Climbing
Lauren's back hit the wall hard almost knocking the breath out of her. This was not the time for hard breathing, however, and the girl strove to control hers. She could feel the rough stone surface right through her musketeer jacket and mentally cursed the thinness of the uniform. Shaking all distracting thoughts from her head, she peered around the corner slowly so that no one would take notice. Luckily, she saw no one in the room. Only a few yards away was the door out of the garrison. Satisfied that it was safe to go for it, Lauren turned to her companion. "Ready to run for your life?" she asked with a small grin, her fingers deftly sliding into his grasp. A nod in reply was all the encouragement she needed. The pair dashed for the door, yanking it open and charging through like the devil himself was after them. If the devil's name was Duval, Lauren thought wickedly.
When they were free in the evening streets of Paris, the girl relinquished the lead to Gil who had promised to show her something special tonight. She gladly ran behind him, her hand still clasped in his. The few people they passed in the street looked at them either disapprovingly or with knowing smiles—ah, the sight of young love. After many twists and turns, Gil slowed and released her hand as the approached a high stone wall; he followed it off to the right, seeming to look for a certain spot. When he halted, Lauren could only gaze up at the fifteen feet of solid rock before her, already guessing what the plan was.
"Can you climb?" the young Musketeer asked, already taking off his coat. He glanced at her when she did not give an affirmative reply. "I'm sorry, I just assumed—" he said looking between her and the wall embarrassedly.
"No, I can," Lauren told him hurriedly, swallowing hard. Well, I could with a harness and a spotter, her brain wanted to say, but hey, this is only a dream, right? She slid off her jacket and watched Gil begin to ascend, taking note of each hand and foothold he used. Wiping sweaty palms on her pants, she found her first grip and followed. Lauren had climbed the tower at camp a few times over the summer on her time off from counselor duties and had even gone to the walls with her climbing enthusiast friend, Katheryne, but nothing compared to hanging by your nails on a sheer stone wall. Lauren's arms shook as she reached for each next hold, the girl praying silently to reach the top.
Keeping focused on putting one hand in front of the other, she went up without any close calls, although she felt rock crumbling under her toes more than once. Gil gave her a hand on the last two feet from his perch straddling the wall. Only when sitting in relative safety at the top could Lauren learn where they were. With a small gasp at the sight on the other side of the wall, Lauren looked to Gil with amazement. A beautiful garden spread out below them with gravel paths between trimmed hedges, flower beds, rose bushes, and tall trees that swayed in the autumn breeze. A few fountains bubbled for their ears only; the garden was empty and quiet.
"How—? Whose—?" Lauren began, but Gil broke in to answer.
"Knowing d'Artagnan has surprising perks; he told me how to get here—Queen Anne's private garden. And it seems that the Queen is visiting cousins in the country tonight, so we get to borrow some royal luxury this evening. How about it?" he said, eyes glowing.
Lauren nodded without hesitation. "Of course, it's like a piece of Versailles in the city!" she replied enthusiastically. Without waiting for an invitation, she slid her legs over to climb down the wall. The first two steps down were fine, but her third foothold gave out from under her, and the girl slid ten feet down the wall, landing hard on her back in the manicured grass below.
Gil cursed, climbing down the wall with the ease of a chimpanzee and jumping the last five feet. He, however, managed to land on his feet and came running over to kneel beside Lauren. "God! Are you hurt?" he asked, his eyes searching her body for bones sticking out of place and his hand going to her cheek in sympathy. Lauren looked up at his worry stricken features and began to giggle hysterically. Laughter bubbled up to her lips and filled the garden with its ringing sound. When Gil realized that she was in fact all right, he joined in without knowing why and sat down in the grass beside her.
The fit subsided eventually, leaving Lauren's middle with a welcome soreness. She sat up slowly, her stomach muscles protesting the movement. "God, I'm clumsy. Bet that was some sight to see," she said, not really talking to anyone but herself.
Gil heard and replied, "Oh yes, it was so very graceful. What a fall for a man's eyes to behold." His eyes shone as he looked sideways at her. Lauren let out a few small chuckles, all that her body could handle at the moment.
"I'll be feeling it tomorrow, no matter how graceful it seemed," she told him. "Thanks for that adventure, dear Gilbert. Do you have any other death-defying stunts planned for tonight that I should know about?" she asked, half sarcastic, half serious.
The boy smiled. "Nothing I promise you haven't done before." He stood, reaching a hand down to help her up. "Shall we?" Lauren took his hand, planning to go wherever it should take her.
Jacqueline thrashed in her bed, kicking the blankets off and punching the air violently. Without warning, she rolled out of bed, sitting up in shock and breathing harder than she did after a morning workout. Loose hair in her face, her wide eyes searched the room desperately, looking for a Cardinal's Guard hiding and waiting to run her through. The year old wound in her side burned with an unexpected new fierceness at the thought. Suddenly the door from the hallway swung open and Jacqueline jumped over the bed to grab her rapier, about to pull it from its sheath when she caught sight of the intruder's face.
D'Artagnan carrying a tray of food entered the room, using a foot to shut the door behind him. "Good to see you out of bed. We were beginning to wonder…" he said cheerfully, but trailing off in the end. He set the tray on the bedside table and then straightened to face the female musketeer. "Are you all right, Jacqueline?" His brow furrowed in concern.
Jacqueline released her fear and her grip on the sword hilt and faced him. "I'm perfectly well, thank you, just hungry and confused." Her own forehead creased as she tried to recall what brought her to her room.
"That's what I like to hear," d'Artagnan broke into her thoughts robustly. "Dinner is served." He motioned for the woman to come around the bed and eat. She did so obediently, sitting on the edge of her bed and picking up the bowl of soup, sipping it scalding hot without bothering with a spoon. She really was famished.
"Only broth?" she asked between gulps; she reached over for her crust of bread and started tearing at that as well. D'Artagnan watched her eat with a mixture of relief and amusement.
"The resident doctor ordered it, at least until you felt up to eating meals again," he said delicately. It was not subtle enough, however, and the female musketeer looked up sharply.
She set the empty bowl aside and met d'Artagnan's eyes. "What exactly is going on?" she demanded as much as asked. "The last I remember, I was angry at you for something, and then I woke up here."
The legend's son sunk into the chair as he began, "Well, it all starts when this recruit showed up…"
Truth
Jacqueline was staring into the space over d'Artagnan's shoulder. Sitting on the edge of her bed, she had just learned that she had passed out in the middle of a duel. Now her dearest friend waited for her to speak, wanting to know why. Why she had been requesting extra assignments, practicing alone in the night, refusing to eat, and why he had not known about any of it? And now she had to tell him. "Don't laugh," she began hesitantly. She gave him a hard look.
"I wouldn't dream of it," he replied as gravely as he could muster.
"I keep having this nightmare—and before you say it is just a dream, hear me out." She took a deep breath, her throat already tightening. "It starts with me crawling to Gerard, right before he—he dies, but after, I look up and Mazarin is standing over me. He doesn't say anything, just grins and runs me through." The female musketeer looked down at the folded hands in her lap.
D'Artagnan looked at a loss for words. Jacqueline was not the type to be spooked by silly dreams. "Jacqueline—" he began uncertainly.
"It's not the dream so much as the message," she continued as though she had never paused. "Think about it, d'Artagnan, it has been over a year since Gerard's death—did the Guard just give up on bringing justice to their man? Why haven't we had any incidents lately? Why no café fights or scuffles over women? It's because the guard hasn't been out; they're planning something."
The legend's son shook his head at her earnestness, "You give them far too much credit by assuming they can think. Besides, they found you and Lauren in the woods; gave her a nasty gift as I recall."
"Yes, but I had to kill one of those men. Why didn't they retaliate?" Jacqueline pressed. Now that she had been forced to speak out, the words kept coming. "They knew we were musketeers, we were in uniform and all. Why has a Guard not even dared to insult us in public since then? Something is happening, but I can't figure it out."
D'Artagnan only replied gently, "That may be true, but it's no reason to drive yourself to exhaustion." The concern in his eyes was infuriating; the man was treating her like a child scared of a monster under her bed!
She met his eyes again forcefully. "You don't understand; I remember when I locked blades with that new recruit, and something in me clicked into place. He has something to do with all this."
And now the Musketeer just looked worried. "Okay, Jacqueline, why don't you rest for awhile? You hit your head pretty badly when you fell, and you might feel better if you just—"
"You don't believe me, do you?" she broke in, accusing him.
D'Artagnan did not answer right away. He stood and picked up the empty tray, striding to the door. There he paused and murmured, "I'll bring you breakfast in the morning. Captain gave you a few days off. Good night." And he left.
After a moment of disbelief, Jacqueline blew out the candles on her nightstand and lay back carefully. Was it all a conspiracy in her head? Or was something really going on?
The cool autumn breeze rustled through the small walled garden. The treetops shivered with a particularly strong gust, and Lauren did the same. She regretted leaving her jacket on the other side of the wall, no matter how thin it was, and then glanced sideways at unflinching Gil, solid and strong looking as anyone she had ever known. Back home, she bet he would be one of the 'popular' crowd. Maybe even a football or basketball star with his muscles and height, she mused, but not someone who would search out me.
With the feeling of unworthiness, the girl flitted from his side and approached the small fountain. It had three basins stacked above each other, the bottom as high as Lauren's waist and about four feet across, the smaller top one spurting out the water with a soothing bubbling sound. Lauren reached out a hand, letting the waterfall rush over her hand, over the raised cut across her palm. The musketeer followed so silently that the girl almost jumped when he whispered in her ear. "Does it bother you?" he asked, the warmth of his breath brushing her chilled cheek.
Lauren withdrew her hand from the fountain, letting it fall uselessly to her side, and turned her head slightly, looking up at his face. "No, I have other scars. It'll be a good story to tell my children." She mocked a stern face and admonished the fountain as though it were a child, shaking an angry finger as she said, "Don't play with sharp pointy swords. See what happened to your Mommy when she got too close?"
Gil let out a low chuckle. "Good to know, but I actually meant does it bother you that I'm crazy about you?" He snaked his arms around her waist pulling her back against his chest. The boy buried his chin in her hair, gazing at the fountain over her head.
Sucking in a breath, Lauren tensed for a moment. Do people talk like this, really? I thought that line was just for romantic comedies, she thought cynically. But something inside made her relax into the embrace. Maybe he means it. He meant that kiss… a little voice inside her head told her. Lauren's face heated a little at the memory of the Rhapsody Night kiss.
Gil must have taken her silence as a maybe because he backed off a bit. He took her scarred hand, purposely holding it firmly, and led her to a gazebo like structure. Roses grew up the sides and gave the air a hint of perfume. Lauren sat down easily beside Gil and met his eyes with a small smile of pleasure on her face. The musketeer grinned back, taking both her hands in his. "Lauren, I told you my life story on Rhapsody Night, but I hardly know anything about you," he began, a hopeful hint in his tone.
The girl's heart jumped. He wants details. Do I tell him the truth and watch him run away or do I make up a life set in France? She quickly decided to tell him the half-truth—the part of the truth that did not relate to her fall and life in the twenty-first century. "Well," she started nervously, "I am sevente—wait." Lauren stopped short as another cool breeze reminded her of the season. How long have I been here? Two, three weeks? "Actually, my eighteenth birthday just passed."
"Your birthday," he repeated. "We must celebrate it properly tomorrow night." His lighthearted manner returned, and he dropped to one knee on the ground before her. "Will you accept another dinner at the Café Nouveau with me?" he asked, mock serious.
Lauren giggled at his ridiculous proposal and nodded her agreement. "How could I refuse such an offer?" she said with a fake sigh.
But Gil frowned in reply and turned away. The girl's face fell, and she hastened to say, "I wasn't making fun of you…" The musketeer put an urgent finger to his lips, and Lauren took the hint, straining her ears to hear what had bothered him.
Low voices carried across the garden. Gil tugged Lauren's arm, pulling her down to her knees to take cover behind the bench. Crouching as low as he could, the young musketeer tiptoed out of the gazebo and along the path, hiding behind the high hedges. With a momentary hesitation, the girl followed, taking care to step silently and keep her head down.
Gil had stopped at a place where the hedge was thin enough to see through. He looked a little surprised to see that Lauren had followed him, but he did not dare speak. The girl looked through the hedge and saw the source of the voices ambling along the path parallel to them, a uniformed musketeer talking to an older gentleman in red, a Cardinal's vestments if she was not mistaken. The men paused right in front of their hiding spot.
She glanced sideways at her companion; he looked disturbed by the scene, and Lauren strained to figure out why. She studied the figures more closely, taking in the combed back black hair, hazel eyes, and broad shoulders of the grey one—It's the new recruit! Now her attentions turned to the Cardinal; Lauren could just make out his words. "…Leponte defeated? Now this is good news. Your sword arm is well worth the price."
The man shifted so that his back was turned towards the hidden pair. "Actually, Your Eminence, I cannot take credit for the win because the man fell of his own accord."
The man in red was a little stunned at this revelation. Recovering quickly, he suggested, "The evening grows cold. Why don't we continue this discussion in my office…"
After the two men had reentered the palace, Gil motioned for Lauren to head for the wall. Neither dared speak until they had climbed back up and over without incident. The girl found her crumpled jacket nearby and tugged it back on. "What was that about?"
"I'm not sure," he said, already walking back towards the garrison," but I need to tell Uncle that our recruit is an agent of the Cardinal."