Self-Portraits
d'Artagnan
Hello mesdames, messieurs, may I present myself? I am d'Artagnan of Gascony. Charles d'Artagnan if you want the entirety of my name. But I am known around here, as are many of my friends, by my last name.
I came to Paris with my father six years ago, on a mission - I thought - to petition the king, never imagining in my wildest dreams that a farm boy from Gascony might end up a Musketeer. What began as a simple, straightforward quest to avenge the murder of my father became, suddenly, a mission to save the man who I thought had killed Alexandre d'Artagnan in cold blood.
God I was young. And naive. And quite full of myself, though I had no idea I was challenging the finest swordsman in France when I demanded an accounting from the man whose name had been the last word my father uttered.
Athos.
Athos of the Kings Musketeers as it turned out. Whose reputation I had heard of even in the wilds of Gascony, though I did not realize it at the time. And I was brash enough to stomp into the garrison demanding he draw his weapon or die upon mine. Perhaps not the best way to introduce oneself, but then, I have already admitted I was young. And arrogant. I doubt I would have been any less rash had I been aware of whom I was challenging. My father was dead, ostensibly by the hand of Athos, and I was intent on justice - a life for a life.
It did not turn out quite the way I planned. For one thing, Athos did not die, either by my hand, or at the will of the king. His friends, Aramis and Porthos, dragged me off a on a whirlwind tour of places and faces that eventually led us to the guilty party. Which turned out to be Red Guards impersonating Musketeers, several of whom died, including the man who actually did kill my father.
A mistake that, since Aramis and Porthos needed him alive to clear Athos' name. Fortunately - for me - Gaudet's camp yielded up enough evidence that the dead man's testimony was not necessary to gain Athos' reprieve from the firing squad he was facing when we arrived. I got the distinct impression he was not particularly happy to see me.
That impression was reinforced innumerable times along the road to Calais to pick up a package the Musketeers had been sent to collect and escort back to Paris. I tagged along, thinking maybe the swordsman and I could commiserate over both being wanted for murder, since the cardinal tried to pin the Spanish ambassador's assassination on me. Athos just considered it another bit of poor judgment on my part, though who knows if anyone would have believed me if I'd hung around instead of jumping out that second story window in a panic.
By the time we'd headed back to Paris with Father Grandier in tow, I'd had a chance to prove myself a time or two and wring a more favorable impression out of Athos. He did not tell Tréville to dismiss me out of hand the moment we rode into the garrison. For which I think I was properly grateful. Though the others may have a different perspective on that.
I thought I had a handle on sword fighting, thought I had mastered it. I had an instinct for it, and even Athos admitted I was 'pretty good', though he showed me just how good I wasn't in the first few minutes of toying with me. He taught me head over heart: don't follow every retreat, don't take advantage of every opening, wait for the right one, the right time, the right set up, practice patience. And made it look easy to do, which it wasn't. At least not for me.
For some reason I still can't quite fathom, since I know it wasn't my enchanting personality, they took me under their collective wings and I became one of the Inseparables. Not ... right away, exactly. More like they let me hang out with them until I grew into the 'rank' of an Inseparable.
Porthos taught me to curse like a soldier, cheat like an expert, pick locks better than a thief and have my wits about me at all times. I'm certain he's the one who convinced Athos not to throw me back to the dogs in those early days. He claims he's no deep thinker, but when Porthos has something to say, it's always smart to listen. Porthos is the reason I'm still sane after four years of unimaginable atrocities.
Aramis is the poet of the company, not just the Inseparables, and the most charming of our lot. From Aramis, I learned how to keep a secret and why it's sometimes important to do so. His early tutoring in this stood us all in good stead during the war. He patched me up after my second story plunge, and took me to his mother to mend my broken heart following my father's funeral. He's allowed only a handful of us to experience the changes Savoy wrought in him, that ability to cross over the bridge between here and there, and I am privileged to be one of the few. More than once I felt his presence on the battlefield as if he physically stood beside me again.
I know its clichéd, but Athos' bark is worse than his bite, unless you're a mortal enemy. Then he doesn't bother to bark and you don't know you've been bit until you wake up dead. Along the road to Calais and back we progressed from enemies to acquaintances to friends. He was never one to damn with faint praise and it took a bit to realize how much I was learning from his parsed critiques. Earning a 'well done' from him was more nourishing than any food I put into my belly. It was a widely known fact in those early days, that 'the puppy' worshiped the ground he walked on. Still do for that matter. Athos continues to be a larger-than-life mentor. I know he finds it amusing that his legacy is being passed on to Brujon.
I'm sure you know I am the only married Musketeer among the Inseparables. To their credit, and my relief, they have welcomed Constance into our tight-knit circle without reserve. Of course, they knew her long before I did as she was the wife of the cloth merchant Tréville used for uniform supplies. Athos, she told me in confidence just recently, used to detox at her place when Bonacieux was gone. They know one another rather intimately.
The course of true love did not run smoothly in our case, especially as Madame Bonacieux was married when I met her. It is not much to my credit that I pursued her even in her married state and it's probably all kinds of wrong to consider a death a gift from a benevolent God, but I was grateful nonetheless. More grateful that the manner of her husband's passing and his last words did not tangle our relationship in a web of guilt.
War came upon us - not unexpectedly, but certainly more swiftly than anyone had imagined. We were two months married when the Musketeer regiment was ordered to the front. I was sure, as I rode out under a bright Parisian sun that morning, that I would be home soon and often, but that did not turn out to be the case.
While war is often boring, with long periods of marching or sitting about waiting, it is never restful. Even when we had leave, we were too exhausted to make the long journey to and from Paris in the short amount of time allotted. It was four years before I beheld the love my life again. And she was not the girl I'd left behind.
We are embroiled in a different kind of war here in Paris. A seditious, unprincipled, back alley scum kind of war that slinks like rats out of the sewer to prey upon the unsuspecting. Here, there are no distinguishing uniforms, no demarcating flags marking boundaries, no sidelines from which to assess the enemy; we have no idea who is friend or foe. Porthos says we left behind a clean war for the back-stabbing, cesspit Paris has become. I couldn't agree more.
My fellow war heroes will tell you that cannon and musket fire, bayonet and pike charges, fox holes and firestorms burnt out some of that youthful brashness. To an extent they are correct. The doctrines of war have been inked not just upon my body, but as Aramis points out, on our internal ethical maps as well.
I am changed, it is true, in ways the youth from Gascony could never have imagined. In one thing though, I remain purposed and true, Hubert in his last moments on earth, reawakened what war atrocities had lulled to sleep. Justice for all is why I serve at the pleasure of the king, even when it conflicts with the king's commands.
This has been a work of transformative fan fiction. The characters and settings described in this story are the property of the British Broadcasting Company, its successors and assigns; the story itself is the intellectual property of the author. No copyright infringement has been perpetrated for financial gain.