AN: I want to say thank you to every single one of you wonderful people who have been following, commenting, liking or simply reading this story so far. Every time I post a chapter, you guys make me feel like I'm not an insane person shouting in the wind, that I'm writing something that someone will actually read and, hopefully, enjoy. So, thank you!
As far as I can tell, after this chapter there will be two more, possibly three and the story will be done. So, nearly there folks!
And because it's been far too long since I've embarrassed her, I want to renew my deepest gratitude to my beta reader, Laurie_bug, who has been beyond amazing in her help and mad skills, because -trust me- betaing for a non-English native ain't an easy ride!
See you all soon!
~§~
By the time the hood was removed from his head, Athos had long lost all and any sense of direction as to where they were going. The room was smaller than the one he'd been before, a single window opening to the street outside. Night had fallen around them, making it a full day since Aramis had been taken.
And now Porthos...
Athos could not conceive that the other man had surrendered to such vile terms. That he had so easily cast aside his honor and chivalry for the fleeting chance that something good might come out of this. The fact that Athos' own life was now being held over the other man's head only added to his own anger and annoyance. What had Porthos been thinking?!
Though it was true that he hadn't known his fellow Musketeer for all that long, Athos had no doubts about Porthos' strength of character. He was not a cold-hearted murderer, no matter what his upbringing might have been.
Whatever the taller man was planning to do, Athos silently urged him to do it with haste. He could see in his captors' eyes that they didn't like the situation and disliked his presence in their midst even more. As far as Athos could tell, they looked more eager to slide a blade between his ribs and be rid of the nuisance of his existence than to keep guard.
The girl who'd claimed to have seen Aramis was there was well, keeping to the shadows, watching him. Though she kept her distance, she seemed more curious than hateful, assessing him.
Playing a hunch, Athos slid back against a wall and sat on the floor, as far away from his 'guards' as he possibly could. It took less than ten minutes for the young girl to plant herself in front of him, her raggedy skirt surrounding her coiled legs like the opened petals of a colorful flower.
"Wha' do they call ya?"
Athos pondered the benefits and disadvantages of supplying his name to one of his captors before he reminded himself that he was no longer a Comte and, therefore, worth no ransom to anyone. "Athos," he replied, refraining from adding his usual 'at your service'. There was absolutely no service that he would gladly provide to that people.
"Ya don't look scary enough t'be a Musketeer, Athos," she said after a while.
Athos looked at her at length, trying to see past the grimy cheeks and the hair matted with straw and dirt. He could see the sharp glint of intelligence in her eyes, the elegance of her neck and hands. Were it not for the bad fortune of being raised in a place like the Court of Miracles, Athos was sure that, with proper tutelage, she would've made an excellent seamstress or even a talented embroiderer.
"Are we meant to be scary-looking?" he inquired, truly curious.
The look she gave him was enough for Athos to understand the condescending tone that he had used, even if the sentiment behind it wasn't entirely true. He had tried so hard to keep human interaction at a bare minimum for so long that, when it was necessary, he found his 'people skills' somewhat lacking. "My apologies, mademoiselle," he added honestly.
"I'm Charlotte, not mademoi-nothin'," she corrected. "Yer clothes are wrong too," she added, after careful deliberation.
Athos frowned, looking down at his attire. His black leather doublet hadn't exactly been supplied by Treville or the King, but the pauldron upon his shoulder, decorated with the Royal fleur de lis certainly was, marking him as much a Musketeer as any of his fellow soldiers. "And, pray tell, how should I be dressed?" he asked, indulging her criticism.
"Ya know, all in black and red, with one of them flashy red capes and those metal helmets that makes ya lot look like oversized pointy-headed bats," she explained. "Tha's what they were wearing when they took my friend Cecile, anyway."
Athos wrinkled his nose, like he had smelled something foul. With both regiments being funded almost simultaneously and just a few years before, there were still many who confused the Red Guard with the Musketeers, specially amongst the common folk. And the Red Guard had, unfortunately, managed to gather a rather unsavory reputation for all manners of armed brutality in the streets of Paris.
"You are mistaken in your assumptions," he explained, keeping his voice low and steady. "The reason why I don't dress in that manner is because you are referring to the Red Guard, a group of particularly impolite people, to which I have no desire to be associated with."
Charlotte raised a fine brow, tilting her head to look at him. "Ya talk funny," she pronounced, looking none-too-pleased by it. "Why should I believe ya?"
Athos pondered. She had a point -maybe not exactly about the way he talked- but about the lack of reason for her to trust him. "You saw someone that is very dear to me," he confessed earnestly. "Consequently, as the only link between us and him, you have become very dear to me as well. I would do everything in my power to protect you, as I would him."
Bluntly honest as it was, it seemed to appease her. "Wha's yer friend's name?"
"He never told you?" Athos asked, surprised the ever-polite Aramis had failed to properly introduce himself to someone of the fairer sex.
Charlotte shook her head. "He didn't look al'tha' scary' either," she concluded after a short consideration. "I think he thought I was a ghost or somethin'..."
Athos heart clenched, a reaction he'd been certain he would never suffer again, his feelings numb and cold since he had left his estate and his past behind. To think of Aramis, disoriented and pained enough to confuse a flesh-and-blood girl for an imaginary spirit...it was not something that he wished to think about.
"He wasn't all tha' happy when I ask if the fella makin'im scream was a Musketeer too," she went on, the natural chatter of the young overtaking her initial precautions about talking to him. "I don't think I've ever listened to someone scream that loud…"
Athos could not bear to hear another casual word about his friend, not when it was offered so casually and it touched upon the matter of his suffering. "Stop...please," he begged, something he could not recall doing in recent memory. "Speak to me of something else, I urge you...anything else."
There was true sadness in her eyes when she looked at him, finally realizing the impact her words were having. "I'm sorry I didn't help 'im," she said quietly.
Athos stared at her, understanding the regret. He was sorry too.
"He wasn't askin' to get out or anythin, ya know? Which I thought was real strange, 'cause if I'd been chained up like tha', I'd want nothin' else but to be out, right?"
Athos nodded slowly, filing away the information for later. The presence of chains, the fact that Aramis had expressed his willingness to remain in Rochefort's clutches, which meant that the fool was still trying to complete his mission. Athos was undecided whether to throttle the man when they found him, or commend his commitment. He might have to do both. "What did he ask you for, then?"
"A message, t'be delivered to the Musketeers' garrison."
"What sort of message?" Athos asked eagerly. Maybe there would be something in Aramis' words that could help find him.
If only Athos could gather enough information to ascertain where his friend was being kept, then he could try to escape and reach Porthos, before the other man was forced to do something that he would regret for the rest of his life. For the first time this blasted night, Athos found himself feeling some sort of hope.
"Didn't say," Charlotte blurted out, cutting through his hope viciously and unknowingly. "I kind'f left in a fit, after him tellin' me he was a Musketeer...sorry."
Athos groaned his frustration, resisting the urge to bang his head against the wall.
"I could take ya t'im, ya know," she whispered, shuffling closer. "Bourdon need not know, fer all I care."
Athos smiled, silently vouching that this young woman would never want for naught again in her life, even if he had to resort to becoming a thief himself to assure that. "Charlotte...were you a few years older, I would kiss you."
"Ewwhhh!"
~§~
Rochefort knew the exact moment when the Musketeer's will broke under his ministrations, as it happened precisely when he had foreseen it. It seemed utterly silly and pointless to try and preserve one's limbs intact when the gallows loomed so close, but such was human nature. No man could escape it, and his prisoner was no different.
It was, perhaps, what made hope as much of a curse as it was a useful tool. Hope that things would become better, hope that there was some escape from the noose. Hope that, if one cooperated, everything would go back to normal in due course.
Even as he ordered the Musketeer to choose which body part he wished to lose, Rochefort could see the pathetic man calculating and weighing the pros and cons of what he could afford to be without. The stupidity of the exercise was such that the Comte had to restrain himself from just claiming an eye and being done with the man's foolish hopes, once and for all.
As the smell of urine permeated the air, Rochefort knew he had won. If fear ever became tangible enough to possess a scent, he knew it would be acrid and pungent smell of piss.
He'd lost count of the number of men and women he had, at some point, reduced to such a primal state, to such humiliation. Some as a means to an end, others purely for entertainment.
The first one had been his younger brother, whose irrational fear of dogs had made the act of terrorizing him far too easy. It had awakened in him an appetite that Rochefort had never known before, the knowledge that he could control others through their fears and insecurities.
Fear had the wonderful after-effect of clouding people's minds harder and swifter than wine. Once permeated with it, it was the perfect time to mold and twist his prisoners to say and do whatever he pleased.
It also loosened their tongues. "What does Treville have?" he asked gently. "Finish your sentence."
The Musketeer looked at him with terror in his eyes and Rochefort basked in the warmth that washed through his gut. The Musketeer's lips remained closed, but he knew that the slightest of nudges would have him talking again at this point.
Thinking back to his initial idea, Rochefort unsheathed his main gauche and moved closer, glass crunching beneath his boots as he brought the blade to within an inch of the Musketeer's left eye. Being that close, he could easily smell the sweat and fear pouring off the man, could see the inner part of his eye contracting and shimmering, could hear the halted breaths and feel them against his skin. "Finish. Your. Sentence," he repeated, pushing the tip of the blade in just enough to pierce the pale skin under the eye. A single drop of blood flourished, like a ruby tear.
"T-there's a s-signed confession," the Musketeer blurted out, his eyes filling with real tears this time, as his shame become complete. "One of the men from the attack...the Captain got him to write one before he passed."
Rochefort's eyes narrowed at the words. He knew it had been a risk to take those inbred, foolish Red Guards with him, but at the time he'd needed the extra hands. Gerard he had personally taken care of in prison, but the other two... "Lying won't do you any favors, Musketeer," he hissed, his words driving the blade deeper. "If Treville has a confession, why is he keeping it a secret?"
The man stopped breathing under his touch, too frightened to even blink.
"Answer me!" Rochefort shouted, pulling the blade away only long enough to drive his hand into the Musketeer's frozen face. The sharp pain of his ring cutting into the man's cheek seemed to bring him out of his stupor, a shuddering intake of air rippling across his chest.
"He...he believes that there was someone else involved," Aramis hurried to say. "He's been investigating behind the Cardinal's back, gathering proof..."
The Comte snarled, cursing himself for not having thought of that. It was clear from the Musketeer's feeble attempt to hide the truth that one of the blithering idiots who'd gone with him to the garrison had been foolish enough to mention Rochefort or even the Cardinal in his death-bed confession.
"Where..." Rochefort asked silkily, his hand curling around the Musketeer's throat, "...is it?"
Feverish, bloodshot eyes rose to meet his and, for a brief second, a spark of strength and defiance flared within the dark depths. Rochefort pressed his fingers tighter, aiming to squeeze out that insurgence before it could take hold, increasing the pressure until he could see the light dimming away into nothing, the vibrant brown slowly becoming nothing more than murkiness, like a swamp.
Devoid of life.
When the man started to blink heavily and lose his grip on his senses, Rochefort eased up just enough to let him try and find some air. "Where?" he whispered in his ear.
"The Bonaci...the Bonacieux house," Aramis breathed, the words as intimate as the Comte's had been. "The clo...cloth merchant."
"Why would he do that?" Rochefort asked. It seemed hardly safe to keep such an important document in some random commoner's hands. Unless... "What's Treville's relationship with them? Answer quickly now, I'm beginning to lose my patience..."
The Musketeer's breathing quickened, as if trying to take in as much air as he could before Rochefort cut off the supply once more. "She's his mis...she's his mistress," Aramis panted, his voice a hoarse whisper. "She will be expecting one of us...one of us to...to-" he managed to say before a coughing fit took what was left of his breath.
Rochefort released him with a shove, watching uninterested as the man lost his precarious hold on his senses and crumpled bonelessly against the chains holding him up.
He smiled. Simple men could always be trusted to be betrayed by their own pricks. Treville, it would seem, was no different. A cloth merchant's house would be much easier to breach than the garrison had been, especially if the Captain's mistress was expecting one of Treville's men to retrieve the letter.
All he would need was a blue cloak to look like one of those trained monkeys. Rochefort was certain he could do that for at least five minutes. When he next saw the Cardinal, he would be able to not only present him with the confession he needed, but also the one he'd never known about.
~§~
Porthos saw his opportunity appear as the woman veered right towards a bridge to cross over the Seine.
The hour was late and the streets were blissfully empty of any passers-by. Signaling his shadow to remain where he was, Porthos moved fast and silent, keeping close to the wall and the abandoned stalls by the riverside.
He kept one eye on his prey and the other on the river below. The summer had been dry and winter, so far, had been sparse in rains, making the river run shallower than it would usually be at that point of the year in past winters. The water was cold, certainly, but not yet frozen. A small mercy he was very thankful for, for it could mean the difference between making a murderer out of him or not.
As the woman passed the center of the bridge and walked closer to the other side, Porthos made a run for it. His plan was to get close enough so that Bourdon's man couldn't tell exactly who the dagger pierced and to push the woman into the river, claiming her dead without having to produce a body to prove it. If the Heavens were generous, the woman might even know how to swim the short distance to the shore.
His plan did not include running straight into a pointed pistol. "Who sent you?" the woman hissed, the weapon steady in her hand. "Was it that lying bastard, Sarazin?"
Porthos sucked in a breath. For a fleeting moment, the woman reminded him of Flea. She had the same courage and cunning reflecting from her pale green eyes. "Bourdon," he readily confessed, owing no allegiance to the man. "But I'm not here t'harm ya."
The woman smiled, carefully painted lips stretching wide. "Clearly," she said, an eyebrow rising as she glanced at the pistol pointed at him. "The question is, why does that rat Bourdon want me dead?"
"Tha's not the question ya should be askin'," Porthos told her gently. He could see the cogs turning inside her mind, cleverly understanding what he wasn't voicing. If she was a creature of the shadows, as he had once been, she would know that a man in Bourdon's position and with his power would never take back the hit he had placed on her head. And Porthos doubted that this Sarazin that she spoke so 'highly' of would go out of his way to defend her for the rest of her life.
"What do you propose?" she asked, lowering the weapon a fraction of an inch.
"We're bein' watched," Porthos said, giving the slightest of nods in the direction he had left his shadow. It was enough for her pistol to resume its stance. "I propose we give 'im a good show," he added with a smile.
~§~
Athos regretted the fact that all of his weapons had been removed from his person. They would have made his current task all the more easy. If only by the slightest.
He'd been left unbound, Bourdon's people clearly trusting the labyrinthine ways of their lair and the Musketeers' despair to find their lost comrade as being enough of a deterrent to stop him from staging an escape.
They hadn't counted on him having a willing guide, or how strong of an incentive threatening the lives of a man's brothers could be for the soul. Particularly one as scarred as Athos'.
They had left one man guarding him inside the room, plus the other two that his new friend had informed him were just outside the open door. If he managed to quietly dispose of his chaperone, Athos was fairly certain that he could make his exit through the window.
With nothing else to distract him but the occasional noise from some lost dog in the street outside, and with the rest of the Court all but asleep at such a late hour, Athos' guard was looking utterly bored and sleepy.
As the man's head started to nod, Athos made his move. His new ally caught his eye and casually moved outside, starting a chat with the men standing guard, hopefully distracting them from any odd noises coming from within. Athos crept silently and swiftly across the room.
By the time the sleepy man noticed, the Musketeer already had a firm grip over his neck and face. His leather gloves, which they had seen fit to leave on him, helped, as Bourdon's man wasn't exactly the small and feeble type. The guard struggled, fists flying aimlessly, hoping to hit anything hard enough to diminish Athos' hold, but had no such luck. The Musketeer was smaller, fitter, and had all the incentive in the world to leave his prison. He needed to save the life of one brother and the soul of another.
The shift between muscles sprung tight with the tension of fighting to breathe and the flaccidity of a body completely abandoned by its senses came so suddenly that Athos felt himself being dragged to the floor by the dead-weight of his victim. He held on for a few more seconds, taking no chances that the man might be faking it, before releasing his hold and propping the guard against the wall, hidden from immediate view if anyone decided to take a look inside the room.
Outside, he could still hear the nonstop chatter of Charlotte and the occasional grunted reply from the men suffering through her whimsical blather. Satisfied that he had yet to be noticed, Athos opened the window as gently as he could. The hinges were old and rusty and the wood squeaked as he forced it wide.
Tensing, he looked back at the door, waiting for any signs of alarm. When he could sense none, he peeked outside. A second floor, of course, because it would be too much to ask of this wretched, endless night, for them to keep him prisoner someplace closer to the ground.
He blamed his father for his fear of heights, truly. The old Comte had instilled in both his sons a deep sense of propriety and regal manners, neither of which being particular auspicious to climbing trees or sliding down the steep balustrade of the Chateau, no matter how delightful both prospects might've seemed to small children. His father had described in such gory detail what would happen to their fragile bones should they -most certainly- fell to their deaths if they sought any kind of dangerous endeavor, that neither Athos nor Thomas had ever dared to try.
As Athos climbed out and held on by the tips of his fingers, delaying the inevitable, his father's voice returned to haunt him. 'Bones snap with the sound of a broken twig, Olivier. Nothing but dry wood they are, the most fragile parts of a man's body.'
Athos let go, barely having time to panic about the length of the fall before the ground rushed up to meet him. His father had been wrong, after all. Snapping bones sounded nothing like dry twigs. They made no sound at all.
It had yet to rain hard enough to make puddles, but the cobblestones were glistening with damp, making them slippery as ice. Athos landed on the hard ground, knees bent to soften the impact, but as soon as his boots made contact, he was robbed of his equilibrium and dignity, landing in a tangled heap.
Cursing under his breath, he clambered to his feet, wiping his sore backside with a gloved hand. He nearly ended up on the ground again as soon as he tried to force his left foot to bear his weight. His ankle sent shards of pure agony up his leg, causing him to stagger and groan against his will.
Athos, however, had no time to dwell upon his private misery and misfortune. The sound of wooden wheels over wet stones meant that there was someone coming and he could not afford to be taken back. He needed to reach Porthos before the man did something utterly foolish.
The street was cluttered with empty barrels, discarded crates and broken carts, some nothing but rubbish, others set to serve other purposes. Hiding amongst the hodgepodge was not a hard task.
"Ya coudn've waited two bloody minutes?" a tiny voice hissed into the dark.
Recognizing the angry tone of his newest partner, Athos shuffled away from the pile of crates he'd hidden behind. In the middle of the street was Charlotte, small hands curled around the handle of a cart filled with straw and, he noticed with a relieved smile, his weapons.
Athos realized, belatedly, that she had fetched the cart to soften his landing. "Oh...well," he found himself voicing, trying not to feel too imbecilic even as he tried to avoid putting any weight on his left leg. His captors hadn't exactly afforded him the privacy needed to discuss the finer details of the plan with his accomplice. "What's done is done."
"Men..." she muttered, abandoning the cart and offering her shoulder instead.
~§~
Aramis woke to solitude and his whole body on fire, skin stretched too thin across his aching bones. His mind still trapped in the claustrophobic feeling of a constricting hand around his throat, he tried to gulp in a lungful of air, only to finding himself coughing miserably as the rushed breath hit his bruised windpipe and threatened to close it once more.
He lost track of time as he tried to slow his breathing, feeling like sharp blades had been placed around his lungs, poking him at every turn.
Every breath that he managed to take in and hold was heavily laced with the scent of melted wax and piss, and the smell was beginning to turn his stomach. His tormentor had, apparently, left in such a hurry that all the candles had been left lit in his wake, even if most of them had melted almost down to the wick by the time Aramis took notice.
From what he could recall from those few last moments before his senses had abandoned him, Aramis knew that the man had left in search of the signed confession in the Bonacieux's possession. The game was now on the Captain's side of the board and, hopefully, the pieces were set in a way that would allow them to win.
The realization filled him with such relief that Aramis almost lost his battle with consciousness once again. He couldn't, though. As appealing as the prospect seemed, Aramis knew that it now rested on his shoulder to make sure that his life did not end in that dark and abandoned place.
Once Treville made his move, there would be no guarantee that the Cardinal's man wouldn't escape and return to exact his revenge on Aramis. And if he was, in fact, captured, it could be weeks before Aramis' location could be extracted from his mouth, if at all. The Musketeer would be long-dead by then, nothing more than a victim of unfortunate circumstances.
Already he could feel his skin growing hot despite the coolness of the cavernous space. Regardless of his optimism over the fact that all of his wounds had been cauterized shortly after being inflicted, it was still clear that his body had taken offense at the repeated assaults and had decided to invite infection in all the same.
Slit throat, fever, thirst, hunger...it was a matter of picking his choice of demise, but the end was still very clear. He needed to find a way to free himself or he would be dead before the end of the day.
Aramis' eyes turned once more to the loops securing his chains to the stone columns. Endless hours of trying to wear them out had produced little result the last time he'd checked. The unconscious yanking and pulling under his torturer's ministrations, had, however, been more productive.
There was a gathering of white dust near the stone column on his right. Willing his eyes to focus properly, Aramis looked closely at the iron ring. His vision wavered and, for a moment, he thought it to be nothing more than his imagination making him see what he wished to see. But no...the more he looked, the more Aramis was certain of it. The right side iron was at an angle, bent against the pressure.
He closed his eyes for a moment, giving thanks for such a blessing, even as the feverish part of his brain chided the Heavens above for making it the right side instead of the left.
His broken arm was all but numb, fingers lax and cold where his hand hung from the iron shackle on his wrist. His thumb had stopped bleeding at some point, though Aramis could see that it had taken a while, judging by the puddle on the floor. It was hard to tell where the wine stopped and the blood begin, both so similar in color in the poor light.
Aramis gave an experimental pull, to see how far he could push his abused arm without blacking out. Bone scraped against bone at the slightest movement and the iron around his wrist pushed against the mangled finger as he pulled in the opposite direction. Aramis screamed a string of curses until his breath ran out and all he had left was the white, blinding pain in his arm and the black spots dancing in his vision.
His eyes stung, moisture collecting in them with little differentiation between tears and sweat as Aramis sagged against his chains, favoring his aching right side.
"Never took you for a weakling," a voice sounded from beyond the reach of candlelight. "My little sister was tougher than that, and she was only five when I last saw her."
Aramis startled, his head turning in the direction of the sound eagerly. He knew that voice. It was the same voice that had haunted his dreams for months now, and he'd wondered if he would ever hear it again. It was odd that he should find it there, of all places. "Marsac?" he croaked, his voice but a whisper.
As if summoned by his calling, the blond Musketeer stepped away from the shadows. He looked exactly the same as the last time Aramis had seen him. Disheveled, blood-splattered shirt half tucked inside his breeches and a bleeding cut above his left eye. "Did you miss me, Aramis?" he asked, a familiar mischievous glint in his blue eyes. "You really didn't think I would abandon you here, did you?"
Aramis found himself smiling through the pain. If Marsac was here, he had a chance of escaping. "Help me with these," he urged. "I'm not strong enough."
Instead of coming closer, however, Marsac fussed around for a bit until he found a spot on the floor clean enough for him to sit.
"Marsac?" Aramis called, confused. Why wasn't his friend helping? "Marsac, please..."
"What would be the point of this whole exercise if you can't help yourself?" Marsac replied, producing a red apple from his pocket and rubbing it against his dirty sleeve. "I can't keep saving your life, Aramis...you know that," he said, taking a bite of the juicy fruit.
Aramis found his mouth watering, even as he cursed his friend. Marsac wasn't entirely wrong. He had indeed saved his life once already, pulling him away from slaughter. Still, Aramis would've given anything for a helping hand now that he needed it the most. After all, before, in Savoy, he had not asked to be saved.
He closed his eyes, gathering strength and motivation to put his body through the torment of yanking the chain one more time. With one last glance at his seated friend, Aramis closed his eyes and pulled his whole body to the left, wrenching the chain as hard as he could. Either the iron ring would give, or his shoulder joint would, but he wasn't stopping until one did.
Existence blinked out for a few moments, everything greying around him until Aramis wasn't aware if he was awake or senseless. A scream he didn't remember voicing echoed around him and he found himself on the glass-covered floor, right arm cradled against his chest, the broken chain dangling by his side.
"There you go!" Marsac said enthusiastically. "Now…was that really so hard?"
~§~