At dawn, Anne rose. Odette wanted to fetch fresh water. Anne wrapped herself in a morning gown and paced about. After a while she turned the handle of the door connecting her chamber with that of her ladies - and found it locked.
She called out in alarm, but received no reply.
On trying the outer door, she found that also locked.
She stood by her bed, breathing heavily, and trying to force her mind into action. Her ladies were gone and she was alone with the monster. Her honour would not last the next encounter with him, and then, right or wrong, she would be hanged. Or perhaps for her it would be the block. The rope is for the peasants - for nobility, there is steel.
She felt sick.
Just then the shutters rattled in the wind, making her jump.
She cast a bitter look at the window. It alone was unbarred -
The shutters rattled again, and then Anne recalled the stillness of the bed curtains. There was no breeze today.
She approached the window. A shadow moved behind it. A bird, trapped?
She flung open the shutters and almost dislodged a man clinging to the ledge outside her chamber.
"Good grief!"
She stepped back, looking for any weapon, but the man was not Racaut, and he was dangling sixty feet in the air above the raging river and rocky ramparts.
He grunted, then swung himself into the room. She backed away. He was a cavalier, his cloak fastened back, his body draped in swords and guns.
But then he bowed, and as he lifted his bold brown eyes to hers she saw the leather fleur-de-lis at his right shoulder, and the triumphant feather in his hat, and she knew him.
She gasped in relief. "Aramis, of the musketeers!"