War Heroes
5
An Officer & a Gentleman*
"Good evening, sir," the cadet on guard duty greeted casually, unsurprised by Minister Tréville strolling in off the rue de Tournon on his usual midnight perambulations.
"Delacroix." Tréville acknowledged the young man with a nod. "No further high jinks this evening?" They'd last encountered one another slinking about a certain bath house frequented by the Red Guard.
The cadet grinned. "No sir, not since the war heroes returned."
"Yet another beneficial effect," the minister murmured, a smile of his own lurking beneath the clipped moustache.
Admittedly, Madame d'Artagnan had not had to twist his arm too hard to garner his cooperation in her impromptu retribution for the beating Clairmont had taken at the hands of Governor Feron's men. For that odd hour, Minster Tréville had managed to shed the weighty responsibilities he carried and been, once more, the young man he had been before he had accepted a commission in the king's army.
It had been satisfying in a way he could neither admit to, nor share with anyone, though he suspected Constance knew damn well.
"Anyone about?" he inquired.
Delacroix glanced over his shoulder, though he could see nothing beyond the arch. "Captain Athos is occupying the stairs to the office, sir."
Tréville tilted his head inquiringly. "This is a usual practice?" And watched the normally garrulous cadet struggle to answer. Here was an interesting development, if even the cadets were attempting to be discreet.
"Most nights, sir," Delacroix offered very quietly, "Says he doesn't need much sleep."
"I see." Recognizing the confidence he'd been made privy too, Tréville returned in an equally low voice, "I'll make sure to ferret it out of him myself so he has no reason to be suspicious."
The youth sighed in relief. "Thank you, sir."
"Go to bed, I'll take the rest of your watch."
"I can't do that, sir; you being the War Minister'n all, sir. Not fitting."
"I wasn't asking, son, that's an order."
The youth came to attention, snapping a sharp salute. "Sir, yes, sir. But you'll wake me when you go to leave, sir?"
"Yes, if I leave before your rotation is done, I'll wake you."
"I'm on until -"
"I know the watch rotation, cadet. Dismissed." Tréville watched the youngster until he had crossed the yard unchallenged by the shadowy figure sitting at the top the stairs, then strolled into the courtyard unhurriedly.
The place looked different at night, the regularly bustling courtyard still and quiet in the moonlight, the barracks a bit derelict. He noticed the rotted wood Constance had fussed about, and the shakes missing from the roof. He'd forgotten his promise to find someone to take care of those things for her. Thankfully she had not set his trainees to chopping down the grove behind the garrison in order to shore up the rotting places, though he would not have been surprised to find her up a ladder, hammering roof shakes back into place herself.
She was a rare woman.
Madame d'Artagnan had moved her things into her husband's accommodations on the occasion of their wedding. And there she had stayed, even though the queen had adjured her to return to the palace on the garrison's deployment. Tréville had formed the thought that she'd wanted the comfort of d'Artagnan's things about her, since her new husband had gone off to war a mere two months into the marriage. The queen must have come to the same conclusion; she had not insisted.
Truth was, she'd been a godsend. Constance had seen a hole and filled it without being asked.
The sweetly pungent aroma of pipe smoke drifted to the minister on the back of a soft night breeze. Ahhhhh ... the burden of command ... a night stalker just at the edge of awareness, keeping sleep at bay.
Though Athos appeared to have settled into the role of Captain of the Musketeers as capably as Tréville had known he would. Perhaps other ghosts still kept him up late into the night, despite the fact the man appeared far more at peace with himself than Tréville had ever seen the comte. If reports were true, Athos had even stopped drinking.
The minister was consumed with curiosity. The point of a rapier met his chest as he turned the corner of the stairs.
"Unwise to creep about in the dark considering the state this city is in."
Tréville pinched the blade between his bare fingers, though he did not bother to turn it away. "Didn't realize I was being stealthy."
The point of the rapier sagged; the minister released it.
"I was wondering who the hell had the temerity to dismiss my cadet from duty, but since I've been spoiling for a fight, I figured I'd wait and see."
"Sorry, you'll have to look elsewhere for a fight. I'm too old and tired to take you on." Tréville took a seat several steps below the garrison commander, turning sideways to prop one foot on the riser where he sat, the other on the landing.
"Too bad." Athos enjoyed criticism as much as the next man; that meant-to-sting comment about his habit of riding out with his men still irked. Though a few days of separation and reflection had lessened the acuity of the rebuke.
His gaze wandered up to view the moon hanging low and full in the night sky, appearing to balance on the peak of the barracks roof. He wondered if this was a follow-up visit, or if Tréville was in the habit of wandering the Parisian streets at the witching hour. Perhaps the man had just gotten into the habit of checking on Constance and the garrison at odd hours.
Athos had given quite a lot of thought to the matter of habits lately. Four years in constant close contact had become an ingrained habit. He was finding it difficult to be separated for any length of time from his comrades; d'Artagnan was his third arm, Porthos, the eyes in the back of his head.
And yet, they could not always be so. d'Artagnan had returned to a wife. Porthos was cautiously allowing that Aramis might be a suitable candidate for friendship again. Athos needed to find his own equilibrium, to remember what it had been like to be self-reliant. He needed, in short, to allow them to go off on their own without him - as Tréville had acerbically pointed out at their last meeting.
His thoughts tonight had wandered far from that reprimand, though, and were not for public consummation, he would wait and let Tréville open any conversation. Athos suppressed a sigh and set himself to wait patiently. He'd learned to practice the twin habits of patience and silence at an early age.
Tréville, however, had quite a few more years of exercising the habit of silence, not to mention it was a rare pleasure just to sit quietly without expectation. Admittedly, he did have an agenda, though he would not introduce it unless the right opening presented itself. He sat with his back to the railing, hands clasped about his raised knee, enjoying the smell of the pipe, content to wait for Athos to spill whatever had him sitting on the stairs at midnight puffing away like an ancient at his last prayers.
Even the chirruping of the crickets was soothing, the constant, steady sound had the lulling effect of music beautifully played.
Athos folded first. "A man might reasonably expect to be murdered going about in the dark without the protection of his robes of office, nor even arms with which to defend himself."
"I am not so foolish as to go about completely unarmed," the minister replied phlegmatically, reflexively caressing an invisible ivory handle with the authority of a deadly assassin.
Athos was silent for the space of several chirrups. "I'd forgotten I learned the habit of sheathing a knife in my boot from you," he said reflectively. "What brings you to the garrison at this hour of the night?"
"I got into a routine," Tréville answered readily enough. "I was never comfortable leaving Constance alone here with only a handful of boys to guard the place. Though she informed me more than once that d'Artagnan had taught her well; she was perfectly capable of defending herself." He paused long enough to watch the moon lift off the roof peak before countering lazily, "Why are you not in your bed at this hour of the night?"
The minister was not a fanciful man, but he was relatively certain the man in the moon winked down at him as it began its ascent, shrinking bit by bit with each hand span higher it rose in the ink dark sky.
Athos hummed deep in his throat, then shrugged. He was not willing to share the paths he'd been wandering, so he offered up something he knew would be believable. "Contemplating how I may be more leader-ish and less solider-ish," he rejoined, his flat delivery that of a pre-war incarnation.
Tréville's sigh was a thing of complexity. "I will not apologize, though I will admit I may have been precipitous in my delivery. I know how difficult it is to adjust after practically living in each other's pockets for years." The following sigh was just plain weary. "Truth is, I am besieged on all sides. Constance did a fine job of holding things together here, but I could not ask her to be my eyes and ears. As much as I need soldiers on the front, at this particular time I am in dire need of reinforcements here in Paris."
"Why?" Athos asked bluntly.
While he was neither the minister's equal in terms of power or pay grade, they both served at the pleasure of the king, and were equally united in their quest to resolve their country's strife, both internal and external.
"I am not at liberty to say, but trust me when I tell you the situation is dire. That vulture, Feron, is positioning himself to be named the child's guardian should something happen to the king." Tréville was more grateful than he could say, both literally and figuratively, the king was determined to keep that secret, though it put the war minister in a rather difficult position with his garrison commander and the queen.
The mess with Porthos had been bad enough, but the stakes here were monumental; the fate of a nation could rest on his ability to disseminate information on a timely basis. He did not hold back for fear of being hung; he was making a deliberate choice to keep the confidence of a friend. Which meant he would have to live with his internal compass out of whack until it was absolutely necessary to divulge the king's illness.
He had, however, demanded a thing from Athos he could not deliver himself and it chafed. Unbearably.
Such was the position of War Minister. He held any number of reins he must control without pulling too sharply on one or the other, in order to keep the country on a steady path. On one hand, he was commanded to accompany the king to a stud farm to purchase new breeding stock for the palace stables, while on the other he sent men off without mounts to be maimed and murdered on a distant war front. He had seen the extravagant bills for balls and birthdays the exchequer paid without a blink and had to fight with the man to get his soldiers paid. He had worn through any number of proverbial gloves trying to keep all those reins in check.
"Should I start guessing?" Athos interposed, breaking into the minister's deliberations.
This, Treville thought, as a wave of weariness washed over him, was why Athos was such a good leader. He saw things others did not, drew conclusions that seemed far fetched to many, and acted accordingly despite the counsel of most.
"I wish you would not, for it would put me in an untenable situation. I swear you will be the first to know when I am relieved of this burden."
Sitting silent in the dark, Athos drew his own conclusions. If it had to do with dauphin, then something was up with the king. He had seen the man only twice since his return, but one audience had been enough to take the measure of an ill man. The minister's warning only underscored the accuracy of his guess. And what a burden to have to bear, if Tréville was the only one Louis had confided in.
Untenable situations were rather a specialty of his, Athos knew those places intimately. He changed the subject. "How did you do this all these years?"
"Do what?" Tréville was genuinely puzzled, having missed the turn Athos' mind had taken.
"The lists for victual provisioning alone are longer than my arm. I'm not allowed to write out one order, I must make certain each purveyor of goods receives their own specific list. I must not order flour from the butcher, or beef from the baker, and I must make certain the butcher knows we will not accept an inferior cut. Nor do those unending chores speak to the incessant reports I'm required to read and summarize for you. I suspect the paperwork to be the domain of interbreeding rabbits."
The minister snorted, a sound totally unexpected from the man who had made the old incarnation of Athos seem chatty in comparison. It surprised the current garrison captain so much he inhaled injudiciously and choked on a mouthful of smoke.
"That was the one thing I assumed you would have no trouble with," Tréville remarked, when the coughing finally eased. "You dealt with it so efficiently during those two weeks you spent in the garrison office, I was hard pressed to remember you were a titled lord rather than someone's secretary I'd been fortunate enough to steal."
"Garrison office?" Athos echoed.
"You don't remember your stint in the office when you first joined us as a sword master?"
Athos was not proud of the fact his drinking had detrimentally affected his memory. He shook his head, realized Tréville was watching the moon too, and said neutrally, "It escapes me at the moment."
"You were very good at it." The close-cropped dark hair gleamed in the moonlight as the minister turned his head, eyeing Athos with a speculative look. "Command seems to agree with you finally. Why do you ask?"
"I have become intimately familiar with it." Athos sucked at the pipe steam again and blew out a stream of aromatic smoke. "But it is not a friend." He did not renew his query.
"And separates you from your friends," Tréville murmured insightfully. "de Foix and Belgard were already captains by the time I was commissioned. I was younger than you at the time, still hungry for promotion. Friends were not as important as advancement, though in a way, I suppose making captain brought us closer together. At least for a time. We parted ways shortly after I accepted the charge to create a company to be the king's personal guard."
The comte was probably the closest thing he had to a real friend these days, though the distance of their respective titles, both inherited and earned, still drew a thin, red line between them.
"You are a natural leader, Athos, I did not offer you a choice because the men would have looked to you no matter who I placed in the role. Better to put in place a reluctant captain than one the men would obey out of duty rather than respect."
"I understood the reasoning ... that did not make it any easier. Porthos would have been a far better choice."
"Porthos has the strategy; four years ago he did not have the knack of command. And Aramis' choice to resign his commission knocked him off his pegs for awhile."
"He and d'Artagnan formed a much closer bond while we were away."
"Yes, I've seen that. And d'Artagnan's maturity as well. They've been good for each other."
They've been good for me, Athos thought silently, dreading the day they would discover they did not need him anymore. He missed them anticipatorily.
They sat for a time in companionable silence, watching the moon's steady rise before Tréville broached the subject foremost on his mind.
"I've heard a curious rumor," he commented conversationally, "that you've quit drinking. Is it true?" He had never been one to beat around the bush.
"Bad news travels fast." The anticipatory dread took a new turn for Athos. "But thank you for asking me."
"Oh, I asked both Porthos and d'Artagnan, Constance as well. They all told me to ask you." Discretion seemed to be the byword these days around the garrison, this evening's little byplay just one in a chain of several.
Athos, despite narrowed eyes, caught the flash of white teeth framed by silvering beard. He did not reply.
"So did you?" the minister asked again. He was unused to having to pry answers from his men.
The captain lifted the bowl of the pipe cradled in his right palm with another shrug. "I just traded one vice for another." A pipe, he'd found, soothed without the vicious after affects of drinking.
"I'm glad," Tréville said simply. "If the war has changed you in this way, I can only be thankful." A short, harsh bark of laughter provided the opening he'd been waiting for. "Not the war then?" he inquired, keeping his voice casual as he swiveled on the step, turning back to face the right angle of the stair landing.
"I suppose that depends on your perspective."
If it came out from between clenched teeth, Tréville did not remark it. Neither did he leave the topic, though the distinctive flat tone clearly conveyed the desire to run as far and fast as possible from this interrogation. For a moment the rich, sweet spiciness of the pipe smoke swirled around his head like a swarm of angry hornets. Perhaps he was only imagining the scent carried an additional hint of anger and anxiety mixing like oil and water.
Athos, for his part, had no intention of discussing it. There was a very specific reason he had stopped drinking, it was one of the topics at the top his list of things he did not discuss with anyone; much less folk outside of the trio of war heroes.
War heroes. He contained the growl their new sobriquet always managed to raise. Someone had taken Feron's sarcastic riposte regarding war heroes at face value; it had spread like wildfire through the garrison and spilled over into the general populace.
In a city where despair lived in every byway, lane and alley, wherever duty took them they were celebrated and fêted. Porthos insisted they acknowledge the acclaim with appropriate dignity - a smile, a tip of the hat, a wave of acknowledgement, at least, for the accolades heaped on them. Their presence was a bright spot, he averred, in an otherwise dreary existence, though Athos' response was more often bared teeth than a genuine smile. He did occasionally manage to tip his hat respectfully to matrons trying to press flowers into his hands; the mademoiselles vying for his attention he ignored completely.
Athos had a modicum of pride these days, but it exhibited itself in the care he took in his leadership role, in the life he had made for himself post his failed marriage. It did not look for fame or acclimation, it required only a sense of self-satisfaction in a job well done. He had no desire to be fêted as a war hero, especially as he did not consider himself any kind of hero.
The thought, and the memories that followed, did nothing to obliterate the larger question of how he would respond if Tréville pressed him. The anticipatory dread became a live beast gnawing at his innards.
"Well, I must admit, from my perspective I couldn't be happier, especially as it seems to have stuck this time."
Oh yes it had stuck this time, because the lesson had been imprinted soul-deep. He would never again allow alcohol to impair his judgment.
"I know you don't need me to be proud of you, but I am anyway."
Athos sat very still, attempting to breathe normally through the smothering memory. "It was nothing to be proud of, sir," he managed after a moment, grateful his voice remained steady.
"I heard differently," Tréville told the darkness gently.
The back of Athos' shirt was instantly soaked as a cold sweat drenched him from head to toe. He was back in that quadrangle, shifting from dead drunk to stone cold sober between heaving breaths, trying to make his thick tongue shout orders even as the deadly crack of a whip whistled through the air. In his mind, he heard again the anguished grunt as d'Artagnan stifled an involuntary cry of pain, felt the hot spray of blood across his cheek as the lash shredded flesh. He'd been close enough to grab the arm of the architect of d'Artagnan's humiliation before he'd been wrestled to the ground. Porthos they'd just coshed over the head with a flour sack full of stones.
Athos leaned the side of his head against the stair rails, the anticipatory beast a ravening reality. He'd woken the day after the incident, to the watchful gaze of d'Artagnan, in the hospital tent. General de la Force had come by shortly after his return to consciousness, to offer congratulations and a transfer. Congratulations on setting the camp abuzz with his actions and a transfer to another troop as a result. Athos had had no choice but to accept the bewildering satirical praise; the transfer he'd turned down flat. They would walk out of that hospital tent, dignity and pride intact; there would be no hanging their heads in shame, no transferring out to avoid further confrontations.
d'Artagnan had informed him, after the general's visit, that Porthos had fielded dozens of requests to transfer in to the Musketeers. Every man with a horse had applied to join the unit.
Athos wrenched his mind back from that distant memory. He had not been back there, even in his thoughts, in years. And tonight he had had far more pleasant things to think about. Tréville was unlikely to stop him if he made his goodbyes and got up to go inside. And yet, he did not move from his position on the top stair. "You heard wrong," he said finally.
Tréville let several minutes pass, allowing plenty of time for escape if Athos' obvious reluctance was entrenched. When it became clear the comte was not going to flee, he suggested, "Suppose I tell you what I heard and you set the record straight."
The minister had had the report directly from General de la Force, though he'd heard it long before de la Force's account had landed on his desk, and heard it repeated several dozen more times over the course of the last four years. Strangely, the tale had not been embellished with each new telling as was often the case with war stories, perhaps because the starkness of the act of courage that precipitated it required no embellishment.
He still half expected Athos to get up and leave, but having opened Pandora's box, he could not close it without a little more probing. This time, though, he did take the long way around to his point. "Despite the fact I'm no titled lord, nor, at the time, was I highly ranked, the Musketeers were purposely set up independent of the army from their inception. It put me in a unique position; I could put up with a great deal because when it came down to it, the three of you - and then the four of you - always came through. You beat impossible odds, solved the unsolvable, always found a way over or around the mountains and straightened the road for others. All while keeping the garrison entertained with your antics."
He felt Athos stir behind him, as if in negation, and smiled slightly, though he still did not turn. "The fact that you could drink yourself under the table and still report for duty the next day was a source of never ending amazement and amusement," the minister said with some asperity, adding with just a touch of despair in his voice, "Aramis' amorous adventures are still bandied about among the cadets, though I can't imagine where they're hearing the stories."
He paused again, leaning his head back to follow the moon's progress. When Athos still said nothing, he picked up his narrative again. "All this is to say, I did not prepare any of the Musketeers for the strict discipline of the army. Pickett lines were a joke at La Rochelle, sentry posts barely manned, more often than not the generals were playing cards rather than planning strategies. Much as I hate to admit it, the eventual fall of La Rochelle was Richelieu's doing. He moved the pieces and planned the campaigns that won that war, though it was less war than casual siege.
You had quite a bit of latitude as Musketeers. I'm sure you know by now, war is thirty percent fighting and seventy percent marching and waiting. Discipline becomes far more imperative under those circumstances or the machine descends into chaos."
Athos knocked out his pipe and laid it aside with the sword he had abandoned behind him. He'd been gripping the bowl so tight, he'd burned his palm. It stung as though he'd tried to snatch honeycomb from a hive of irritated bees.
"Suffice it to say, I should have been less lax in my discipline of the garrison."
Athos set his boots two stairs below, crossed his arms over his knees and dropped his forehead to his wrists. They had kept their suspicions to themselves, no point in bringing them up now, years later.
"But I digress. No matter the incident that precipitated the flogging, your taking the punishment for one of your men went through every army camp on the border like a powder flash. It reached me within days, long before General de la Force's dispatch made it to Paris. I'd heard the story a dozen times by the time I read the actual report." He waited - in vain as he'd expected - then said without accusation, "But I never heard it from you."
Every muscle in the swordsman's forearms rippled with tension as his fingers clenched tight atop his knees. "Because by the time I was able to write again, our orders had miraculously been 'reviewed' and we were suddenly on the front lines." Athos did not lift his head. "And I did not take d'Artagnan's punishment, sir. They would not let me, though the whole incident was entirely my fault," he ground out.
"Semantics." Tréville dismissed the statement out of hand, "You took the same punishment as d'Artagnan and that made you both instant heroes in the eyes of the enlisted men. I am curious though, how Porthos escaped your fate."
"They knocked him out before he could make an utter fool of himself as I did," Athos replied tersely, biting back the rest of the words trembling in the back of his throat. That was true, insofar as it went. What he did not add was that while he'd been too late to stop d'Artagnan's punishment, he'd kept his mouth shut and hung onto awareness with every shred of determination he'd possessed in order to announce his heritage as they'd been stringing up Porthos' unconscious form for like treatment.
He had not even had to suggest blackmail to halt the proceedings.
"I've thought all along I was missing some vital piece of the story." Tréville did not append a question mark, leaving Athos room to choose.
The maintain-your-silence side of the internal debate lost. Athos lifted his head. "Will we never escape this infernal stupidity?" The anger he had ruthlessly suppressed came boiling out without his permission, overflowing in his deliberately crude choice of language. "It had nothing to do with discipline and everything to do with someone taking exception to the fact that we arrived late to the party because we were only deployed after it became apparent France wasn't going to win this goddamned war with a swish and a flourish of swords. As was explained to me when I took our orders to de la Force's subaltern - because the general was off on some side trip to who-the-hell-knows-where - we didn't get to ride in in our fashionable," that word was spat with four years worth of annoyance behind it, "blue cloaks, on our matching horses, and take over the war effort. We could sit on our asses and wait for our orders to be reviewed by the general like every other unit joining the camp. We sat for Four Fucking Weeks listening to the sounds of battle on all sides of us.
By the second week, Porthos and d'Artagnan, with my knowledge and permission, began slipping out of camp regularly, to scout the lay of the land, though no one was interested in the reports they brought back."
Athos ground his teeth, fighting for that old reserve that had served him so long and so well. Collecting his temper, he took several deep breaths before continuing in a more moderate tone. "I suppose I should have realized I was setting them up, since I was dutifully reporting the information they brought back to the subalt. At the time I had no conception of how deeply the current ran against us.
Three and a half weeks into our enforced leisure, there was no more tack to mend, pistols were starting to wear from being cleaned so often and I had to call a halt to the friendly target shooting competitions lest we recklessly run through our supply of ammunition.
I was so bored I got falling down drunk and because I was sleeping off that drunk, no one thought to tell me the passwords had changed, nor did anyone else know d'Artagnan and Porthos had gone off again. I don't know that I ever got a straight story out of Porthos he was so distraught, but to hear him tell it, he slipped into camp first without confrontation and was waiting on d'Artagnan when he heard the guards challenge. Whether they saw Porthos or not was never established, but they hauled d'Artagnan off regardless of the fact Porthos loudly and furiously challenged them over their right to do so, since I had given them permission to be out of camp."
Athos inspected his fingernails. Despite a new tendency to eschew reticence, it did not extend to long-winded speeches.
There were forty-two men still living who knew the true story of what had happened that day, thirty-nine of them had remained behind at the battlefield near Douai. Athos was not a praying man, but he begged daily for their continued existence.
Now there would be forty-three who knew the story. And perhaps one woman, if d'Artagnan had told his wife.
"By the time Porthos had doused me with several buckets of water and I was coherent enough to understand what he was telling me ... it was too late. At the time, it seemed like just one more bad choice on my part, but Porthos thought differently. He suspected - and the more I thought about it, I had to agree - they had specifically targeted d'Artagnan."
Tréville contorted himself to face the comte. "Why?"
Athos propped his elbows on his knees and put his head in his hands. "He was not quiet about our dissatisfaction at being sent to war to play at target shooting while we were surrounded by the enemy ... and in those days, he tended to come across still as an arrogant young hothead. Though ..." he heaved a sigh, "more than that, I think they waited and watched long enough to realize he was ... my Achilles heel."
d'Artagnan had still been the youngest of the garrison, they'd all looked out of for him, but he'd been Athos' protégé.
"In a way, I suppose it was distantly related to discipline. We've never relied on reports from others, we do our own scouting; it never crossed my mind that I should make them stay in camp. Porthos and d'Artagnan were used to coming and going through the sentries, they made sure they had the passwords before they left and after the first week, didn't bother slipping in an out unnoticed.
I knew the subaltern was irritated we were bringing back better intelligence; I didn't realize he was stupid enough to disregard everything I passed on." Athos chuffed a self-deprecating laugh. "They waited until the day before de la Force was to return to spring their carefully constructed trap. And I gave them d'Artagnan on a silver platter."
Tréville let out a silent breath. Suspicion solidified. He had guessed some and pieced together much of the rest, but Athos' telling left no gaps. "You should have told me, even after the fact."
Athos snarled, a low deep sound of exasperation. "Exactly what would that have a accomplished?"
"Every man in the army serves under my command, from the generals to the water boys," Tréville replied without inflection.
"Yes, sir, and every one of them involved knew we served directly under you. While there was no way to prove anything, I made certain no one under my command was ever that vulnerable again."
The war minister had no response to that; he well knew envy bred resentment. Petty people in positions of power were the in-breeders of any organization, the army was no exception.
"It changed us all," Athos said tiredly. "That cloak of maturity d'Artagnan had put on and off as it suited him became armor he was never without again. Porthos' amicability shifted a hundred and eighty degrees to a frosty incivility unless you were a Musketeer ... I quit drinking." And those were just the outward changes anyone with eyes could see. The changes that day had wrought internally had only been shared amongst the companions.
The sight of d'Artagnan strung up like a Christmas turkey at the butcher's stall had made him vomit. If he'd stopped to think on that fateful day, perhaps he would not have been so impetuous, but his brain had still been fogged with alcohol and an instant rage so overpowering if he'd been armed, the soldier wielding the whip would have been dead before the lash struck again. Instinct as well as fury had driven Athos' response when he'd flung himself heedlessly between the youth and the many-thonged whip.
In a twist of fate so bizarre he could never have imagined it, what should have been the day of his greatest humiliation had turned into the day of his most laudable triumph. He'd beaten the bottle in one fell swoop; alcohol in any form had not crossed his lips again until two weeks ago as the old quartet had been sitting on the hill overlooking Paris, celebrating Aramis' return to the fold. Athos had spit out the single mouthful he'd taken, once the others had urged their mounts forward. What had once beguiled with the devil's own blandishment held not an ounce of temptation. It had tasted as thick and foul upon his tongue as the memory.
"I was fortunate. d'Artagnan did not blame me as he should have. He sloughed off the humiliation that usually follows such an incident very quickly." d'Artagnan had stepped out of Athos' shadow that day as well, the harsh initiation scourging away the remnants of youthful playfulness. Yet another regret Athos kept to himself. "It did not hurt that the entire camp instantly rose up in defense of him. He became a sort of talisman with everyone wanting to be near him in battle. It provided no end of amusement among our own men."
No surprise there, Athos reflecting all the praise back on d'Artagnan, though he had earned the lion's share of the glory with his intended substitution, even if it had not spared d'Artagnan. Tréville had marked d'Artagnan's settled maturity, and been on the receiving end of Porthos' brusqueness. He imagined it sprung from having been helpless in the face of the dishonoring of his companions. Porthos had always had a bit of a mother bear's instinct when it came to his friends and colleagues.
Tréville clasped his hands around his knee again. "At the very least I could have moved the pawns around on the field. You should have informed me," he repeated.
"With the daily dispatches?"
"One of our own men could have been sent."
Athos scowled. "I knew you would have had an account of the incident. You know us; I expected you would make your own judgment of the event."
"It's difficult to make an informed conclusion without all the facts." Tréville did not quail. He'd been deliberately misled by General de la Force, though he should have followed up with a dispatch directly to Athos. He'd already been too deeply mired in affairs of state, though, trying to wade through the politics and policies of the nobles on the king's counsel as the country's newly appointed war minister.
The scowl deepened. "Fine. You want the truth? I preferred not to go running to my old superior to tattle on my new superiors. You taught us to rely on ourselves; to fight our own battles."
If there was a tinge of admiration in Tréville's incredulous headshake, Athos took no note of it.
The minister, however, put his thoughts into words. "I wish I had your skill at turning the tables. It would have come in handy innumerable times in attempting to dissuade - or persuade - some of the more asinine members of Louis' counsel." He produced a quietly rueful laugh. "Did it never occur to you to wonder why I was able to send so many new recruits your way?"
Athos winced as he ran his hands through his hair. Curling his right fingers into a loose fist, he returned them to his lap. "No, I don't suppose it did. We were losing men constantly, I just assumed the river of humanity pouring into the camp was because we had begun national conscription. Though, it appears we're out of men, based on the age of the cadets I've put d'Artagnan to training here."
"That's God's truth. Only the old, the infirm and the very young are left. Constance did an admirable job of recruiting returning soldiers to help with training when she could. I hope you haven't dismissed them out of hand." Tréville shifted, the stairs were becoming uncomfortable. "I am fortunate the tide of the war is turning finally. I could not, in good conscience, have written the orders to keep you here otherwise."
Athos had met Constance's recruits. Two were one-armed, one had a peg-leg, one was missing an eye and the other was a shambling giant who'd lost a good part of his wits but still had the eye of a sharp shooter. On a good day, Guilluame could best Aramis at target shooting.
"d'Artagnan regularly utilizes their skills, and Constance manufactures other things for them to do to keep them busy." All of them had been homeless. The garrison was by no means at capacity, and though rations were expensive and difficult to come by, they could afford to feed and house a few extra souls. He would send Porthos and Aramis out to practice their act if it became necessary.
The Captain of the Musketeers changed the subject again. He did not particularly care if it was abrupt and transparent; he was done with the topic of war heroes.
"It appears the pressing issue here is Feron's den of thieves posing as the Red Guard. Does Marcheaux have a plant in the garrison like he did in the refugee camp?"
Tréville went with the new topic willingly. "Not that I know of. Constance would be more aware of that than I, but I doubt he's brave enough to have put a plant inside Madame d'Artagnan's fortifications."
"More the slink and snide type?" Athos asked casually, the pitch and tone of his voice shading to slower and less deliberate with the change of subject. He had never been one to hold onto anger past its usefulness.
"Yes," Tréville agreed heartily. "He's the lead-from-the-rear type. And the rumor-mongering sort, he's done his best to paint Constance as a whore running a bawdy house for men."
Athos' face screwed up for just a moment as he contemplated all manner of insinuations in that far-from-simple declaration. "If d'Artagnan gets wind of that particular rumor, Marcheaux will be a dead man walking - likely not for long."
"Rightfully so, though you know I can't condone anything of the sort. He's under Feron's protection, any harm done to him will bring down the wrath of the king."
"Isn't Feron Henry's bastard?" Athos walked just his feet down the stairs and stretched like a cat with the release of tension. He yawned too, burying it in the full sleeve of his shirt.
"Aye, half brother to Louis."
This also was new to Athos, the way he inhabited the shell of his physical form. Only a sword in his hand had allowed the loosening of muscle and tendon before; he had been contained as a turtle in its shell, beneath that hat, at all other times. Tréville kept the observation to himself, though this change too, made him glad for his friend.
"Tudor blood still flows in Feron's veins." The stark, clipped sentences conveyed a wealth of information. Tréville added a warning anyway. "Do not make the mistake of underestimating the marquis' power over the king. He is family; I am merely an old, fondly remembered mentor raised to the position of War Minister out of need, not love." The minister rose, dusting off the seat of his pants. "In fact, if you're still spoiling for a fight, I have a job for you, one you may accompany your men on with my blessing. Do you need help doctoring that burn? You should get some salve on it before it blisters too badly."
Athos shrugged. "Madame d'Artagnan will wish to fuss over it in the morning. It's not so bad it will keep me from holding reins. What is this job you require of us?" He did not want Tréville accompanying him inside.
If his bed was not occupied yet, it would be by the time he returned. Aramis still bedded down next to Porthos every night, though Athos often woke to a companion in the morning. Their failed practitioner-of-the-religious-life had grown used to sleeping on a mattress, albeit an uncomfortable one.
Tréville was not so abstemious in his habits that he had turned down the commodious accommodations set aside for him at the palace. He had taken only his desk chair, leaving behind the more than adequate appurtenances he had acquired over his long years of service. Though the bed and the mattress barely accommodated two, it was of goose down and deep enough to sink into without ever feeling the ropes beneath.
Aramis was very fond of it.
War had melded the three Inseparables into a singularly efficient killing machine, they were all having a hard time adjusting to their practically-civilian-like-life back here in the capital. Aramis' warm back grounded Athos when he woke in the night, heart in his throat, nightmares clogging his brain. He did not mind the company in the least.
He did not deem it wise, however, to reveal just how close the Inseparables had become.
Tréville did not press further. "There is a third brother, the Duc de Orleans, though you may know him as Prince Gaston."
"I met Orleans a time or two while traveling the continent."
"I am not surprised. You are only a year older than Louis, Gaston is two years younger. He would have frequented the same courts as you during your vagabonding."
Once upon a time, Aramis had recognized a soul worth saving and enlisted Porthos' aid in polishing off the tarnish. The marksman's audacious maneuvering had led to Athos being under Treville's reluctant command, an event that had changed not only the captain's caustic opinion of the comte, but his perspective as well. Prior to that, Tréville had had very different terminology for the comte's sojourn across the continent.
A simpler time in their shared history; Tréville shook off the nostalgia, returning to his original line of thought. This he could and would share freely with the Musketeer captain. "Vague, though disturbing, rumors have reached me that our prince is plotting regicide again, with a distant family cousin by the name of Leopold. Louis took exception to their last failed coup, exiled Gaston and annexed Leopold's free holdings. Leopold wants control of them back. I hear he's backing Gaston in a bid for the throne again. Along with someone more sinister who I still can attribute neither name nor motive too, though he appears to have endless financial resources. At any rate, since Prince Gaston seems to be the catalyst, I want him where I can keep two eyes on him at all times."
"And when do you want this to happen?"
"Tomorrow morning, before dawn if possible. Best to take him by surprise. I do not know his relationship with Feron, but I suspect Feron will try to ingratiate himself further with the king by doing our interrogation work for us, perhaps much more subtly than either you or I could accomplish. I intend to give Gaston just enough freedom to either hang himself or prove his loyalty. He's too Bourbon to recognize the precariousness of his existence."
"He was always an imbecile." Athos had little tolerance for idiots, particularly those of Bourbon descent. His loyalty lay strictly with Tréville and the crown the puerile monarch represented. "Where do you want us to deliver him?"
"The Louvre for now, though I have little doubt it will be the chatalet before long."
Athos came to his feet as well, as Brujon, d'Artagnan's new protégé, crossed the courtyard from the barracks and came to a halt at the bottom of the steps. "Delacroix sent me to see if I was needed for duty yet, sirs."
"Yes, you may take over the watch, Brujon." Tréville turned to start down the stairs as the cadet loped toward his post just inside the mouth of the tunnel. "I expect I will be seeing you early tomorrow, or rather - this morning." He stopped on the landing to track the moon - on its way down again. "You've laid so many demons to rest, Athos," he said quietly, "turn loose of this one too. Don't let it keep you up at night." He did not wait for a reply but stepped quickly down the remaining stairs, careful to keep his boot falls light and quiet, and disappeared into the depths of the tunnel.
Athos watched him go, then turned and moved up the remaining stairs to the porch, drifting past the door of his quarters with unusual indecisiveness.
He had laid that ghost to rest too. Like d'Artagnan, the mortification had lasted only for the brief duration of the flogging. There had been no shame in insisting he bear the responsibility for the actions of his men. Though the reaction of the camp had taken him completely by surprise.
In those early days, the cold hand of death had reached out for him more times than he could recall now, only to be batted away by Porthos or d'Artagnan or Frayne or Bastien ... the entire garrison had battled death on his behalf. Until he had pulled himself together enough to fight his own battles consistently and with purpose. They'd rallied around him as though he'd been a true officer and a gentleman, even when he'd still been inhabiting both roles as an imposter, believing himself no more than an actor on a stage playing a part.
That incident had begun the internal shift away from actively wanting to die. It had not changed overnight, but death had never been an enemy before war and it's brutality on and off the field of battle had jolted him to his senses.
Command had unexpectedly been the catalyst that had freed Athos from his worst enemy - his own expectations. It had gradually been borne in on him that he was a good soldier, he was a natural leader, he was more than capable of command, and ultimately - he was worthy of respect. It had taken more than a year for the mantle of leadership to rest comfortably on his shoulders, but eventually it had begun to feel natural.
He had returned to Paris a very different man than the one who'd gone to war four years ago, resized and shaped by innumerable experiences, some he could not think of without shuddering, others he would treasure for the rest of his life. Moments of clarity that could only be recognized where there was an expectation of a full and complete life waiting to be lived. War - and unfailingly persevering friends - had woken him to all the possibilities yet to be experienced.
Leaning back against the railing he folded his arms over his chest. He had been contemplating some of those new possibilities before Tréville had joined him and prodded awake those old memories. They would lie down again eventually, but they were stirring too much still to return to those previously pleasant thoughts.
It had not been old haunts he'd been pursuing this evening. No, his current restless nighttime cogitations were the result of a singular, inexplicable choice.
And an unexpected kiss.
Disclaimer: I am not an historian, nor am I claiming to write historical fan fiction. I confess to bending history whenever it suits the purpose of the story. Here, I have made an assumption that noblemen could not be flogged or beaten for any crime. And, that anyone inflicting such punishment upon a nobleman could be punished in like manner, particularly if they were not equally ranked. I spent quite a lot of useless time during the writing of this story trying to verify this assumption and could not. So you may take it or leave it as fact or fiction as you choose.
This has been a work of transformative fan fiction. The characters and settings in this story are the property of the British Broadcasting Company, its successors and assigns. The story itself is the intellectual property of the author. No copyright infringement has been perpetrated for financial gain.
*The title of this story was inspired by the last line in Thimblerig's story - There is a House. You can find it on AO3 if you're interested.
