Chapter Two
Porthos watched the mixture of shock and mild amusement from his friends as Athos related his meeting with the King. They had curiously followed him to Treville's office when he returned from the clandestine meeting. Athos had looked a little shocked as he returned to the garrison. They had heard he had gone off with a member of the Palace staff an hour before and were waiting impatiently for his return. Athos had dismounted and shook his head before any of them could speak. He indicated for them to follow him.
After d'Artagnan had shut the door and joined them in the office Athos took a moment to gather his thoughts before telling them about the meeting. The King's idea of a private and secret meeting amused Porthos greatly. Several courtiers had no doubt seen Athos visiting the King and a liveried Royal servant had been sent to get him. But the contents of the meeting shocked them all. They had known Treville was doing something out of the ordinary but knew better than to question him. Now that they knew he had been working for the King on affairs of state their Captain's actions made sense.
Porthos watched Aramis shaking his head with a wry smile as Athos outlined their options if they were to fail to rescue Treville.
'If we don't rescue him, we are all condemned to die?' said Aramis. 'Did he have the death warrants there? Ready to sign. Was the hangman in the next room?'
Athos sighed, 'he was adamant that we must succeed in the rescue or Treville must die. They were the only options. If we fail, we are condemned.'
'If we fail, we will probably be dead anyway,' pointed out Aramis.
Athos nodded before speaking again, 'I cannot order you to take part in this mission. I can only ask you-'
'We'll do it,' said Porthos decisively, he glanced at d'Artagnan who was nodding.
'I agree,' said Aramis, 'you know we won't refuse. This is the Captain we're talking about. Regardless of the intelligence he has, we would still be rescuing him.'
'Thank you,' said Athos. 'We will leave as soon as we have gathered provisions for a few days away. I think we should split up, Aramis and I will take the road to the East where it forks, Porthos, d'Artagnan, you two take the Western fork.'
Athos looked at them both as he spoke. Porthos nodded.
'There's a tavern...the Hound...or the Black Dog...or something on the western road,' said d'Artagnan, 'we can rendezvous there.'
'I know the one you mean,' said Aramis, 'we'll reconnoitre until dusk then head for the tavern to pool our information.'
'This must be a team effort,' said Athos, 'I do not want one or two of us making an attempt to recover the Captain. We work together on this. His life...and ours, depends on it.'
'Agreed,' said Porthos with a glance at d'Artagnan and Aramis.
'He's the one who always rushes into the things, I don't,' said Aramis with mock annoyance.
Porthos smirked as he saw d'Artagnan's expression turn to one of genuine annoyance.
'This is the Captain we're talking about,' said d'Artagnan. 'None of us should take any chances.'
Porthos nodded, sobering slightly.
Athos waited until they were all focused on him again.
'If anyone asks, we have been dispatched to escort a prisoner to the border. We will have to work undercover,' Athos said. 'Once we are away from the garrison, we will have to remove anything that identifies us as Musketeers.'
Porthos disliked working out of uniform. His Musketeer uniform afforded him respect, but without it, he was nothing more than a common man. He preferred the respect. But if working undercover meant a better chance of rescuing his Captain, Porthos was willing to make the sacrifice.
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'You don't have to look quite so concerned, you'll draw attention to us,' said Porthos.
D'Artagnan realised he had been deeply lost in thought, the worry about what could have happened to Treville playing on his mind.
'Sorry,' he said, looking across to his friend, 'he's already been held for several hours though…'
Porthos nodded, 'yeah, we should be concerned, but we don't need to advertise that fact.'
They had been riding for about half an hour since they split up from Athos and Aramis. The road they had taken was open, with only the odd tree a few meters from the edge of the rough path. A hedge running along one side of the road was keeping their attention most of the time. Any break or disturbance was inspected carefully. But they had, so far, found nothing to indicate that anything untoward had occurred.
D'Artagnan had paused a couple of times to talk to the people they met. None of them had seen anything that was of interest.
'This is hopeless,' d'Artagnan sighed as he mounted his horse for the third time after a short but non-productive conversation with a confused old woman who was wandering away glancing back at the two men warily every so often.
The Musketeer settled himself on the horse and stared ahead for a few seconds before looking across at Porthos who looked equally frustrated.
'We'll keep lookin' for another couple of hours, then head back and find the others,' said Porthos decisively.
D'Artagnan had been about to make the same suggestion. The shadows were lengthening as the sun started to lower. They had no clue where to start their search for the Captain other than the fact that he would have travelled along one of the roads they were currently travelling on.
The King had been suitably vague with Athos, probably because he did not know himself where his Captain was going to conduct the negotiations. Despite the odd bit of light-hearted banter between them earlier they all knew that it was going to be a difficult task to find Treville. The threat the King had made was empty to them as they would do whatever it took to recover the missing man.
They trotted on in silence for a few minutes keeping vigilant as they went. D'Artagnan spotted a couple of boys walking ahead of them. He wondered if it was even worth asking them if they had seen anything? But he slowed his horse, nonetheless.
The boys wore relatively good clothes but d'Artagnan could see the dust and mud of a days work in the fields on their breeches. Neither boy wore a doublet, but the older boy was wearing a faded green jerkin which looked a little big for him.
The boys looked up at them as d'Artagnan leaned forward slightly. The older boy, d'Artagnan guessed he was about twelve, took a slight step to the side, in front of the younger boy. The small boy, his eyes wide, stared at d'Artagnan for a few seconds before his eyes darted towards Porthos. Realising they were probably a bit imposing whilst sat on their horses d'Artagnan dismounted. He was aware of Porthos reaching across and taking his horses reins before walking both beasts a few yards away so as not to intimidate the boys.
'Hello,' said d'Artagnan, 'we're looking for a friend of ours.'
The older boy continued to stare at him. D'Artagnan guessed they were brothers; they both had the same blond curly hair and bright blue eyes. The younger boy was still peering around his brother, a smudge of dirt on his nose.
'Our friend, he's older than us, with short dark hair and a beard. Have you seen him?'
D'Artagnan realised he had just described most of the men he knew. They had not seen their Captain leave that morning so had no idea what he was wearing, although d'Artagnan guessed he was not in uniform.
The boys both looked beyond d'Artagnan as Porthos approached them. D'Artagnan was a little worried they would run away but their eyes lit up as Porthos produced two coins from his pocket and held them out. Porthos crouched down in front of the boys, keeping hold of the coins as he spoke to them.
'Our friend is in trouble and we want to help him,' said Porthos, keeping his voice soft.
D'Artagnan was impressed. The older boy still looked a little wary, but the younger boy had grown in confidence and stepped out from behind his brother.
'We seen a man-'
The boy stopped talking when his brother yanked his arm causing him to gasp.
'It's alright,' said Porthos, 'you're not in trouble.'
'We ain't seen nothin' he's makin' it up,' said the older boy.
'I'm not,' the younger brother stood his ground as he rubbed at his arm. 'We seen a man who was with lots and lots and lots of other men.'
Porthos glanced up at d'Artagnan. Perhaps they were onto something with the boys?
'They was going along the road. They had lots of 'orses. They was goin' quick.'
The boy was enjoying the attention he was getting. The older brother seemed to realise and decided that he should take over the conversation.
'It was back there,' he said pointing along the road they had walked along. 'We had to get out of the way.'
'What was happening?' asked d'Artagnan.
The younger boy thought for a moment.
'They was riding along quick.'
D'Artagnan sighed and asked, 'were they chasing our friend?'
The boys looked confused, 'no. He was in a carriage,' said the older brother.
'And he 'ad a silly hat on-'
Porthos held the coins out to the two boys who took them eagerly.
'What were the men with him wearing?' asked Porthos, a slight hint of amusement in his voice, despite the seriousness of the situation.
The younger boy was first to reply as the older boy stared at the coin he now held.
'Red coats and cloaks. I fink they was soldiers.'
The boys looked quite pleased with themselves and happy to be holding, what they probably thought, were hard-earned coins. Porthos reached up and ruffled the hair on the younger boy before standing.
'Thank you for your help,' he said with a smile.
The boys positively beamed as they turned and continued along the road, a skip in their step.
'I doubt the Cardinal will be in need of rescue,' said Porthos as they watched the boys go.
D'Artagnan shook his head, 'I was hopeful for a moment there.'
They walked back to their horses to continue the search. D'Artagnan wondered if Athos and Aramis were having any more luck.
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Aramis sighed; they had been riding the horses at a walk along the road carefully looking into the trees on either side for some time. They had not seen anyone else so could not ask if anything had been seen. Some birds of prey had been circling overhead, no doubt watching some poor unsuspecting creature and waiting for the moment to be right to dive down and capture it. Aramis wondered how the Captain had come to be taken by the mercenaries. It would have been unusual for him to be caught off guard, but even the best of them had the odd moment of distraction.
The trees closed in around them, but the wood was not thick, they could still see daylight through the assortment of trees and brambles. The recent rains had given the leaves a sheen of freshness. If they were not on a serious mission Aramis would have enjoyed the sight of the wildflowers and the small birds flitting from tree to tree.
'All we can do is keep looking,' said Athos when Aramis sighed again.
His friend had not even turned to look at him, Aramis knew the feeling of uselessness was not just his own. They had no idea whereabouts Treville was captured or where the mercenaries had taken him. They had not been able to question any of the locals as they were all conspicuous by their absence.
'There aren't many dwellings around here, we're going to struggle to find anyone who might have witnessed the Captain being taken.'
Athos nodded but continued to look ahead.
'He didn't talk to you at all about all this?' asked Aramis after a few seconds of silence. 'You'd have thought he would have confided in you at least.'
'Why?'
'He wants you to be the next Captain, everyone knows that.'
'He may want it, but I do not,' replied Athos as he finally glanced across at Aramis.
'You'd make a good Captain…'
Athos huffed but did not reply for a few seconds.
'D'Artagnan will make a good Captain in a few years' time,' he finally said.
Aramis nodded his agreement, d'Artagnan had all the qualities of a future leader. He was still a little impetuous but was maturing all the time. Aramis knew he would have no issue taking orders from the younger man.
'What would you do?' asked Athos. 'If you could not be a soldier anymore?'
Aramis, who had been looking intently into the trees to his left turned back to Athos who was watching him. His friend wanted an answer.
'I'm not sure. I can't actually imagine being anything other than a Musketeer now. I fully expect to die in battle one day. I've made peace with that.'
Athos nodded before going back to his own observations of the area.
'Porthos will never stop soldiering...can you see him doing anything else?' said Aramis with a slight smile. 'A shopkeeper?'
Athos actually laughed at the suggestion.
They went back to their careful search of the area on either side of them. Both men lost in thought of the future, hoping that the future still included their leader.
When Aramis' mare whinnied and became restless both men were instantly on high alert. Athos' horse reacted a few seconds later, at the same time as the cause of the distraction appeared in front of them. A horse galloping towards them.
Treville's horse.
But there was no sign of Treville.
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