Thank you for reading and reviewing.
I have been looking forward to uploading this chapter for days! Enough said.
CHAPTER 97
L'Hernault leaped to his feet in shock as the door opened and he saw who was entering. The Musketeer guarding him hurriedly stepped forward, pistol in his hand, but Athos waved him back.
"You may leave us but please wait outside," he instructed and the soldier, standing to one side until Tréville had cleared the doorway, duly left them, closing the door quietly behind him.
Athos and L'Hernault stood on either side of a table, studying each other carefully. This was the closest they had been to each other for more years than Athos cared to remember.
"This is Captain Tréville," Athos introduced the officer who had taken a seat in the corner of the room.
L'Hernault said nothing, his expression guarded as his eyes never left Athos' face.
"Sit down," Athos ordered, waiting until L'Hernault had complied before he lowered himself onto another chair, steeling himself not to wince at the movement. When was the damned wound ever going to heal properly?
Silence and tension pervaded the room as the two young men exchanged hostile stares, weighing up the other man as Tréville sat perfectly still, waiting, and observing their body language. His hand was close to the hilt of the sword at his side, prepared to intervene if necessary.
"You expected me to be dead," Athos said, breaking the silence but keeping his tone neutral. "I am sorry to disappoint you, but you have failed twice now."
"I don't know what you mean," L'Hernault said, feigning innocence.
With great self-control, Athos leaned forward and was satisfied when the prisoner sat back in his chair, keen to maintain distance between them. "Let us stop wasting time. I will tell you what I know, and you can add anything that I may have omitted."
L'Hernault did not react.
"You killed Captain Planque, the Cardinal's man. We have many eye-witness accounts from members of the Red Guard and the stable boy that state you entered the lodge via a side door. As you walked past one soldier, you stole his pistol and used it to kill the wrong man."
"I admit that I used the side door. What of it?" L'Hernault had become surly. "Yes, I saw the pistol lying on the table behind the Red Guard but it was still there when I entered the building."
"I do not think so," Athos replied. "None of the guards would need to steal a weapon from their colleague and no-one else used that door for they were all at the hunt picnic."
"You have no proof. It is their word against mine."
"There are considerably more of them."
L'Hernault shrugged, his expression now one of contempt and Athos recognised it for what it was. He had beheld it often enough and it was just another reason why he had disassociated himself from the French nobility.
"Their word counts for nothing just because they are soldiers?" he asked quietly.
"I would expect you to believe them over me," L'Hernault sneered, "now that you have thrown in your lot with them and become a common soldier yourself."
Athos sensed Tréville stiffen at the offence, but he did not look in the man's direction, nor did he let himself be goaded.
"So you and Allaire concocted this story between you. It is pointless your maintaining this charade. Allaire has told us how you went to him and admitted what you had done, although you believed at the time that the corpse was mine. He provided you with the false alibi, about how you had gone to see if he had recovered from his hangover. At that point you still had the weapon on you, and he offered to dispose of it on your behalf. He locked it in a box that he kept under the bed. Captain," he added.
He continued to watch L'Hernault who had turned his head at the Captain's movement. Tréville reached behind him and withdrew the murder weapon which he had tucked into the back of his belt to conceal it.
L'Hernault looked briefy at the weapon being held out to him. "I have never seen it before. It must belong to Allaire." He was attempting to sound bored, but he had broken out into a sweat.
"No," Athos continued, "his clean weapon was lying in the compartment above it. This is not one of a pair which you might expect to find in such a box. This has been fired. You would never have had the time to clean it before concealing it."
"Then the soldier must have fired it. He is a soldier after all. Perhaps he was practicing or whatever it is that you lot do." There was an edge creeping into L'Hernault's assertions now.
"The soldier had just cleaned it and he had plenty of witnesses to that effect."
L'Hernailt frowned as he struggled to think of a suitable riposte.
Athos tried a different strategy and softened his voice so that he sounded regretful. "Stop telling lies, Etienne. We might have considered that the perpetrator was Allaire had it not been for the three men you sent after me when I left Troyes."
"I don't know what you are talking about." The denial sounded desperate now.
"Of course you do. You recognised me and knew I was there under an assumed name. It possibly occurred to you that I was there as a spy and it gave you the excuse to have me killed, but you had deeper motives than that. You were as surprised to see me as I was you. You thought, perhaps, that I had died during the years my whereabouts were unknown and then, all of a sudden, there I was, and all that hatred reared its ugly head again. Now you had a chance to exact your revenge and so you sent your three lackeys after me. Don't deny it. As they attacked me, they referred to you by name."
L'Hernault's eyes widened. "What happened to them?"
"I am surprised that you are so concerned," Athos said. "I shot one and killed the other two with my sword but not before one gave me a grievous wound, so you nearly succeeded. You are guilty and there is no point in denying it."
L'Hernault glanced sideways at Tréville. "Does your captain know what he has taken into the regiment? What and who you are?" he spat out.
Athos felt sick to the pit of his stomach, unsure as to how much L'Hernault had learned of events at Pinon for the Baron's estate was close enough to have heard the story of the murder of the Comte's younger brother and the hanging of the Comtesse. How much might L'Hernault be on the verge of revealing? These details were amongst the things that Athos still wanted to keep back from his Captain and brothers for reasons best known to himself.
He rested his clenched hands on the tabletop, hoping that neither of the other two men could detect the tremor. He felt Tréville watching him but dare not meet his eyes.
"Yes, Captain Tréville knows that I am the Comte de la Fère, although that is not the name I go by now. I am simply Musketeer Athos and I prefer it that way."
"You walked away from everything!"
Athos was uncomfortable. How had the interrogation changed so that he was the one facing accusations now? He had to regain control and quickly.
"I had my reasons."
L'Hernault's words, the result of many years of festering jealousy and bitterness, tumbled out in a rush. "If you were giving up your title, you could have passed it to me. You obviously had no offspring and your brother was dead. All that land, the title, the responsibility. It should have come to me.
"And why would l do that?" Athos feared the answer, but he needed to hear from L'Hernault's own lips that the old story was still fervently believed.
"I deserved it as your half-brother!" L'Hernault's cry sounded as if it were being torn from him.
A chair crashed to the floor.
Athos was on his feet, his face burning as he appeared to tower over L'Hernault. Tréville stood as well, ready to restrain the younger soldier.
"You are not my half-brother. You have been fed nothing but untruths over the years."
"You lie!" L'Hernault yelled up at him, hands balled into fists as he pushed his chair back, ready to rise.
"A fanciful notion because your father was spurned in love and he was jealous. My mother never swore her love to your father and there was no affair. My parents loved each other truly from the start until death separated them. Even then, my father did not want to live without her and followed her before his time. This story you spew forth is just that – a story – begun by your father, perpetuated by your aunt and continued by you."
"Liar!" L'Hernault screamed, leaping to his feet. Only the table stood between the two young men.
"Gentlemen!" Tréville warned as he moved closer.
"Why do you refuse to acknowledge me?"
"Why?" Athos' voice, incredulous, rose at last. "There is nothing to acknowledge!"
L'Hernault was becoming more agitated, more desperate by the second, his unrealistic pleas pathetic. "We could have done so much together. We could have been devoted brothers if only you had recognised me. We would have got on so well; we could have been so close if only you had given me the chance, it would have been better than you and Thomas."
The last words were barely out of L'Hernault's mouth when the table was upturned.
For his age, Tréville was quick to move as he threw himself at Athos.
A/N
I love words!
Lackey is a direct borrowing into English from the medieval French word laquais, which referred to a kind of foot soldier in the 15th century, prior to the word being taken into English when it had another meaning: "footman." A footman in the 16th century was a servant who either attended a rider, or who ran alongside or in front of his master's or mistress's carriage. They watched for and cleared obstacles in the road, so the carriage didn't overturn, and sometimes ran ahead to prepare the destination for their master or mistress. The footman's job was hard work: in fact, they were often called running footmen to underscore their main task.