AN: The frigging rescue, finally! Also, much was added to this chapter after my fabulous beta-reader went through it, so any mistakes you find, please let me know so that they can be corrected ASAP :)
~§~
Gambling and all manner of games of chance were not Treville's favorites. Rather than not being very good at them, it was the implied necessity of deceit and the occasional blind trust in random, luck that prevented him from ever appreciating them.
This, however, was not a game of chance, it was a game of chess, one that Treville and Richelieu had been playing for years. Two military minds, strategists at heart, moving around human lives like wooden pieces on a board.
Rocheford had been at a disadvantage from the start. To the Cardinal, the Comte was nothing more than a pawn, a discardable piece that could easily be replaced to achieve the same goal. He had been forfeited the second he had accepted to do the Cardinal's bidding.
Aramis however, he was Treville's knight. Free to move in any direction and never in a straight line, he was the strength that the Captain of the Musketeers was counting on to corner his opponent into check-mate.
Still, not all outcomes could be foreseen and planned for. So there Treville was, throwing the dice on Aramis' life and hating himself for doing so.
For one, he was gambling that Rochefort hadn't simply destroyed the letter as soon as he'd taken it from Constance. Fake as it was, the confession was the fuse by which all the gunpowder would either ignite or simply be dusted away.
And then...then he needed the Cardinal to corner himself into a place where he would have no other choice but to confess his deeds. But first...
"Arrest that man!" Treville commanded, as soon as he laid eyes on Rochefort. The Comte had strolled into to the palace gardens like he belonged there, his poise and countenance overflowing with the brash confidence and hubris of someone holding all the good cards and with plenty of money on the game.
"What is the meaning of this?" Rochefort demanded, glaring at the six Musketeers surrounding him. "The Cardinal is expecting me," he announced, paying little mind to them. "I have no time or patience for this nonsense."
His words fell on deaf ears. "Search him," Treville quietly ordered, taking much gratification in the look of hatred and the flash of concern he saw in the other man's eyes. Good...that meant he still had the letter.
"You do not have the authority to do this, Treville," Rochefort hissed, pushing aside the hands of the Musketeers trying to search his pockets. "The Cardinal will hear of this outrage!"
As Pinon finally managed to find the letter and held it out for Treville's inspection, the Captain smiled. "I am counting on that," he informed quietly. Holding himself tall, the Captain looked around the grounds, noticing the number of courtiers whose attention their little display had attracted. It was time to tighten the noose. "Monsieur le Comte de Rochefort, on His Majesty's authority, I am holding you prisoner, for questioning in the matter of high treason, at His Majesty's pleasure."
"You've gone mad, Treville," the blond man sneered, pulling his arms free. "That's absurd! I have done no such thing!" His protests were nothing more than snarls, hissed through his clenched teeth. "I will have your command for this, Treville!"
"Impersonating one of the King's Musketeers is not something that the King takes lightly, monsieur le Comte," the Captain offered with a smile. Any who had ever attended Court knew well enough of Louis' less than favorable reactions to anything he perceived as a trespass on his authority. Wearing His fleur de lis and royal blue without His consent was merely one of Louis most common aggravations. "The presence of this letter on your person proves that you have done just that."
Rochefort eyed the piece of paper in his hands with such intensity that Treville imagined the letter would be bursting into flames if such thing was physically possible. In those pale blue eyes, it was easy to see the pieces fitting together as the man figured out that he had been played.
"It was all a trap," Rochefort hissed. "That filthy son of a whore...tricked me!"
The Captain's face contorted into a barely hidden smirk. He had never met Aramis' mother but, from the few tales he had heard from the young man, she was one fiery lady that could probably beat some respect into the Comte's hide.
Inwardly, there was a degree of pride that the Captain could not dismiss at the realization that Aramis had played his part so well that only know Rochefort was realizing just how deeply he had been fooled. It was the uncertainty of the price Aramis had paid to achieve such a feat that made Treville reluctant to celebrate just yet.
The clogs kept on turning inside Rochefort's twisted mind and, because he wasn't entirely a stupid man, it was easy to catch the moment when the fact that he had suddenly become an expendable piece in the Cardinal's game, one that could be used for little more than saving the First Minister's skin, sunk in. The man ceased his struggles in exchange for a glimpse of Treville's eyes. "Let me go, or you will regret it," he threatened, defiant even in his defeat. Fear, however, had already taken residency in his eyes.
"Tell it to the King," Treville said, ordering the Musketeers to take away him with a nod of his head.
He had made his play. The next move was the Cardinal's, even if he still remained unaware of such.
~§~
Aramis wasn't where he was supposed to be.
The apothecary had not been happy when two Musketeers and a street girl invaded his space. He had, in fact, been particularly aggravated when Athos decided to stock up on some necessary items to take with them because, as Charlotte had pointed out, Aramis would not be at his best when they reached him.
He paid the man, of course, but it was the middle of the night and the apothecary was feeling rather contrary. Porthos' looming presence, threatening to strap the man to a chair and gag him went a long way to calm him down.
There was a passageway in the cellar of the house that led directly to the tunnels underneath. At some point, it had been used to smuggle brandy, Armagnac is the smell was anything to go by. Now, the only thing it housed was dust and rats.
Armed with their supplies of herbs, bandages and candles, Athos and Porthos followed Charlotte through the tunnels, trusting her reassurances that they weren't far.
Each time they would make a turn that would lead them into an even smaller tunnel, Porthos grumbled under his breath and Athos worried about reaching a point where Porthos simply could not go any further. While far from being a short man, Athos was not particularly tall, but even for him there were points when he had felt the need to advance with his shoulders hunched low and his head bent to avoid hitting the ceiling. Ancient tunnels were simply not made for people of Porthos' size, that was for certain.
Charlotte had actually smiled as they rounded a sharp turn and the ground beneath their feet stopped sounding like dirt and turned to stone. At the end of a long corridor, they arrived at some sort of old chapel with rows of stone pillars across the space.
Charlotte had stopped all of a sudden, looking confused and lost for the first time since they had entered the tunnels.
"He's not here," she whispered, stating the obvious in her surprise.
"Are you sure this is the place where he was before?" Athos asked, suspicion permeating his tone. After all, the only proof they had that Charlotte's claims were true was her possession of Aramis' purse, an item that she could've stolen or found anywhere but on Aramis' person.
"'tis the right place, I'm sure," she insisted. It was the slight annoyance in her words - of having been proven less than right - that reassured Athos about the purity of her intentions.
They had passed through at least three other rooms that seemed awfully similar to this one to him. None of the others, however, possessed the same lingering odors of human filth and, oddly enough, sour wine.
The reason for the later could easily be blamed on bits of glass that littered the floor, mostly concentrated between two particular pillars. Looking higher, Athos could feel his stomach turn as he saw the iron loops, high on the pillars. One of them was bent out of shape, the other simply broken.
"Someone was 'ere, alright," Porthos claimed, stooping on the far side of the space. Discarded against the wall, there was a well-worn leather doublet, a pair of boots and an all-too-familiar blue sash. In his hands, Porthos held what remained of a linen shirt, the tattered white fabric hanging limply from his fingers. The tall Musketeer' eyes, however, were fixed on something on the ground. "Blood. Fresh."
Athos joined him, gazing upon what looked like a bloody imprint of a foot on the stone floor. It wasn't hard to piece together the clues left behind to know that Aramis had been trapped between those two pillars and that his feet had become injured by the broken glass. The question now was whether their friend had left on his own, or if he had been forced away by someone's hand. The idea that Aramis had been taken someplace else to be executed was one that did not sit well with Athos. Even standing still, he could feel his heart racing inside his chest.
"Not exactly a trail of breadcrumbs..." Athos voiced grimly, holding the candle in his hand high, trying to ascertain how far the bloody prints went. "Shall we?"
It didn't take long for them to realize that Aramis' trail was leading them in circles. Either the blood on the ground had been left on purpose to mislead them, or their friend was wandering the tunnels, lost and confused. Twice at least, they had circled the same tunnel, bloody imprints lining up side by side, like an army of injured men had trampled across the place.
"Stop," Athos commanded after what felt like hours. It seemed impossible to him that their injured friend had wandered this far, and he was beginning to lose hope that they had been following anything but a fake trail when he heard it. "Listen."
The other two did as bidden, closing their eyes to better focus their ears, for at first there was nothing to listen to. And then they all heard it. Unmistakably sound. Moaning and the rattle of heavy chains, dragging across stone.
Charlotte whimpered, clinging to Athos' jacket. "Aye...'tis the cursed spirits of the underground, coming to fetch us t'Hell!"
Athos dare not dispute her words. There was certainly something eerie about that place and, even though he was not a man given to superstitions, there was still much in this world and the next that he could not claim to know.
"Maybe we should ask 'em if they saw Aramis," Porthos suggested, his voice not quite as calm and breezy as his words made him sound, but concern giving him the courage to be audacious when faced with the unknown.
As if giving Porthos permission to ask all questions he felt like, a deep moan echoed through the tunnels. It spoke of pain and misery, seemingly wrenched from the depths of Hell itself.
"This way," Athos called, leading them back to one of the smaller tunnels they had passed before… straight towards the unearthly sounds.
Porthos looked surprised and not entirely certain of Athos' sanity as he looked down the corridor behind them. "Ya don't intend to actually go an'ask 'em, do ya?"
"No," Athos responded, moving ahead. "But I do intend to find out what is making that noise," he whispered. Those tunnels were too dark and filled with too many twists and turns that it was entirely possible that they had moved right past Aramis and failed to see him.
These were abandoned tunnels, not used by many. Spirits notwithstanding, whatever it was they were hearing, it was either coming from their friend or from someone responsible for Aramis' torment. Whichever the source, Athos wanted to have some words.
They found the source of the noise not far from where they had veered back; a sharp bend in the wall that they'd assumed to be only an alcove, but that gave way to yet another tunnel.
In the midst of the imposing darkness, so thick that their candles barely managed to put a dent in it, there was a man's body slumped against the wall. The pale skin of a naked back captured the soft light of the candles in their hands and returned it with vengeance.
"Aramis!" Porthos called out, suddenly breaking into a run. "Aramis..."
Athos, hindered by his ankle, was a few steps behind, but even so he could see the tremors coursing through his friend's body. The state Aramis seemed to be in made Athos recoil in disquietude. "Porthos, careful," he found himself cautioning. Aramis possessed a gentle soul, but even the kindest of spirits could be pushed over the brink of sanity when given the right incentive. There was no way to gauge how their friend would react to their presence.
Porthos halted his yearning to lay his hand over Aramis' bare shoulder and illicit some kind of response from their silent friend. Instead, he cautiously walked over Aramis' extended legs and crouched in front of him, Athos following him close behind.
There had been marks on Aramis' back, the tunnel too dark to make much of what they were but enough to tell Athos that his friend was injured. As his eyes landed on the rise and fall of Aramis's chest, mostly to make sure that his friend was still alive, Athos could not help the hiss of anger that escaped his lips.
The number of burns and cuts that covered the expanse of pale skin was too many for him to count without losing control of his stomach's contents.
He exchanged a look with Porthos, seeing the same loathing he was feeling reflected there. They exchanged no words, but a silent pact of finding Rochefort and making him pay for his deeds was being sealed between the two of them in that exact moment.
"Aramis," Porthos called out again, handing his candle for Athos to hold. "Come on, mate…answer us."
Brown eyes finally opened to look at them, but Aramis' flustered and pale face and the sickly shine in his eyes spoke too much of something being very wrong and too little of recognition.
"He has a fever," Porthos let out, his voice heavy with concern. Even without laying hands on him, it was easy to feel the heat emanating from Aramis' skin. "We need to get'im out of here, now!"
Athos nodded, wholeheartedly agreeing with Porthos. The taller man, however, saw his nod as an incentive to touch Aramis. It was a grievous mistake.
A few weeks after the explosion at the garrison, Treville had sent a number of Musketeers on a training mission. Athos and Porthos, as part of the newest recruits, had been a part of that troop. Aramis, after some heated discussion with the Captain behind closed doors, had joined the group as well.
At the campsite, and despite the fact that they slept in separate tends, the thin fabric they were made of did little to muffle any of the sounds coming from within. The first night Athos heard the whimpering coming from Aramis' tend, he had afforded the man the privacy he was entitled to as a seasoned soldier. Everyone had nightmares and demons that came visiting in the night; Aramis was allowed to have his just the same as everyone else.
The second night it had happened, Athos had been unable to ignore the distressed gasps and broken words. Remembering back to when he had first met Aramis, and how the younger man had seemed to quieten with the solid presence of another nearby when haunted by bad dreams, Athos had sneaked out of his tent and into Aramis' with every intention of giving the other man a more peaceful night.
Instead of peace he got himself a broken nose and the most awkward of fumbled explanations on the following morning, for Aramis had no memory of attacking Athos in his sleep and Athos had no desire to confess to what had truly happened. So he had grumbled an excuse and had blamed his horse for the whole event.
The incident did serve for him to learn never to wake up Aramis when the Musketeer was in the grasp of a nightmare.
The last night that they had spent at that training exercise, Athos had recruited Porthos' help and, between the two of them, they had kept Aramis awake and thoroughly drunk and distracted for the duration of the night. It was the most relaxed that they had seen their young friend during the time spent outside the garrison and if there were tears in Aramis' eyes when the sun begun to rise as he thanked them both for their friendship, they all decided to blame it on the wine rather than emotion.
Porthos knew about the incident, he knew that Aramis had a tendency to strike first and search for recognition after, but still he moved his hand to rest against his friend's naked shoulder.
The reaction was immediate. Coiled muscles swirled around, the chains attached to Aramis' wrists whipping through the air like vicious snakes as the young man growled in their direction, his face looking ferocious under the feeble light. "Stay back, devil!" Aramis warned, his voice hoarse and faint. "You shall not have my soul!"
Porthos recoiled, either from the sight in front of him or the vile words, his steps faltering just as Aramis lunged at him. "Aramis!" he called out again, his voice cracking over the sound of chains clashing against stone. "Aramis...'tis us, Porthos and Athos!"
~§~
Aramis was beyond listening, behaving more like a feral cat rather than a Musketeer. Whatever ailment that was affecting his mind, it was making it impossible for him to recognize the presence of friendly faces around him, eliciting nothing more than snarls and curses at their presence. There was no strength behind Aramis' punches and the only thing his attack was accomplishing was to drain whatever few reserves of stamina that he still possessed.
Porthos sighed, running a hand over his curly hair. Of all the scenarios he had envisioned for when they finally found Aramis, this hadn't been one of them. His friend did not look well, that much he had expected, but the way he refused their help, the uncanny manner in which his eyes saw right through them and failed to spark in recognition...it was making Porthos' skin crawl.
There were dark marks all over the Musketeer's pale skin, Porthos could see them even in the poor lighting. Angry, blackened welts across his chest and upper arms, and the way he kept using only his left arm to swing that chain around spoke volumes about something being very wrong with the right one.
Fearful of hurting his friend anymore than what he already was, the tall Musketeer felt reluctant about using his strength to restrain Aramis' wild strikes, but when Porthos saw Aramis turn, obviously intending to run away from them, he took action. There was absolutely no chance that he was going to allow his injured friend to ignore their help any longer. He jumped and tackled the escaping man to the ground.
They landed in a heap on the unforgiving ground and Porthos cursed as the wound on his side opened anew. Beneath him, he could feel the heat rising from Aramis' skin and the shivers coursing through his body. Still, the young man struggled.
"Let me be, I will not go with you!" Aramis hissed, his fumbling hands struggling to get some sort of leverage to push Porthos away. "He left...I need to find him before he gets lost. Please..."
"Aramis!" Porthos said as loud as he dared, his strong voice feeling like a battering ram against the walls of the enclosed space. His hands were wrapped around the other man's shoulders, both preventing him from bolting once more and keeping him upright. "Look into m'eyes. Do ya know me? Do ya know who we are, mate?"
Aramis stopped fighting, his eyes finally resting on Porthos' face with a semblance of recognition. When he looked over the tall man's shoulder to Athos without spilling any more nonsense from his lips, Porthos felt himself relaxing. "There ya go...yer safe now. We have ya."
"You shouldn't be here," Aramis whispered, eyes darting around in fear as he pushed away from Porthos' touch, looking between the two of them. "Neither of you should be here."
Athos reached forward, his hand gripping the injured Musketeer's arm. "Nor should you, mon ami. You are injured and burning up with fever. We must go at once."
Teeth chattering, Aramis nodded slowly, the gesture seemingly taking most of his strength. "What about Marsac?" he suddenly asked, looking expectantly at the two of them. "We can't leave him here...not here. He'll be all alone."
Porthos exchanged a look with Athos, peeling off his coat now that he knew the gesture would be welcomed rather than feared. Even smeared with blood, it was something warm and dry to fend off the chill of the air and he wasted no more time in slipping it over Aramis' naked back.
Athos returned his gaze, just as confused. There wasn't supposed to be anyone else in here. Had Rochefort taken someone else prisoner?
The name itself was somewhat familiar to Porthos. He had heard it before, even if, for the life of him, he could not recall where. Whomever this fellow was, it seemed to be of some importance to Aramis.
Under their watchful gaze, they could see Aramis growing more and more agitated, the absence of this Marsac person pushing him to move away again. Wordlessly, Athos passed the candles on his hand to Charlotte and moved to help Porthos with their friend, figuring that it would take some doing to get him to move.
As the feeble light chased away the shadows in which Charlotte had been sheltered up to that point, Aramis gasped out loud, his hands pulling Athos and Porthos away from her. "Oh, God! Can you...do you see her, there?" he pointed out with a shaking finger. "Is she real?" he whispered, wide eyes gazing over Porthos' shoulder.
"Told ya he thought I was a ghost," Charlotte supplied matter-of-factly, taking care to keep her distance from the distraught man. "Tha' sort of thing can hurt a girl's feelin's, ya know?"
"She is real," Athos assured Aramis, even if the fevered man, barely conscious as he was, didn't seem much convinced. "Which means that this Marsac he keeps talking about must be too," he went on, the last part directed more at Porthos than their friend.
Porthos could only nod, figuring the same thing. But even if this Marsac was somewhere in those tunnels, they could not afford to leave Aramis there to go search for a stranger, nor could they drag their injured friend on some wild goose chase.
"Yer friend isn't right in the head," Charlotte declared with all the certainty of youth. "There's been no one else here fer a long time, not until the likes of him was dragged down here," she pitched in, her body swinging from side to side like she was dancing. "Can we go now? 'tis cold and it smells down here...I don't like it all tha' much."
Porthos hated to admit it, but the girl was right. Aramis needed to have his wounds tended to and they could not risk being caught by Rochefort or the Red Guards, who could return at any given minute. The Musketeer still was, after all, accused of murdering a man...even if there was no one on Earth who would be able to pry Aramis from Porthos' hold to throw him back into a cell. Not now, not ever. Not even over his dead body.
"It smells of death," Aramis whispered, his eyes closed, head resting against Porthos' broad shoulder. "Twenty gone and death has come to claim those who escaped...it comes to claim me and Marsac. We should have never returned..."
Porthos let out a breath, watching as air turned into mist as it escaped his lips. The mention of that many dead sparked the last inkling of recognition that he needed to remember where he had heard the name Marsac before. Porthos almost dropped Aramis as his mind made the connection. It could not be! "What did ya just say?"
As much as Porthos desperately needed to have those words confirmed, there was no one to answer him back. Aramis, exhausted by his frantic movements and all else he had endured in the last few days, had just given up on his senses and laid slumped, bonelessly against the tall Musketeer, his breath nothing more than feeble puffs of air against the Porthos' neck.
The names of the soldiers whose lives had been so cowardly taken during a training exercise would forever be etched in the hearts of the whole regiment. Baine, Rodin, Adrian, Severe, Antill...so many, so many brothers lost at the hands of Spanish mercenaries. Marsac had been one of them as well, Porthos remembered it clearly now, his name featuring amongst the wooden crosses over the empty graves at the regiment's cemetery.
Savoy. Aramis had been speaking of Savoy, speaking about it like he had been there to witness the massacre, speaking like he should be one of the dead.
Suddenly, it all made terrible sense. The Captain's behavior, Aramis seclusion from the rest of the regiment after the massacre; the way pistol fire still made him shudder; the distant look that would take over his gaze at the most peculiar times; his actions at the hunt…Lord! The King's hunt! The sight of a fellow Musketeer, bleeding over the snow...the memories it must have brought back...
Aramis, the gentle medic who wanted nothing more than hide in the sick rooms and help others find their health, was a survivor of the greatest horror that the Musketeers had ever suffered.
Aramis, who should have died and be nothing more than one more of those empty graves, even before Porthos had a chance of calling him a friend.
Aramis, who had consciously chosen to keep such an event a secret from his closest friends, and who had now been betrayed by his own feverish mind.
There were no words that could describe the thickness of sorrow and hopelessness that filled Porthos' heart in that moment, until it became nothing more than a heavy stone resting inside his chest, pulling him down. Porthos felt like crying, but his body was too numb to produce any tears.
~§~