Thank you everyone for the lovely response to that first story! I was not expecting it, and it made for a very lovely morning.
This second one is a long scene from a story I'm sadly convinced that is never going to be written in full. It was supposed to be about the first few months of the formation of the Inseperables (very original, isn't it?). Compared to the escape from a battleground, though, I must admit, this isn't very thrilling. I hope you enjoy it nevertheless.
II. Athos's entry test
Tréville breathed a sigh of relief when he found the king alone –except for the coteries of servants and the guards at each of the three doors- with the Cardinal nowhere in sight. It was an unexpected blessing.
"Ah, Tréville," the king greeted him, a smile on his face. Good, Louis was in a good mood. His eyes roamed over the stranger by his captain's side. "And who is this?"
"Your majesty, may I introduce Monsieur Olivier d'Athos, le Comte de la Fére? He has arrived in Paris a few weeks ago and informed me that he is seeking a commission in your majesty's regiment."
"Oh?" Louis's eyebrows rose high, his gaze travelling from Tréville to Athos, who gave a perfect low bow to the king, and back to Tréville again. "And why have you brought him to me? Is it my job to personally recruit musketeers now?" He chuckled at the ludicrous thought. Tréville smiled patiently.
"It is my great fortune that I retain the responsibility, sire." He inclined his head. "Your majesty might remember having asked to meet each new applicant in person. I believe Monsieur Athos would make an excellent addition to the regiment."
"Hmm." Louis lowered himself onto the throne, beckoning Athos to come closer, and rested his chin in his palm. "Le Comte de la Fére..." he mused. His eyes narrowed as he stared at Athos's face, thinking. "The de la Fére's are one of the oldest families in France, monsieur le comte, am I not right?"
It was a rhetorical question and Athos responded with a slight inclination of his head. "Indeed, your Majesty."
"Athos," the king said slowly, as if testing the name on his tongue. He bit the inside of his cheek, brow furrowing as he gazed intently at the young comte. "I believe I know you."
Athos blinked, his expression entirely blank. "Your majesty has a long memory," he returned with another gracious little bow.
"Well, of course," Louis returned, as if that hardly merited comment. Tréville, momentarily forgotten by both man, felt his jaw slowly dropping at the revelation before he caught himself and closed it again. "de la Fére... But of course!" Louis exclaimed, eyes widening in sudden remembrance, "the Comtesse was one of the ladies in waiting to my mother, was she not, and you and I, monsieur, used to clash swords in the garden!"
Now feeling properly appalled, Tréville kept his eyes Athos. Childhood playmates with the king! And he hadn't thought to mention it! For any other man, it would be the first thing they would mention when seeking a commision! Unexpectedly, he felt a surge of sudden respect for the man. Athos, to Tréville's hawking gaze, seemed reluctant to discuss it even with the king himself.
What kind of an enigma was this young comte?
"And now you wish to purchase a commission in my Musketeers," the king continued, "That is most unusual, monsieur."
He leant forward to rest elbows on his knees, clasped hands at the end of stretched arms, not taking his eyes off of Athos's face for a second. If he were honest with himself, Tréville couldn't remember seeing him this interested in a person in a long time. "Has some misfortune fallen on your estate?"
At that, Tréville glimpsed a contraction in the muscles on Athos's brow; rapid blinking as his gaze dropped to the lacquer floorboards, fingers of one hand subtly contracting at the sides. When he spoke, not raising his eyes from the floor, the words sounded as if they've been wrenched through a dark, narrow pit, scratched and mangled.
"No, sire. I merely wish to take a more active role in serving my country, and cannot think of a more worthy cause than dying while protecting my king."
The sentiment, as formidable as it was in construction, carefully stretched over a ravine filled with wreckage, a misfortune of the kind a man did not easily speak of. The king did not notice it, walking directly over that bridge without glancing downwards, but Tréville did not miss it. Athos's meeting with the king was turning out to be much more illuminating than Tréville's own several stinted conversations with the comte had ever been.
"That is commendable," Louis approved that regally with a nod, pleased. "But surely you would have married. What about family? Have you fathered an heir? What would happen to your estate if you became a Musketeer?"
"My wife has passed, sire," Athos replied – to only one of those questions, Tréville noticed - and spoke with such hollowness, Tréville felt his own heart twist at the bitter revelation. "I am not looking to re-marry."
"Hmm. That is very sad."
Not the most articulate comment the king of France could make on the subject of a dead spouse, but Louis appeared to think the subject too unpleasant to pursue. Perhaps that was just as well because he also desisted with the questioning. Instead, he rose to his feet and stepped down from the throne, swinging his arms a bit, obviously to flex tight muscles there, but managing to look a bit like a bored child nevertheless. He walked and stopped before Athos, clasping his hands behind him.
"I have a proposition, Monsieur," he declared. "If you wish to join my Musketeers, Captain Tréville would have informed you that the regiment only accepts the most accomplished swordsmen France has to offer. What say you if I propose that we clash swords again? See how the intervening years have affected us both?" A glint of excitement shone in his eyes as he issued the subtle challenge. "I am sorely in need of the practice anyway," he added with the corner of his mouth, obviously unhappy about that.
Tréville immediately took a breath to protests, but the king twirled on his heel without waiting for an answer, instantly excited about his own spontaneous design. Tréville looked to Athos.
"You honour me, sire," the young man returned calmly, giving another perfect bow.
"Bring me a rapier," the king ordered his servants immediately. He wasn't happy with the one he was presented with. "Not this one, you dolt! I'm not going on a crusade, it's just for light practice!"
Light practice? Tréville thought. Another man's eyebrow would have risen but the only thing that moved on the Captain's face was his eyes. He honestly did not know what to expect from this "practice", and that made him nervous.
And Tréville didn't do nervous well.
"Now, Comte, I expect a good challenge. And I shall know if you dare to hold back on me. Is that clear?"
"Yes, sire."
"Very well. Let us go out to the gardens, then. The weather's excellent; there's no need to exert ourselves indoors. Bring us refreshments," he called distractedly to no one in particular as he strolled out of the hall, Athos and Tréville following closely at his heels. There was a distinctly uncomfortable feel of a fist twisting Tréville's insides, and yet, as he cast a surreptitious glance at the comte striding aside him, he found Athos's back ramrod straight, not the slightest hint of apprehension about him, and could not help but be curious about what was about to happen. Would Athos dare to beat the king in a duel of swords? The captain did not know him well at all but one thing he knew was that the man wasn't stupid, neither was he, by the look of it, at any measure shaken or intimidated about the prospect of clashing swords with the king.
All perfectly good signs for a King's Musketeer, Tréville noted. But it would all come down to how he acquitted himself during this "practice". After all, if Louis found any reason to feel slighted by Athos, it wasn't merely the man's chance at a commision that would be at risk. King Louis was not a cruel man, yet Tréville had known many a poor soul lose his head to an unpredictable whim.
"Ah, excellent, my dear!" the king exclaimed as they walked out of the double glass doors and strode towards the large marble fountain, near which Queen Anne was seated under a canopy with her ladies-in-waiting. She looked up with a smile from her needlework upon hearing the king's approach. "What a delight to find you here," Louis continued, walking to the queen and raising her hand to his lips before turning to gesture at Athos and Tréville.
"Captain Tréville has brought me this monsieur who wishes to purchase a commission in my Musketeers. Now, of course, one would have thought that any noblemen with the means to provide for themselves would be welcome at the regiment -since it's no secret we need the money - but no. Only the best of the best for our elite guards! So Tréville brought him to me, and I challenged him to a duel!"
It took a lot of effort for Tréville to not groan.
The young queen frowned, turning her head to throw a slightly alarmed look at the captain.
"Well, when I say 'challenge' I mean I proposed he clash swords with me," the king clarified, waving a hand in the air. "What better way to ascertain if he's fit to protect me, don't you think?" He grinned, a sad tableau of a fully-grown man with the face of an overly pleased child.
The queen's eyes strayed then to Athos, who had respectfully stood in silence beside Tréville until that moment. With the queen's eyes on him, Athos turned slightly to face her, and bowed with just the right amount of flair, saluting her with a "your majesty," framed with inborn grace. The captain couldn't fathom what the queen saw in that brief gaze, but she looked to Tréville once more even as her words were directed at the king.
"Perhaps you would consider leaving this task to Captain Tréville, sire," she suggested, turning to her husband with a sweet smile she placed on her face. "That way, we would both enjoy a display of his most excellent skills with the sword, and your majesty can ascertain the monsieur's skill for himself."
"That is a lovely idea, my dear," Louis smiled, "but let us tuck it away for the next time someone applies to the regiment, because today I am rather itching for exercise. Come, comte!" he called, almost jovial as he pivoted towards the column-like Athos and simultaneously beckoned at a servant to help remove his vest, "Show your king why you're worthy of the honour of protecting him!"
Beside Tréville, Athos gave the king a courteous nod, and his hand shot to the silver chain fastening his cloak. A servant moved in to assist him with shedding the garment but Tréville's keen eyes caught the moment the man briefly started at the movement, as if he hadn't expected to be offered help by a servant. Odd behaviour for a comte, for surely Athos had his own valet and coteries of manservants aiding in such things; but the hesitation lasted the whole of two seconds before Athos dismissed the man with a shake of the head, and proceeded to undress himself. It was a day full of surprises as Tréville suddenly caught himself raising his arms to take the cloak. Catching himself at the last moment, he self-consciously lowered his arms, thoroughly surprised at himself. Thankfully Athos did not notice it, and deposited his cloak, hat, gloves, and deep blue doublet into the arms of the waiting servant. Then, rapier in hand, he followed the king towards the sand-covered ground surrounding the fountain.
There was a slight, gentle breeze on this lovely autumn day, offering just enough lightness to prevent it from being stifling. It being early afternoon, the right wing of the Louvre cast its dark, blocked shade over just one half of the fountain, providing shelter to the two noble duellists from the sun's glaring heat.
Gravel crunched under Athos's boots as he took his position beside the marble pool and stood facing the king. The breeze fluttered his voluminous grey shirt and pushed tendrils of hair back from his forehead, revealing a face as stoic as that of the marble statue that loomed over them from the palace's façade. As Athos waited for the king to take his own position, Tréville observed once more, with keen interest, the admirable lack of any sign of nervousness in the young comte. He marvelled, once again, and more strongly this time, at that indeterminably old thing this young man carried inside him. Soul, Tréville could not bring himself to think of it as, for he did not know the young man nearly as well as he'd have liked – and he would like it, indeed - but perhaps, he found himself thinking, it was the centuries of noble blood that coursed through his veins - a true noblesse that Tréville himself rarely ever witnessed in Louis XIII's court, and even more rarely pondered upon.
And perhaps, there lay the source of his own unexpected curiosity regarding the Comte de la Fére. While he'd have thought he couldn't care less for, or about, nobility of blood any further than recognizing its place in the world he inhabited, Athos was the first man he'd encountered who did not seem so much as carrying his title, as embodying it.
Perhaps even the king had breathed a whiff of the young comte's air, for Tréville watched him throw Athos a glance and then pull himself up to his full height, the excited grin that was more befitting a young lad in his first duel vanishing to be replaced by a mask of royalty that Tréville had most times despaired of ever seeing on the king's face. Throwing his shoulders back, chin up, the king of France slowly raised his rapier, the tip pointing to Athos's chest from across the clearing as he spoke.
"Fight for your commission, monsieur," he entreated him, voice loud and carrying the unmistakable note of command instead of the more usual demand. Tréville felt an unexpected pang of pride. "Beat me, and you shall earn the right to wear the pauldron of my regiment. If you lose," the king smiled slightly, a quick flash of that self-indulgent smirk on his lips, "I will still have had some entertainment. I shall enjoy victory." Shifting his stance into the fighting position, his eyes grew hard.
"I will have won either way," he muttered, and damned if Tréville knew whether it was a reminder Louis intended for himself, or an ominous forewarning for the fate of the nobleman, should he pass this trickiest of entrance tests.
Then, the duel began.