramon climbed onto the horse, hanging on to Siroc to keep his friend from falling off in his unsteady state. "Go after them now." He saw hesitation, indecision, in both D'Artagnan and Jacqueline's faces as both warred with the desire to stay with their injured friend and their wish to hunt down those responsible. "You know you have to, D'Artagnan. I've got him. Go," Ramon snapped, deciding for them both. He touched his heel to the horse, and the animal tore away in the direction of Paris, leaving D'Artagnan and Jacqueline standing in the clearing.
The bouncing and the spectacular bursts of pain each jolt caused would not allow Siroc the luxury of blacking out. Blearily, he opened his eyes just enough to see that they had already reached the main road leading into Paris. This section of the road was terrible---full of ruts and holes from years of horses and wagons wearing it down. Siroc had been bounced around on this wretched path since his first day in Paris…
Paris, Five Years Earlier
It was a wonder the cart didn't shake itself to pieces—the thing was more rickety and worn than the wagon Monsieur Vieaux and Siroc had used for so many years in their work. Each time a wheel hit a rut, Siroc was almost pitched from the back of the cart. The last jolt had caused one of his crates to break apart. A jar rolled from the crate, and Siroc only just managed to catch it before it could hit another trunk and shatter.
"Pardon, Monsieur," the driver apologized cheerfully. "The road is quite bad."
Siroc wondered if the man would have such good humor if he deducted breakage from the driver's fee.
He had fallen asleep on the long ride from Guierre to Paris, so Siroc was mildly surprised to wake and see the buildings on the horizon so soon. The driver pointed to the skyline. "Paris, Monsieur. Where did you say Monsieur Bastelier lives?"
Siroc had to dig through pockets crammed with notes to find the paper with the address Madame Vieaux had given him. "32 Boulevard Treadeau."
"Trudeau?" The driver raised an eyebrow.
The smirk on the man's face made the teenager nervous. "You know it?"
Now, the driver was stifling a laugh. "Oui, Monsieur."
A quarter-hour later, Siroc found out for himself why the man had sniggered at the mention of the boulevard. Having rolled past what only could have been prostitutes, thieves, and drunks through the most unsavory section of any city Siroc had ever seen, the wagon rolled to a stop in a building as decrepit as its surroundings. 32 Boulevard Trudeau was a theater, with a sign promising 'wine, women, and song' displayed prominently on the main entrance.
"Trudeau?" Siroc asked the driver.
The driver was having a great laugh at the teenager's expense. "Trudeau."
Monsieur Bastelier was a man decaying nearly as fast as the boulevard and theater. Nearly toothless, with gray hair covering every visible inch of him (including his ears and nose), and stinking of wine and lack of use of a washbasin, Siroc could have found the man by smell alone.
"I only reserved such a large space for you because Monsieur Vieaux was such a good teacher," he grunted, leading Siroc down into what seemed to have once been a wine cellar. There was a door that lead into the alley, so Siroc wouldn't have to enter via the theater. That was a relief, at least. Someone had punched a hole into the wall to make room for a window---which offered the view of a sidewalk above the small room and the alley outside. The walls were barely high enough to allow Siroc to stand upright. Music from the theater was causing the walls to vibrate.
"Large?" Siroc asked.
Bastelier glowered. "Large for so little rent." He tone defied the boy to argue.
"It's fine, Monsieur…" Except for the fact that a man had just staggered into the alley, stopped outside Siroc's window, and—from his stance---could only be relieving himself on the wall outside. Siroc had never seen such behavior in his life.
"I'd keep the window closed if I was you," Bastelier shrugged. "Rent is due."
He held out his palm. Siroc had to put down the bags he was carrying to fish money from his pocket. Bastelier took the coins, biting each one to be sure it was good. "Don't make any noise," he ordered, giving the teenager one more distrustful stare before lumbering out of the room.
"You'll hardly know I'm here, Monsieur," Siroc promised.
The teenager stared at the hovel and sighed. He had no idea how he would fit all his belongings and a bed and a table into the room. "Boulevard Trudeau," he muttered.
Present Day
"…Trudeau…" Ramon heard the whisper from his friend.
"Trudeau?" Ramon remembered that place. Siroc had lived there when he and D'Artagnan had met the blonde. It was a cesspool and that room of his had been a hovel by any standards…
Boulevard Trudeau, Five Years Earlier
Siroc's second encounter with the Musketeers came the day after the accident with the thieves and the discovery of the pyramid.
Finding work in Paris was no less daunting than finding employment in Guierre. Madame Vieaux had mentioned that the Prince himself was in need of a tutor in the sciences, but Siroc could not so much as set a foot into the castle, must less apply for the job. Presenting himself as a professor of the sciences hadn't merited so much as a blink from the palace guards. They'd all but accused him of forging the credentials from Monsieur Vieaux, and since Siroc wasn't of a mind to test his fencing skills against the finest soldiers of France (save for the Musketeers), he was forced to admit defeat. Nor was anyone else in France inclined to have their child's education entrusted to someone so young and with almost no teaching experience.
The day after the incident with the thieves, Siroc found himself relieved of a blacksmith's job that he'd held for just three days. Rounding the corner off Trudeau, Siroc saw the Spanish Musketeer in the alley just outside the door. He was deep in conversation with one of the dancing girls from the theater (Jean, Jeanette, something like that), rattling off some sort of poem while she listened in rapt---if perplexed---attention. Neither saw the inventor approaching.
"That was beautiful…it rhymed," Jeanette purred. "What did it mean?"
It wasn't the reaction Ramon had anticipated. Siroc resisted the urge to suggest the Musketeer try a limerick next time instead.
"It's a poem…about Ancient Greece. About a man who loved a woman so much that when the God Hades took her to the underworld, he went down there to bring her home."
The dancing girl melted a bit. "Really? How romantic…"
Siroc cleared his throat. He wasn't one bit interested in their flirting, but they were standing directly in front of his door.
The girl whirled. "Siroc? What are you doing here?" Jeanette snapped. "Bastelier will put you on the street if you've lost another job. I've heard him say so. You lost your job, didn't you?"
Wrapped up in her scolding, it didn't immediately dawn on her that Siroc was holding a piece of cloth against his forehead. Ramon asked first, "What happened to your head?"
"What did you blow up this time?" the girl added.
Already nursing a splitting headache before Jeanette had begun her tirade, Siroc reminded himself that it wouldn't be gallant at all to test his fencing skills on a woman---in particular one whose attire left no room to imagine that she was hiding any weapon with which to defend herself. The Musketeer took pity on the young man and gently urged the woman to step aside so that Siroc could get to his door. The kid looked harried enough…and Ramon's new lady friend was becoming less attractive to the Spaniard by the minute. Siroc ducked into his hovel and slammed the door behind him.
"Perhaps, Monsieur Bastelier doesn't need to know about this…?" Ramon turned on the charm, offering Jeanette a smile and kissing her hand for good measure.
The suggestion seemed only to confuse her. "But, I'm supposed to tell him…"
"A mouth that lovely," Ramon brushed one finger across her lips, "should be speaking in poetry instead of gossip."
That did the trick. She forgot all about the blonde and gazed in adoration at the Musketeer. "I have to go back to work. Come by after the show tonight?"
"Maybe," he said, all the while thinking, Not a chance. Still, Ramon watched as she strode back down the alley towards the theater door. Caught up in the view, he almost forgot why he'd come to Boulevard Trudeau to begin with. He knocked on Siroc's door. "Hello? Siroc? I need to speak to you."
It took a few more knocks to get him to open his door, and he didn't look to appreciate the interruption. "Remember me? Thieves? Toxic clouds?" Ramon asked pleasantly. "A word, please?"
Eventually, Siroc stepped aside so Ramon could enter the small room beneath the theater. The first thing the Musketeer noticed was that the room still smelled of that odd smoke that had incapacitated the thieves the night before. He tried not to inhale any more deeply than was necessary to breathe. Ramon studied the room. It was cramped, filled to its limited capacity with tools and jars and books and strange powders. The shelves were lined with all sorts of handmade gadgets and gizmos. There was no living area at all---the furnishings consisted of a tabletop, suspended from the wall by chains, a stool, and a bed that was hidden beneath the tabletop. It would seem work was more important to Siroc than comfort. It looked like the home of an inventor or the lair of an insane scientist. Ramon wondered which description fit the blonde.
"Don't get out much, do you?" Ramon asked.
Busy dabbing at the cut on his forehead, Siroc only frowned in answer.
"Are you all right, there?" Ramon pointed to the cut.
"I'm fine."
Ramon walked over to the shelves for a closer look at the strange assortment of objects collected there. "Does that cut have anything to do with you losing your job?"
The Musketeer was poking and prying around Siroc's inventions, which caused the scientist no small amount of annoyance. Hadn't the man any concept of privacy? "No. Yes. A horse threw a shoe." Siroc forgot about the cut and rushed to retrieve an important model that Ramon had begun playing with as a child would a toy.
Undeterred, Ramon moved on to the next shelf. "Ah. You were fired because you didn't nail the shoe on properly."
"I didn't use nails. I invented an epoxy to hold the shoe in place." Siroc was following him around the room, taking bottles and jars and gadgets from Ramon as fast as Ramon could pick them up to examine them.
So it was 'inventor' and not 'insane scientist'…at least for the time being. Ramon mentally filed that bit of information away for future reference. "I guess that's why they use nails---so the shoes don't fly off and hit people in the head and get them fired."
Siroc took offense at the suggestion that his epoxy had failed. "It most certainly did not come off. If you insist on knowing, the rider did this."
Ramon paused, mid-reach for a bottle. "Why?" He wondered if it would be necessary for the Musketeers to find the rider and explain that a loose shoe was no cause for beating a blacksmith-inventor.
"Because the shoe wouldn't come off," Siroc answered.
"I'll bet that makes sense in inventor world." Ramon went right back to poking through the assortment of gadgets and models. A peculiar piece of what looked like burned and twisted porcelain displayed on a table drew his eye. He picked it up, examining it closely, trying to fathom what it could possibly be. "What is this?"
"That's what remains of the chamber pot from last night," Siroc informed him, feeling just the slightest bit of evil glee when the Musketeer yelped and dropped the wrecked basin as if it had burned him. Ramon wiped his hands on his coat, but cheerfully went right to the next item on the shelves. "How long have you been in Paris?"
"A few weeks. Did you say----"
"And you're an inventor?"
"Yes…"
"Then why waste time gluing horses' feet? I'm sure the Prince would be interested in---" Ramon picked up a model from the shelf and tried to find a word to describe it. "What is this?"
"Submersible. It's a boat that travels underwater, and trust me, the Prince is not remotely interested in my creations." Siroc wasn't going to share the story about his one and only attempt at finding work in the royal court with the Musketeer.
Ramon could not picture that. He tossed the toy back to the inventor just to enjoy the spilt-second of panic as the kid dove to catch it. "Wouldn't it leak?" The inventor pointedly replaced the model submersible on the shelf. "Sorry, I'm sure it's a very nice submersible."
Exasperated now, Siroc prompted: "Well, thank you for the support, I'll make sure you have a seat on the maiden voyage…did you say you needed a word?"
"Yes. You recall our unconscious friends from last night? One of the artifacts they stole from the Prince is still missing, and since this was the only spot where they---er---stopped, I wondered if you might have come across it in the alley? It's a large stone of some sort. Pumice or something from an old volcano in Italy. He only just received it as a birthday gift from an admirer." Ramon rolled his eyes a bit. "I don't think the Prince cares about it beyond the notion that it's his old volcano pumice-rock-artifact-thing and 'how dare someone abscond with it'."
"Sounds rather unremarkable for a gift---unless geology is a hobby of the Prince's?" Siroc observed.
"Not that I know of."
For some reason---Siroc labeled it 'scientific curiosity' in thinking back on it later---the inventor was reluctant to part with the pyramid. There wasn't a hint of deception in Ramon's features---he was either an accomplished liar or he was sincerely of the belief that the rock was nothing more than old lava spewings. If Ramon didn't know what was in the rock then either the Prince didn't know or he knew and wasn't telling. Siroc still had yet to figure out what it was or where it had come from, beyond knowing that it was definitely not pumice…ancient or otherwise…but the scenarios of what the pyramid could do that were playing in Siroc's mind intrigued him and unsettled him at the same time. If someone had unknowingly sent it to the Prince, the potential for disaster was disturbing.
And if someone had knowingly sent it to the Prince, the potential for disaster was terrifying. It meant someone intended for the pyramid to be used. Who? For what? To what end? And wasn't that all the more reason to hand it over to the Musketeer? Thwarting disasters for the royal family was their duty, not his. Siroc couldn't very well keep it just for his own selfish reasons…besides which, it was ingrained into Siroc not to lie, especially not to a representative of the royal family.
Which was why he surprised himself with his answer to Ramon's question.
For his part, Ramon read the lie in the inventor's eyes even before Siroc replied: "I can't say that I've seen it, but I promise to keep my eyes open."
Ramon kept his facial expression neutral while he debated what to do next. The kid was eccentric, to be sure, and he needed to get out of the laboratory once in awhile, but he wasn't a bad guy. Ramon could sense that much, and he trusted his intuition. Maybe in eccentric inventor world old volcano rocks were worth a trip to the dungeons, but Ramon didn't want to be the one to put him there. Unless the guy was a lot tougher than first impressions would suggest, Siroc wouldn't last five minutes with the Prince's interrogators. How the kid had lasted this long in Trudeau, Ramon couldn't imagine. In the grand total of ten minutes he'd known Siroc, the kid had been assaulted by unhappy customers and almost gassed himself to death in a chamber pot mishap. No, Ramon didn't want to arrest him at all…but it was still his duty to retrieve the Prince's property, and he hadn't been able to find the stone by thumbing through the shelves. He was running out of excuses to poke around the laboratory without calling the kid a liar.
Maybe there was another way…
"No harm in asking," Ramon played along for now. "Sorry to bother you, then. Good evening."
Relief at being rid of the Musketeer lasted only the five-minute interval between when Ramon finally left the laboratory and when the door swung open again. Before Siroc knew what was happening, the Spaniard had returned, caught the inventor by the collar, and almost dragged him up the stairs and into the alley. Siroc was sure the Musketeer knew he'd lied about the pyramid and meant to haul him to the dungeons. Instead, casually as if they were old friends, Ramon put a hand on the inventor's shoulder and guided him in the direction of the main boulevard, talking Siroc's ear off the entire way: "I think you have three good reasons—no, four---for celebration…and you're in need of a better introduction to Paris, not that your dancer friend wasn't, um, charming…" Ramon rolled his eyes a bit at that.
"Pardon me?" Fine, then, he wasn't being arrested for now…but the passing fear that he was now being abducted by a raving madman crossed Siroc's mind.
Ramon counted, "First: you're recent arrival in Paris. Second: our capture, with your assistance, of those thieves last night. Third: your impending invention of that underwater…what did you call it?"
"Submersible."
"Yes, that. Fourth: your freedom from gluing horses feet for a living."
A madman, no question about it. "Celebrate poverty and unemployment and imminent eviction from my home?" Siroc asked.
Ramon shook his head. "Now, that's no way to look at it. Celebrate the…first day of the rest of your life."
"How insightful, we'll have to write that expression down…maybe on bits of parchment stuck in desert cookies…"
Present Day
The alacrity with which the people of the city spread news (rumor, fact, or bald-faced gossip) came in useful at times: If you were a Musketeer, galloping a horse at break-neck pace through the streets with a wounded comrade in tow, the word would travel faster than the horse could run. One could be sure that—even if you didn't witness them doing so---one or more persons would deliver word to friends, neighbors, family…and to the nearest doctor…as fast as they could.
So, it was no surprise that Ramon found every Musketeer not on patrols that morning waiting by the time he reined his horse to a stop in front of the barracks. A dozen pairs of hands were waiting to help ease Siroc from the horse, and their Captain was front and center. Duvall's face was a thundercloud. "God, what happened? Ramon?"
"I don't…" Now that the urgency of getting Siroc home was over, now that he'd done all he could do to help save his friend, Ramon could feel the same worry, fear, and anger he saw in the Captain's face crashing down on him. He slid down from the horse, surprised to find his legs weren't too steady. "I don't know."
Duvall didn't accept that. "What do you mean you don't know? Report!"
That authoritative tone penetrated the shock threatening. "Siroc and Jacque were ambushed in the forest…D'Artagnan and Jacque are trying to pick up their trail now… the same men who took Adam and the other children." It didn't seem possible, but the mention of the men who'd abducted his nephew made the captain's infuriated expression all the more grim.
"Why?"
The younger man still had the presence of mind to remember that this was a subject best not broached in such a public place. "Volcanic pumice," Ramon answered. The captain fully comprehended the cryptic answer and let the subject drop…but only for the moment.
Ramon snapped out of his momentary stupor and joined the captain, who was personally helping carry Siroc into the barracks. Between the two of them, they moved Siroc into his quarters in the barracks, with the other Musketeers opening doors and moving the cluttered laboratory worktable and few chairs out of their path. Ramon heard the inventor breathe a sigh of protest as his bottles and books were knocked over in the process.
The Spaniard was not at all surprised to find a doctor already waiting in the room. He barely waited for Duvall and Ramon to settle the injured man onto the bunk before shooing them out of his way. "Wait outside," he ordered.
Neither Ramon nor Duvall had any intentions of leaving. The captain obliged by closing the door and the shutters to the crowd gathered around. He barked a command for the rest of the Musketeers to go help D'Artagnan and Jacque. They'd do no good gawking, milling around, and getting under foot while the doctor worked. As for Ramon, he gave the doctor a glare and instead helped ease Siroc out of the bulky, bloodied overcoat. Laying the coat on the table, Ramon found something else they were going to need---the stick that Siroc used for measuring.
The doctor noticed that his orders had not been completely followed. "I said, wait outside."
Ramon walked back to the bunk. He held up the thick measuring stick, snapped it in half with his bare hands, and gave the medic a glare that said: I can do the same thing to you just as easily.
Siroc's eyes opened at the sound of more breakage. He searched out the source of the noise and spied the broken tool in Ramon's hands. "Is that my measuring stick!" he mustered the strength to complain.
The Spaniard knelt at the head of the bunk and held one of the halves under the inventor's nose. "Bite," Ramon instructed. Being in no condition to fight about it, Siroc bit down on the stick as ordered, but from the petulant look his friend's face, Ramon knew he was going to catch hell about breaking the measuring stick when Siroc was better.
"This is your last chance to leave. I have to get that bullet out of his shoulder, and it won't be pl---" the doctor tried again, giving up when Duvall moved to the foot of the bunk. The captain got a good grip on Siroc's feet while, still at the head of the bunk, Ramon held on to the inventor's arms as best he could without getting in the medic's way.
"It's for your own good, Doctor," Ramon explained, "He's much tougher than he looks…"
Paris, Five Years Earlier
"…and in any case,as my friend here was explaining, nothing happened and there's certainly no need for any unpleasantness about it…"
Ramon had no idea if his words were making an impression on the giant, very upset, man standing in front of him…mostly because he was nose to chest with the behemoth. He had attempted to look up at the man's face, but could see nothing from this vantage point except nose hair…to say nothing of the fact that leaning his head back to gaze upwards subjected him to the man's foul breath, which was making Ramon's eyes water even worse than the blue chamber pot smoke.
The man was gripping Ramon beneath the arms, holding him several inches above the floor, and what was the most disquieting was the fact that the giant had had Siroc hanging on his back, arms in a tight hold around the man's thick neck, for the past five minutes and the inventor's weight and the chokehold was doing nothing to persuade him to set the Musketeer down. The rest of the crowd that had been gathered in the second floor sitting room had fled for their lives the minute the bellowing giant set foot in the room…including the woman he was seeking.
Ramon tried again, "…I was only sharing some poetry with the mademoiselle..."
The giant growled like an angry bear.
"…I mean the Madame…" Ramon corrected.
The behemoth's grip intensified and, with another roar, he hefted Ramon higher into the air. Ramon noticed, now that he was looking down on the man's face, that the view from above was no more pleasant than the view from below.
Siroc, however, saw an opportunity. Raising his arms above his head had left the giant's underarms exposed. The inventor balled one hand into a fist, aimed, and punched the hulking man in an especially delicate spot near the armpit. The blow had the desired effect---the air rushed from the man's lungs and, suddenly more worried about drawing a breath due to the punch and Siroc's grip on his neck, he dropped Ramon.
The Musketeer grinned at the blonde man. "What'd you do to him?"
"Basic anatomy…there's a weak spot beneath---uh-oh…"
The giant had regained his breath in a cry of mindless rage. Ramon didn't have time to even draw his sword as he tried to scramble out of the way. The angry man lashed out with one large palm and grabbed the Spaniard by his face. Ramon saw only fingers, but felt himself being dragged across the room, hefted into the air by his face and his belt, and then the giant let go and Ramon was flying…rather, he was falling…falling a very long way. Now that his vision was unobstructed, Ramon had a clear view of a wooden roof coming to meet him very, very quickly…
He covered his face with his arms just a second before he crashed through the roof and landed in something soft.
Hay. Ramon realized he had just been thrown from the sitting room window through the roof of a barn or livery and had landed in a pile of hay. Seconds later, there was a shout from the direction of the window and Siroc crashed through the roof and landed beside the Musketeer. It took a minute for either of them to grasp that they'd survived the fall, much less sufficiently recover to speak.
Siroc found his voice first. "…and I thought we had a bad reception at the café when you tried to find a rhyme for 'China'…" The inventor studied the holes they'd made in the roof and the window they'd been pitched out of…way above them. "Do you think he knew there was a haystack beneath that window?"
"There's always a chance." Ramon pushed himself to his feet, overjoyed that his legs still worked and no bones felt broken, and brushed himself off. He'd be picking hay out of places he didn't want to think about later. "I owe D'Artagnan an apology—it really is easy not to notice the ring when you're staring at such a pretty woman…"
The inventor made a face as he stumbled to his feet. "Maybe if you'd been looking at her hands and not her…do all your 'introductions to Paris' involve angry mobs and almost getting killed and fist fights and almost getting killed and angrier husbands and almost getting killed and…what were those people going to do with those chickens?"
Ramon shrugged, regaining his usual cheerfulness. "I usually need to bring D'Artagnan along to run into the angry husbands but otherwise…you did all right back there." The inventor was still looking a bit sour about the whole 'falling from the window' thing. "…Well, have you forgotten about 'poverty and unemployment and imminent homelessness'?"
"Yes. Congratulations."
"How did you kill a Saturday evening in Guierre then?" Ramon asked.
"I never spent them wrestling men the size of a small house if that's what you're asking," Siroc answered.
The Musketeer grinned. "Stick with me."
"Me laisser à lui!" A familiar roar made the wooden barn shake…the roar and the sudden pounding of fixed against its locked doors. Siroc and Ramon didn't need to ask who was trying to break the doors down.
"Back door," Ramon said, dragging the inventor along as he retreated to the back of the barn.
Siroc searched. "There is no back door."
He was right---there was no back door, but Ramon did spy a woodpile in the corner of the barn. Their ticket out of the barn was lying by the logs. He picked up an axe and handed it to Siroc with a grin.
"Invent one," Ramon suggested. He took up a large mallet and set an example by smashing through the planks that formed the rear wall.
What have I gotten myself into? Siroc mused.