on her.”
“She did not work for Spain,” Aramis said, indignant. “She never even mentioned Spain to me . . . Well, unless she was reminiscing about her childhood.”
The silence around the table echoed back to him, and he waved all that away. “But let’s suppose that this was the case and that . . . I imagine the Cardinal only spied when she was with the Queen, then?”
He did not like Athos’s silence, or Porthos’s fidgeting.
“D’Artagnan, my friend,” Aramis asked, addressing himself to the boy and hoping that D’Artagnan’s great cunning had kept his mind from the insanity that affected the others. “Why would his eminence spy on us?”
“I don’t know,” D’Artagnan said, looking uncomfortable.
“But you think he did?”
“I suspect he did. From the reactions of the servants and what they didn’t say.”
Aramis nodded. This was the type of reasoning that he could understand. “And if you had to hazard a guess as to motive?”
D’Artagnan sighed. “I would have to guess that he wanted to have material to force the Duchess to do something he wished to have her do. Or perhaps . . .” He looked towards Athos. “Your friend said he had news of his wife?”
Athos turned around to face D’Artagnan. “You think the Cardinal was sending Raoul news of his wife’s exploits? The Cardinal? Why?”
“Athos,” D’Artagnan said in that world weary voice that so often made him sound like the oldest—instead of the youngest—of them all. “The Duke came to his wedding and now doesn’t live at court. Have you never thought that perhaps the Cardinal has a grudge against him?”
“The Cardinal has a grudge against all great nobles, and tries to keep the King as far from his extended family as possible,” Aramis put in drily, then concentrated on the part of the conversation he found most fascinating. “You know Violette’s husband?”
Athos sighed. “Raoul is an old childhood friend. I visited him.”
“Did he kill her?” Aramis asked. Only that mattered.
Athos shook his head.
Aramis fished in his sleeve for Violette’s letter announcing her pregnancy. “Not even in light of this?” he asked.
Athos looked over the letter and shook his hand. “No,” he said. “I’m sorry, Aramis.” He pushed the letter back. “I really am sorry, Aramis, for what you’ve lost. But no, not even that.”
He shrugged. “Look, Aramis,” he said, as Aramis took the letter and folded it and put it back in his sleeve. “I knew Raoul when we were both so young that neither of us knew the meaning of dissimulation. I knew Raoul before either of us understood the meaning of lie. I know when he’s lying, and yes, he has lied to me in the past, particularly when we were both very young. He wasn’t lying when he told me he hadn’t killed his wife.” Athos looked as if he was about to say something else, then shrugged again. “Please believe me. You know I’m rarely wrong on such things.”
And it was true. Athos was rarely wrong on such things. Unless, of course, the liar were a certain kind of woman, in which case Athos’s testimony should be taken in the reverse, because he was always wrong. But Aramis would not say that. He would not remind Athos of his luck with women. Instead he said, “I’ll trust you, but it seems very odd to me. And I still don’t understand why the Cardinal would want me to leave town or to stay out of town.”
“Oh, by the Mass,” Porthos, who had continued fidgeting all through the conversation, exploded. “Really, Athos, Aramis, D’Artagnan. The Cardinal has no special reason to want Aramis out of town, only the murder having happened and its looking like Aramis did it, it suits the Cardinal to think that it was Aramis. That way, particularly if Aramis either is arrested before he can disprove the charges, or never comes back to dispute them, the Cardinal, in his next tug of war with Monsieur de Treville can say that at least none of his guards ever killed a defenseless woman. That is all. You are making this into much more than it is.”
“But why would he try to kill us, then?” D’Artagnan asked, baffled.
“I’m afraid that is my fault,” Athos said. “Aramis, do you remember the dagger you gave me that night?”
Aramis had forgotten all about it. Now, as though it were happening all again, he felt the dagger in his hand, slippery with Violette’s blood, and he shrunk from the idea of her corpse, the feel of her