Aramis approached the bed, seeing the basket at its foot, but not able to stop there yet. He was drawn to Anne when her face, though only lit by candlelight, seemed so aglow. She held out her hands, and he took them, easing himself to sit on the bed as though she would break if her surroundings were jostled too much.
"We have a daughter," she said. Whispered.
He didn't know what to say, or do. He pressed kisses against the knuckles of each hand. How she could look so impossibly frail and luminous at the same time was a mystery. Her skin was bloodless, almost translucent.
A small sound came from the direction of the basket, and Anne said, "Bring her to me?"
Aramis released her hands, rose and went around to the end of the bed. He stared down at the bundle of white linens with only the tiny face exposed.
Sancta María, Mater Dei. Was it possible they had made this creature? He looked at Anne again, with her smile of encouragement. He leaned down and lifted the child, who seemed to weigh almost nothing, felt boneless in his hands. Its face seemed to knit up so he quickly brought the bundle against his chest, which felt more secure. And then he forgot Anne had even asked for the baby, and stared down at it for a long time, until Anne said, "Is she not beautiful?"
"Like her mother," he said, coming to her side again and transferring her, with infinite care, into Anne's arms. He exhaled. It was very hot in the room. He wondered how she could stand the piles of blankets. "May I—do you need anything?"
"Constance is taking excellent care of me. I need nothing now but rest. No, do not go yet." She stayed him with a hand while the other held the child. "Stay with us a little longer."
He complied, easing back on the bed. They listened to the baby breathe. With reverence, he said eventually, "What do you wish to name her?"
Once already some weeks ago he had asked that, but she had demurred, saying it was ill luck.
"After my mother, Margareta," Anne said, "and Floriana, because she looks like a tiny flower, does she not?"
He considered that for a moment, then murmured the more French nickname, "Fleurette?"
"Of course, while she is little," Anne smiled. But before long her eyelids were dipping with fatigue, and he eased the baby out from her limp grasp. "You must sleep, sweet. I'll put her back. Rest. I will send Constance, and come to see you both in the morning."
Anne acquiesced with a sound, and leaned back into the pillows, eyes closing. Aramis carried baby Fleurette back to her basket, placing her on the white linens with care. The infant twitched and stretched but did not awaken. He stared at her tiny form and thanked God that they were both safe and well. He left the room soundlessly, in search of Constance.
The baby's first month of life was uneventful, and Anne's recovery relatively swift. She was able to resume her walks in the garden, at first for very short periods, then longer, with Aramis accompanying her and carrying Fleurette. The summer weather was beautiful, the gardens lush with flowers and greenery, and she found that the baby seemed to sleep better when exposed to the fresh air for brief spells during the day.
Porthos let them do fairly how they pleased, though they were careful to be respectful; Aramis always went to his own room at night, and they tried not to shut themselves up as a family during the day, even when they might have preferred to. Anne spent the first few weeks just learning and becoming comfortable with feeding the baby, a task that would have been delegated to a wet-nurse back at the palace, but here was a necessity. Constance was a great help in the first month, although Anne began to find that as she grew more comfortable in the role as mother, she didn't need her quite so much, and would have preferred to have Aramis around to share all the moments with. She would never have said so; it would have felt disloyal, after all the time Constance had invested in her, but the thought did come now and again.
One afternoon she had sent Constance away in search of fresh strawberries, having heard a servant say they were at their peak in the far gardens near the hills. Baby Fleurette was refusing to nap, instead choosing to scream shrilly for no discernible reason, despite having been changed, fed, and rocked until Anne was ready to fall with exhaustion. She had been up much of the night with the child, and her nerves were still new-mother worn. Often if this happened (the periods of crying had begun to increase during the day, which the midwife had assured her was normal on her last weekly visit), she would deal with it herself or pass the baby to Constance, but on this afternoon she had been counting on a nap herself, and she felt ready to weep with fatigue.
There was a tap on the door. "Aramis," she breathed. He could take the baby for a while, surely, while she slept. She hurried to open it, but it was not him, but rather Porthos. Anne stared up at him in frazzled frustration, and tried to speak pleasantly, though she heard her voice catching. "Where is Aramis?"
He nodded down the hallway. "I sent him after Constance. I'd rather no one wanders alone that far from the house. I heard the baby." He looked over her shoulder at the now crimson-faced infant squalling in her basket.
"How could you not?" Anne ran a distraught hand through her tangled hair, aware she sounded strident. "She cries more than she ever used to. I have rocked her endlessly, she is dry, she is fed..."
"All right." He put out a hand and squeezed her shoulder rather unexpectedly. "Let me see the child."
"What will you do?" Distracted by curiosity despite herself, she watched him walk by her to the basket.
"I will take her for you," he said, as if it should be obvious. "There. Come, ma petite. Oh, you are angry, indeed. Your mother is tired, you must stop crying, and let her rest now."
Reluctantly curious, Anne watched this new interaction. Porthos had been introduced to the baby a few days after her birth, and asked after her when occasion arose, but he had been taking his role as guard seriously, and had been fairly impersonal in the past weeks. It was new to hear the familial warmth in his voice.
Porthos lifted the still-crying Fleurette and, humming a few deep notes, brought her close to his chest, moving around the room with her in gentle circles, almost as if he were dancing. Anne sank down on the end of the bed, captivated despite her exhaustion. Fleurette's cries were softening, growing less enraged. Before much longer they had subsided to hiccuping gasps of mild protest, and eventually, died out together. Porthos glanced at Anne. "There. She sleeps."
"How does a soldier know how to comfort a baby?" Anne murmured, in partly resentful wonder.
"She likes my voice, and to dance, that is all. A mother is too tired to dance," he said, flashing her a smile.
"This mother certainly is."
"Get some sleep. I will take her out in the hallway. Then, if she wakes, we will walk some more."
"Are you sure," Anne said, already knowing she was agreeing, already moving backward on the bed in search of cushions to collapse against.
"Of course."
"Wake me if—" She was too tired to finish the sentence. He made a reassuring sound and backed out the door, Fleurette in arm, closing it quietly after them. Anne's eyes were full of tired tears but she closed them anyway, exhaustion and relief blending to make a potent soporific.
When later she flew awake, rested but anxious at the silence, and went to retrieve the baby (still contentedly sleeping as her uncle walked her up and down the hallway), she was embarrassed but grateful for the reprieve. Porthos waved off her thanks, saying it was nothing to mind a child for a few hours, and all the true work was hers. "While I am here," he told her, "I am family." She thanked him again, and when Aramis and Constance finally returned from their berry-picking, she was able to greet them with a genuinely better temperament, having finally gotten the much-needed rest.
One summer day, Athos tells d'Artagnan that Minister Tréville has been assassinated that morning at dawn, just outside the palace.
At first d'Artagnan is disbelieving, then angry, though anger is not enough to truly encapsulate the enormity of such feelings. The palace is chaos, Athos says, it is not safe, there is no retribution to exact. (This does not make sense to him, but he has to accept it.) It was the work of many, not of one. The armies led by the king's brother Gaston are moving to take control. The regiment may be disbanded altogether, forced to merge with the red guard, but for now, they must fight to keep law in the streets where they are. Athos asks d'Artagnan if he understands, and he does, but he cannot reconcile all of it, not yet. And even though Athos warns him to stay away from anyone, to keep his head down, he finds himself that night in a tavern, waiting for an answer, knowing full well it doesn't come at the bottom of a bottle, but he doesn't care. And he thinks about both his father, Alexandre d'Artagnan, and Tréville who had been in many ways a surrogate guardian—not a replacement, who could be that, but someone who made the transition to being parent-less in this world a little easier. That they have both been taken from him by murderers makes his anger pool, concentrated in his stomach like a bitter meal undigested.
So he drinks.
Luc Brujon enters the tavern with more than a little hesitancy, he still remembers being profusely sick the last time he had too much to drink and he has scarcely touched more than the occasional wine with food since then. This is the fourth or fifth place he has looked tonight, he stopped by all the obvious haunts first but d'Artagnan clearly didn't want to be found. Even now, when Luc sees him in the darkest corner of the room, he squints, not sure it is truly him after the last several hours of searching. And he approaches the table with a considerable amount of nervousness because he has never seen d'Artagnan's face look quite the way it does.
"What are you doing here," d'Artagnan growls.
Luc pulls a chair and sits, with far more confidence than he feels. "You told me, sir. No drinking alone."
d'Artagnan tips his head back and sighs with trapped exasperation. "I cannot be that person right now, Brujon—"
"What person, sir?"
"The one who says the right things." He takes a swig from the bottle.
Luc counts the bottles already empty. "You don't have to say things," he says, understanding. (Or thinking he understands.)
D'Artagnan sets the bottle down, still holding it. His jaw locks as he clenches teeth.
"I could be the one who says the...things," Luc ventures, wondering if he will be laughed at.
D'Artagnan's eyes are, in the light of the candle, visibly liquid with tears. "I suppose you could."
"Maybe I could have a drink first." He doesn't actually want to; it still rather turns his stomach to think of getting sick drunk, and yet.
D'Artagnan slides the bottle across the table. Luc picks it up and drinks some down.
"I want him back," d'Artagnan says. "I want them both back," and though Luc doesn't know who the other person is, he understands the note of savagery, and remembers this feeling too. "Oh, God, Constance—" and it's as if he's just realized something, and he drops his head to the table for a moment, and he looks up, pained. "It's not safe—"
"Madame is far safer in the country than here," Luc points out, and feels confident that he has said a right thing, for he knows the women are in the provinces, if not actually where.
"Nowhere is safe any more," d'Artagnan says, bitter.
Luc takes a quick look around, nervous now that they will see red guards watching and is fairly sure that d'Artagnan would fight anyone in such a mood, but the tavern's other denizens seem innocuous, for now.
"She will be all right," he says, because he has learned that sometimes you have to tell people what they wish to hear, even if—especially if—it turns out not to be true. (And d'Artagnan gives him a weary half-smile in appreciation for the reassurance.) Emboldened, he adds, "Madame is nothing if not resourceful."
He waits a while, listening to the noise, the conversations taking place around them. Eventually he asks, "Are you...are you ready to come back to the garrison?"
"No," is d'Artagnan's answer.
Luc doesn't know what to do now. And d'Artagnan sees that, and is mordantly amused.
But then he inhales, and says, "Go ahead. I'll return shortly."
Luc hesitates, decides he must trust. It is hardly as though he could have dragged his superior out, anyway. He nods, and stands up.
"Luc," d'Artagnan says, though he's already taken a couple of steps away.
"Sir."
"You're not bad at being the person who says the right things."
"Thank you, sir." It's probably ridiculous, but he feels pride. And the pride warms him more than any spirits, all the way back to the garrison, tired as he is from the night spent searching the streets.
Word came to the Bailleaux estate from the garrison of Tréville's assassination and the subsequent disorder of government. Athos advised that the musketeers were likely to be disbanded, that Porthos would be needed back in the city and that, as far as he was concerned, Aramis and Anne were essentially free to do as they would. There was no question of the throne being restored—there was no money to fund it nor sufficient forces to fight for it—and with the city being thrown into chaos, no one would know or care about following up with Aramis' discipline.
Porthos and Aramis dealt with the news (and their loss), as far as Anne and Constance could see, by getting extremely inebriated the night they received the letter, and then turning practical the next day and conducting a discussion over what made the most sense to do at this point. Aramis said that they could not have stayed at the estate indefinitely in any case, and the women had known that, but talk of moving on felt all very sudden.
"It seems to me," Porthos said, after they had been conversing for some time, "that it's plain what has to be done. You two—and the baby—will find somewhere else to live. I will return to Paris and make myself useful there. Perhaps join whatever army seems least foolish."
"And Constance—what about you?" Anne did not want to dismiss her friend, but she did not know if she wanted to include her in their uncertain future, yet again.
They all looked at Constance.
"She can come back with me to the city, and join you later, once you're settled somewhere—if she wants?" Porthos suggested. He shrugged. "It occurred to me you must have possessions at the palace you still want to retrieve?"
"I do have some things," Constance admitted, "if it is still possible..."
"We'll make it possible."
"Where do you want to live, sweet?" Aramis asked Anne, making her blush by the endearment and hastily bend over the baby in her arms. "Shall we board a ship for the new world?"
"I'll not hear talk of leaving France," Constance chided. "I want to be part of this child's life."
They were all quiet for a few moments and then Porthos said, "I see no reason to delay. You and I can leave tomorrow, if you can be ready. You lot might need more time."
"I should say so," Anne said. Aramis squeezed her hand. "We'll find a home," he told her. "We'll make a home."
She smiled at him, forgetting about the other two for a moment until Porthos cleared his throat and Constance said, "I will go prepare."
Later that night, Anne asked, after Fleurette had been fed and tucked into her basket, "Do you feel ready to leave, Constance? I did not want you to think that we did not wish you to stay, but perhaps it is for the best until we can get settled..."
"No, of course. The baby is thriving, and Aramis will take care of you both, I can trust him for that. I have been with you a long time," Constance said. "I shall settle some affairs. I even had a little money put by, do you know? After my husband died...but I never had great need of it, all my needs were provided for at the palace."
"It will be good to feel independent again," Anne said. "I know how you value that."
"Indeed." Constance began to shake out her cloak which had seen little use since the warmer weather.
"And you will—see d'Artagnan again?"
"I'm sure I will see him," Constance said. "I suppose I could hardly—not see him, could I? Though—" she hesitated, brushing an imaginary spot from the cloak.
"What?"
"He may not want to see me, after all, almost a year has passed since we last spoke."
"He will surely want to see you."
"No, I cannot make such assumptions. It has been too long." Constance's voice grew firmer. "For all I know, he has found someone else."
Anne was silent, collecting her thoughts, then she said gently, "I do not know, either, of course, but the d'Artagnan I saw would have waited far longer for you, Constance, and if you do not believe he would, then you do both your characters a disservice."
Constance laid the cloak aside and bowed her head. "I do want to go back. But I must return with my head clear of any notions of how things might be."
"If things are very different, what will you do while you wait to hear from us?"
"I am more fortunate than most. I will have my few funds, I can board with anyone, perhaps even find work—Bonacieux had friends I can ask for employment. I will manage."
"I know you will. You are so strong. To thank you for all you have been to us seems inadequate." Anne came to her and put her arms about her.
"It is only what a friend would do," Constance said, returning the embrace.
