"I have nothing you want."
Those were the first words she had spoken since awakening. She had not even screamed when they pulled out handfuls of her dark hair, or when they trod on her ankles to shatter the bone. Like her husband, she knew that silence was a weapon, sometimes more powerful than words. A silence held could drive someone mad. Turn people to desperate beasts. And could keep you alive.
But the first man who had tormented her, one with foul threats on his breath, had left.
And when another man, with a gruesome stump where his tongue had been, came to keep her company, she knew that they were using her own weapon against her.
They sat in silence for three days.
And, strong minded and strong willed as she was, the repetitive drip of a leak in the ceiling and the relentless squeaks of hidden rats were slowly gnawing away at her sanity.
"Did you hear me?"
Anger rose in her voice.
"I have nothing you want!"
The mute man just stared at her.
She knew her captors were Spanish. She'd heard them speaking outside the room when she'd first arrived. What would Spaniards want with her? Perhaps they know of my dealings with Rochefort, she wondered, or perhaps they believe that I am still close to the King…?
"If you remain under the impression," she ventured, "that I am still a favourite of the King… then you are mistaken. I lost his love some time ago."
She laughed bitterly.
"I lost all of the love that I kept."
He hadn't come. Something had almost convinced her that he would. It was that hunger in his eyes, not a lust, but a need to be with her. As though he could not see without her light, as though he could not hear without her voice, as though he could not breathe without her lungs. As though without her to lean on, his bones would crumble beneath the weight of the world and he would be nothing but dust.
Yet, somehow, she doubted he was lost without her now.
He had not come.
He had chosen a life without her.
'La dama de invierno' traced her finger along her scarred neck.
"Of course…" she whispered, trying a new tactic, "I could always regain his favour… I am sure you know that he is weak-minded, easily seduced. After all, that is why you sent Rochefort…."
If they took the bait and released her, she would go back to Athos, as difficult as it would be to face him again. He could get Treville to take action against her captors. Legal action. She would not have to kill.
She had sworn that she would never kill again.
The door swung open.
"You have missed the point, Madame."
The figure spoke French… with a French accent.
He was young and tall, around 22, with a gaunt face, a tangle of blond hair and bulging green eyes. And the prisoner recognised him as Voclain, another of Richelieu's associates, having entered into his service aged only 15 and quickly become known for his disregard of mercy. He had immediately become very fond of Rochefort, placing him upon a pedestal, and believing his position as an agent in Spain to be the ultimate of aspirations.
He had no idea that Rochefort harboured an intense dislike for him. Milady remembered watching the young boy beg the Cardinal to pay the ransom for the captured Comte, completely unaware that the man whose life he pleaded for would never do the same for him.
"Voclain…" She rolled her eyes and sighed, "I always knew you'd end up like this. What did the Spanish offer you for your service? The King?" She added, remembering his interest in other boys.
Voclain shook his head and laughed, a hacking sort of sound as a result of setting one too many buildings on fire. The mute man, who still sat staring, opened his mouth to join in the motion, although no sound came out.
"I have no interest in the King, Milady. And this might be a Spanish safe-house, but I'm not working for Vargas. I hate the Spanish, same as you. No, what I need, is for a friend, and is something that should be quite easy to get."
"And what would that be?"
A rat crossed the floor and he bent down to pick it up by its tail. It squirmed in his grip.
"Your co-operation. And your voice."
"Would you like me to sing for you?" She growled sarcastically.
He did not answer. Instead, he just stood there, watching the fat rodent desperately try to wriggle free, fangs bared and legs flailing to defend itself. Eventually, after a few endless moments, he wrung its tiny neck and watched its head loll limply. His hands were now slit open by its claws, but he did not seem phased.
He flung it at her and it smacked her in the cheek.
She glared at him loathingly.
"I suppose that was meant to be symbolic?"
"Yep." He pointed at her, "You're you, obviously, and that," he proceeded to point at the rat corpse, "is someone close to you if you don't do what I want you to do."
Amusement passed across her face.
"I know you know very well that I am just like you. Alone and forsaken by this world. So, Voclain, your threat lacks a little impact. But, I suppose that rats without their brains aren't very good at coming up with metaphors either."
Voclain's face changed, clearly not stupid enough to have missed the insult that had so blindingly painted her words. A vein in his neck pulsed. One eyebrow twitched. He looked so angry that she momentarily wondered if she had made a mistake in provoking him, especially as both of her ankles were broken and she had no chance of escaping.
"I might not be as clever as you, but at least I'm not chained to a wall. I chose the right side."
"And whose side is that?"
He stepped forward and trod on the dead rat, with so much force that it burst open. Its insides leaked out across the floor. A thimbleful of guts. A little round eyeball. A brain no larger than a peanut. She felt bile rise in her throat at the sight of it.
"The side that squashes rat's brains. Rats like the Musketeers, like the Spanish, like you. The side that wants you to testify in the royal court. To tell the King exactly what he needs to hear."
She shook her head, disgusted.
"Rochefort. Who would have thought you'd still be licking his boots after all this time…?"
She looked him directly in the eye and snarled.
"And what happens if I don't do what you want? Are you going to kill me?"
She didn't bother to explain that ultimately, her death would mean nothing, to no-one.
Voclain just smiled at her, then at the sky, as if laughing at God, then to himself. The man with no tongue grinned too, and Milady suddenly felt as though she was missing an inside joke. Then the young spy, still a child when they had first met, leaned forward and pushed a strand of hair away from her face, before latching his fingers in her hair, pulling on her scalp and dragging her head back.
She still did not cry out in pain.
He stared at the skin on her neck, burnt by the noose.
"Oh Milady… surely you didn't think I'd never find out about Athos?"