Here is the second installment, from Constance's POV. Hopefully d'Artagnan will be coming up next.
I have so many plot bunnies in my head it is like a rabbit warren. I want to finish this one first though, let's hope the muse lets me.
2nd Night
Constance
Constance paces the room, rocking Marie gently and shushing. She is sure she will wear a hole in the floorboards soon, but right now she will do anything to get the baby to sleep. And herself for that matter.
Constance tries to calm herself, knowing that Marie's screaming is due largely to her own tension. She begins singing a lullaby that her mother had sung to her. She stares into the baby's green eyes, so like her own, watching as they finally begin to lose their battle against sleep, drifting closed before suddenly opening again momentarily. After four or five times Marie's eyes stay closed. Constance breathes a sigh of relief.
She remains standing, frightened that moving or putting her down might wake Marie. She puts her check to the soft hair on her baby's head, hair so like her father's, dark and silky. She breathes in Marie's smell, holds her tight, never wanting to let her go. Is this all she has left of him?
It has been too long. Ten days, he had told her, ten at the most. Four there and four back, so definitely no more than ten. All they had to do was escort an envoy. It was so easy only two of them were needed.
What he had neglected to mention was that the other two were sent off as a decoy with a fake envoy, to deflect interest. Porthos and Aramis took one road, d'Artagnan and Athos the other.
Twelve days have passed without word, the past two days seeming like infinity. On the ninth day, Porthos and Athos had returned, jubilant, clomping up her stairs with wine to celebrate, faces falling upon seeing her in the kitchen, alone with Marie.
"Sorry I'm not what you wanted," She said, teasingly.
"We are always pleased to see you Madame," countered Aramis, with a flourishing bow.
"'Course you are, you big liar." She retorted. "I'll bet you're hungry. I'll fix you some food."
Porthos' eyes lit up. Food always seemed to do the trick.
She had hidden her nerves, swallowing the nausea rising in her throat, and tried to eat with them, pushing the food around on her plate.
She felt a hand on her arm. Aramis was looking at her intently. "Don't worry, they'll be back soon." He promised.
"Enough of your charm," she said, shaking her head, "Now hold Marie while I clear up." She told him, thrusting the infant in to his arms. Aramis began to make clucking noises, tickling the baby under her chin and eliciting tiny giggles from her. Porthos moved to stand behind him, joining in the cooing. Two big softies, she thought to herself.
Her arms exhausted, Constance decides it is time to take a chance. She moves slowly to the wooden crib and settles Marie inside it, leaving her hands on the baby's back long enough to make the transition smooth, to leave a trace of warmth behind. Certain that Marie was sleeping peacefully left the bedroom.
Sitting at the table, head in her hands, Constance considers pouring herself a glass of wine. Maybe then she would finally sleep.
On the eleventh day they went to Treville. On the twelfth they started searching. So far, there has been no news. She walked past the garrison today, Marie in her improvised sling, hoping against hope for something. The musketeer on gate duty cast a sympathetic look in her direction. They all knew that sometimes Musketeers just didn't come back. Hadn't she herself met d'Artagnan just after one such incident? That's why Musketeers didn't marry, didn't have children. But her d'Artagnan wasn't just any Musketeer. She stared down their looks of sympathy, daring them to pity her, and walked on, head high.
But at night, in the quiet, in the dark she doesn't feel quite so sure any more. The tiny doubts creep inside her, inching their way towards her heart, growing bigger and bigger until they take her over. A tear falls from her cheek to the table top.
She is roused by a wail from the bedroom. Marie is awake again. As much as she wants to hold her and keep her safe, part of Constance can't move from the table, can't make herself care. Part of her just wants to sit there and never do anything again. The tears continue to fall and she does not move.
The wailing grows louder and louder, nearing hysteria now. She finally musters the strength and pushes herself up from the chair. She takes Marie and puts her to her breast, finally giving in to the tiny tyrant's demands.
As the baby eats hungrily Constance strokes her soft cheek. She still finds it hard to believe that she is a mother. For all of her marriage to Bonacieux she had wanted a child, thinking it would make her happier, maybe even bring love to the home. Yet as soon as she met d'Artagnan she knew that just a child was not enough. A child must be born from love. And this one certainly was. She thinks of the day that she told him he was to be a father, still little more than a boy himself. The smile that stretched out slowly over his face, how he gathered her up in his arms and held her tight, like she was the most precious thing in the world.
And she had swatted away his pampering, his efforts to take care of her, ease her load. No fussing, she told him, I'm pregnant, not dying.
She remembers the day Marie was born. The fear on his face, the very real fear of losing her in childbirth, as his mother had died giving birth to his sister all those years ago. The tears of joy as he held their child for the first time, the way he whispered to the baby, promising her oh so many things.
Somehow Constance's thoughts lull her to sleep, Marie still in her arms. She is awakened from her slumber by a noise outside. It is still dark, although the bird calls tell her that dawn is approaching. Her back aches from sleeping in the chair. She rises and carefully, without waking Marie, makes her way to the door. Captain Treville stands outside.
He doesn't beat about the bush. "Porthos and Aramis sent word. They have found them."
She wants to shout for joy but something in his face stops her. Something is not quite right. He isn't smiling, but he isn't crying either.
"How bad?" She asks. It feels so hard to form those two little words.
"We don't know yet."
"Where?" Again, she can't even get the whole question out.
"A day's ride away, they are at a nunnery where they have taken refuge. I ride out at first light."
She nods. She understands what he hasn't said. That if they haven't returned there is a reason for it. That one of them is hurt, badly, for them not to ride straight back to Paris. She only has to look at his eyes to know which one this is.
"I will join you." She feels her strength returning. She has a focus, a purpose.
"Constance…."
She gives him the look that has scared four of his best musketeers into total submission. "I have distracted guards to get them into a red guard camp dressed up like a prostitute, snuck into a house full of bandits to look after a baby, been captured by that evil woman and killed a man. Don't tell me I can't come with you to see my husband."
Treville swallows. He has no idea how d'Artagnan stands up to her. She scares the hell out of him.
He stutters in the face of her wrath and points to Marie.
"I've ridden with a baby before. And that one I couldn't even feed along the way."
He nods, once, in assent.
"Well then," she says, "I can't very well go in my nightdress now can I. Hold the baby while I get dressed." She carefully moves the sleeping child into his arms. Treville looks down at the bundle with a mixture of awe and total fear, trying to find the right way to hold her. All the wars he has been through have not prepared him for the responsibility of holding a tiny life in his hands.
"Stop wriggling her around," Constance calls over her shoulder, "You'll wake her up. Try not to drop her on her head and you'll be fine." And with that she disappears into the bedroom to get dressed and pack a bag.