on every possible surface. The kitchen table, at which Grimaud normally prepared food, and at which Grimaud ate—no matter how often Athos told him he could serve him there, also, if they were alone. Grimaud insisted on serving the man who would always be Monsieur le Comte to him either in the dining room or in Athos’s own room—had bloodstains, and a basin filled with blood-colored water. Bloodied rags littered the floor. There was blood on the servants, blood on Aramis’s incredibly elaborate doublet, cut according to the latest and most daring fashion, in blue velvet and flame-colored satin, and on Porthos’s cheek and the ends of his red hair.
In the midst of all this, D’Artagnan sat, stripped to the waist. There was blood all over him too, blood on the various ligatures wound around his arm. And, as Athos watched, the rest of them, not seeing him, had rallied around D’Artagnan with the obvious idea of preventing an imminent collapse. Aramis was supporting the young man, and Porthos was helping—one hampering the other, in the way the two of them were likely to, when they both acted out of the best intentions and without coordinating intents. And, standing by D’Artagnan, Grimaud—Grimaud, who sometimes could behave as though alcohol were the enemy of man, as the puritans in England believed—was pouring something amber colored into D’Artagnan’s half-open mouth.
“D’Artagnan,” Athos said, shocked. “What is here?”
The boy sat up straight at Athos’s voice, as he hadn’t at the swallow of what Athos guessed was brandy. He pushed the glass away, as though embarrassed by it or by his weakness, and he looked up at Athos, trying to force a smile onto a much-too-pale face. “It is nothing. A scratch. A wound hardly worth mentioning.”
“Wounded,” Athos said, and because this was something he understood, he turned without one more word, and took his stairs, two steps at a time, to his bedroom where, from the bottom of his clothes press, he extracted a jar that the Gascon himself had given to him months ago. Back to the kitchen, jar in hand, he stretched it to Grimaud. “The ointment that Monsieur D’Artagnan was so good as to give me when I was wounded, Grimaud. You remember its effect on me, and I’m sure it will have a like effect on him.”
Grimaud, used to his master’s ways, took the jar and uncorked it, while he directed Planchet, “You will have to undo that ligature, Planchet,” and, to D’Artagnan’s quickly suppressed moan, “There’s nothing for it, Monsieur D’Artagnan, and it was your fault as well as mine, for Monsieur le Comte is exactly right. If you’d reminded me you’d given us a pot of the ointment, we would have used it to start with.”
Athos, who had enough experience with wounds, not only from attempting to bind his own, but from binding Aramis’s and Porthos’s too, after duels when servants weren’t available, moved to help Planchet and soon had managed to remove the bandage without causing D’Artagnan to do more than bite his lower lip and grow twice as pale.
He examined the long, deep gash beneath. He would not put his finger in it to test the hypothesis, but he was almost absolutely sure that the sword had cut to the bone. “How did this happen?” he asked. “How did you get cut like this, D’Artagnan? Was it while you were pretending to be a servant? Did anyone take a sword to you while you were unarmed?”
Perhaps something of his anger at the idea showed in his eyes, because D’Artagnan looked alarmed. “No, Athos. No. It happened after that, at the royal palace.”
Athos raised his eyebrows as he slathered the wound with the ointment from Gascony, whose miraculous, but proven, claim it was that had any wound not reached a vital organ, the ointment would cure it in no time. In their trip to Gascony, Athos had found this ointment was universal, and perhaps explained the madcap character of the Gascons, who would rather fight than speak. Or for that matter, would rather talk than eat or make love. Knowing they could impunely escape wounds had made them willing to receive the worst wounds without dying, and they had lost all reason to restrain themselves.
“I went to the royal palace at . . . That is . . . There was a note . . .” He blushed. “From Constance.”
Athos felt his expression harden. Right then, all he could think about was that Constance Bonacieux, D’Artagnan’s lover,