chamber left Aramis completely uninterested. It was what Rochefort did to France, in full light of day, and with the Cardinal’s orders to back it up, that made Aramis’s heart beat faster. Usually with fear. He took another sip of his wine, to disguise his confusion, and Huguette laughed softly.
None of the other women were coming near today, which, probably, meant none of the other women were in the tavern. Aramis would have preferred to get his gossip from a more informed source or, at least, since he didn’t think that Huguette was ill-informed, from a more stable source. But if Huguette was all there was, he would have to cater to her topics, and he would have to approach the subject, he judged, via Rochefort. Though he refused to ask about Rochefort’s habits, in general.
“So,” he said. “Is the blond lady one of Rochefort’s friends?”
“What blond lady?” she asked. “There are so many.”
“The one who came in earlier,” Aramis said, and relayed what he remembered of Athos’s description without the superlatives, which he was sure were only how Athos saw her, and in no way connected to reality—or only very little.
Huguette raised her knees a little, bringing her grimy bare feet closer to her body, on the bench. “Are you in love with her too?” she asked.
“Too? And of course I’m not in love with her. I’ve never seen her.”
Huguette looked wishful. She had eyes somewhere between green and brown, and large, all out of proportion to her face. She stared at him a long time, then sighed. “You’ll be in love with her,” she said. “As soon as you see her.”
“Doubtful,” Aramis said, thinking of the only woman who had ever commanded his love, though he’d had a continuous stream of beauties grace his bed. Violette had not been branded with a fleur-de-lis. “And who has fallen in love with her, that you should say I’ll fall in love with her too?”
“Oh, everyone,” she said and sighed. “Everyone who sees her. But you shouldn’t fall in love with her, you know? Because she’s not very nice. I’ve heard her talk to the Cardinal, and she says that she has . . . killed people.” The huge eyes stared out at him, with what seemed to be very sincere shock.
“Lots of the Cardinal’s people kill other people,” Aramis said, and shrugged.
The girl sighed. “Yes, I guess they do. But not, normally, with poison. Or not while they’re in bed with them.”
Aramis raised his eyebrows. He was so completely taken aback, he was surprised into blurting, “I’ll take care never to be in bed with her.”
“See that you do,” Huguette said, very seriously. “I’ve heard that she has killed three husbands and a lover.”
“And does she have a name,” Aramis asked. “This sinner?”
“Why do you want to know? Do you want to meet her?”
Aramis shook his head. “No. But I think it will be easier to stay away from her if I know her name, and where she’s likely to be.”
“Most people just call her milady,” the girl said. “You know, in English. The last husband she killed with slow poison is said to have been an English earl. So she gets the title, you know. But his family was very suspicious and as soon as he died, they set about investigating his death, and she found things too hot for her in England, and so she came here.”
She hugged her bony knees, in a curiously unselfconscious and childish gesture. “I bet you no one else could tell you her name, but I can, because I heard her talking to Rochefort, and Rochefort was calling her Charlotte.”
Aramis felt as though an icy finger had run down his spine beneath his clothes. Whatever else was said, he was sure that Athos had referred to his wife as Charlotte. “Was she . . . was one of her husbands a count? A French count?”
The tavern waif shook her head, then shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. “He might have been. But . . . You know they’re all dead, so what does it matter. There is a guard, in the palace, who calls her the black spider. He’s sensible at least, but most of the others aren’t. They say she’s so pretty that she must most certainly be as good as an angel.” She sighed. “I find that men can be very stupid.”
Agreeing with her, and counting out his money to pay the server, Aramis was about to say his farewells when