This is not her fault.
She tells him as much, cannot believe that he would accuse her of this. The queen-mother smirks from behind him and she bites back the desire to rip into her with words, pulls at the patience she's been taught as a princess and takes a calming breath.
"I assure you Your Majesty; the Duke is a friend and one seldom met at that," she says, "there is nothing untoward in our acquaintance."
"So you deny the gift that he sent you? You deny his signature and seal?" the queen-mother asks.
"I simply claim to know nothing of the reasons that you imply with the Duke's gift,"
"Don't talk to my mother like that," Louis says, "she is not at fault here,"
"And I am?" she tries her best not issue it as a challenge, tries her best not to show how much it hurts to face her husband's distrust.
"There is doubt," Louis falters, "that I ask you to clarify,"
"And I would in every way that Your Majesty wishes,"
She sees the wide blue eyes soften, feels hope as a smile twitches on the king's face and finds that hope crushed under the grip of queen-mother who clasps her husband's shoulder and pulls him back.
"We shall see. Will we not my dear?"
"Yes mother," he beams at her.
She watches them leave, presses a hand to her face because at fifteen she's a woman, a queen no less. She will not let the tears fall. She goes for a walk instead. Her ladies-in-waiting walk behind her, Inés and Laurence locked in a battle of glares behind her no doubt while her combined retinue moves divided by a border she is supposed to bridge. The breeze and overcast sky had beckoned people out into the castle grounds and at best there is wariness in the eyes that lower to her, at worst she sees disgust she cannot understand. There is contempt in the whispers after she had moved along, snide glances when they think she isn't looking.
They don't trust her she knows now, these people, the nobles and her husband. She is the Spanish queen, an outsider, sometimes enemy, possibly treacherous. Doubt stains every eye that watches and all the ears that listen, it's smeared in every courtesy and word spoken to her.
The crack of thunder heralds rain.
She quickens her pace but cannot escape the downpour.
Ana's shoes lead muddy prints up into the castle.
This is all his fault.
He should have thought it through, should have stopped; he should have considered the result. Staring at his hands he cannot believe how close he had come to happiness, to home. His fingers curl around empty air. The baby gone and his Isabelle heartbroken, suffering because he had been reckless.
He looks up as the door opens.
A man barrels out of the home and he resists stepping back in the face of his wrath.
"I told you not to come here," says the man, "I warned you."
"Monsieur please –,"
"You stubborn, arrogant bastard!" the fist to his face isn't a surprise, "I told you to stay away from my sister. I warned you. But what did you do?" the man lands another hit.
He slips on the wet ground and lands onto the vegetable patch Isabelle had tended to so carefully. Another loss, another thing destroyed by him. He squints up at the man standing over him.
"I just want to see her,"
"Haven't you done enough?" the man asks.
The kick to his side leaves him breathless, it's nothing compared to the ache in the center of his lungs ever since he found out, breathed in the ruins of his future.
"Please let me talk to her,"
"She's gone,"
Ice crawls into his veins, coils in his gut. He shakes his head and his eyes water. It cannot be, she cannot be dead as well. He tastes bile.
"Father took her away,"
Oh.
He rolls onto his front and pushes against the ground to sit up. There is no point in asking where, the man won't tell him where she'd gone, maybe the father would.
"She didn't even want to hear your name before she went," says the man, "so stop showing your face around here,"
He gets to his feet. Being sent away or left behind time and again in his short life of sixteen years and he still can't understand why it hurts so much. Can't understand what's wrong with him, why it's wrong with him. He walks past the man and dares not glance back at the house he had once been welcomed in. He walks to the low gate as he hears the main door close behind him.
Rene leaves muddy boot prints out the cobblestone path.
The Sky darkened.
The Earth shook.
A new understanding mapped the world.
It's a chance torn from her.
She sits at her desk and stares out the window, hands resting lightly on her stomach. Rain pelts against the ground beyond her sight but she watches the water drip from the window ledge, it's slow and steady trickle ceaseless and gradual. Swallowing thickly she wipes at the wet trails on her face. She had raised her siblings, yes death had claimed one but she had done her best. They loved her, she was a mother to them but she would not be to this child, her first child; taken from her before she could even hold him. She wraps her arms around herself.
Louis was angry, the people disappointed and the court indignant.
She has lost her first baby.
She has failed to provide a living, healthy heir to the throne.
Her eyes close and she searches the back of her eyelids for anger, pain, sorrow; anything to feel in the hollow ache she breathes. There is nothing but empty darkness.
The knock on the door has her sitting up.
She allows entrance to the woman she had been expecting.
Her ladies-in-waiting had been changed again; this was supposed to be the new head of her retinue. She wonders if Louis or the Cardinal or whoever else that held control of her life really did this for her benefit as they claimed or as punishment. Still she paints a smile on her face and nods at the woman's courtesy.
She stands and walks over to the open window.
"What is your name?"
"Marie, your majesty,"
She glances over her shoulder and the smile feels caked on her lips.
"When we are alone you may call me by my name," she says.
"As you wish, your –Ana,"
High up from her window she watches the earth get soaked through and shivers.
"Call me Anne," she says.
She is eighteen years old.
It's a chance offered to him.
He stares at the man and tries to read any underlying deception, any hidden motive in the slightly pinched face before him. But Treville seems honest, serious, and even a bit grateful. It's not the first time he'd helped out a soldier out of the muck of blood and dirt that is the battleground and it won't be the last. But that particular time that he had risked his life to save this particular senior officer appears to matter to said officer a lot.
Matters enough to Treville to put an effort into tracing him down and offer him a commission.
"Are you sure there's room for me in this regiment of yours?"
"You'll be the first to be commissioned so I think we can manage," Treville says.
A regiment based in Paris formed to protect the king. Away from the fire and metal and splintering wood, the air not touched by the smell of the sea and the blood spilt daily. The rain batters against the roof in a wild beat and his wounds ache; the ones from the enemy and the ones from his commanding officer, old ones and new one ones, it's a symphony all on its own. It hums along with the need for violence that had sang in his veins ever since had given up on finding Isabelle.
Lost, abandoned and adrift, courting death just to confirm that his heart still beats in his chest.
He's from the lowest of the ranks, the ones sent out to die first, the baits and scouts, dispensable. He is alive because he knows that and has learned to spot danger even when there is none. He knows there are others that are better, higher ranked and more deserving, more experienced, more learned, born lawfully noble and honourable in action. Crossing his arms he leans back in the chair, ankles crossed where he has stretched his legs out before him and he smirks at the man.
"Why me?" he asks.
Treville doesn't look away.
"Why not?" the man counters.
Chuckling he shakes his head, takes to his feet and turns away. Walking to the only window in the infirmary he throws it open, letting in the roar of the rain.
"We leave in the morning Rene,"
It's a name he hadn't used in years among those he calls his friends. He glances over his shoulder before looking out again. Ignoring the wet trails down his face he looks up at the sky over the rooftops, watches the clouds as they grumble and growl.
"Call me Aramis," he says.
He is nineteen years old.
Day and night, spring and fall.
Seasons shift and time flows.
The start becomes a stranger
They sparkle.
Bright, sharp and cold in the light from the fireplace, they mock her from where they hang in Louis' grasp. She had seen him disappointed, sad, furious but this utter contempt in his eyes leaves her breathless, wordless. The diamonds twinkle as Louis shakes the heavy necklace before her gaze.
"Is this not the gift I ordered to be made for you?" he demands.
She nods.
"Then why?" he asks, "Have I not given you all the riches that you desire?"
"You have your majesty, always."
"Then why is it not enough? Why did you betray me like this?"
And somewhere in her chest it still stings that he would think this lowly of her. She blinks as Louis rushes close, eyes narrowed and teeth clenched.
"What has he promised you?" asks her husband, "is it troops? A fleet for Spain? Wealth for her coffers? What does he offer in return for the favors you sell?"
Cold rage washes over her, swaths her in such loathing for this man that for a moment her vision whites out. Lips pursed, hands balled into fists she feels her breath stuck in her throat. She is a queen she reminds herself, she is a queen. The breath going down to her chest feels like she has swallowed a spiky stone. She looks away from the diamonds, away from the letters clutched in Louis' other hand. She looks into the blue eyes and forces her neck stiff.
"I did not sent those letters to the Duke and I did not send him that necklace,"
"I have your accomplice right here," Louis spins around and marches to the door, "she proved more loyal to me than my queen,"
And she stares as Marie walks in, head bowed and eyes downcast with Cardinal Richelieu at her side. For long moments her thoughts wander, what has her lady-in-waiting, her friend, the head of her retinue, what has this woman got to with anything. And then Marie glances up at her before bowing her head towards the king.
"Your majesty, I am your humble servant. I could not stay silent on the matter anymore," Marie dips her head lower, "I beg your forgiveness for letting it go on this far,"
"What?" she stares.
"Yes," Louis nods, a strange wildness in his eyes, "yes, you see now? Marie told me everything, her friend Henry in England even sent me the letters he acquired from the Duke. She couldn't send the necklace to your lover because she knew it was the one I had ordered to be made for you."
"My lover?"
"Your majesty," Cardinal Richelieu steps ahead, a thin smile of his face, "it is a delicate matter and as such must be handled with utmost regard."
"But she –" Louis points at her and looks to his hand as if suddenly realizing the necklace is still there.
He throws it against the wall.
"I hate you!" he screams at her.
"Your maj–"
"You have failed me," he sniffles and turns away, "the nobles are right, what use I have of a queen that can't even birth a living heir,"
She flinches and backs away. Aches like she had been struck and it is nothing compared to the horrible sickness churning in her belly. The back of her legs hit the edge of her bed and she sits, clutches at the sheets in a vain attempt to ground herself. Doesn't see the others leave her room. She is light and empty and she cannot understand.
Why would Marie lie like that? They had been friends, she had trusted her. They had spent hours together, shared thoughts and secrets and she had told the woman about meeting the Duke in Spain before she came to France, before she married Louis. She presses a hand to her mouth and feels her eyes burn; her innocent secret betrayed and twisted now to be thrown at her face.
Years of loneliness gather around her, moments that had fallen upon her softly, silently, heaped on her shoulders, clung to her hair and stuck to her eyelashes. For the first time in her life she thinks she isn't prepared for this.
At twenty years old Anne feels too young.
It glitters.
Blinding, piercing and watering his eyes. Standing at the edge of the clearing he squints against the glare of sunlight upon snow. Stiff fingers curls tighter around the freezing hilt of his sword, he isn't sure if the grasp is firm enough, isn't sure if his fingers are obeying him. Slowly he places his other hand on the hilt too, just in case.
He pushes away from where he has pressed his shoulder to the tree, staggers, winces, reaches the next tree and stops. Bends forward and swallows thickly, closes his eyes and snaps them back open as a raven calls. They flutter down here and there, hop along the upturned pots and scattered bodies and he cannot keep up with them, cannot keep them away and watch the thicket their enemies had emerged from at the same time.
He turns half way around and looks behind.
Marsac has not returned yet.
He leaves the tree holding him up and stumbles with a wild swing at the nearest raven. It lands a short flight away by another body. He knows the name of that Musketeer lying dead by the cold campfire; he knows the names of all these dead Musketeers. His lips move but they form nothing.
They are laughter, teasing, thumps on his back.
He cannot name them.
He knew them, he recognizes them; his heart beats faster for their names don't shape into his voice, they are there but not.
"Marsac," it's a thin breath out of him.
He looks down and deciphers that he is sitting now. There is a tree at his back that he knows not how it got there or when he got to it. He looks up and it is night. He is shivering, muscles rattling enough to fall off his bones. In the grainy light of the stars he can make out the silent blurs of darkness, the dead are still here.
Sharp pain lances his knees as he claws at the tree and pulls himself up.
Marsac did not return.
Neither did the enemy.
He cannot decide which disappoints him more.
He shudders and wraps his stiff arms around himself; the cold is a dull knife on his joints. It bites into his flesh and scrapes against his skin. Left behind by the dead and the living he doesn't know if he can take anymore of this.
At twenty-one Aramis feels too old.
Snow clouds covered the Sky
Snowflakes covered the Earth
Some things froze forever, others awaited thaw.
Thank you everyone who read, review, favorite and follow this story. Thank you guest reviewers Jmp and Guest for your kind words.
TBC