The prison is quiet.
She knows they would have locked down even more severely now that she is here, the group of Red Guards and Musketeers surrounding her are a testament to that. But she hopes this momentary increase in strictness is worth it for the few to be granted a new life.
"Your Majesty should not waste sympathy on those undeserving of it," Treville says.
"All men need hope, Captain. Without it, why should they lead a decent life?"
Because hope is the one thing that had brought her this far, amidst the loss of her children and his majesty's disinterest that it had fed, hope is the only thing that she had left to hold onto. She looks to the prisoners brought out to her.
"They look half-dead, poor things."
And suddenly it is there again, this uncertainty that her kindness may not be enough, that this meager act of assistance may be nothing to those who had lost all. How can she help these condemned men when she has no freedom of her own?
"I hope this small gift will help you in your new lives," she hands them the small bag of coins each.
Her eyes watering at the part wonder part starved looks they fix her with.
"Did you see the gratitude on their faces, Captain? Mercy is more effective than any whip or gallows," she says as the prisoners are led away.
"The worst offenders would only consider Your Majesty's gentle nature a weakness," Treville replies, "some men are just born bad,"
Did that mean some men are born good she wonders. Were there people born good and made bad by life's hand and those that are other way round she wants to ask. Where did she fell in that division and where did Louis? She shakes her head and pulls away from that, these dark thoughts held in the deepest dungeons of her mind, she dares not touch upon them.
"Prisoners escaping!" there is a call from inside.
"Protect the Queen!" Treville steps before her, his weapon raised. There are pistol shots, swords clashing and grunts and shouts and Treville's hand on her arm as he guides her through it all. The dying and wounded are around her.
"Get back. Hold the line! Close the door!" Treville commands. "Get the Queen out!"
The prisoners flood the yard armed with rage and desperation and the weapons they had pulled off from the jailers and the ones they had fashioned out of metal scraps. Dust and screams choke her. They are up the stairs and closer to the gates. Treville shoots down the ragged man coming towards her and stepping ahead strikes down the next.
Suddenly there's an arm around her throat and the end of a pistol jabbing through her collar.
"Oi, oi!"
The stink of sweat and vomit overwhelms her.
"Stop or your Queen dies," says the man holding her.
"Hold your fire!"
"Open the gate" demands her captor.
There is silence. She can see the denial on the faces before her. Treville and the Red Guard in charge glare at the escaped prisoner, their men backing their quiet decision. Clutching at the arm around her throat she looks to the Captain but he glances away.
And then he nods.
"Do as he says," Treville orders, "Do it."
"Open the gates," orders the prison guard.
There is a creak of wood and metal and she feels the gust at the back of her legs.
"Vadim!" the men from outside rush to flank them.
They face the soldiers with pistols at the ready. And the pistol pressed to her collar shifts to her face, she can feel the grasp tighten around her neck.
"You see, I told you they'd let me walk out of here," Vadim says.
And there are some hasty words offered in reply from somewhere but all she can pay attention to is the cold metal on her cheek. She cringes as it slides down to her lips.
"Your Majesty, my apologies. I hope that apart from this, you've enjoyed your trip," Vadim presses his lips to the side of her head and she can taste bile on her tongue.
But then she is thrown forward.
"Shoot them! Don't let them escape!"
Shots fire past her, they're coming from everywhere.
"Weapons down!"
But the battle has started and she can't see for the smoke. There are more shots, sounds of boots and metal and the smell of gunpowder and suddenly there is grip coiled around her waist, a solid presence at her side as she goes down. There's a hand at the side of her face, someone hovers over her and the world is muffled; quieted in this abrupt sanctuary amidst the madness of gunpowder, steel and death.
The only sound remaining loud is her own too fast breathing and the thumping of her quickened heartbeat.
"Don't worry, its fine," the voice is close.
She knows this voice; a damaged carriage and the feel of water over her head flashes before her closed eyes.
"Look at me; look at me. It's over," he says and an oddly familiar sense of grounding in a world turned too senseless washes over her. Anne shivers.
She had heard it so often in the past but it had taken her years to recognize this voice.
"I've got you," he says.
She opens her eyes.
"So you have,"
Blue eyes meet brown.
The people are loud.
He keeps an ear out for trouble as he walks, eyes glancing over to Porthos patrolling the crowd. There's a headache pulsing behind his eyes. He could say that it was worry for d'Artagnan that had kept him awake last night and it wouldn't be a lie, yet that was not entirely the reason why there was an odd restlessness churning under his skin.
He glances to the side at the royal couple and looks away back to the people clapping and cheering.
He is a Musketeer he reminds himself; because ever since the prison break it seems to have become a necessity. He had assumed himself wrong in perceiving a difference in the queen as he had helped her off the prison floor and yet there was something different about the woman when she had summoned them for a reward after. He shakes his head.
Can't understand why he is suddenly thinking of her as a woman.
"Death to the tyrants!" yells a man.
And from the crowd spill out those with the bombs; he shoots down the nearest. Another falls from Porthos' dagger. There are more shots as they take out the attackers.
"Protect the King!"
He stops, pistol raised at the man who had signaled the start of this ambush. But there's a squirming woman held in front of the man who still holds a bomb in his other hand.
"Let her go,"
"Take the shot!" is the order from somewhere behind him, "take it! Shoot him!"
But he can't risk the woman.
Someone shoots next at the man's head and he launches the bomb to where the royals are. It falls short but not too much. Aramis shivers even as he moves, he had hesitated but he can't save one life and condemn others to death for that. He falls by the bomb, trying to snuff the wick even as he curls around it and the fear of a blade inching out of the tree trunk comes unbidden to his mind.
A sense of surrender, of accepting loss for another's win ripples through him and he remembers letting go.
Someone is yelling his name as he sits up suddenly, realizing that the bomb didn't go off, that he is still alive and he looks up at the royals being hurried past him. There she is, looking at him even as Athos ushers her to safety. Aramis lets go a breath he didn't remember holding and the sound of a rushing river ghosts by his ears, he knows. The queen keeps trying to glance back at him until she turns fully around despite Athos' attempts otherwise.
Brown eyes meet blue.
The sun blazed too bright and fire splintered the air. Ripples collided in a silent cacophony and everything tipped, rolled and rumbled and trembled and pulled; taut.
It was the day Earth tethered the Sky.
It's strange.
Through all these years she had noticed that one Musketeer ever since that morning Louis had been upset at her for disrupting his target practice, and yet she had never been aware of the act. It would be hard to miss the guard with a cat asleep on his foot she muses. But it had been other things; overhearing the palace cook thanking the Musketeer for stitching up her husband's leg, the new stable-boy hugging the Musketeer for getting him the job, one of her maids whispering to the other about Musketeer Aramis going to visit this man from the market who didn't understand her rebuffs. She pulls her gaze away from the trees their carriage is passing by and clasps her hands in her lap, little by little she had collected quite a lot of information about Musketeer Aramis it seems.
"I just know Ninon is innocent," Louis says from across her, "can you believe the Cardinal is calling such a beautiful woman a witch?"
"She is not a witch your majesty,"
"Of course she isn't," her husband grins, "she practically glows with the goodness of her heart. Have you noticed her hair? It's so bright it's magical," he chuckles, "don't tell the Cardinal I said that,"
"I won't," she smiles, "I'm just glad you have found a way to grant her mercy in the face of this madness,"
She won't mention her part in suggesting the loop around the rules they will use, not when his majesty puffs out happily at the praise. All she cares about is that the woman would not be killed by this mockery of a trial the Cardinal had set up.
"Do you suppose she will be pleased with me?" Luois asks, "I'm sure she will accept to take a walk with me now," he adds and his smile widens as a dreamy look takes over his face, "oh she will be eager to show her gratitude,"
"I'm sure she will be your majesty," she assures him and looks away.
Finds her mind wander over to a week ago when she had seen Aramis and Porthos walk out after Emile, the man she had been told to be one of the Cardinal's business partners. From the terrace she had seen Porthos' stiff posture had noticed the way Aramis had walked a step behind him, wordlessly supplying his friend a boost up to the saddle. There had been anger in their postures but a few days later the Musketeer had seemed distant when she had observed him closely as they awaited for the family of Louis' sister. He had seemed silent even though they hardly talked while on guard duty. Yet there had been a quietness about him and odd sadness that had unsettled her even as she had stood there to greet the Duke and the Duchess of Savoy.
"Ah! here we are," Louis grins.
She looks at the stone walls of the monastery and hopes that they are not too late. Stepping out of the carriage she makes her way to the trial room as her husband leaves for a reprieve in the Cardinal's chambers. If the shock on the faces of the judges is to go by they hadn't dreamed of her interference this way. The faces of the men at the high table are scornful even as they stand in respect.
"Your majesty," the Cardinal stares.
She offers a polite smile as she comes to stand by the accused.
"It is the King's wish that unless the Comtesse de Larroque confesses her crimes freely and without torture, she be spared the death sentence," she says.
Well aware of the murmur that her declaration starts. She quietly takes Ninon's hand in hers and squeezes tightly, offering strength to the shaken woman.
"I have never consorted with the Devil until this moment," Ninon says to the Cardinal, "I am looking at him."
She's proud of this woman and turns to her with a smile and feels her heart jump to her throat. The Cardinal is saying something but all she can think of is that gift, her gift to him, around this woman's neck. He gave it to Ninon; she swallows thickly and blinks against the sudden prickle in her eyes.
The sound of shattering glass makes her look back at the judges and her eyes widen in realization that the Cardinal is screaming. There is pain and danger around and her eyes seek Aramis instinctually. He is already by the writhing Cardinal and hefting the older man onto his shoulder. She trails behind the group as it makes way to the Cardinal's chambers and stays back as her husband cries and clings to the man while Aramis calls for the emetic. He isn't looking at her, he is focused upon the man who is screaming and clawing at his own skin, she isn't looking to Louis who is sobbing at Treville's side.
Anne leaves the room.
Bright sunlight accosts her and she breathes in deep, lets it out slowly. Ninon is beautiful, there is no question about that and she is intelligent, spirited, unmarried and rich; any man would be lucky to make her his wife and Aramis – she steps closer to the open archway on the upper corridor and glares at the sunlit yard below.
Aramis is Aramis; he can charm any woman, cherish her and love her.
Her lungs freeze. An ache curls in the hollow at the base of her throat like it hadn't ever for the women at his majesty's arm. The bits and pieces she had conjured and collected in her moments of loneliness, those odds and ends she had yearned for in those instances she felt vulnerable, she can't say when they had slid into an entirety that is Aramis.
She presses a hand to her chest and moves back from archway.
Because he is not hers, he cannot be.
Her eyes sting.
She needs to talk to him, she needs to know if he and Ninon –she shakes her head and walks to the stairs. She will wait for him and she will tell him that she knows, and that she is happy for him because she loves h–
Her hand flies to her mouth.
Good heavens.
It's odd.
He shouldn't have felt that warm glow of pride in his chest as the queen had stepped into the trial room and yet he remembers smiling. But he had always been aware of the queen while on duty, had been even before the first time they had talked when he had followed her into the thicket. That's why he had been the first to reach his horse that day, because even while he hadn't been watching he had somehow been attentive. It had only grown from there; the way she had always held herself with dignity despite the hostility for the 'Spanish queen' that even he could see in the courtiers, how she read every delicate situation and smoothed over the ruffled feathers that the king had been blind to, her paying off the debt for one of her chamber maid's so that she would not be wed off to the creditor, the orphans she had played with whenever they came to visit the palace at her insistence, how she always tempered the king's decisions with a touch of mercy.
Shaking his head he brings back his wandering thoughts and heaves the Cardinal back onto the bed. The man had been throwing up for long minutes and he is certain that there's nothing left to bring up. There will be someone along with an antidote but he knows the man is out of immediate danger with the poison out of his stomach.
"Are you sure he will be fine?" the king asks.
"I don't know what the poison was or how much had he digested it, your majesty. But I've done what was needed," he pulls the covers over the shivering man on the bed, "he should be able to recover,"
"Good, good," the king wipes a sleeve over his eyes, "now find the one responsible,"
He bows and takes his leave. Walking down the stairs he wonders how they will find the person who had poisoned Richelieu given that there were so many that wanted to. The sun is high by now and the walls of the monastery have packed its heat in the yard that he crosses, wringing his gloves as he goes.
"The Cardinal; will he live?"
He turns around at her words and slows, curbs the desire to rush up to the queen. It works effectively enough for her to notice his silence.
"He has been no friend to the musketeers," she adds.
"We are all servants of France, your majesty,"
She looks away but when her eyes come back to his there is hurt there.
"I did not expect to find my gift to you around the Comtesse's neck."
That he did not see coming.
"Is Ninon your lover?" the smile looks forced, "she is beautiful."
"She is a good woman facing a hideous death," he says and weighs if he should or should not let the implications she made stand, he did enjoy his notorious reputation.
"I – I only wanted to comfort her," the truth comes out and he can't meet her eyes after showing his weakness.
"Forgive me," the tiny simle on her face is real, "your compassion does you credit."
And as she walks past him he only stares. He wonders when he had stopped bowing before her as one should for a queen, when had he grown so familiar with her presence. Drawing a hand through his hair he chuckles quietly because for all his libertine image he hadn't been with a woman like that since Adele left Paris. Actually he reminds himself that he hadn't looked at another woman that way ever since that prison break, because he had fallen in love with the qu–
Oh hell.
Because some things right before the face take the longest to be recognized
And sometimes the most obvious things are the hardest to put into words,
TBC
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