Dying by the sword Read Online Free Page A

course not,” Monsieur de Treville said, and looked up, his dark eyes, despite their worry, managing to look somewhat amused at the idea of Mousqueton voluntarily getting arrested by Richelieu. Monsieur de Treville was from Gascony, D’Artagnan’s compatriot. And, like D’Artagnan, he had the olive skin of the region, the quick eyes, the piercing gaze, and the sense of humor that surfaced even at the moment of greatest tension. “No.” He looked around the room, fixing each of them with his gaze in turn and arresting, at last, on Aramis. “I would guess you know what this is about?”

    Porthos now turned to Aramis, arguably his best friend among the inseparables, in utter bewilderment. “Let me tell you what this is about,” he said, before Aramis—who was studying his nails—could speak. “Captain, I don’t know what you’ve been told, but here is what happened. I broke my sword, and I sent Mousqueton to the armorer to mend it—you know, the one on Rue des Echarps. I didn’t have money for it, but Mousqueton and the armorer knew each other, and I thought they could . . . well, Mousqueton often arranged to trade one of my old cloaks or something, you see . . . So, anyway, I sent him. And next thing we know, he’d been arrested for murder and attempted theft. And you know he never stole anything.” And then, with sudden recollection of his servant’s habits, and seeing the quickening of humor in Monsieur de Treville’s eyes. “Well, not as such. Getting the occasional loaf of bread or bottle of wine isn’t stealing. It’s . . . it’s keeping from starving.” He said, opening his hands in a show of helplessness.

    And Monsieur de Treville, who knew just how often Louis XIII’s encumbered finances meant that he must delay paying his musketeers, and to what straits his musketeers could be driven, nodded and opened his hands a little in sympathy. “Yes, I know the facts of the case, Porthos. The musketeers all bring me news sometimes before the principals of the event, themselves, know. In fact, just before you arrived, I was going to have you called, in case you’d chanced to come in, because . . .” He paused, and looked, this time to the chair by Porthos’s side, where D’Artagnan, the youngest and smallest of them all, sat, prim and proper like a schoolchild. “D’Artagnan,” he said. “Did nothing about what happened strike you as odd?”

    “Only one thing,” D’Artagnan said. “Why five guards of the Cardinal were right there, on hand, to arrest Mousqueton. It might mean nothing. They might have simply been getting their swords mended, as Mousqueton was, but . . .” D’Artagnan took a deep breath. “All the same they seemed a little too quick, almost gleeful to arrest him. Of course with the edict hanging over our heads, they knew we wouldn’t dare fight them, and yet it seems a little . . .” He seemed to hesitate. “Intemperate to arrest the servant of someone like Porthos, on no more than the cry of the mob.”

    “And to take him to the Bastille!” Porthos said, in a tone of outrage.

    Monsieur de Treville nodded at D’Artagnan and turned to Aramis. “And you, Chevalier, I believe know why they were so quick to arrest him, even if none of us can be sure what brought them there?”

    “Yes,” Aramis said. “Or rather . . .” He hesitated. “I believe I do, though since I intend on taking orders as soon as it is possible, I’m not very interested in these worldly affairs.” This was roughly, Porthos thought, the equivalent of an ant not liking to be immersed in sugar. Aramis was always alive to every rumor and knew the heart of every conspiracy. He watched as his friend, apparently unaware of the irony of his words, looked at his nails again and scratched, absorbedly at one with the index nail of the other hand. “But I have heard that a certain duchess who is close friends with the Queen . . . That is, I heard that who some of their correspondence has been