Thank you for reading and for all the comments on the previous chapter.

This has not been an easy chapter to write. It's had a lot of tweaking and additions so apologies for any errors that I may have missed.

What is happening with Athos as his brothers and Captain search Bircann's estate for him?

CHAPTER 39

ATHOS

"Stop it! Be quiet! Damn you!" I scream.

Except that I do not scream. No sound emanates from me. Not anymore. There is no need. Why should I expend valuable energy speaking, shouting or screaming when there is no-one to hear me or if there is, they just ignore me?

At least, it is the living ones who ignore me, except for taunting and gloating when they deliver the precious bread and water. Is it my imagination or is the time between those deliveries extending? Perhaps it has not altered; it is just my shattered perception of the passing of time that deludes me.

I have no need to speak aloud to the Three Gs. Yet I hear them perfectly well as they do me. What need have they of a voice when all tissue, muscle and flesh has rotted away? When that which gives them the ability to make sound no longer exists?

No, they have developed another power, a higher and more insidious one as they infiltrate my very being. I do not mind Guillaume and Gervais as such for they respect my need for privacy, even in this hell hole, and they fall silent when I sleep, or at least I think they do. For the most part, there is a thoughtful gentleness in their tones that I find calming when the terror or futile rage threaten to overwhelm me. They urge me to stillness when the irrational storm has me in its grip and drives me to pound with my fists on the rock surfaces that enclose me until I feel the blood run up my arms. I endure the physical pain only to convince me that I am still alive, for it is that suffering alone that assures me I have not slipped into the afterlife without realising.

For some time, I have been telling myself that whilst I am cold and shivering, I remain in the land of the living as there is no inferno … until Guy delights in informing me that there is more than one type of Hell and that the Devil is creative in producing an eternal torment best suited as a punishment for the sins committed in life. For the life of me – and I snigger at the irony – I cannot see the link between this torture and what I have done on earth.

This existence is, as far as I can see, unrelated to my life as Comte de la Fère. It is the complete opposite to my life of comfort, luxury, influence and duty as it can possibly be, especially when I left behind the trappings of that world years ago.

Nor can I see the link between this and my current life as a Musketeer, although in doing the work of the latter, it has brought me into contact with Bircann and it is on his orders that I find myself incarcerated here.

Guy enjoys his relentless assault upon me and although the other two try to protect me, it is his voice that I hear more often than not, his barbs that are hitting home with his terse comments about my wife and brother; my shortcomings as a Musketeer, a friend and as a man and that my desperate adherence to a life of honour and duty is naught but a self-created lie.

There are times when my fight drains from me. I can no longer offer any counter argument to Guy and begin, albeit reluctantly, to agree with his accusations. Then Guillaume interjects with heartfelt words of encouragement and my spirit starts to soar … until Guy sows his seeds of doubt with a persistent string of questions, giving me no time to respond until I come to distrust Guillaume's claims of knowing me so well when there are many hidden recesses in my soul harbouring dark thoughts and secrets that I have not even seen fit to share with those I would call my brothers.

Gervais intervenes with the quiet voice of reason and instruction but he, too, now loses ground in the battle with Guy, who is becoming more dominant and destructive, drowning out their words of comfort so that I go for long periods without the warmth of their voices, or so it seems.

And why is it that Guy increasingly sounds like Richelieu?

He goads me with threats of abandonment, that my brothers will give up the search and that I am a condemned man, eking out what little existence I have left to me in the company of the Three Gs, until I breathe my last and become as them.

A pile of forgotten bones in the bottom of a pit.

Shaking my head, I am unable to keep coherent thoughts alive. Too often now, I find that I contradict myself, my emotions in constant conflict and I cannot help but wonder who I am. What have I become? Where is the man I thought I was in a past age?

There is suddenly movement above me and I raise my head to look up at the emergence of a dim, flickering light. The torches. They must be bringing me my bread and water rations and my heart misses a beat with joy at the prospect of the arrival of the most basic of foodstuffs. How low have I come that such an arrival has grown to be such an event in my sorry existence? The greater excitement is that I will have human contact for a few brief minutes - and this from the man who long shunned the overtures of friendship from the men he now calls brothers. I do not care if my captors only bark an order or insult 'the fallen Musketeer'. It is contact of indescribable value with another living, breathing being. They could rail at me and abuse me for hours and, perversely, I would have no objections if it means that they would stay a while with me.

But this time is different.

There are several of them when usually there are two at most and there is a sense of panic. Their actions are hurried and they shout out to each other as I struggle to determine what they are saying.

Something about Musketeers coming?

I cannot catch my breath for I must have misheard.

There is scraping, lots of noise. Things are being moved and the torchlight is being obliterated.

They are covering the grill above me, concealing my whereabouts.

It must be true. My brothers are coming for me!

I scramble to my feet, stagger and bounce off a curved wall, jagged stone tearing at the apology of a shirt I am wearing, but I ignore both it and the resultant pain as I cut my upper arm.

Now I am shouting, begging them not to cover the grill, stumbling around on the uneven ground as I follow the diminishing patch of light. Round and round. More frantic than when I first was forced to descend into the pit. What need have I now for dignity?

Guy bellows his ridicule, no doubt intent that my gaolers should hear only him and not me.

The last shred of light disappears and the sense of being entombed is greater than ever now. My mind is racing. Supposing they never come back to uncover me? Supposing I am never given bread or water again? Supposing this is really the beginning of the end?

I do not want to die!

Standing in the middle of the pit, I throw back my head and howl like an agonised animal until I am spent, falling to my knees in what can only be described as mounting hysteria.

I despise myself for this extreme, frenzied display for I have never been so unmanned, so manic and this manages to disgust me and frighten me further. I am the one who normally exudes a calm control. What is happening to me?

Panic has me in its grip when I realise that, all along, I have not uttered a sound, even though I want to. That means that my gaolers cannot hear me. My brothers, if they really have arrived, will not hear me.

I have to make some sort of noise!

In the pitch black, I hurriedly feel around the ground and snatch up a bone. From the accompanying protest, I realise that it must be some leg bone belonging to Guy.

"Good!" sounds in my head as I pound on the wall.

Pound! Even that mocks me. I no longer have the strength to pound anything! The result does not even warrant the word 'thump'. A slight bump is more accurate. What is even worse is that the bone has become brittle – perhaps Guy was not a healthy man before death – and with as much effort as I can muster, it breaks when it is in contact with the wall. I try another bone, but it is useless. I doubt that the meagre sound will rise sufficiently or permeate what has been piled over the grill.

I shuffle until I feel the reassurance of the wall behind me, my unseeing gaze turned upwards to where I know the grill is and I wait, trying to calm my breathing and my beating heart which, to me, makes even more noise than the bone succeeded in doing.

And I wait.

I think I doze for I suddenly start at a sound. My name is being called, but it is so faint. I look to where I know the Three Gs' remains are piled.

"Did you call, Guillaume?" I silently ask. He denies it.

It sounds so like Porthos though. Can it be? Another voice answers. Is that the Captain? Is he come too? They are so distant, so muffled that I cannot determine any words. I am convinced that I hear a third now! Could it be Aramis?

I grab more bones and hit the wall in desperation, but I know it is pointless. Willing my voice to work, I take deep breaths and shout and scream their names, that I am here, waiting, wanting to see them so much that my chest tightens with a physical ache.

But there is nothing!

My body, mind and voice betray me and above me, another familiar silence returns.

They are gone!

My long-held resolve not to shed tears for fear of wasting precious body fluid is forgotten and I curl in on myself.

Hopelessness, grief and the greatest terror that I have ever known combine to break me, to destroy me, and I rock backwards and forwards, hot tears streaming down my face as, mouth open and noiseless, I sob helplessly with frustration and an indescribable pain.

Guy starts to jeer at me but, this time, the others override his exulting in my despair.

There is no comfort to be gleaned from their support though. Not this time.

I have clung optimistically to the belief thus far that my brothers will find me. Am I therefore experiencing another evil hallucination, one borne of a mounting desolation and intent upon making me think they were so close? It does not seem a delusion from the activity that was above me a little while ago, which spoke of a flustered reality on the part of my captors.

If this is true and Porthos, Aramis and the Captain have come to search for me, then when they ride, it will be without me and they will not be back. This location will be struck from the list of possible places where I might be, and their search will move on.

Unless this is their last place to look.

Even so, there will not be another time. No return.

And I do not have the words, not even in my head, to express what I am feeling right now. The loss. The isolation. The complete abandonment … but I cannot apportion any blame to them. This is not their fault. I know they will have moved heaven and earth to find me and will be shattered emotionally and physically by their failed efforts. Circumstances have conspired against me and worked against them. They will have to accept the inevitable and give up on me at some point for they will not find me now. They will not pass this way again.

How long can they continue?

How long can I go on?

In truth, I do not believe that I can survive for much longer, not like this.

I do not want to.