CHAPTER 13

"My mother had two siblings, a sister and a brother older than she. The brother was a baron and the sister married a Vicomte. My mother made the best marriage of the lot. Both of her siblings wedded and had children before she did, so my cousins were older than I. Gerard was the first born of my mother's sister, five years my senior."

"They came to visit, though usually only on holidays. My mother's sister was envious, I believe, that her younger sister had made a…higher ranking marriage than she. I got the impression my mother wasn't all that happy to have her sister visit, though she was family and certainly couldn't be turned away. My father wasn't affected at all by their visits, he simply took the Vicomte away on multi-day hunting expeditions, leaving my mother to deal with her sister and their two children, Gerard, as I have mentioned and his younger sister, Francine, who was two years my senior."

Athos shivered, though Aramis had the impression it wasn't totally driven by the cold. "When Gerard came to visit… things happened."

"Things happened?" Aramis questioned. "What kind of things?"

An uncomfortable expression flashed across the usually guarded face of his friend. "Things that I should have known weren't right. Cruel traps set for animals in the woods. Carcasses that had been…violated…mutilated. Always after Gerard came to visit. It wasn't until I was thirteen that I saw his work first hand. We'd been hunting on horseback for foxes in the woods. Animals must know, sense cruelty in a person, for as I think back, every horse or dog that got near my cousin feared him."

"Animals are more intuitive than we give them credit for I think," Aramis said thoughtfully. "A survival instinct. For dealing with humans."

"We came to a downed tree and my gelding easily popped over it, though my cousin's somewhat temperamental mount balked at the idea, refusing to jump it. Gerard took out his crop and began beating the poor animal on the neck, sides and hindquarters, raising welts on the animal's skin. I was horrified at the way he was treating the animal, so I popped back over the log and attempted to take the crop from him."

Athos flinched a bit as if the memory had made the nerves of his body relive a past pain. "He said it was an accident, but he 'accidently' managed to hit me numerous times before I was able to pull the crop away. It wasn't easy."

"His horse was flecked with sweat, white eyed and spooked, so much so that he wouldn't listen to any cues, hands, feet, bit or rein commands from my cousin. I suggested, for the sake of his mount, we trade horses and so we did. I carefully approached the frightened horse and managed to sooth him through my voice and hands."

"You were good with horses, even as a child. A gift," Aramis stated with a small smile.

"More like an understanding. Animals, like people, want to be treated fairly. Whipping something, a horse, a dog, a servant, ... a child," he snuck in under his breath, "rarely brings about the reaction hoped for. It usually makes the recipient of the beating…stubborn."

Aramis had a feeling that he had inadvertently just learned another thing about Athos' childhood. On the slave ship wasn't the first time his skin had felt the cruel bite of leather.

"And so," Athos continued on with his tale, "I carefully mounted, avoiding as best as I could the whip marks and began settling the horse down. I circled with him for a few minutes to calm him. My cousin had long since ridden off after the fox leaving us behind. When I thought I had the animal sufficiently composed, I pointed him at the fallen log again and the gelding jumped it easily. As I rode along, following the path through the woods my cousin had left, I prayed he wouldn't in anyway hurt my horse for my father would be furious and no matter what, the blame and punishment would fall upon me."

The wind chose that moment to blow a bit harder, eddies of the current causing the flames of their fire to dance and sway. Visibility had dropped to zero and the trees on the far side of the fire pit were hidden by a wall of white. Athos snugged the blanket a bit closer around his shivering body and Aramis thought the swordsman leaned a little closer to him. For warmth or comfort, he didn't know, but treating the reserved man like a skittish colt, he remained still and let Athos snuggle as close as he felt comfortable.

"I heard two shots in the distance, a few minutes apart. I urged my horse onward faster, still, it took ten minutes more for me to reach the clearing my cousin was in. And the site that greeted me was…" Athos' voice drifted off as he stared into the flames.

"What did you see?" Aramis prompted with interest and trepidation.

"The fox lay on the ground, covered in blood. Blood which also was flecked on Gerard. And my horse, the horse I had been riding, lay still on the ground. I slid off my mount, leaving him a bit away so he wouldn't get spooked by the heavy scent of blood hanging in the air. I looked at my cousin, who had a strange gleam in his eyes and then at the fox, which had been stabbed multiple times. My cousin claimed he shot the fox, but it wasn't a fatal blow and so it had turned and attacked him. He claimed that the horse, frightened by the fox running under its feet, dumped him on the ground. The fox then leapt on him and tried to claw and bite him. Gerard showed me bloody scratches on his arms, that I suppose could have been the result of a fox's claws."

Drawing in a shuddering breath, Athos paused for a moment. "I learned, later, that my cousin wasn't above cutting himself to make his stories…plausible. He was sick, and never got the help he needed, if it would have helped. Perhaps some people are simply born evil," he philosophized.

"And the horse?" Aramis asked quietly, sensing the tale had not ended happily for the animal.

"Dead. Single shot to the skull. Merciful, if what my cousin claimed was true, that his leg had been broken when he was dancing to avoid the snarling fox and stepped into a badger hole."

"You sound skeptical," Aramis noted as the swordsman paused again.

"The gelding's front leg was broken, that was easily seen. But as to how it occurred . . . Gerard was alone in that clearing for ten minutes on his own. That is a long time for someone bent on…" Athos couldn't come up with the right word to finish the sentence. Mischief? Cruelty? Sadism? Murder, was probably the best one.

As predicted, my father wasn't pleased that one of his horses had been killed and my father blamed me, since I had been the one that had given my cousin the horse to ride. Had I stayed on my own mount, he had reasoned, it wouldn't have ended the way it did. Once again, he claimed, I didn't act like a man, but a simpering fool."

"Because you tried to save a horse from more cruelty?" Aramis declared, shocked.

"My father was a…practical man," Athos said carefully, as if he were weighing each word.

"How is it practical to beat on a horse?"

"A horse is meant to serve. As is a hunting dog, a servant, or a son. If the job the animal or person is supposed to do, is not being done… steps have to be taken," Athos explained, unable to keep the bitter edge from his words.

They lapsed into silence for a long time as the blizzard raged on. Finally, Athos picked up his tale and finished it. "That was the last time I saw my cousin, though I occasionally heard…stories. He was nearly nineteen and later that year his father passed and he inherited his father's lands. His mother died shortly thereafter. My mother, once her sister was dead, felt there was no reason to visit the children. I don't think she was actually that fond of her sister or her family. Makes me wonder, did the cruel streak my cousin seemed to possess run in the family."

"Are you saying your mother was cruel?" Aramis asked in a surprised tone.

"My mother wasn't cruel. Not that I ever saw. Distracted, perhaps. She doted on my brother Thomas."

But, Aramis silently noted, not on you, her first born, which, in the marksman's mind, was a form of cruelty. "So, when we were sent to the estate…"

"It was the first time I'd seen Gerard in nearly twenty years. I'd heard he'd married well and had children. I guess I assumed he'd outgrown his cruel streak."

"But a leopard doesn't change its spots. You don't believe that all those people, your cousin's wife and children, servants, were murdered by a band of thieves, as he claimed. You thought he did it," Aramis correctly surmised. "If so, that is…" Lost for words, Aramis shook his head in disbelief.

"And so, to answer your original question, I could have been fully intending to serve as judge, jury and executioner. As shameful and as wrong as it would have been to take the law into my own hands, how could I live with myself if he were to be let free, again, to carry on his…sickness. I didn't stop him all those years ago, never told anyone what I had seen. Turned a blind eye to other... events, that I heard of. Perhaps if I acted back then, his wife, children and who knows how many others would be alive."

"But you didn't shoot him."

"Or wasn't successful." Ruefully, he added, "Another…failure on my part."

"In the end, justice was served for he was hanged." Aramis got the feeling Athos didn't quite feel as positive about the outcome as he did and the medic was pretty sure he knew why. "It's not your fault, Athos."

"Why not?" the swordsman challenged. "Had I done something about him back when…"

"Would anyone have believed you? A child? Would your parents? Your Aunt or Uncle? Could you have gone up to them and told them their first born, adored son was insane? A killer? Would they have believed you?" he repeated. Athos didn't answer, nor did Aramis suspect he would.

Aramis rose and made them another pot of mint water, which, after it steeped, he poured into the metal mugs which they both gratefully cupped their hands around. They hadn't eaten in more than 24 hours and the 'tea' did little to curb the gnawing in their frozen bellies.

"Be not overcome by evil, but overcome evil by good," Aramis suddenly quoted, seemingly out of the blue.

Athos cocked an eyebrow at his religious friend. "Is your brain that frozen it took you that long to come up with a suitable Bible verse?"

"I do admit, I'm not quite as sharp as I usually am. Normally, inspirational verses dance on the tip of my tongue." Athos' snort told Aramis exactly what he thought of his quote. "How about this one. 'Depart from evil, and do good; and dwell for evermore.' Surely that is comforting for even if we do evil, God is willing to forgive us."

Athos stared at the fire once more, thinking of his past and the things he had done, knowing he was doomed to the depths of hell. "Six things there are, which the Lord hateth, and the seventh his soul detesteth: Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood. A heart that deviseth wicked plots, feet that are swift to run into mischief. A deceitful witness that uttereth lies, and him that soweth discord among brethren." He gave a bitter smile. "I fear I have crossed many of those paths."

"You can't seriously believe you have done all those things," Aramis exclaimed before lapsing into silence and thinking about that Bible passage. Leave it to the well-educated Athos to come up with a set of verses that would send almost everyone to hell, at least the way Athos interpreted them. The wind howled again, sending some errant snow into the shelter. Could this get any worse, Aramis wondered. Was it their fate to die here?

Then, the verse that always comforted him, even on the darkest night, came to his frost-bitten brain. 'For God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting.' Faith had seen him through many things and it would see him through this too.