enjoy Marie’s love . . . but it matters not. Such as he is, he’s my nephew’s father, and so I said, yes, of course, Pierre, we’ll give you anything you want as soon as you marry Marie. And he said he would come with us at nightfall and do it. But, instead, he disappeared, don’t you know? Just vanished. We waited and waited for him, and finally we saw you, monsieur, and you see, we thought that with you being roughly the same build, and both of you having straw hair, at least as it appeared to us by moonlight, you would for sure be Pierre.”
“For which you felt yourselves justified to hit me on the head and carry me out of the city . . . in your arms? Wouldn’t that have attracted attention? Or had you had the providence to carry this charming clothes press in?”
Marc sighed. “No, it was like this—when we saw you looking around we thought of a sure thing it was Pierre. We didn’t . . . you don’t wear the uniform like the other musketeers wear the uniform, so we never thought that it could be . . .”
“A uniform,” Aramis said. “I quite comprehend your point. So you thought it would be a great idea to hit me over the head. And afterwards?”
“Well, afterwards,” Jean said. “We thought—what we really need is a good clothes press . . . and we can hide him in it. And then if we can find someone to lend us a wheelbarrow.”
“And you found a clothes press and a wheelbarrow in the dead of night, in the middle of Paris? I take my hat off to you gentlemen,” he said, though he didn’t really, because frankly, he was afraid they might think of something else creative to do with his hat or his head. Like, lift his hat and hit him on his head once more.
“Well,” Jean said. “I do have cousins in the neighborhood, so yes. We borrowed a clothes press, and a wheelbarrow.”
The idea of himself being wheeled about by these geniuses, in the middle of the night, made Aramis very angry, but it also gave him an incongruous wish to laugh. And behind all this, he was thinking that Pierre Langelier definitely would bear more looking into. Very closely.
Meanwhile, he looked at his erstwhile captors. “Well,” he said. “You’ve made a right muddle of it. For all you know, Langelier is in his workshop, waiting anxiously to tie the knot with your sister, while you two are running about the countryside, ignoring the complaints of the musketeer you’ve sequestered in a box.”
“I wouldn’t say we were running,” Marc said. “Not with Bossy and Betsy pulling us. They’re used to the plow, somewhat, but they’re the slowest—” He caught the look in Aramis’s eyes and stopped short.
“Right,” Aramis said, sighing. “Just get me to Paris as soon as humanly possible, and we will never speak of this debacle again.” And he hoped, hoped with all his heart, hoped on the fervent edge of prayer, that he would find all his friends alive and well.
The Etiquette of Visiting a Noble Foreigner; Where D’Artagnan’s Heart and Mind War; What Planchet Knows
D’ARTAGNAN, coming into his lodgings, was surprised to see Planchet coming in, also, from the other direction. And even more surprised when the young man’s spotty, gawky face wreathed in smiles. “Oh, sir, you are well. Oh, sir, grâce a Dieu.”
D’Artagnan frowned intently at him. “Have you taken leave of your senses? Why shouldn’t I be well?”
“It is only,” Planchet said, “with the goings on at the palace, and knowing you had been there and alone, earlier in the day, I was afraid you were either dead, or that you’d been taken as Mousqueton was taken.”
D’Artagnan decided that Planchet had been listening too much to Grimaud and Athos, who, frankly, both acted as if they were all dancing on the edge of the gallows. “Humor me, Planchet. Explain to me why I should be taken as Mousqueton was taken?”
“Why, for murder!” Planchet said.
“It might interest you to know,” D’Artagnan said, as he unlocked his door and allowed Planchet to go in before him, more because he wanted to keep an eye on the young man than because he was so zany as to give his servant precedence, “that I have not in fact murdered anyone. No, in fact, I haven’t even come close to murdering anyone. In point of truth, I haven’t even seen anyone