Authors note: Its been a while but we are getting to the final stretch. I hope you have been enjoying this.
After their meeting with the king, the men returned to the garrison and treville disappeared, presumably to do some paperwork. Athos seemed disappointed in this but was quickly distracted by sparring with D'artagnan. This was before something else distracted him.
'Athos? What is it?' Aramis asked upon noticing Athos watching something just outside the garrison
'Roger is here!' Athos all but squealed. This was very much a shock to Aramis as he could narrowly catch Athos' sword as the boy ran toward his beloved horse. Athos then quickly started to hug his horse, Roger, who was only the size of a foal thanks to their little water adventure. Athos started to guide Roger toward the stalls as he pet him and started telling him all about the palace and the musketeers as though the foal was a close friend.
It was then that something occurred to Aramis. During the years he had spent as a friend to Athos, he seemed to love that horse more than life itself. It was somewhat concerning to Aramis that Athos had more faith in a literal animal than any human. Aramis followed Athos into the stable where Roger was now happily munching on the hay that the stable boys had provided him. It was also in this location that Athos and Roger had a bit of a one sided discussion. Aramis, knowing that his friend enjoyed and found dignity in his privacy, wandered off. Porthos and D'artagnan still needed help with the armoury duties that Treville had put them on, (they had to do something productive), and Athos seemed more than occupied with his horse.
—-
Athos was sitting on the small stool that was in Roger's stall. Aramis had previously told him that apparently there was another musketeer who, much like himself, enjoyed the company of his horse so much that they had a joke about him living in the stables with his horse. Athos didn't think that was too strange. When his father didn't think he was behaving much like a count, he would 'exile' him to the stables for the night because his behaviour was like that of a peasant rather than nobility. The servants took pity on him and had made alterations to the stable that Roger was normally in so that when his father did inflict these forms of discipline on him, he would at least have access to a warm blanket and clean drinking water. It wasn't anything fancy,
Athos didn't realise they had done this until much later, and had since then learnt that stables were not typically designed in this manner. So it struck him as odd when he found these same alterations made to Roger's stall here at the garrison. The alterations were identical, right down to the way the harnesses were laid out on the small tack wall.
'Roger, don't you think it's strange that these alterations are identical?' Athos asked his horse as he wandered into the stable. He felt something strange on the floor. Shuffling the hay, he realised what he had stepped on. It was a trap door. At home, this was how he would sneak little gifts to the children of the servants or money to them when they were in need. Opening the trap door he discovered a small box on the floor. Pulling it out, he started to go through the items in the box. Some of the items were expected such as the spare pistol, the bottle of what he had to assume was wine, and the cloak. However there were also maps of his homelands and a small leather bound book. Opening it and skimming the pages, he quickly realised what this was. This was a diary.
—-
It was quite a surprise when Athos stormed into Treville's office, his facial expression making clear that he was more than a bit mad and annoyed.
'Why didn't you tell me about this!' he all but screamed at them
'What are you talking about Athos?' Aramis asked
Athos said nothing as he threw down the book and stormed off. If his adult behaviour was any indication, he was probably going to sulk somewhere, or abuse some poor innocent tree. Whatever it was, he had a lot of feelings to get out and there was only one way to know where they came from. The diary was something none of the musketeers including treville had accounted for. Athos never seemed to be the diary keeping type, however, it was good for Athos to have something in which to express his feelings that was not a wine bottle. In this book, written in neat pen strokes, was a somewhat detailed account of almost everything Athos had encountered as a musketeer. Obviously he left out any compromising or potentially compromising information and it was written in latin, a language very few musketeers spoke. However it was very much like Athos to have this.
'So this is where Athos disappears after the mission reports' Muttered D'artagnan as he flipped through the leather bound pages.
'Beats a bottle' Porthos commented as d'artagon passed the book to him. 'I suppose this is the reason for the outburst.'
Porthos read through some of the pages and passed it to Aramis, who after looking through it himself passed it to Treville.
'Well Athos life is not exactly pretty.' Aramis commented
Treville sighed as he read a few pages of the Diary. He was going to have a long day.
'We better go after him.' Aramis said
'No, Let me handle this,' Treville interrupted. As much as his brothers wanted to help, this was best handled by himself. Treville often wondered if he was some sort of father to Athos and, perhaps, this was his opportunity to find out.