Again I state that I own nothing and no one when it comes to the Musketeers, except for my lovely Katherine. I've had one review already and a few of your have started following this story, so I hope that more people will find it and share it with others. Constructive feedback is always welcome, guesses of what will happen next are fine as well. Please no flames though, especially since this is where I begin taking creative liberties with the storyline and the events of the movie. Why? Because the ending made me really sad and I'm a huge fan of Gabriel Bryne, need I say more?
Chapter III
"Spare their lives if you can."
The roar of musketeers sounded violently in the corridor as they rushed forward, swords drawn and seemingly unafraid of the guns pointed in their direction. In an instant, all four guns sounded as they fired toward the approaching threat, wounding the first few who dropped quickly to the cold hard ground beneath them. And as those guns became useless, they were thrown off to the side and swords were drawn to meet those that came forward from the musketeers, each one intent on doing harm to those who opposed the King for whom they fought. None seemed to pay much mind to the fact that their own captain stood among the rebel number, knowing only that they had been told to take down whomever stood in the way of Louis and what he wanted to gain. And for that fact, the King himself, clad in his decorative armour and golden clothing came into the back of the corridor nearest the exit, watching the blood bath begin.
With the advance of D'Artagnan and the others, Katherine moved from around the corner and stood with her sword tightly in her hand in preparation. As he had no way of defending himself, she was the only person who stood between Philippe and any would-be assassin who had been ordered by Louis to kill the masked man if given the chance. But from there, she was able to make her presence known to the King who stood so far away, her eyes filled with a fiery hatred that few had ever known her to possess. And it seemed that despite the distance between them, Louis was all too aware of the set of eyes that watched him with such contempt, as he turned his head and locked onto her for a moment before pointing in her direction. The noise of the fighting might have kept her from hearing what he said, but she was all too aware of the fact that he had now taken notice of her and that her life was in the same danger as everyone else's for being there that night. Fine, she thought. If that was how this must be, then let the King come for her. Katherine would defend herself, her father, uncles and Philippe with whatever breath remained in her body.
A war cry sounded just ahead of her as a man pushed through the fighting and came at her full force. In a second her sword was raised and clashing against his, immediately feeling the heavy weight of his bulk pressing down against her smaller frame. This was the only major disadvantage that Katherine had been forced to deal with all her life, the fact that she was normally smaller than her opponent, but that wasn't what would win the day. Seeing that his gaze was intently focused on her face with a menacing stare, Katherine seized the moment to shift her weight and draw one foot back, kicking him in the knee with all her might. The man quickly bent over as he combated the newfound pain and gave her a much clearer shot at driving the butt of her sword down on his skull, which instantly rendered the man unconscious. It was over in an instant as he slumped to the ground in a motionless state, but another was quick to take his place and this time backed Kate up against a wall. Damn, she thought, she hadn't been paying attention to anything else but the man who had previously attacked her, and another had slipped through their defences unnoticed. And though she had managed to raise her sword in time to meet his, this man was even bigger than the last.
Her back met the cold dampness of the Bastille wall as she grit her teeth in an effort to keep him as far away from her as possible without crying out at the pain she could feel burning in her side. Somewhere in the fighting, she heard one of the others call her name when they took notice of her plight, but there were too many musketeers for any of them to come to her aid without the risk of more coming forward for Philippe. "Surrender yourself!" he sneered at her, taking obvious notice of her sex as he glanced down at her hungrily. "The King will surely grant you a pardon and find you a more suitable position." The very idea of being anywhere near Louis made her stomach turn, the anger once again flashing in her eyes. "I'd rather die," she spat back at him, continuing to push in an effort to regain her freedom. But the man simply laughed at her as he pressed her even tighter to the wall, lowering his head toward her face. "That can be arranged."
Summoning the strength within her, Kate launched herself forward at the man and managed to catch him off-guard with her rage, tackling them both to the ground before he kicked her off of him. The brunette rolled to the side and reclaimed a handle on her sword in time to block a strike from the musketeer. She answered with a swipe of her own, beginning an exchange of blows that kept both of them moving and on their toes as they dodged and blocked each swift movement. Both were well trained, of this there was no doubt. Katherine was rather certain that they had been taught by the same teacher as well, which was not giving her the advantage she had been seeking originally when he had backed her against the wall. And yet she was sure that she had been taught a thing or two more than this man, for while he was supposed to fight honourably and consider his opponent at all times, Katherine had received slightly different instructions from the very beginning. With one hand back to holding her side she could feel the sweat dripping from her brow as whisps of her hair flew before her eyes. Her body ached rather terribly thanks to that gash she had gotten earlier, but she refused to lay down and accept defeat. That had never been her way.
"If you want me, then here I am," Kate offered darkly. "Come and get me." Seeing her tired state seemed to boost the musketeer's confidence just enough for him to lunge one last time, raising his sword to a dangerously high point that made it harder to defend any oncoming attack. This was her moment! Katherine too launched herself forward, rolling on the floor to keep her body at a lower point before she raised herself to one knee and thrust her sword forward, finally finding the connection that she needed. The look of shock that crossed his face was almost instantaneous, his eyes slowly dropping to the point of his body from which Kate's sword had entered so suddenly. And as soon as she removed it, he fell to his knees and slumped forward to breathe his last. She found no joy in taking his life as she forced herself back to her feet as quickly as she could manage, but she knew that God would forgive her. She would just need to go to confession later on.
Blue eyes looked around for signs of more impending danger, but found none as Aramis and the others all turned themselves around and hurried back around the corner to Philippe, Porthos grabbing her arm to lead her back as well. There they all seemed to fall back against the walls, breathing heavily from the fight. Only D'Artagnan, being the youngest of the four, seemed not to be winded. Katherine found herself bending forward slightly with grit teeth, taking but a moment to regain her senses before she straightened up and moved to stand by Aramis as she checked to see that he was alright. There were definitely signs of a battle on him now, from the little cuts on his face to the sweat that rolled down his cheek. But of the four men, only Athos shared the blood that now decorated the blade of her sword, which meant that there were probably several musketeers who had gotten up and moved back down the corridor to join their King. They were caught in the middle with nowhere to run.
Louis seemed to be thinking along the same lines. "D'Artagnan," he called, his voice echoing through the corridor. "I am not angry with you. I knew you would lead me to them and so you have." She could see the lines in his face harden at the implication of betrayal, his jaw clenching to prevent any escaping sound as he neared the corner of the wall and continued to listen. "Come back to us and you can retire quietly. I'll be kind to the young woman in your company, and I'll even give your friends a swift execution, if you surrender now!" Now it was Katherine's turn to be angered, remembering the words uttered by the man she had killed. How dare he mention her in his pitiful attempt to bargain with them! While Katherine had no desire to die that night, she certainly didn't want to be treated any differently from the rest as if they had coerced her into coming along with them. "Perhaps you should take his offer, D'Artagnan," Aramis said with a resigned sigh. "We're dead anyway." The old priest looked down at Katherine's surprised face with a small half-smile, sure to know what thoughts were running through her mind now that he had dared to utter those words. He lifted his free hand and gently stroked her hair as he had done so many times in the past, his eyes roaming her face as if he were trying to engrain her image into his mind. "There has to be a way, Papa," she replied in earnest, stepping forward to lay her head against his chest. "It cannot end like this."
Silence fell between them. There were no solutions to be offered, no alternative ways in which they could escape the situation they had placed themselves in. All that there was to do now was decide whether they should surrender quietly to Louis or attempt to renew the fight and hope that they would be killed swiftly before they could be tortured in the Bastille. "Maybe there is a way." All eyes turned to the masked man, who spoke for the very first time since coming across Katherine. "Bargain me to Louis for your lives," Philippe said, pressing his hands to his chest. But D'Artagnan shook his head. "No...NO," he said quickly with a raised hand as Philippe tried to protest. "Even if I could give up my King, I could never give up...my son."
In that single moment they all seemed to be at a loss for words. To utter such a thing was surely a treason even worse than the thought of replacing a king with his twin brother, and yet the captain of the musketeers had said it aloud for five others to witness. Athos and Porthos simply stared at D'Artagnan, while Aramis turned his head to look at Philippe, who stood there in such a state of shock that he momentarily feared the young man had gone catatonic. Katherine too found that her eyes rested on her uncle at his confession, but found that a part of her desired to break down and cry for the anguish she saw in his eyes. To have a son...two, for that matter, and never be allowed to acknowledge your kinship to them was a terrible thing to consider. "Your son?" Philippe breathed, reminding her that this was the very son he had known nothing about until only recently. "I loved your Mother. I love her still. You are my son." As the poor boy continued to digest the truth of his parentage, D'Artagnan turned himself and crossed a few steps toward Katherine, lifting his hands for her to place her own smaller ones in his. "And I'm afraid I must ask for your forgiveness, my dear...because I know the truth of your past as well."
Still in shock from the idea that her uncle was actually the father of the King, Katherine looked up with an almost stunned expression upon her face and nearly missed the meaning of his next words. "Of course you do," she said quickly, dropping her eyes a little. "I was left on the steps of the monastery where Papa found me and took me in." There was nothing romantic or treasonous about her story. It was simply a sad tale of a woman who could not provide for the child she had carried and decided to leave her somewhere in the hopes that a kind stranger might find her before she froze to death in the winter months. But D'Artagnan shook his head firmly and wrapped his fingers around her hands. "No, ma petite. You are not simply a child who was abandoned without love." He looked down at her now the same way he had looked upon her years ago, when she had been nothing more than a girl who was constantly underfoot and always looking for a new adventure to go on. Aramis had found her wild spirit endearing at times, though distracting when he was attempting to pray...and those had been the moments when D'Artagnan had stepped in to soothe the child for a short while so that Aramis could cleanse his soul for another day. That was all she had been, she thought sadly as she looked up at his pale blue eyes. A replacement for the fact that he could not love his own sons the way a father should.
The sounds of scuffling down the hallway caught their attention and D'Artagnan quickly backed himself up against the wall once more, pulling Katherine with him as he lay an arm protectively over her chest. The King was re-assembling his men, and this time it sounded as though they had more than swords at their sides. The dangers they were in grew with every moment they stood there without a plan, hearing the slamming against the door they had previously barricaded begin to sound. The guards of the Bastille were attempting to remove the door from its hinges entirely, and that meant that they were running out of time at a much faster rate than they had thought. If ever there was a need for a plan of action, this was that time.
"D'Artagnan," Aramis began slowly. "These musketeers are young, and they've been weaned on our legends. That might be our advantage!" Porthos stepped forward, the wheels of his own mind beginning to turn. "Yes, why don't we charge them?" But the captain would have none of it and shook his head. "I trained these men. They will fight to the death." Sensing there to be tension once again lingering over their heads as they stumbled around for a way out, Katherine looked up at her uncle and gently placed a hand on his arm. "If we stay here for too much longer without doing anything, we'll die anyway." Charging them was not exactly what she had in mind when it came to a valiant effort of escaping, but it was the only solution that had been offered up for them to consider. A sigh fell from D'Artagnan's lips as he looked down at the young woman, his eyes filled with a sadness that she had come to know in him only recently...and only now began to understand fully. "Then if we must die...if we must die...let it be like this." In two powerful strides he had moved to the vacant space between them all, holding his sword out before him with the point down in the ground. It took but a moment before Aramis and Porthos did the same, crossing the blades of their swords with his. Athos followed a moment later as he added his blood stained companion to the mix.
Seeing them all together like this, working and trusting as they were sure to have done in the past, made Katherine feel a great swell of pride in her chest. While none of them were as young as they had once been, she knew that this was how so many of their adventures would have begun as they rode off on their next mission together. Their friendship had been tested in the most extreme sense as each of them battled personal demons and questions of loyalty, but it was plain to her eyes that in the face of death, they were able to come together as friends. As family. Part of her wished that she had been present to see them in their glory days, dashing young musketeers who were quick with their swords and tongues as they served their country and protected their King from harm. For now that they stood there so closely, she could only begin to know what they had been like before all of this madness had come to pass.
The young woman stepped forward herself, coming to a place between Athos and D'Artagnan, which earned her a sharp look from Aramis. "No, Katherine." But she refused to back down on this one, holding her sword tightly in her hand. "I've come this far. And I will not stand by to grieve a loss while the rest of you rush toward death." For a brief moment, the pair locked eyes and silently stood in an attempt to see which would break down first. Ultimately, Aramis gave a resigned sigh and nodded his consent, watching his daughter place her sword against the rest as he swallowed the fact that she truly was no longer a child. Slow footsteps could be heard from behind, causing Katherine to turn around just in time to see Philippe advance with a blade of his own, one that he had acquired from the man that Katherine had killed. No words were spoken as he brought himself up beside her and turned to look at the man who had called him his son only moments ago, though it was nearly impossible to read the expressions on his face because of the mask that he wore. But even D'Artagnan seemed prepared to accept that his child had grown beyond his childhood years, nodding his consent the same way that her own father had and watching as their group was completed. "All for one, one for all," Katherine told them.
A moment of silence passed between them as they absorbed the weight of the motto that had been used by the musketeers for centuries, each one pulling back slightly and holding their sword in front of them in preparation. Louis would not see the charge coming, and that was their greatest advantage at this point. With a fearsome roar, D'Artagnan was the first to take off running for the corner, followed closely by the others who also took up the war cry with swords raised high above their heads. For a moment, all they could hear were their own voices echoing off the walls of the Bastille, running almost in a state of slow motion before the guns finally began to fire. It somehow seemed delayed to them as they ran, feeling some of the bullets graze their uniforms and hit the ground beneath their feet. But was it? Had the musketeers fired upon them as soon as Louis had ordered, or had there actually been a delay in carrying out his orders because they had been taken by surprise by the sudden rush of courage that overwhelmed them? None of them really knew as they ducked from the bullets, their pace not slowing until at last the final gun had sounded and the smoke billowed from the ends of the pistols. Everything around them feel deathly quiet as they waited for the outcome, each hobbling forward through the smoke until they were mere feet away from the much larger group of men.
Swords were held at the ready, prepared for the fighting to begin again, but it never came. D'Artagnan's second in command, a man they knew to be Andre, rose to his feet and saluted them with his sword, holding the hilt over his heart. And one by one, all of the other men rose and did the same, showing their respect to those who had braved death and chosen to continue the fighting on their own terms but still within the honorary code that they all seemed to follow. It could almost be described as a sense of ease that overtook them all, removing the immediate feeling of danger even when the King pushed his way to the very front of his men and eyed them all with contempt. Then suddenly he launched himself toward Philippe, a dagger raised in his hand. Between D'Artagnan and Philippe they managed to push him back against one of the walls and away from his target, but Louis was not ready to give in. With a vicious scream he threw himself forward again and aimed for his brother's heart...instead plunging the dagger straight into D'Artagnan's back.
Katherine couldn't be sure that the scream had come from her lips as she dropped her sword and her eyes widened in terror, watching the scene unfold before she truly understood what had happened. Philippe now threw himself onto Louis, pinning him to the wall as his hands struggled to find his throat and squeeze tightly. Athos had run forward to take hold of D'Artagnan's quivering form and pulled him a short distance before he had been forced to the ground under the strain, the others surrounding him immediately. Breathing heavily she moved to kneel on the opposite side of his body, watching his chest rise and fall in an unsteady and dangerous rhythm. "Philippe! Philippe!" Even in his wounded state, D'Artagnan was still attempting to take charge of the situation. "He is your brother." The reminder was all that the masked man required to abandon his efforts at killing his twin in rage as he too moved over to the fallen hero, taking the much more intimate place of kneeling before his father. His hands flew to the mask he wore, tugging at the lock and metal caging. "Get this thing off me," he screamed, struggling with the mask as he tried his best to claw it away.
Aramis moved toward the King, who still lay on the ground, and ripped the chain roughly from around his neck before he hurried back to Philippe and unlocked the mask that hid his face. In the instant it came off, Katherine turned her head and was stricken by the physical resemblance between the two brothers, who couldn't have been more different than the sun and moon if they tried. "This is the death I have always wanted," breathed the old man, looking at his son with an almost distant look in his eyes. Katherine swallowed. "You will not die, Uncle," she said firmly as the emotions built in her throat. "I cannot let you." He attempted a soothing sound and reached for one of her hands, closing his eyes as his breathing became even more unsteady and rapid, but she would have none of it. The years that she had spent in the monastery meant that young Katherine had seen a great many things that most others had not. She had dealt with the sick and the hungry, helped those who suffered from unknown ailments and assisted in the delivery of children. And now that there was another patient before her, someone she dearly loved with every fibre of her being, she was not going to fail in her task. "I will save you," she whispered against his ear, leaning forward to kiss his forehead gently. "I promise." At those last words, she cast a sideways glance at Philippe, allowing their eyes to meet for only a moment before she turned back to Andre and began barking orders of how he was to help her and what she needed in order to return him to the monastery where she could properly care for him.
Four other musketeers were ushered back inside and ordered to gently pick their captain up from the ground, freeing Athos and the others to deal with the King and Philippe as well as the guards who were still hammering away at the door on the other end of the corridor. Her own heart was beating viciously as she watched the old man wince in pain at being moved, quickly screaming for them to be careful with him. They all seemed a little uncertain about taking orders from a woman, but seemed intent on getting D'Artagnan through the door and to a wagon without further issue. She made to follow, anxious to get him back before he could take a turn for the worst when she felt a hand on her shoulder and turned around to see the bright eyes of Philippe looking at her. "Please do what you can," he begged her gently. "I have only just found him. I do not wish to lose him so quickly." Unsure of what to do as she felt his hand linger on her shoulder, Katherine dropped her eyes and gave him a wordless curtsey. She was sure it probably looked a little strange, since she was not in her customary skirts, but it was the best she could do in this situation. And as she rose to her feet once more, she turned as quickly as she could without establishing eye contact and dashed out the door to accompany D'Artagnan's ailing body back to the monastery Philippe watched her go, curious of her reactions and afraid for his father's life before a voice caused him to turn around and look down at his brother once more.
"You may very well have killed the man who attempted to keep you on your throne," Athos hissed down at Louis. "But this time, you will not be so lucky."