"After The Challenge"

Some of the Musketeers wanted to luxuriate in d'Artagnan's win, loudly, only yards from where the Red Guard were picking up LeBarge's body and arguing amongst themselves. Blood was high on both sides, and Aramis knew they could all be back on the dueling ground quick as a spark. He would have welcomed a bit more swordplay, personally, and it would be just the thing to cheer Porthos up after his conversation with the beautiful widow, but he supposed the Musketeers should try to retain the moral, as well as the martial, high ground. Plus it would be a shame if d'Artagnan's triumph were marred by anyone—well, any Musketeers—getting hurt.

Well, any more Musketeers. Aramis looked around and didn't see Treville anywhere... but he did see a man in black, with a large wooden box under his arm, leaving the blue and white tent in a hurry. And experience told him that whence cometh a rebuffed physician, there goeth a certain snarling Musketeer captain.

Aramis caught Athos's eye as the other musketeer chivvied the young hotheads along. He nodded toward the tent, knowing Athos would understand, then he took off his hat and ducked between the canvas flaps. Treville was inside, sure enough, sitting on the padded surgeon's bench. He was attended by the Bouchard cousins, who were, as of just now, the second-newest Musketeers; what with their having the same surname and no noms de guerre ready upon arrival in Paris, the regiment had quickly dubbed the fat one "Le Monde" and the short one "Lapin," which they mostly bore with good humor.

Le Monde was gently sliding Treville's doublet off his wounded arm. Treville looked up at Aramis and asked tightly, "What's all the noise out there?"

"Athos is clearing everyone out before the Red Guard get any ideas," Aramis said. He hung his hat on the armor stand and started removing his gloves as he asked, "Dislocated?"

"Feels like it," Treville agreed.

Aramis added his weapons belts and jacket to the armor stand, too; he preferred to go about physicking unencumbered. "Lapin, Le Monde, do you know how to put a shoulder back in?"

Le Monde, hanging Treville's doublet up with Aramis's, said, "I've done it once."

Lapin shook his head. "But maybe I shouldn't learn on the captain."

"Why not? I did," Aramis said, and grinned at their surprise. He came around the bench and adjusted the wide neck of Treville's shirt to reveal his upper chest and shoulder, which were badly deformed and an angry red that heralded painful bruising. Aramis frowned. Judging from the pit in the front of Treville's shoulder and the odd fullness behind it, the bone had come out of the socket and slipped backwards. Which would make the other unsettling protrusion his collarbone...

Treville looked at Aramis sidelong. "It may be something more than a dislocated shoulder," he confessed.

Aramis couldn't keep one eyebrow from twitching, but he worked to keep his tone mild. "Isn't there supposed to be a real physician at these things?"

"Don't pretend you didn't see him," Treville said darkly. "He's the Cardinal's man and he resents being ordered to serve 'the common soldiery.'"

"So you sent him away."

Treville glared. Time to drop the subject.

Aramis smiled brightly. "Not to worry, sir. If it's something I don't know how to set, we'll get Van Bremen," he said, naming a retired army surgeon Treville had been known to tolerate. He lightly touched the inner edge of the incipient bruise, which ran almost to the middle of Treville's chest. "Any of these ribs broken?"

"No, it's all in the shoulder."

Aramis trusted Treville on that count, so he put one hand on Treville's back and took his elbow with the other. Before Aramis could ask him to, Treville took a deep breath and relaxed the muscles in his arm and back as much as he could—the old soldier had a great deal of experience being looked over for broken bones. Aramis started to feel Treville's arm inch by inch, trying not to jostle him as he went. If anything was broken, it was probably that crooked collarbone, but he didn't want to find out he was wrong in the middle of pulling Treville's shoulder back into place.

"How about our d'Artagnan, eh?" asked Lapin, filling the silence.

"Finally commissioned!" Le Monde said with a grin. "He was brilliant out there today."

Lapin nodded. "He changed his style to suit LaBarge. Traded distance for strength."

Le Monde tossed a bandage roll in the air and caught it again. "He did, didn't he?" He added in an aside to Aramis and Treville, "We were saying the other day that d'Artagnan does tend to rely on his reach, at least in the training yard."

"I mean, it's not the worst thing to rely on, is it?" Lapin said. "If he gets my dagger away from me, I'm a dead man every time."

"Maybe his sparring partners back in Gascony were all your size?"

Lapin's response was a rude gesture, out of Treville's line of sight.

Aramis was glad to have the younger Musketeers with him. Their easy banter was meant to distract Treville, to bathe him in familiar topics and voices, as he might have done himself if Porthos were here. It was working: Treville's shoulder and arm stayed lax under Aramis's hands as the cousins chatted on.

Next, he walked his fingers out along the collarbone. Solid bone quickly gave way to the warm, boggy feeling of bad swelling, and while he didn't feel the telltale grating of a break, Aramis was inclined to think there was at least a crack somewhere under there. In any case, the bone sloped up much too steeply and the far end threatened to poke out through Treville's skin. The bone moved when he touched it, and he heard Treville let out a small, choked noise. "Sorry, captain. Collarbone's dislocated, too, and cracked," he reported, "but your arm's not broken, so we should be able to get the shoulder back in without any heroic measures."

"Good," Treville grunted, adjusting the way he was cradling his arm. "We've all had enough heroism for one day."

Le Monde fished inside his doublet and came out with a rather ornate palm-sized flask. He looked back and forth between Aramis and Treville. "Does this count as a heroic measure?" he asked.

"No, no, that's an excellent idea," Aramis said. He'd been debating offering Treville the crude spirits he kept for cleaning wounds, but in his experience, drinking the stuff caused as much pain as most injuries.

Le Monde uncapped the flask and handed it over. Treville tipped some into his mouth, trying not to move too much, and returned it with thanks.

"Good thing greedy-guts here always travels with most of a meal," Lapin said, elbowing his cousin. He looked around the tent. "Honestly, who leaves bandages but no wine?"

"Speaking of which," Aramis said, "go through that basket, would you? We'll need the longest ones you can find."

Lapin went to sort through the bandages, and Aramis ran his hand over the back of Treville's shoulder, trying to map the contours of the displaced bone. He was afraid he'd have to improvise a bit... Out, he decided. If he pulled straight out, the head would clear the edge of the shoulder blade, and then he could push or rotate it forward into place.

"All right," he said, "shoulder first. Let's get your shirt off, too, captain, and get you lying down."

The cousins traded a look that was a good as bursting into laughter, which Aramis chose to ignore. The loose linen shirt was much more forgiving than the heavy doublet, and as they maneuvered it off, he resumed instructing the younger Musketeers. "Usually you see a shoulder dislocate to the front. That's whether you fall off a horse, run afoul of Porthos in a fight, or just get unlucky and do it with a good sneeze."

"A sneeze?" echoed Lapin, incredulous.

"Oh, yes." Smiling ruefully at the memory, Aramis passed one of the large bandages around Treville's chest. "But this is dislocated to the back," he went on, "so it will look a little different from what you've done before. Lapin, come around here. We're going to help him lie down, close to the edge, with his left shoulder angled off the bench. Ready?"

It took all three of them, and several reminders to Treville to relax and let them help, but soon he was positioned to Aramis's satisfaction, with Lapin supporting the bad shoulder from below and Le Monde standing on Treville's good side, holding the ends of the bandage that was looped around his chest. "I'll be pulling this way," Aramis explained, "so you have to pull the other way to keep him from falling." Aramis put a hand on Treville's forearm where it rested on his stomach. "Ready?"

Treville closed his eyes and nodded.

Aramis straightened Treville's arm gently, took a firm hold with one hand above and one hand below the elbow, and started to counter his arm out, slowly. When he liked the angle he looked up at Le Monde. "Match my force, but don't yank—lean. Like easing onto a trigger." He set his feet and leaned back, using his whole body weight to pull Treville's arm out, slowly, trying to ignore the obvious pain he was causing his patient.

Aramis kept up the steady pressure and worked on angling the upper arm outwards, too. He knew that tomorrow, Treville would have bruises where his fingers were. "Lapin, press forward, just a little," he directed, and added to Treville, "Breathe, captain. Don't hold your breath."

Aramis felt sweat rolling down his nose. He ducked his head to wipe it on his sleeve and kept leaning back, feeling the arm come towards him, seeming to lengthen. He felt a tiny thrill in his hands, a grating feeling; he prayed it was one bone slipping past another, and he added a little bit of inward rotation, twisting Treville's arm slowly as he pulled.

"People will tell you to put a shoulder back with one good tug," he said, a bit breathless. Come on... "But that doesn't always work. So if I have a nice, dry tent and no enemy fire and all the time in the world—"

A sudden jolt reverberated through Treville's arm, along with an unmistakable popping noise—though it was almost drowned out by Treville's bellow. His right hand flew up to clutch his left shoulder, and his knees started to curl up to his chest. He cursed passionately and without pause as Aramis and Le Monde slowly let up their opposing forces.

"Captain?" Aramis said, carefully laying Treville's forearm across his stomach again.

"—pit of fire with the whores and devils—"

"Captain."

Treville swallowed his next oath, opened his eyes, and looked balefully up at Aramis.

"Can you move your fingers?"

He grimaced, but his left hand made a loose fist, then relaxed.

"Good." Aramis wiped his forehead on his sleeve. "Just... rest for a minute, alright?"

"No, get on with it," Treville panted. "The sooner we're all back at the garrison, the better." Treville caught Le Monde's eye and held up his right hand. Le Monde recognized an unspoken order and helped pull Treville back up to sitting, though the captain couldn't quite hold in a long groan at the movement. Aramis gave Le Monde a reproachful look.

Lapin passed Aramis a roll of linen. "It's the longest one I found," he said. "Someone already spliced together a few to make it."

"Perfect. I'll need another long one, and a big square if there is one."

As Lapin went back into the basket, Aramis started to wind the bandage in a figure of eight: down over Treville's good collarbone, under the good armpit, across the back; down over the bad collarbone, gingerly under the bad armpit, across the back. Treville ground his teeth when Aramis first pulled the bandage tight over the dislocated collarbone, and seeing his face, Le Monde brought the flask back out. Still, Treville was dripping sweat by the time Aramis was done.

"Captain," said Le Monde hesitantly, "shall we scrounge you up a carriage? You can go with Aramis and we'll get the horses back to the garrison."

Treville shook his head. "I'd rather ride than have my teeth rattled out of my skull in a carriage."

And, Aramis knew, it was a point of pride. "Why don't they bring the horses around?" he suggested. "I can wrap up that shoulder, shouldn't take long, and we'll be on our way."

"Alright," Treville agreed. He looked from one cousin to the other. "Go on, then."

As they ducked out of the tent, he drank from the flask again and set it beside him on the bench. Aramis already had Treville's shirt in his hands, and carefully worked it up over his left arm, then dropped it over his head and helped Treville find the right sleeve. It was easier than before, now that the bones in his shoulder weren't all shifting around. Aramis caught up his left forearm in a wide bandage and tied the sling around his neck.

As he worked, he said, "You knew."

"The trials were real, but I saw LaBarge with the Guard yesterday." Treville's tone of voice declared the subject closed, but Aramis was not known for leaving well enough alone.

"If you were supposed to fight LaBarge," he wanted to know, "why did the herald just happen to have a new pauldron on hand?"

"If I won—if I lived—I was going to ask the King to give d'Artagnan his commission. He'd earned it twice over."

Of course. Of course Treville was thinking only of his men, all the time, from every angle. Aramis felt a rising sense of shame remembering the talk among the Musketeers after Treville's announcement. "We didn't trust you enough," he said quietly.

Treville's face was impossible to read. "And do you now?"

Aramis could only nod.

Treville nodded back. "I might not have trusted me, either," he allowed.

Aramis busied himself with another long bandage, binding Treville's arm firmly across his chest, and said only, "I think you should keep these on, maybe till morning. I've never seen a shoulder go backwards like that, and I can't say for sure whether it's more or less likely to slip out again."

"Let's assume it will slip out if I sneeze, at least for tonight." Treville nodded toward the armor stand, where Le Monde had hung his doublet. "That, too. I'm not riding around in my shirtsleeves like an errand boy."

Before obeying, Aramis double-checked that all the bandage-ends were tucked in, and he ran his fingers under the edges in a few places. "Is anything too tight?"

Treville's fingers flexed briefly where they emerged from the linen. "No, it's fine. And," he added when Aramis opened his mouth, "I will check again in a few hours."

Smiling, Aramis fetched Treville's doublet. He pulled the sleeve up Treville's right arm and draped it over his left shoulder, watching his face to see if the heavy leather pressed on his injuries, but Treville only tugged at the collar to settle it a little better. Aramis was seeing to his own coat, sash, and weapons belts when they heard hooves outside. Treville accepted Aramis's help getting down from the surgeon's bench, with a muttered "God's teeth."

Aramis handed Treville's weapons up to Le Monde, and Lapin held Treville's horse still as Aramis gave him a leg-up from the off side. Treville refrained from cursing in front of the younger Musketeers, but Aramis could tell the movement hurt, and he lingered for a moment. He needn't have bothered; Treville's seat was steady as ever as he took his reins from Lapin.

Aramis mounted, too, and as one the horses began walking home.

"Le Monde," Aramis said, "do you know who had the good leather sling last?"

"Uh..." Le Monde frowned. "Giraud, I think. But he hasn't needed it for months. I can ask him for it later."

Lapin tilted his head. "I always thought the communal sling was taking 'one for all' a bit far."

Aramis laughed at that; on his right, he heard Treville chuckle, too. "That thing has been going around since you two were catching frogs in Breton creeks," he explained. "It's become a cross between a joke and a good-luck charm."

Lapin rolled his eyes. "You know when you tease us about being young, it makes you sound old."

"Might as well," Aramis grumbled, "I'm pretty sure I aged ten years and sprouted a dozen gray hairs today."

"So you turned into me," Treville said gravely.

The cousins whooped at that, and at Aramis's face as he tried to recover his verbal footing.

Over the course of the ride from the palace grounds back to the garrison, Aramis kept an eye—well, both eyes; the horses knew the way home—on Treville. Broken shoulder and all, he sat his horse easily and seemed ready enough to smile and occasionally join in the talk. Aramis was all too familiar with the heady relief of a near escape, and hoped that it would sustain the captain all the way home and up to his rooms. Although there's very little chance I'll convince him to lie down and rest at this hour. We're not Spanish, after all.

They weren't more than a quarter of an hour behind the others, and when they reached the garrison it was still buzzing with the excitement of the collective victory and the small bits of business that needed doing before the men could properly celebrate d'Artagnan's commission. Stable boys came to take their reins, and before anyone could fuss, Treville dismounted using just his right hand. The landing had to hurt, but he didn't show it as he greeted nearby men and accepted his weapons from Le Monde, and Aramis smiled to himself. The captain of the Musketeers was a force to be reckoned with, even in the face of the Cardinal's schemes and against his band of red-cloaked vipers.

Porthos appeared at Aramis's elbow. They greeted each other with a friendly thump, and Pothos said quietly, "Treville looks cheerful. Is he alright?"

"Ah, well, you know how it is, he's happy to be alive. That shoulder is a mess, though. It'll be a few weeks."

"Weeks?" Porthos scowled. "If LeBarge weren't already dead..."

"Speaking of which, where's the hero of the hour?" Aramis looked around, but their Gascon was nowhere to be seen.

"He wanted to tell Constance the good news. We let him go after he swore on his pauldron he'd meet us at the Swan."

Aramis chuckled. "We'll be sure to see him there."

"Five sou says Athos joins us."

Aramis weighed Athos's affection for d'Artagnan with his dislike of drinking, let alone celebrating, in large groups. "I believe I'll take that bet."

They were shaking hands just as Treville approached them. He raised an eyebrow. "I was going to tell you two to keep the peace tonight. Do I want to know what that was about?"

"We'll be on our best behavior," Aramis promised, laying his hand on his heart.

Treville, many years familiar with Aramis's definition of good behavior, was not impressed. "I mean it," he said. "Stay away from The Dancing Goat and wherever else the Red Guard drink these days. They'll be looking for Musketeers to thrash."

They both managed to answer, "Yes, captain" with passable sincerity. On impulse, Aramis added, "Come with us. One round. It's your victory, too."

But Treville was already shaking his head. "Captain's lot, paperwork awaits. I'll see you in the morning."

"I'll come up before muster," Aramis said, and Treville waved the weapons belt in his hand in acknowledgement as he made his way up the stairs. Now, almost to the sanctuary of the office, his mask was slipping a little, and he climbed slowly. Aramis watched him go, until he felt a nudge from Porthos.

"He's fine, you said so yourself." Porthos's voice was little more than a whisper.

"I know." Aramis made himself look away from Treville.

"What possessed you invite him out, anyway?" Porthos wondered, still sotto voce. "He never drinks with the regiment. Unlike Athos, who will definitely be joining us tonight."

Aramis didn't rise to the bait, still deep in his thoughts. "He shares danger with us all the time, but today he took it on instead of us. He protected us, even though we're soldiers, too. The least we could do is buy him a drink." Above them, Treville's office door opened and closed, which Aramis took as a reminder to put away his worries and musings for the moment. He made himself resettle his hat and smile at Porthos, saying brightly, "Well! First toast to d'Artagnan, second to Treville, and, as long as we're on the theme of absent friends, the third will most certainly be to Athos."

"The third what?" Athos appeared from the direction of the kitchen. "If it's the third round, I won't be staying that long," he warned them. "One drink with you lot. One."

Porthos cackled and held out his hand to Aramis, who thought it was worth five sou to have their third Inseparable present, but dug into his belt pouch with exaggerated disgust for form's sake. They strolled together through the arch, and Aramis resisted throwing a last glance at Treville's office door. They had a new Musketeer and they hadn't lost any old ones in the process—there was plenty to celebrate.

And he'd be back first thing in the morning.