Chapter Seven: Explosive Results
The Spanish musketeer had been breathlessly recounting all he had seen and heard in the enemy camp to Louis, Philippe and the other battle commanders. Ramon was weary body and mind…but he was also unbelievably nervous too. Questions and doubts flitted through his mind. What if they didn't believe him? What if they somehow thought he was in collusion with the enemy commander? His story certainly sounded unbelievable. Why had Condé singled him out? Ramon's voice faltered and he bit his lip uncertainly.
Seeing the young musketeer's confusion—and knowing the Spaniard only remembered a portion of what had actually occurred—Emris stepped up and told his portion of the tale. When he finished, any question of the musketeer's loyalty vanished. The majority of the commanders were blade bound. They understood the ways of the unseen and the lengths necessary to combat the dark order. They knew Emris's unwavering commitment to stamping it out and were grateful for his efforts. They accepted his report and moved on to the essential issue: What to do about the information they had been given. None of them noticed when the legendary d'Artagnan slipped from the command tent, but everyone noticed when a commotion erupted outside.
The simmering coals of anger and bitterness had finally burst into flame. Before anyone knew what was happening, the two men were rolling around in the dirt outside attempting to throttle one another.
"Lousy swine," Charles growled as his fist connected to the other's jaw.
"I-did-what-I thought-was-right." Emris gasped. And the scuffle that followed was no holds barred.
The legends d'Artagnan and Aramis were locked head to head..."You had no right!" D'Artagnan senior tried to punch his onetime friend in the face.
"There wasn't time." the ex-musketeer rolled away and tried to pin the other man's flailing fists.
"Reckless!" Charles spat the word. "Risking musketeer lives…AGAIN." The hurt he had felt when he had first learned the man he trusted with his life was a spy erupted to life once more. Those wounds had never healed and the bitterness brought a long parade of images to his mind—times when his supposed friend put, what Charles thought of as, "his mindless vendetta" before the needs of those around him.
Emris ground his teeth together at the other's pronouncement. Charles just didn't understand the nature of the battle they fought. D'Artagnans were struck from a warrior's mold. Charles thought in terms of manpower, weapons equipment and tactics. He trusted in horses and daring feats of arms. But Aramis knew there were deeper issues. He was a combatant in the unseen war—the power of the dark order against the defenders of the light. And how could he not be? He had, after all, been trained as a priest. It was real to him in a way that Charles could not understand, and Aramis hoped that his friend would never have cause to live his nightmare, Aramis had felt the power of the evil ones first hand…had been marked by it. The warrior-priest tried to keep some small hold on his temper. In his own defense he recalled, "I did nothing without his consent…" The two rolled completely over one another in the sandy soil.
The elder d'Artagnan had ceased to think of the man as Aramis, his friend; he saw only Emris the traitor. He would not listen to reason. "Mon dieu! You would kill my son's friends as you tried to kill me?!" The senior d'Artagnan had never gotten over the admission that Emris had fired the bullet that nearly killed him that rainy night. Weeks later, the four of them took the stand together to testify Rocheford had been responsible for attempting to kill a fellow musketeer. It galled him still that Emris knew 'his friends' were unknowingly perjuring themselves. Still he had chosen to keep silent. It wasn't hard to guess why. Everyone in the corps knew Emris hated the dark cavalier. Having him cast out of the Musketeer Corps only served his ends.
Years had passed and still Emris chose to say nothing. It was only after Richelieu's death, in an uncharacteristically unguarded moment, that they had finally told them the truth. Aramis had apologized, profusely in fact. But it was difficult to take him seriously as his words slid off one another, lubricated, as they were by copious quantities of Athos's best blackberry brandy. Charles was convinced that, if not for that one brief slip, his 'friend' never would have said anything at all.
The all too vivid memory of that dark night—when the bullet he had meant for Richelieu's spy bit harshly into d'Artagnan exposed back—pushed Aramis once again to the brink of sanity. "Never!" He exclaimed his elbow coming up and soundly clipping Charles in the jaw. The other man's mouth snapped shut with the force and permitted Emris to get out a few more words before being interrupted. "Musketeers are not immune to danger, as you should well recall, but I take every precaution to keep my people safe."
De Batz angrily pushed himself away from the other man. "Listen to yourself…possessive of your tools aren't you? You arrogant hedge wizard!" He crab walked backward as Aramis lunged for him. The ex-musketeer was beyond words now; he growled seeming more wolf than man. The two men were so caught up in the tide of emotion and memory they were oblivious to the attention they were drawing to themselves.
"ENOUGH!" an authoritative voice demanded, momentarily stunning both combatants. Aramis's eyes widened in surprise. Charles glanced over his shoulder to glimpse a bit of blue and gold striped fabric inches behind him. As anger clouded his mind, he struggled to make sense of the sight. Gradually, the fabric resolved itself into a pair if pantaloons with a silk bows at the knees, fine white stockings and elegant healed shoes.
The legend winced. Still seated on the ground, he had to strain his neck to look directly upward into the face of the rather irate young monarch. Hands on his hips, forehead creased in a frown Louis spoke quietly so his voice would carry no farther than the three of them. Even so, his words had no less impact than if he had shouted them to the heavens. "I am ashamed of you two. People consider you legends…role models for all of France. Yet here you are, in front of the finest fighting force France has ever known, acting like children. Enough of this! What would either of you say if it were Philippe and I rolling about on the grass?"
The elder d'Artagnan literally had to bite his tongue to keep from retorting, "He started it!" Not only would it have been an extremely childish thing to do, it also would have been a lie, and he knew it. Still, he took some small satisfaction that Aramis looked equally chagrinned at his own behavior.
No matter their feelings for each other, de Batz and de Ruse were still more alike than they were different. At the same instant the two men slowly rose to their feet and brushed a bit of dust from their clothing. In one voice they answered, "I am sorry my liege." Both bowed and kept their eyes downcast to show their contrition.
Louis raised an eyebrow and exchanged glances with his brother. As surreptitious twins, the two royals had practiced hard to avoid acting with such natural synchronicity, but the link between them remained. That brief look confirmed that both brothers were of one mind about what they should do about this matter.
The king cleared his throat and struck his 'royal pose,' head high, shoulders back and one hand on his hip. "Though we do not directly command this most excellent war force it is with in our purview that we do command the two of you. As you well know, my Cousin has set before us a challenge. He bids us to choose whether to intercept him before he can slip off to his allies across the Spanish border or move in haste to the capital where he has supporters likely threatening our mother-queen and other members of the court. I need not tell you that this is a grave situation." With a surreptitious movement, he wiped his nose and with his handkerchief, and in a lower voice he added, "Which makes this outburst all the more ill timed." Louis sighed and continued his pronouncement, "I will be leading the army back to Paris… You two, my trusted advisors, will be following my cousin to the border. At this point I do not expect that you can stop him, but find out who he is meeting, if you can. And of course, you must safely extract certain valuables from among his train and return them to their rightful keepers. Do you understand?"
Both Charles and Emris could not help but compare Young Louis to his predecessor. He was so decisively regal that it was easy to overlook the fact that he was only thirteen years of age. It was not the boy that addressed them now; it was the king. "As you wish majesty." The elder d'Artagnan answered and Aramis echoed, "So be it."
"Do try not to kill one another, eh?" Louis snorted, turning on his heel and twirling his fur edged cape over his shoulder with a flourish before stalking back into the tent.