~§~
Now
Treville ordered a nearby soldier to fetch water for the lad, if not to refresh him, at least to clean some of the blood off of him. It struck him as odd that the boy had come looking for him personally, but given the current state of affairs, there was little these days that didn't garner such a reaction from him. "Have either of you seen Aramis this morning?" he asked, spotting Athos and Porthos moving towards the group assembled around the child.
Since the faux pas at the King's hunt, Treville had limited Aramis' assignments to a bare minimum, keeping him close to the garrison. While the action could be seen as further punishment, Treville was merely trying to keep the Musketeer close until he could sort out his head. Despite what the King had said - and Aramis himself had confirmed when confronted - the Captain did not believe for one second that the man had been even close to drunk on that day.
The Cardinal's words of contempt, insinuating that he should learn to pick his men better and not open the garrison's gate to any whelp that tried to cross it, had stung. His allegations that Aramis might've even been involved in the attack three months prior did more than sting. They were dangerous and, whispered into the wrong ears, could lead to that young man's downfall, if not of the whole regiment.
Treville could recall the day of the hunt in perfect detail, having found himself satisfied to see Aramis back to his duties, looking focused and at ease, surrounded by his two new-found shadows that seemed to follow him everywhere he went. Treville remembered that he had smelled no wine on Aramis' breath when they had spoken, nor the telltale stench of sickness after drinking too much, so he knew that was not the reason.
He had his suspicions over what might have truly happened. After all, it was not like Treville had never seen similar reactions before. He had been a soldier for more years than he could count, the span of a lifetime in fact. He knew the deep scars that soldiers carried and he knew that, sometimes, the wounds that maimed the most were left unseen by the eye.
He had seen men, brave men, revert to child-like behavior and made barely able to cloth themselves, others too frightened to step outside the door of their quarters. He had seen too many fall victim of their demons, their lives forfeit long after the battle was over.
They all carried the same burden in their souls, the same look in their eyes. Sadly, it was all too similar to the look Treville had recognized in Aramis' eyes.
He had thought them past this, past the shadows of Savoy and the troop of good men claimed by those woods, but he could see now that he had been foolish in believing that. Just because Aramis had agreed to leave the infirmary and rejoin his brothers in their duties hardly meant that his memory had been wiped clean. Treville could now see that, no matter how much Aramis tried, René would always be lurking in the dark, waiting to pull him back down into despair.
As a Captain, the question he needed answered was but one. Could he ask of René the same he expected of Aramis?
~§~
Three days before
Aramis had retreated to his quarters as soon as they had reached the garrison. Clinging to the claim that his head was too sore and pained from wine to entertain company, Athos had found himself pushed outside of Aramis' room, staring at Porthos' equally concerned face.
If the man desired solitude, however, Athos was certainly not one to deny him something that he too cherished.
As they waited for the rest of the regiment to arrive, Athos' thoughts, predictably, veered towards how Treville would deal with the events of that day. As much as he wished to ignore all that had happened and cast a veil of innocence over Aramis' behaviour, the fact remained that the King and Cardinal had witnessed everything and, what was worse, the Cardinal would seek to drip venom into the King's ears over what had happened.
The Cardinal who had no qualms and was no friend of the Musketeers. Instead of a veil of innocence, Richelieu would cast it in the worse possible light and the whole incident would take on a magnitude that could bring dire consequences to the whole regiment.
Something that, Athos was certain, Treville was well aware.
"Treville migh' as well send them stable boys home," Porthos' deep voice cut in through the silence that had stretched for far too long between the two of them. He was still nursing the same cup of wine, a rare thing to be witnessed.
His eyes, Athos could see, were neither on the stables or him, but on the closed window on the second floor of the garrison's main structure. Aramis' quarters. "Why?"
Porthos brought his gaze down to meet his. "Pierre misplaced his cloak last week," he explained. "Treville had'im cleanin' the stables fer three days."
Athos was less optimistic about the outcome of the day. Before he could either agree or disagree with Porthos predictions, they both heard the loud clatter of galloping horses seconds before the yard was filled with Musketeers and their commander. The animals' frothing mouths and heavy breathing creating a shroud of mist amongst the yard. They had ridden those horses hard, to get there in such condition.
Poitier, Athos was relieved to see, was atop of his own horse, looking pale and sweaty but in control of his senses.
"We called for a surgeon," Athos informed Treville as soon as the man had dismounted and left his tired horse in the care of a stable boy. "He should be here shortly. How is Poitier?"
From the look Treville gave him, Athos would have surmised that Poitier was either dead or afflicted by the plague, had he not seen for himself the man being helped into the sickrooms just a moment before.
"Poitier will live. Where is he?" the Captain asked in turn. There was no need to ask who 'he' was. "How is he?"
Athos met the Captain's stern look, wondering how to answer such a question without sounding disrespectful or insolent. Aramis was unstable and lost, lying through his teeth about a drunkenness that had never happened, to cover up something that none of them could fathom and was currently hiding in his room like he was nothing but a small boy. "Ashamed," Athos finally replied, figuring the word explained at least some of his friend's odd behavior.
"Send him to my office," Treville commanded, his expression unreadable.
~§~
Porthos had offered to fetch Aramis, hoping that he could exchange a couple of words with him before Treville had him at his mercy.
From what he had gathered in the few times Aramis opened up about his past, he had been a soldier for years, even before Treville had asked him to join the King's Musketeers. He, like Porthos, was surely no stranger to the type of corporal punishment that some officers were in the habit of using to keep their men under control, particularly in the regiments less populated by noblemen, like the Infantry. With the kind of strong-minded and vocal attitude that Aramis had been shown to possess on more than one occasion, Porthos was sure that his friend had most probably experienced it personally once or twice.
Treville was not one to use violent methods of punishment on his men, as far as Porthos had seen. Musketeers were not common soldiers, they were the King's elite and their code of conduct alone was enough to keep them well-behaved and chivalrous in their actions. Mostly, the Captain's punishments went along what Pierre had endured the previous week.
Despite his words, however, Porthos was afraid for his friend. He knew how those noblemen and kingly people could hold a grudge and make a man pay in blood and tears for sins he had hardly committed. He did not wished to see that happen to Aramis.
"Oy, Aramis! The Cap'ain's asking for you," Porthos called out after knocking, not wanting to find out if his friend would ignore his calling otherwise.
The last Porthos had seen of Aramis, the Musketeer had been pale and subdued, his eyes vacant and cold. As he looked now, searching for any signs of distress, Porthos was dismayed to find that, less than an hour after they'd departed, there was none.
Rather than feel relieved at the sight, Porthos' insides clenched. He knew a mask when he saw one. He had worn them often enough to be familiar with the signs. He just couldn't understand what was so bad that Aramis felt the need to keep it concealed from his closest friends. "How're ya feelin'? Better?"
The smile Aramis offered him was one of the emptiest things Porthos could remember seeing. "I'm about to get an ear full from Treville," he answered lightly. "Can't say that I'm looking forward to it..."
There was no shouting, no sounds of things crashing and being smashed inside Treville's office after Aramis walked in and closed the door behind himself. In fact, there were no sounds at all for a very long time.
When the door finally opened, the sun was about to set, and the coming darkness plotted to conceal both men's expressions until they reached the bottom of the stairs.
Porthos and Athos had found themselves unable to move from the table underneath Treville's balcony, counting the passing minutes and adding their growing numbers to their increasing worry. As they caught sight of Aramis' face, Porthos could not find it in himself to regret that decision.
Aramis was whitewashed, his eyes looking sunken and devoid of life as he looked around the yard.
"Gather the men," Treville ordered as he passed their table. To say that the Captain's face was set on stone was softening the expression. "Now!"
Porthos exchanged a look with Athos, both trying to guess what was to come. Aramis, the only one who could shed some light on the matter, had stopped at the bottom of the steps and remained silent, refusing to meet their eyes. Whatever concern had been churning in Porthos' gut for the past hours, surged like a demon, threatening to devour his insides with fire.
"Most of you already know what happened earlier," Treville started as soon as the regiment had gathered, his voice deep and carrying easily through the small yard. "What Aramis did today was nothing short of an act of severe dereliction of his duty, as his actions placed in needless danger the King's life and that of a brother. More so, he broke his oath as a Musketeer and blemished the regiment's honor."
It was painful to see that most of the garrison seemed to agree with the Captain's harsh words, some even going as far as whistling and calling out insults to the Musketeer about to be punished.
Treville raised his hand, curbing all manifestations of support or otherwise. There was thunder in his gaze as he look at the restless crowd. He was not finished. "Such a thing will not be tolerated in this regiment. Restoration of that honor demands that he be punished in a manner fitting the office for which he serves, the King of France and the Musketeers."
Porthos growled. There was none amongst the regiment who did not take the reputation of the Musketeers very seriously, but surely the Captain and the others could see that Aramis' actions did not deserve such severe punishment? The King was safe, Poitier was on the mend and...
Athos and Porthos both knew that this would not end up in a month of cleaning stalls.
"Remove your doublet, son," Treville ordered, the gentleness of his voice a harsh contrast with the violence of his command. "I'll be as quick about it as I can," he said softly, words meant for Aramis' ears alone, even if Porthos and Athos stood close enough to catch them just as easily.
Aramis nodded, seemingly in a world of his own, his head held high but not actually looking at or seeing anyone. It seemed as if every time his eyes found Porthos in the crowd, Aramis gaze would pass right through him, rather than focus on him. Porthos felt unmaterial, not solid enough to help his friend.
For all of his semblance of poise and composure, Porthos was close enough to see Aramis' fingers trembling as he unbuckled his belts and set them carefully on top of the table, next to the cup of wine Porthos had been unable to finish. Under the watchful eyes of the garrison, the marksman next removed the leather coat and walked slowly to the stalls underneath Treville's office, presenting his back to the Captain and bracing his hands against one of the wooden bars securing the horses.
Porthos was moving forward before he was even aware of his actions. It was Athos' hand, keeping a painful grasp on his arm, that stopped him from going any further. He could see in the other man's blue eyes the same storm he imagined to be brewing in his.
With each passing second, Porthos' heart was thundering inside his chest, stealing his breath away with every painful beat. The usual punishment for a soldier neglecting his duties was forty lashes. Porthos had seen soldiers put through such ordeal, seen the consequences to both their bodies and their minds. He could not iddly stand by and watch as Aramis became one of those men.
"For foolishly endangering King Louis XIII and causing harm to one of his fellow soldiers," Treville announced, his voice carrying easily amongst the heavy silence that had descended upon the garrison, "I sentence the Musketeer Aramis to...twenty lashes," he went on, ignoring the pointed look that Aramis threw his way. "To be carried out immediately."
The only sound brave enough to follow Treville's words was a dog, barking at a distance. Porthos wasn't sure if the rest of the regiment had been struck mute in surprise about the Captain's decision to half the number of lashes, or by the fact that he was actually going to flog Aramis. As much as their commander tried to disguise it, everyone could see that Treville's heart was not committed to subjecting one of his soldiers to such a public humiliation and scolding.
Years of soldiering were ignored, as Porthos could contain himself no longer. He broke free of Athos' hold and moved to Aramis' side, surprised to see that Athos had not only allowed him to move without resistance, but followed him as well.
Treville, to his credit, did not utter a word as both of them walked to Aramis and stood in front of him, giving their friend something to focus other than straw and a horse's backside.
Aramis finally met their eyes and forced a tight-lipped smile on his face. There were so many words of gratitude and complete surprise in his warm eyes that Porthos had to look away, lest he lost what little composure he had left and embarrassed himself in front of everyone. Before he could think much on the matter, Porthos placed his hand over Aramis' right one knowing, instinctively, that Athos would do the same with the left.
Under his touch, Aramis' hand felt as if made of smooth stone, like those life-like statues sculpted by the masters, perfect in every detail in its imitation of the human body, but stiff and ice cold to the touch.
To those watching, the gesture that could almost be confused for an act of restraint, at least for those completely ignorant of the integrity and honor of either one of them. Athos and Porthos would never betray their friend in such a manner, much in the same way that Aramis would never flinch or run away from his punishment. Porthos cared not for what they thought; he and Athos were merely there to offer support to their brother and nothing more.
The white linen shirt Aramis was wearing was thick, in deference to the cold weather. Maybe it would offer some protection against what would follow as well.
~§~
Treville looked lengthily at the table where Aramis had discarded his coat, belts and weapons. His hand hesitated over the two belts, before grabbing the thicker one.
Athos, facing Aramis' anxious face, almost sighed in relief when he noticed Treville's selection. Had the Captain elected to use one of the stable whips or even the thinner, weapons' belt, the resulting damage would be much worse, the marks forever impossible to hide.
Aramis' grace and serenity, which he had been able to maintain stoically while facing the whole garrison, was slowly slipping away now that the only ones who could see him were Athos and Porthos. Athos grasped the fingers under his hand tighter, worried about the amount of tension and stiffness he could feel. Were the Captain to prolong the matter much longer, Athos feared that Aramis would have a couple of broken fingers to add to his abused back.
"Whenever it pleases you," Athos spoke, the words anything but respectful even if his voice remained dry and emotionless. His eyes, he was aware, spoke differently.
Thankfully, Treville did not hesitate or called him out on his insubordination. He removed his own doublet, methodically placing it next to Aramis'.
"Brace yourself," Athos whispered, watching the Captain pull his right arm back.
The first five lashes were more humiliating than painful, Athos could guess as he watched Aramis' closely, the bow of his neck, the tension in his shoulders, the fine tremor of his arms. By the tenth, a soft groan escaped Aramis' closed lips, as he did his best to restrain himself from voicing his pain. Athos knew that, if he kept that up, Aramis was going to bite right through his bottom lip, but there was nothing he could do to stop that. There was nothing he could do to stop any of it.
From the tenth on, skin already tenderized by each of the previous strikes, there was no stopping the agonized gasps that were forced out of Aramis' mouth with each impact, air rushing out from his lungs against his will in a cloud of white. The last five were the only ones that elicited pained grunts, as the Musketeer's knees finally buckled, his energy spent.
When the clamor of leather hitting flesh finally stopped, the only sounds that could be heard inside the garrison were Treville's laboured breathing, Aramis' quiet gasps for breath and the sound of Porthos' fist, hitting the stable's wall.
Athos took a deep, shuddering breath, his gaze trapped by the solitary, thin line of blood that crossed Aramis' back, soaking through his white linen shirt.
Blood seemed to soak faster through white than it did with all other colors, like a hungry beast devouring its favourite treat… Thomas had been wearing white as well. And the beast had consumed him whole.
"See to him," the Captain ordered curtly, dropping the belt to the ground.
~§~
Now
It had been days since that wretched hunt and Treville could still feel the impact of the leather as it connected with Aramis' back. If he closed his eyes, he could still hear the young man's failed attempts to remain silent, still see the disapproving glares from Porthos and Athos, and others who'd heartily disagreed with the punishment.
Aramis had retreated into himself afterward, avoiding even the company of those who had stood by his side. In the days since, Treville hadn't given him much to do other than menial tasks inside the garrison, both to keep him out of trouble and give his back some time to heal. The Musketeer would complete his duties with competence and morality, doing his best to ignore the jibes and rude comments from a few of the newer Musketeers, the ones that knew only of René the medic and not of Aramis, the Musketeer. More than once, as Porthos and Athos tired of being ignored and left for the tavern, they still insisted that Aramis join them, but they had always left alone.
So, it was a bit surprising to realize that, as he looked around, Aramis was nowhere to be found within the garrison. Now that Treville thought about it, the man had been conspicuously absent from morning muster as well.
"I am sure he's in his quarters," Athos informed, steadily looking at his commanding officer's face as he, no doubt, lied through his teeth. "Should I send for him?"
Treville gave him a disapproving look. He could understand that Athos and Porthos had not taken lightly to his actions, but that did not give them the right to resort to insolence. "Gustave, Pinon," he barked, gathering the attention of two of the more-seasoned Musketeers. "With me! Athos, Porthos, you too!" he added with a glare. His eyes softened ever so much as his face turned back to the child, greedily drinking from the cup of water. "Now, son...can you take us to the dead man?"
~§~
A few hours earlier
Aramis awoke to the sound of a woman's screams. Loud, brain-piercing screams.
His first instinct was to spring into action as quickly as he could, because for someone to scream at such high pitch, they had to certainly be in mortal danger. Moving, however, awoke a whole new set of pains and aches to join his pulsing head.
Aramis ignored his aching body as best as he could, concentrating on opening his eyes instead. The place he found himself in was barely lit, and for that he was grateful, for he was sure that anything more intense than the feeble beam of light coming from the high windows would surely cause his senses to desert him like cowardly rats. The heavy smell of sour wine in the air was doing no favours to his building nausea.
He was sitting on a rough stone floor, his back supported by a sturdy wooden surface. One of his hands, lying across his lap, loosely grasped the hilt of a bloody dagger, a weapon he could have recognized by touch alone, his main gauche. Startled by the sight, Aramis let the blade clatter to the floor. The sound echoed through the large space.
The screams stopped as the woman, a few feet away from him, turned to look at the bloody weapon. "Madame?" Aramis called out, his voice raspy and barely audible. Still, he needed to catch her attention, make her to come to him while he gathered the strength to go to her.
The woman all but jumped into the air, clutching her chest as she spun around to face him. There was nothing but naked terror in her eyes. "Assassin!" she screamed again, staring right at him.
Aramis resisted the urge to look behind himself, because he knew there would be nothing there but a wall. It was, however, the sight that had been hidden by the woman's body that caught his attention.
Another man, one whose face looked vaguely familiar, was hanging from the low ceiling by his hands. His head was thrown back, an impossible angle for anyone still drawing breath. The man, however, didn't suffer from that affliction. The obscene slash across his throat, deep enough to glimpse bone, made sure of that.
"Mamman…"
The child's voice, so jarring in the midst of such violent sight, made Aramis flinch. He looked around, searching for the owner of the voice, finally spotting a young boy at the bottom of a set of stairs. He was staring at the dead man, his eyes wide and curious.
Aramis' attention turned back to the woman a second too late. For one stilled moment, he could see up close and in perfect clarity the line of rust and every bulge and furrow on the metal of the shovel she was wielding, before it crashed against his head. The sickening sound it made as it connected was the last thing he heard.
~§~
Now
Porthos was fuming as they traversed the darker streets and alleys of Paris, following the kid. He knew duty came first, and he would never shrink from what was asked of him in service of the King, but sometimes, duty and heart stood at odds with one another and he was left torn and adrift in the middle.
That particular morning, Porthos would rather have been out looking for Aramis, instead of investigating another gruesome crime. It wasn't like the Musketeer didn't sympathize with the boy. He had been that boy, violence too vivid and present in his life for every day he drew breath since losing his mother.
But the fact remained that his friend had not been himself for days now, shifting between mercurial moods that deeply concerned him and Athos. Porthos wasn't quite sure what to make of it and the older Musketeer was of little help. It was like two different people were fighting for sovereignty inside Aramis' head and everyone around was left to guess which of the two was in command at every given moment.
Somedays, Aramis was the accomplished soldier, confident in his skills without distastefully rubbing it in the face of others; he was charming with the ladies and courteous with the men, turning heads in appreciation wherever they went, be it the court or the tavern. He was a good friend, capable of spending his last coin to make sure those around him were left wanting for nothing, even if, as it happened more often than not, he had no coin to spare at all.
Other days...it was like a dark cloud descended upon his mind and it seemed as if the only thing Aramis was capable of was thunder and lightning. Like a storm he was, lashing out at any who dared to come near until all of that energy was spent and all he could do was drag himself back to his quarters and hide from view of the world.
Porthos knew that there was something going on with his friend, something that had been haunting him even before they had become friends, but not for all the drink in the world would Aramis disclose his demons.
Athos was of a mind that they shouldn't push, that Aramis' business was his own, but then again, Athos had as many dark days as Aramis seemed to have.
Porthos was not a man prone to idly sit by and watch a good man destroy himself.
The whole affair at the King's hunt had been just bizarre. Aramis had ridden beside him and Athos the whole way to the hunting grounds. He had been in good spirits, relaxed, even teasing Athos about his shiny, black leather doublet, that made him look so very dashing. He had been as sober as a priest at Sunday mass.
It was impossible to understand what madness had come between Aramis and Poitier for him to act the way he had, but Porthos knew that wine had nothing to do with it.
What he had witnessed when Poitier was wounded, what he had gazed upon when he had pulled Aramis back before he could break Poitier's neck...Porthos had seen the lost look in his eyes, the darkness and fear. The sight had scared him beyond words.
It took him a while to realize it, distracted by anger and frustration over Treville's actions, but eventually Porthos had recognized the look. It was the same one he'd seen the day of the explosion, the same look that would visit Aramis on his stormy days.
Athos had stopped him from barreling into Treville's office after the flogging, looking for explanations for his poor treatment of Aramis. All he had been able to focus at the time was the sickening sound of leather hitting flesh and the sight of Aramis' fingers underneath his, the color of ash, as Aramis pressed his fingernails into the wood to stop himself from screaming. Later, much later, once Aramis had been cared for and forced to sleep, Porthos had been willing to listen to reason.
Putting the King in danger, as Treville was calling it, was tantamount to treason, which was punishable by death. While all of that was true, Porthos thought that was a rather dramatic interpretation of what had truly happened. After all, he had been standing right next to Aramis as he had pushed away the musket in the King's hands, after he had already fired it, which meant that the King had never been even remotely at risk. But the King was the King, and Porthos was well aware that even a sneeze in His Majesty's presence could be seen as an assassination attempt, particularly if there was a bout of Influenza running around.
And then, of course, there was the fact that Aramis had scared poor Poitier with his actions, not that King and court gave much importance to that. The rest of the regiment, however...
Poitier truly believed that Aramis would've killed him, had Porthos not intervened. Porthos wasn't entirely certain himself that the man wasn't right.
While Athos, too, had been aggravated by the Captain's treatment of Aramis, he, at least, had kept a calm head about it, enough to understand that solving the matter within the garrison had spared Aramis from being taken to the Châtelet. Or worse, the noose.
Relationships had become strained after that.
The Captain would only address them to give out orders, ignoring all of their attempts to talk about what had happened. And Aramis simply ignored them.
The previous night, after days of silence, Porthos had finally reached the end of his endurance. He had decided to confront Aramis about what was happening, only to find his quarters empty. And empty they remained still when he had returned that morning, the bed and linens undisturbed.
Athos had assured him that they would find Aramis, drunk in some forgotten tavern, but Porthos wasn't so sure. Aramis wasn't like that.
"'tis here!" the boy announced, bringing the whole group to a halt. The inn was little more than a private house with probably a pair of rooms to spare. A wooden goose figurine, painted black, hung above the door, announcing the fine establishment to be The Wild Goose.
'A proper wild goose chase," Porthos bitterly thought to himself. The place was as foul-looking as it was foul-smelling, the kind of establishment people frequented to either lose their purse or their life. Sometimes both.
He had known plenty of places like The Wild Goose back in the day. The kid was probably just some scoundrel's paid bait, hoping to lure a lone Musketeer in there to relieve him of his coin and weapons. It was a good thing that the Captain had decided that no crime was too small to use the Musketeers in force and there were five of them there.
Their group stood out among the few patrons drinking inside. At least two, Porthos noticed with a smirk, had taken a look at the pauldrons on their shoulders and scurried away through the back door, suddenly reminded of some important business elsewhere.
"Ah, Messieurs!" a woman, wearing a dirty apron around her waist, called from the other side of the room, standing next to a small door partially hidden under the short flight of steps that led to the floor above. Upon seeing her, the little boy broke rank and raced to her side, burrowing his face in her skirts. "He's this way," she beckoned, a metal shovel grasped in her hand. The back of the blade was slightly dark, glinting with fresh blood. "I've tied 'im up for ya."
Porthos exchanged a confused look with Athos. Had she just said that she'd tied up the dead man? What was she expecting him to do? Rise up and walk?
"Down there?" Treville inquired. From the look on his face, he wasn't finding much sense in the whole matter either. At the woman's nod, he gently pushed her away. "Leave it to us, then."
~§~
There was a reek of mold and sour wine in the air as they descended the stairs that Athos found extremely unpleasant. The acrid scent of blood, however, soon overwhelmed everything else.
The place was poorly-lit and the thought of an ambush was on everyone's mind, obvious from the way each man was cautiously making his way down, hands hovering nervously over their weapons.
They saw the strung-up man first. His body sagged against the bonds on his wrists, the hands trapped above, already blackened and starting to decay. There was a large blood stain covering the front of his shirt and part of his breeches, the source being the obvious gaping wound on his throat.
"That would be our dead man, then," Athos noted dryly. It was clear to see that, whatever had happened here, it had not been any sort of drunken disagreement. This had been an execution, possibly preceded by torture for information.
Gruesome as the sight was, it was the second body that surprised them for they had not expected someone else in the room…much less for it to be someone that they could so easily recognize.
"Aramis!"
Porthos was the first to run to their friend's side, hurriedly taking off his gloves and tossing them on the floor. Aramis was lying on his side, hands tied behind his back, eyes closed and motionless. As Porthos slipped one hand to the side of his friend's head, to lift him up, he recoiled in horror, displaying fingers painted in blood for all to see. "Who did this?" he growled, his eyes fixing on the woman who had followed them downstairs. "Wha's it you?"
"Caught 'im red-handed, I did, after me boy warned me about these happenings," the woman announced proudly. "T'is an honest establishment I run. He had no business comin' here to do his murdering."
Porthos cursed under his breath, earning himself a stern look from the Captain.
Athos moved closer. Aramis had yet to respond to any of Porthos' insistent calls, stubbornly remaining senseless and unable to defend himself from the vile accusations being cast upon his honor. A bloody dagger lay discarded nearby, and with a pang of apprehension, Athos recognized it as Aramis' main gauche, the ornamented pommel too elaborate and refined to be mistaken for anyone else's.
"Tell us what happened, Madame," Treville prodded, expertly moving to place himself between Porthos and the woman, picking up the bloody weapon as he went. He twirled it in his hands, his eyes sparking in recognition as well.
"T'is as I told you," she said, grabbing a fistful of her apron to wipe her nose. She didn't seem all that affected by the gory sight in her basement, just slightly annoyed by the disturbance it was causing. "Came down here t'fetch more wine and found that one," she went on, chin pointing in Aramis' general direction, "just sittin' here, bloody knife in his hands, fresh out of killin' that one, like'im was just havin' a rest after slitting his throat," she nodded towards the hanging man. "Bloody heartless, that's for sure."
Athos found himself moving closer to his friends, as if to protect Aramis from the woman's words. On the floor, Porthos was clenching at Aramis' clothes, his hands turning into fists against his own volition, knuckles begging to smash something. He was not one to hit a woman, Athos was certain of that, but the words coming out of that mouth were making it hard for all of them to keep to their code of honor.
"And then?"
"I hit 'im with a shovel, that's what I did," she announced proudly, waving her weapon around as if to prove her point. "Wasn' gonna let 'im have his wicked way with me too, was I?"
"I've heard enough," Porthos announced, his voice deep as a grumbling mountain. Setting out to do what he should've done as soon as he had reached his friend, the large man reached for his own main gauche, intending to cut Aramis' hands free.
"No," Treville said, the word almost a whisper, but carrying far in the enclosed space.
Porthos looked up, confused. Athos followed his gaze. Certainly the Captain hadn't believed a word that vile woman had said, had he?
"Cap'ain?"
"We have a bloody dagger and a body, gentlemen," Treville said, choosing to ignore the plea underneath Porthos' question.
He had also, Athos was pleased to notice, ignored the fact that they also had a witness to the crime, no matter how much the innkeeper claimed that she had seen everything. The only part Athos believed to be true was that she had discovered Aramis sitting next to a dead man. Suspicious, certainly, but there was hardly such a thing as a conviction of murder by proximity to the corpse.
"Until we can determine what truly happened here, we have no other choice but to see to it that the King's justice is respected," the Captain determined.
"But..." Porthos started, only to be met with the Captain's angry face inches from his.
"That is a direct order!" he barked, blue eyes hard as steel. "You two will remain here and accompany the body to the morgue," he added, some of his temper contained. "Gustave, Pinon and myself will see to it that Aramis is taken to the brig, where a physician can have a proper look at him."
Porthos opened his mouth to protest one more time. Athos reached for him before he could make any more trouble for himself. Still fuming, Porthos traded Treville's scolding eyes for Athos' calmer ones. Athos could pinpoint the exact moment when the big Musketeer calmed down enough to realize what both Athos' eyes and Treville's curt words were truly saying.
No matter how much they wanted to make sure that Aramis was safe and would be treated fairly, Athos and Porthos could do more for him by following the Captain's orders. If there was a place where they could begin to find answers to the whole situation, that place was right here.
~§~
AN:A huge thank you to Laurie_bug and Jackfan2 for their wonderful work!