Disclaimer: not my characters.
Summary: April of 1625 had been one of the hardest months of Porthos' life. But in a strange way, it had probably been one of the best as well.
Savoy-centric origin story, in which Aramis is grieving, Porthos is a saint, and Athos just kind of shows up, eventually.
Winter, Late in Leaving
Chapter Two [tw: medical procedures/blood; vomit; panic attacks]
Emile and Athos had returned to camp. They looked shocked, but stayed silent, as Porthos, Henri, and Treville arrived with Aramis in tow. That shock fell away, turned to fury, as Treville spoke. "Marsac has abandoned his commission," he spat. "Our priority now is to see Aramis to safety. I will ride for Paris with him; the rest of you, do what you can here, and guard the site until the others return with the carts."
"Captain," Emile began. "Shouldn't we go after Marsac? He should face justice for-"
"Our priority is Aramis," Treville snapped. Maybe that meant they couldn't spare the manpower, or maybe it meant shut the fuck up about Marsac while Aramis can hear. The captain helped the injured man onto one of the spare horses, then mounted his own.
"Be on the highest alert," he announced. "These woods- this area was meant to be safe. But clearly the Spanish have raiding parties about. Do not let your guard down. Men should arrive with the carts within four days. Take your brothers back to Paris as quickly as you can." In the saddle, Aramis swayed; he gripped tightly at his horse's neck, face pale.
"I'll rejoin you once Aramis is seen to," Treville said finally, then he and Aramis set off down the trail.
When they had disappeared into the trees, Athos turned to Porthos. "Wait five minutes, and then follow them," he said quietly. "Treville may want a moment alone with Aramis, but he should not be the only able-bodied man escorting him."
Porthos nodded.
He spent a few minutes helping Emile and Henri as they worked to move the bodies into a neat line; it was infinitely more painful than identifying them had been. Porthos was beyond relieved when Athos caught his eye and nodded. Moving a bit faster than they themselves had, he followed Treville and Aramis' path into the forest, back towards home.
He'd barely ridden for a minute before coming upon a heartrending scene.
A splatter of vomit marred an otherwise pristine snowdrift, ugly against the perfect whiteness, sending up steam into the frigid air.
Beside it, two men were on their knees.
The captain was holding Aramis to his body, cradling him, shushing him. Treville's eyes were wet, his hands trembling. And Aramis was wailing feebly against his captain's chest, fingers gripping desperately at the fabric of his cloak.
Porthos halted his horse and stood, frozen. This was not a moment to interrupt. But when Treville looked up at him and nodded tightly, he felt it safe to dismount and approach them. Aramis did not lift his head at the new arrival, though he did fall silent.
"It's the blow to his head," Treville fretted, as Porthos came to his side. "He can't ride. He can't keep his stomach."
The blow to his head and a fair bit of trauma, Porthos didn't say. Instead he said, "Athos sent me. Case you needed another man."
"We need to get him to shelter. He can't ride for Paris like this. He needs a surgeon."
"We'll take him to Belley," Porthos replied immediately, grateful that the answer came to him so easily. "It should be less than an hour's journey, and it's safely behind French borders."
Treville nodded at once. "Belley," he muttered, "I should have thought-"
"None of us is thinkin' straight right now, Captain," Porthos offered, voice low.
"That's true," Treville murmured. Then he shook himself off and spoke in his typical voice. "An old friend of mine lives in Belley, as it happens. But that's still an hour's ride."
"He can ride with me. My horse is big enough. And maybe it'll be easier on him if he can close his eyes a bit." Though he didn't know Aramis well, it was hard not to feel protective of the man. And perhaps a bit sympathetic to his loneliness, as well. "In fact," he was continuing, without quite thinking it through, "if you're comfortable leavin' him with me, you could return to the camp, Captain. Another man to guard it. If you're comfortable."
"You could ask me my thoughts." Aramis' voice was hoarse and small, but angry underneath. Porthos stopped, a bit embarrassed.
"You're right, of course," Treville said at once, placatingly. "Are you comfortable with Porthos taking you to Belley? You need to see a surgeon faster than we can get you Paris." Aramis turned to look, as though needing a face to put with Porthos' name; seeing him, he nodded once.
"Yes. That sounds better than riding all day."
"I'll go smoothly," Porthos promised, wanting to say something but not knowing what. Aramis didn't respond. He was busy climbing to his feet, with Treville's help; halfway up he stopped and clapped a hand to his mouth, but then recovered and kept going.
Porthos tugged his horse forward and swung himself onto the saddle. Treville helped Aramis get his foot into the stirrup, then kept him steady as Porthos pulled him up in front of him. Aramis fit neatly in the saddle's extra space.
"The name of my friend is Marie de Boinge," Treville was saying, as he tethered Aramis' horse to Porthos' own. "Once you're within the city, ask anyone for the old winery. Just to the east of it, there's an inn. Marie should be there; she'll help you find a surgeon. And one more thing: you're safe with Marie, but you best not ride as musketeers. Give me your pauldron." Porthos slipped the leatherware from his arm and handed it to Treville, who stowed it in a saddlebag.
"Godspeed," Treville said, and they departed.
Porthos didn't quite know the way to Belley, but he knew his way back to the signpost they'd passed with that name carved into it. He found it quickly and set off where it pointed. There were at least two hours of light left, which was good- but it had begun to snow again, which was less so.
Aramis was quiet on the ride. But after a while, it became clear that he was weeping; the soft sounds were not quite lost to the clatter of hooves. Porthos did his best to ignore it. Aramis was a private man, and could hardly appreciate such an invasion- even as he began to tremble in their shared saddle, even as his shoulders began to hitch only inches from Porthos' face.
The harder the snow came, the harder Aramis shook, until there was a legitimate risk of him falling from the horse. Privacy be damned; Porthos couldn't ignore this.
His free arm sat limply against Aramis' hip; without speaking, he lifted it, and wrapped it a bit more tightly around the man's waist.
Aramis broke down sobbing.
More panicked than he would have expected, Porthos pulled the the horses to a stop and dropped the reigns. With both hands free now he held Aramis tightly to his chest, even as Aramis tried to curl forward with grief.
"He left me," Aramis was panting. "Oh god, oh my god- he fucking left me there."
"Shh," Porthos murmured, "you'll be sick again, Aramis." He brought one hand up to brush against the man's face, mindful of his injured temple. Beneath his fingers, the muscles contorted. "Shh," he tried again. "C'mon, c'mon."
"You left me alone," Aramis choked out. Porthos couldn't tell if the man knew of his presence or not, so wrapped up in the moment that his best friend had propped him against a tree, tied a bandage around his bleeding head, and left him to the mercy of winter and bloodloss and loneliness. Marsac and Aramis. Who else would it have been?
No musketeer in their right mind would ever have considered this possibility, that Marsac would abandon his own brother for any reason other than death.
"You're not alone now," Porthos whispered. Aramis gave no hint that he had heard, wrapped up as he was in his weeping, sour breath making turbulent clouds in the air. "You're not alone now," he said again, fumbling blindly to wipe the tears from Aramis' cheeks.
"Marsac-?"
"It's Porthos," Porthos said firmly. "The big one, eh? I cheated you out of a livre the first time we played cards together. I was sittin' on the ace a' hearts. Our horses keep beside one another in the stables. It's Porthos. You know me. And I'm with you. You're not alone, because I'm here."
Tension eased from Aramis' body, and bit by bit he allowed himself to be pulled backwards. The back of his head knocked solidly against Porthos' shoulder and remained there. Aramis lay against Porthos' chest, suddenly still but for the quiet gasping.
And Porthos held him. Kept his arms around the man's body and held him, pressing his chest to Aramis' back, leaning his cheek against the crown of Aramis' head. From this angle, he could finally see the man's face. It was pale, and it shone with sweat, but it had slackened, gone still. At length, half-frozen fingers came up, covered his own. "Porthos," Aramis murmured.
"At your service," Porthos replied, and took hold of Aramis' hands.
Snow had piled thickly on their knees and boots before Aramis stirred again, sitting up in the saddle and wiping his face on a filthy sleeve. "Let's keep moving," he croaked. No apology- good. Porthos had been bracing himself for one, rehearsing how to tell Aramis that it wasn't necessary. Just as well he didn't have to.
Porthos kept his free arm around Aramis' waist as they rode, though neither of them commented on it. The sky was just growing orange as they made it to Belley. It was an easy thing to locate the old winery, and to find the inn beside it; Porthos dismounted and helped Aramis down as well, and a stablehand came forward for their horses.
Aramis staggered as they made their way into the front room; weeping seemed to have used up all the energy he'd had to spend. Now he could hardly keep his eyes open. Porthos stayed at his side, arm hovering around him, but the man favored bracing himself against walls and bits of furniture, and Porthos found it best not to argue.
A woman of perhaps fifty years was behind the counter of a small bar. Leaving Aramis to lean against a table, Porthos approached her, trying to look less anxious than he felt. "Madam?" She raised her head and smiled thinly. "My friend and I are looking for Marie de Boinge."
"I'm Madam de Boinge," she replied. Her voice, like her expression, wasn't unfriendly- but wasn't terribly welcoming either.
"My name is Porthos," Porthos offered. "Friend of a man named Treville. He said you'd know him?"
"Jean de Treville?" The woman's disposition shifted at once; her face lit up like a lantern. "You're musketeers, then? Please, call me Marie!"
"We are musketeers, Marie," Porthos replied, "and my friend Aramis was badly wounded in a siege near the Savoyard border. The captain said you might be able to find us a surgeon?"
"Of course! Please, bring your friend closer to the fire."
The realization that help was finally coming hit Porthos hard, and his own knees shook a bit as he helped Aramis walk. The man no longer protested his aid. Porthos settled him by the hearth and watched as Marie conversed with the same stablehand he'd seen before.
The lad disappeared, and Marie came to their side. "A surgeon is on the way," she assured Porthos. "But please, monsieur, was Jean there for the attack? Was he injured at all?"
"No, the captain's fine. He wasn't there for it and neither was I."
"What happened?"
Porthos looked over at Aramis, but his eyes were closed and his head was tilting down as he succumbed to the comfort of the fire. "We're not sure who attacked," Porthos began, keeping his voice low. "The captain thinks Spanish raiders. But there were- there were twenty-two men, out on a training mission. Due home on Easter morning. Treville led a party of us to find them when they didn't return." His chest seized suddenly, and he had to cough before he could continue. "Twenty musketeers were slaughtered," he continued, a bit hoarsely. "One deserted. He was Aramis' friend, and he left him behind."
Marie's face was pale, her expression horrified. "Poor, poor man," she crooned, glancing at Aramis. "It's good that you found him in time."
"Yeah," Porthos said, trying to get his heart to agree as readily as his voice had. It was hard to see any goodness in this, anywhere at all.
Marie straightened abruptly as the door swung open. The stablehand hurried in, accompanied by a man a bit younger than Marie, toting a surgeon's leather satchel.
"Aldo!" Marie rushed to the man's side and pulled him towards the fire. "These men are members of the king's musketeers. Aramis here was taken in an ambush by the Spanish."
"Hm. Someday, perhaps, your countries will keep hands off one another, sì? And Italia, while you're at it. My name is Cagnatto," he said, turning now to Porthos. "Help me move your friend to a bed, please. Marie? A room?"
"Aramis? There's a surgeon here to see to your wound." Porthos shook the man's arm gently; he frowned and hunched away without opening his eyes. "Aramis, can you hear me? Can you walk a bit more?" There came a motion that may have been Aramis shaking his head, or may simply have been a meaningless reaction to being disturbed. Either way, the answer seemed clear.
Porthos scooped the man up as gently as he could, one arm below his knees and one around his shoulders. Aramis' head lolled for a moment, then came to rest against Porthos' neck. He followed the others, who had gone into the second room down the hall; inside there was a table, two chairs, a bathtub, and two small beds. Porthos laid Aramis on the one closest to the door.
"Marie has told me all she knows," Cagnatto said as Porthos entered. "But do you know when the ambush came? In other words, do you know the age of his wounds?
"Eh, no," Porthos admitted. Judging by the bodies, it had been a few days at least. "Couple of days? They would have set out for Paris on Good Friday afternoon, so then or sooner." The surgeon nodded. Warmth was filling the room as Marie stoked the fire; once it came to life, she hurried out again.
Cagnatto had pulled a sponge from his bag. He wet it with a waterskin and held it under Aramis' nose, and Aramis' body relaxed deeper into sleep. "Have you checked him all over? Is it only his head?"
"We didn't check him," Porthos replied, feeling guilty. "As soon as we found him, we left to come here. He vomited on the ride," he added, not sure if that was relevant or not. Cagnatto nodded, pulling the bandage from Aramis' head. Then he seized a pair of scissors from his kit and began to hack away the matted hair covering the wound. Clumps fell unceremoniously to the floor. But as careless as he was with his patient's vanity was as careful as he was with the wound itself. Porthos watched as he prodded over it gently.
Marie returned with a pile of blankets and a few waterskins; she thrust the skins into Porthos' arms. They were warm, and despite himself Porthos shivered. He laid the skins against Aramis, one on his chest, one on his belly, and one on his legs; then Marie covered him carefully with the blankets.
"Take off his boots and put a skin to his toes," Cagnatto directed absently, and Porthos did so. Aramis' toes were bright pink, but he was glad to see they lacked any grey spots of dead flesh. He moved the skin from his legs to cover his feet. "I am not surprised that he has had nausea," the surgeon went on. "The flesh was not cut; it split when something struck it. There is bruising here, which may also have affected his brain. This causes a man to become disoriented, and often causes discomfort in the stomach as well. He should have been seen to immediately," Cagnatto added, frowning.
Porthos bristled. "I brought him straight to you. Like I said."
"Hush, figlio, I know this. You have done well." The surgeon looked up and they locked eyes; all at once Porthos saw the genuine kindness beneath the man's direct attitude. Some of the tension in him released.
"But the infection is under what has already begun to heal," Cagnatto continued, turning back to Aramis. "I shall have to re-open it, I think. Clean it well, and stitch it properly. You are friends, yes? Would you like to hold his hand?"
Porthos' heart sank. "He's still awake?"
"No no, he sleeps. But I like to think that our friends know us even in slumber, yes?" He glanced back up; his smile was warm and honest, not to mention the only real smile that Porthos had seen since Paris. It didn't seem the time to mention that he and Aramis hardly knew one another at all.
"All right," he consented. Aramis' hands were under the pile of blankets, so he tugged one out and held it carefully between both of his own. The fingers were still painfully cold.
"I'm opening the wound," Cagnatto announced. Porthos wasn't sure if the surgeon was talking to him, or to himself, but nevertheless he looked up. A small knife was positioned at Aramis' temple, and as Porthos watched, Cagnatto pressed it to the damaged skin.
Blood and pus erupted freely from the wound, seeping down Aramis' cheek, collecting in his beard. The smell of festering flesh filled the room. Porthos fought back a gag, holding Aramis' hand all the tighter as he himself was suddenly assaulted by the horrid images of littered bodies, half-preserved by the cold but slowly rotting nevertheless.
"Are you with me, figlio?" Cagnatto asked. Porthos just nodded, afraid to open his mouth. "Good. I'm going to wash it now, then I will sew it closed," the surgeon continued. Porthos supposed it was kind of him, narrating his actions. But in reality, he was doing all he could to ignore the sights and sounds and smells of the surgery going on before him. He unclasped his hands from Aramis', and instead began to massage each finger one by one.
In his sleep, Aramis was breathing evenly, but Porthos still found himself beginning to worry for the man. Head wounds were no trifling matter, and neither were infections. Would Savoy claim a twenty-first soldier? Would truly none but Marsac the coward survive its horrors in the end?
The thought, if possible, made him sicker than the wound. He moaned softly, unable to stop himself.
"I'm tying the thread." Cagnatto's voice broke through his daze. He must have been inside his own head for longer than he'd thought, because the wound was closed now, and his own hands were motionless on Aramis' fingers. "Va bene, questo è tutto. I'm finished. Go."
Porthos didn't need a second invitation; he lurched back from the bed, and stumbled his way out of the room towards the front door of the inn. He didn't let himself heave until he'd made it to the cobbles. Then, clutching miserably at his belly, Porthos vomited until nothing was left inside him. It was snowing once more. He tried to take comfort in the calmness of it, but his mind would not be settled- nor would his stomach. He retched again and again as the white flakes fell.
Porthos was shaking when he finally felt ready to return to Aramis' side. Cagnatto smiled warmly once more as he slipped back into the room, and held out a cup of wine. "Marie thought this might help you, figlio. As a medical man, I heartily concur."
Porthos' already-stripped defenses collapsed under the surgeon's kindness. Tears came at last, in a sudden rush.
Cagnatto was at his side in an instant, pressing the wine into his hand. "Drink," he said, firmly.
"Thanks," Porthos whispered; he raised it to his trembling lips and swallowed it all in one go. Cagnatto took the empty vessel. Then he laid a steady hand on Porthos' arm, as Porthos wiped his cheeks and sniffed a bit for good measure.
"You could sleep beside him," Cagnatto suggested, after a minute or two. "In fact, it might be best. He will have a familiar face to see if he wakes in the night. And if there is trouble, you can come and fetch me." He really seemed to think that Porthos and Aramis were the best of friends, Porthos realized. It made Porthos want to tell him the whole story- the twenty dead musketeers, left out to rot; how he wasn't honestly sure what he was doing taking over Aramis' care; how the only person Aramis wanted was the same person who'd abandoned him heartlessly. It would be nice to tell someone who'd listen.
Instead he nodded, and thanked the surgeon again before settling himself on the floor. There was a bed on the other side of the room, with a blanket and pillow that he could have taken; Porthos only remembered this once he was already laying down. He could have gotten up again, but he stayed.
Aramis was here, and the other side of the room seemed awfully far away.
Thank you all so so much for the kind comments. This is my first multichapter fic in ages and you're making me feel great about it! I really do appreciate the encouragement, and Porthos has been a great character to step inside of. Please keep the feedback coming, especially anything you think I can improve!
Notes for this chapter: Belley is indeed a town in France near the northern part of the border with Savoy; I'm not 100% sure of how the border was drawn in the 1600's, but it seemed close enough.
Given what we know about Treville from The Good Soldier- which Porthos, of course, would not have known here- I hope that the captain's actions and behavior are reasonable. He is dealing with crazy guilt and simultaneously trying to prevent his men from asking too many questions, but Porthos has no reason to think that he's not just upset.
It was pointed out to me on that I forgot to give translations of any French used in the first chapter. I generally avoid using any other languages in ways integral to the plot, so that you guys don't have to actually scroll away from where you are to get the translation while reading. Nevertheless, I should definitely provide them anyway.
French
(mon) fils = (my) son
petit capitaine = little captain
Italian
sì = yes
figlio = son
Va bene, questo è tutto. = All right, that's all.
