Chapter 13

The paperweight was made of crystal glass and had the shape of a lion's head. Its skull was clear-cut, its mane full and magnificent, its mouth half open, exposing strong fangs. A majestic figure, a proud and valiant beast, enthroned there on the desk and tirelessly watching over the letters. Someone must have put a lot of effort and work into turning kitsch into art; the lion was so ugly that it was beautiful.

Tréville had been looking at it for quite a while now without being aware of it. It had been a gift from his lieutenant, presented with an amused wink. A kindly thought and a tease that meant the world to the captain. Ventredieu, how he hated that paperweight! For the fact that it was still there, but his lieutenant was not. For the fact that this ugly creature was the last thing d'Artagnan had left in the study to stare reproachfully out of cold glass eyes day in and day out.

Tréville turned the lion's head away from himself. Now the beast had to look at the hidden tapestry door in the wall, the secret escape route for the captain if he wanted to slip away unseen and unmolested by the enquiries of the guests and supplicants in his house. Lately, he did so more and more often. He was not in the mood for the superficial concerns that mostly revolved around patronage and nepotism in the courtly society.

Bah, as if he, of all people, still had a good influence on His Majesty! He was still in disgrace and nothing made it clearer than that he got no hearing for his arguments and pleas to give him back his lieutenant. The king felt too comfortable in his offended, punitive role and even if Tréville had been willing to bend the knee before the cardinal and kiss his soutane - Louis XIII would still not have forgiven him.

Sighing, Tréville leaned back in his armchair and turned his gaze from the unanswered letters on his desk to the window. The grandfather clock ticked quietly and steadily in the background, the early evening hours have broken and soon only candlelight would illuminate the rooms.

The usual after-work noise resounded up from the courtyard. Everything seemed to be as usual, the musketeers coming and going according to their duties and free time to always form a respectable number in and around the Hôtel. They deliberately ignored the supposed treachery that had been done to them. Adjutant Duprés had redistributed the duties that had otherwise fallen to the lieutenant. Someone else now wrote the guard schedules, controlled the sentries or led the weapons exercises - No one gave ugly paperweights as a present to add a personal touch to the study.

With a jerk, the captain stood up and immediately froze again, because he was not quite sure what to do next. What to think of, where to go. At that moment, there was a polite knock on the door and the handle was pushed without waiting for permission. Duprés entered the room, behind him Tréville spotted an empty antechamber. The adjutant must have sent all the visitors and musketeers away, aware of his superior's bad mood.

»What is it?« the captain asked, frowning. It was not in Duprés' character to act like d'Artagnan and trudge into the lion's den, regardless of the danger of being devoured. Tréville's face darkened a jot more because his former lieutenant was again running through his mind unasked.

Duprés stepped forward. »Comte de Rochefort has a message for you.«

»Rochefort... What does he want?«

»He asked for an audience via messenger, mon capitaine.«

»That's not like him.«

Duprés already served Tréville for many years and a message from His Eminence's stable master was always a reason for suspicion and highest vigilance. The adjutant therefore was not being able to offer an explanation for the unusual request. »The messenger is waiting for an answer, what should I tell him?«

»He didn't say what Rochefort wishes to discuss?«

»No, Monsieur. But he wasn't in any undue hurry.«

»I see.« Nothing of utmost importance, if an official request of all things had not already signified urgency. Tréville probably did better to pay attention to the message. He took the quill and threw a line on a piece of paper, folded it into a dispatch and gave it to the adjutant.

»That will have to be answer enough for him,« he said with a grim smile that would have made any poor messenger immediately take flight. Duprés nodded dutifully, his eyes grazed the paperweight and Tréville immediately placed a hand on the lion's head. Once the captain noticed his ridiculously protective gesture, he completed the movement by turning the figure back towards him and rearranged a letter, as if he has intended nothing else.

Duprés knew him too long not to see through it. He could have discreetly ignored it, stepped outside and handed over the dispatch. But he stayed. »May I speak frankly, Sir?«

Tréville allowed it after an all too obvious hesitation. »Granted.«

»Am I correct in assuming that Lieutenant d'Artagnan's return to the Musketeers will be negotiated at this parley?«

»I do not know. It would be... desirable.«

Duprés was an unemotional man, always focused on the essentials. He was familiar with his captain's character and worried that Tréville would never fully recover from the blow that had made him secluded in the study, bearing a grudge for weeks now. Duprés has never asked the reasons for all this. He fulfilled his duties, trying to fill the gap, to cover the flank that had been torn open. He has grown old while serving in various armies and his position as adjutant to Monsieur de Tréville was to be his last.

Every human feeling was known to Duprés, everything of what wars entailed and who fought in them and what resulted therefrom. He has become wise over the years and learned to be blind or deaf. Now he smiled narrowly. »We should, if that is the case, strengthen our negotiating position.«

»What do you have in mind?«

»A counter-offer that the Cardinal will hardly refuse. They say Richelieu has been meddling in personal affairs. There is growing unrest in his own family.«

»Now, is that what they say?« Tréville did not ask how his adjutant could hold such knowledge. »Go on.«

»The Duc de la Nièvre, a nephew by marriage, has a daughter of nubile age. Odette de la Nièvre. It's said that the duc is looking for a suitable fiancé for the young woman and is asking for recommendations all over the kingdom. The cardinal's creatures are repugnant to him; indeed, he poses opposition to Richelieu.«

»And we have such suitable candidates, insurgents in the eyes of His Eminence?«

»I think so, mon capitaine. Odette de la Nièvre is a desired match. Many men will gratefully accept a good word about themselves, a letter of recommendation from Monsieur de Tréville personally.«

The captain inclined his head thoughtfully. The suggestion was a good one; there was nothing objectionable about it. Little pinpricks against the cardinal who could not tolerate opposition against himself within his own family. A letter, a little interference to help the Duc de la Nièvre in his search - that could easily be done. Another letter to withdraw the recommendation if the negotiations went in their favour. Tréville nodded. »I will think about it. Thank you, Duprés.«

The adjutant saluted and was thus dismissed. Tréville thought his suggestion over carefully. The cardinal had many enemies, the Musketeers had many friends. It needed little thought to compile a list of marriage candidates from this selection. Perhaps a Baron de Grinchamps or the Vicomte de Lécuyer?

»Unfortunately, I have to tell you that you are entirely wrong.«

Tréville startled and his eyes went to the tapestry door. Rochefort stood there and now pushed the door back into its lock with his foot. He had obviously overheard every word of the conversation, the messenger had just been a diversion that has worked brilliantly. Tréville almost reached for the pistol in the desk drawer to shoot the repugnant, overweening smirk off the stable master's face. Instead, he watched lurkingly as Rochefort pulled up a chair without further invitation and took a seat opposite him. The secret door had not gone unnoticed by the cardinal's master spy, perhaps 'someone' has told him about it, some evening, while enjoying a bottle of wine in an all too confidential atmosphere. An anecdote from everyday life at headquarters, that was what friends liked to banter about, wasn't it?

Tréville suppressed the angry sting in his chest, nor did he ask any superfluous questions about what exactly Rochefort has heard or in which way he himself was wrong. Instead, he pushed the paperweight out of the stable master's reach, who was eyeing the lion, and not the letters underneath it, with interest for a second too long.

Rochefort turned his gaze back to Tréville and said frankly, not half as amused as he pretended to be, »I am no negotiator and do not visit you as such.«

»Then there is nothing to discuss between us.« Tréville replied coldly, a clear warning in his voice, and in his mind firmly sealing the tapestry door with a new lock.

»Indeed, not between us.«

»According to that, you are the real messenger? Out with it, who sends you?«

»No one. I asked for this audience out of necessity. You can certainly guess what my request is.«

»A bed for the night, because you have locked yourself out of your own house?«

»You want someone other than me in your bed, and that person's fate is all that matters now.«

The pistol still lay very temptingly in the drawer and Tréville folded his hands on the desk, striving for utmost calm. »Say what you have to say or leave at once.«

»You must talk to her.« Rochefort complied with the request immediately, quite against his nature, and with unmistakable seriousness. »You should finally confess the truth. She deserves to know why she is taking all this upon herself. Heck, whether she thinks it is worth it! After that, we can negotiate how the matter is to be handled.« Rochefort eyed the captain sharply. »Before you do any more foolish acts.«

»Leave my foolishness entirely to me,« Tréville responded with dangerous serenity. Rochefort had chosen the wrong day, the wrong hour, to try to teach him lessons. »Take the way out you came. Unseen, I advise you.«

Even Rochefort was not immune to this barely veiled threat. Although not because of concern for his own well-being, but rather because of the realisation that he has not achieved his goal. Defeated by gascon stubbornness, he stood up and stepped towards the tapestry door. Already halfway through it and standing in the corridor beyond, he turned once more and said urgently, »I could not be more indifferent to the consequences for you. But I will no longer stand idly by and watch the suffering of a friend.«

Never has the stable master made a more personal promise, and it was still ringing in Tréville's ears when Rochefort had long since stepped out of the Hôtel.

This time, the Chevrette refused to be brushed off with an excuse or stubborn silence, but insisted on an explanation. She was worried about her friend, who seemed more weary and colourless with each passing day. D'Artagnan has always been of gaunt physique, but in the past weeks she has visibly lost weight and courage to face life, and Madeleine said it frankly.

»You can't go on like this, dearie!«

She called d'Artagnan by one of many nicknames; it matched the Chevrette's kind-hearted character to address her closest relatives and friends in this way. Sometimes as »dearie« when d'Artagnan seemed like a little sister to her, or as »luv« when there were serious things to discuss and Madeleine thought she was in the right. On this evening, both seemed to be true, for as if caring for a dear sister and at the same time strict as a mother, Madeleine jutted her chin and refused to comply with d'Artagnan's request for some rest and recuperation.

»I cannot?« asked d'Artagnan with a little smile at her landlady's sincere sympathy, yet quite exhausted and unwilling to hold a conversation. Her limbs and muscles ached from the many small and large punitive tasks she had had to perform during the day under Bernajoux' watch. Her hands burned and were irritated by the ash from the laundry vats.

But first and formest has Madeleine noticed the invisible wound that broken trust has inflicted on a gently budding friendship with Sorel, and which d'Artagnan certainly did not want to talk about. The landlady would not be dissuaded. »No! Look at yourself, you're already frightening your own reflection!«

»Bah, as if ever a mirror has shown me the truth.«

Energetic and a little upset, Madeleine brushed back her braided flaxen locks. She had very beautiful hair, thick and tight, and it kept falling forward over her shoulders as she worked in the household. But despite this annoying little thing, she would not wear a bonnet; she was finally free of marriage and her husband and all the symbols, and did not care what the neighbours thought. They gossiped viciously either way, whether about her origins as a Flemish woman or her supposedly concubinage with the lieutenant of the Musketeers.

Madeleine looked up from the turnips in her hands. She cleaned the vegetables as she did every evening to get dinner on time to the table where d'Artagnan had taken a seat, as she did every evening, to rest from a long day of duty and to keep her landlady company without getting in the way. The housework was Madeleine's business, the money was brought home by Charlotte. The women were a self-sufficient companionship.

»Then I will tell you the truth, and that is that you make me worried sick!«

»You're exaggerating.«

»No, luv. You've changed. You hardly talk any more, you don't smile at all, and if I didn't cook and feed you, you'd go to bed without any appetite or supper.« Madeleine sniffled; she was a sensitive soul. »I am afraid for you.«

Where d'Artagnan would otherwise have laughed out loud and brushed Madeleine's daily worries about her well-being aside with a joke, now she just shrugged. »There's no need for that. I'm not going to war and leave you all alone.«

»Because you already are in the middle of a war! With those men, those Red Guards!« Madeleine was unmistakably furious. Having to anoint and bandage her friend's hands yesterday had been the last straw. »They want you to give up! That you are feeling miserable. Don't contradict me, it's true! And this, I say, can't go on!«

A faint smirk was seen at the corner of d'Artagnan's mouth. »Will you give Jussac a piece of your mind tomorrow? I'd love to see you do that.«

»Ha, he doesn't intimidate me! Gabrielle would flay him alive if he raised his hand against me.« Madeleine and Jussac's wife Gabrielle had been friends for many years. They met occasionally at the market, where they talked cheerfully about house and home and their men. One reason why d'Artagnan trusted her landlady unconditionally was because she has never confessed to Gabrielle who the lieutenant of the Musketeers really was.

»I don't know anything about violence!« D'Artagnan immediately dismissed the suspicion. Jussac was acting as a superior depending on the situation. He was quick-tempered, easily to be angered. But she really did not have to endure any beatings; Jussac had other means of instilling discipline into her.

»So what!« exclaimed Madeleine, enraged, throwing the last turnip into the pot so that the water splashed. »Why don't you fight back?«

»Against what?«

»This injustice!«

»And which one do you mean?« D'Artagnan raised her shoulders and immediately regretted the movement because of her aching muscles. »It's not an injustice, it's... a mission.«

»Humbug!« The stove was already well lit and Madeleine stoked the fire to boil the stew. Her temper was no less heated, causing red spots to appear on her face and décolleté. »This talk of a mission and 'I do it for duty'. What duty is that supposed to be? Sacrificing yourself pointlessly for men who don't deserve it? Were Rochefort or Tréville only once here or by chance on the street, to look after you or at least to explain themselves? Admit it; that's another reason why you've turned all grey, every colour vanished.«

»I love the pictures you can paint with words. You should become a poet.«

»Flatterer, don't distract from the subject!« The vegetables were bubbling and Madeleine left the pot to join d'Artagnan at the table. »I understand why you're doing this. This odd combination of a sense of duty and love for them. Don't deny it, every woman does things because of feelings of the heart that are complete madness when viewed rationally. So, if I were you, I'd look at it and ask myself; do I really want to wear myself out completely, or do I stop now and consider what is best for me?«

D'Artagnan knew nothing to answer even after a long silence in which only the water bubbled and wisps of steam fogged the windows. Madeleine spoke what she herself had buried deep inside, a truth so unpleasant that it left her speechless.

Her landlady smiled sympathetically and patted her hand, half comfort and half encouragement that she would always stand by her friend and be there for her. Indeed, Madeleine was the only ally remaining after all her friends and comrades had abandoned her or turned out to be false.

»The thought becomes more tempting every day,« d'Artagnan finally admitted, barely audibly, »to give up Charles and become Charlotte. But...«

»But you're not ready, you still have hope.« Madeleine sighed loudly and resigned to her fate. »Fine! The meal will take a few more minutes, go and wash your hands!«

»As you wish, ma mère,« d'Artagnan teased back, more routinely than cheerfully, and left the kitchen for her bedroom. She had barely set foot in the corridor between the rooms when a knock on the front door stopped her.

»I'll answer it!« she called back to the kitchen and directed her steps towards the door. Who could that be at this late hour? Suspiciously, one hand on her sword, which she had not yet taken off along with her uniform, she opened. A blink of an eye later, she almost slammed the door back into the lock, more through shock than anger, and only years of drill kept her from breaking a superior officer's nose so rudely.

»Mon... capitaine?« she stammered instead, and immediately chided herself for being caught off guard instead of acting sovereign.

Tréville stood there, between the threshold and the street, and in turn eyed her in surprise, almost disbelief. Madeleine was probably right, d'Artagnan has changed much, lost a lot of confidence in both herself and others, and her former captain seemed to notice that too, as his gaze slid scrutinisingly over her guise and finally returned to her face. He looked at her like a ghost he was not sure to really see, or as if he faced some entirely foreign person. Perhaps it was also the red tunic of the Guard that displeased him, which seemed so very unfamiliar and wrong on d'Artagnan.

Now he nodded in greeting, only to rub the back of his neck with one hand afterwards as if he did not know what to do next. The silence quickly became uncomfortable and Madeleine unintentionally relieved it by calling out from the kitchen, »Who is it?«

»Nobody!« d'Artagnan shouted back. »One moment!« Then she stepped out into the street, pulling the door shut behind her as she did so, to keep her landlady out for the time being.

Tréville raised his brows. »Nobody?«

»Well, I'm not quite sure; the captain of the Musketeers or Monsieur de Tréville?« d'Artagnan replied, with an impudence she had already thought lost. She looked down the street to either side and found herself alone enough with Tréville to speak frankly. »You are late.«

»Yes, pardon the advanced hour.«

»That is not what I meant.«

»I know.« Again, he raised a hand but did not complete the abashed gesture, maybe because he chose to have come not as a civilian but as Captain de Tréville, and as such he kept his composure. »Forgive me; it is some weeks too late for that as well.«

»Nothing to forgive, I'm doing my duty.«

»A... duty, it is.« If there was disappointment in his words, and a strange undertone of regret, Tréville covered it up by stating with a sigh, »I don't deserve your loyalty, d'Artagnan.«

»I don't know what you deserve.« She was tired, exhausted from all these fights and she no longer cared to stick to the roles she was used to. »But I will not give in to any intrigues. Why are you here now, late?«

To confess the truth had been suggested to him, by Rochefort of all people, and Tréville had listened to the advice. Not least because the talk of a friend's suffering had left him very worried. He now saw it for himself, and it frightened and enraged him; d'Artagnan was a mere shadow of herself, his lieutenant almost lost. »I am determined to win you back,« he replied, without really confessing everything truly.

»Me? Or your lieutenant?«

The captain looked guilty, as if caught lying, but d'Artagnan felt no triumph over it, only a strange weariness. It was too late, everything had been staked and lost in a duel. She still did not know the reasons and by now they seemed completely unimportant to her. She rejected all further explanations, for she did not want to hear excuses instead of solutions. »How will you arrange the reassignment of your lieutenant? Richelieu is still basking in victory and the king has no ear for you.«

»I will find a way.« Tréville almost seemed to want to reach for her hand. She flinched back, not so much because she feared the touch, but because she did not want to reveal to him the testimony of a hard time in the Red Guard. Tréville passed over this and said, »Hang in there, just a little longer.«

D'Artagnan swallowed what she would have liked to throw at him in response; that he might succeed in making a deal with Richelieu, but nothing, no concessions and no triumphs, would undo anything that has happened. That lost trust was not so easily regained. The contempt, the almost unconcealed hatred of the Musketeers was undeniable. What would be when she returned to the corps, still without any explanation as to why she had ever left in the first place? Could they forgive her? Could she forgive?

Tréville apparently was not worried about any of this, perhaps he did not know about the hostility. Why else would he tolerate such behaviour of his Musketeers? Why was he only now coming to see her? D'Artagnan pulled herself together and nodded curtly, militarily, as if she has received an order. »I will, mon capitaine,« she said with emphasis on his rank and her allegiance to him. The mission continued, she would not fail!

Tréville understood her between the lines. He ventured a reserved smile and was about to say something else, but the window to the kitchen opened, allowing cooking fumes to escape and Madeleine to call, »Supper's ready!«

»Yes, Sir!« d'Artagnan shouted back exuberantly and a little lighter at heart after this long overdue conversation. She winked at Tréville with the same mischievousness with which a paperweight had once been gifted to him, wished him goodnight and scurried into the house.

Left behind was a likewise delighted and miserable Tréville, who now had a vague plan of a few hours earlier firmly in mind as he followed the streets back to his own home...