The Musketeer's Seamstress - By Sarah D'Almeida Page 0,23

in innocence.

No, it was a puzzle without solution, Athos thought, as he followed the others—who’d taken his silence for acquiescence—along the narrow warren of roads that led to the working-class street in which D’Artagnan rented lodgings. And yet there was nothing for it but to try to solve it, the three of them—none of whom was particularly well suited to the solving of mysteries. And Aramis was their man in the court, the one who knew duchesses and consorted with countesses.

How was Athos, who was all but a recluse, going to do such a thing? And what were the chances of D’Artagnan, still new in town and a guard of Monsieur des Essarts—not even a musketeer—gaining entrance to the court? As for Porthos . . . Athos looked towards his friend who appeared both intent and worried, as if trying to solve some difficult puzzle and sighed. Porthos had trouble enough imagining anyone could lie, much less unraveling a duplicitous plot. It was all hopeless.

But at that moment they had reached D’Artagnan’s home and D’Artagnan unlocked the door. “Planchet will be out,” he said. “He said he needed to shop for food.”

Planchet being D’Artagnan’s servant, Athos supposed his absence made their conversation all the more private.

They climbed the staircase to D’Artagnan’s apartment, which was more spacious than Aramis’s, though in a less fashionable area of town. The entrance room sprawled large and was lit by two sunny windows that let the morning sun fall upon a broad table and a set of benches that D’Artagnan had got who knew where.

This was the accustomed council of war headquarters, where the musketeers and their friend discussed whatever occupied their minds at the moment. Porthos and Athos fell, wordlessly, into their accustomed seats, on either side of the table, while D’Artagnan went within for his ancestral salve.

While he was gone, Athos unlaced his doublet and pulled it off, then rolled his shirt sleeve up to reveal a jagged, deep wound on his forearm, just above his elbow.

“The devil,” Porthos said. “That does not look like a scratch.”

D’Artagnan, returning with salve and a roll of clean white linen said nothing. He merely set it on the table, beside Athos. “Do you wish to bandage it, or shall I?” he asked.

Athos shrugged. “I will need your help to tie the bandage,” he said. Left unsaid, but implied, was that he would prefer not to have anyone touch him unless it were strictly needed. Much as he disliked to admit it, any touch, any human touch at all, made him think of betrayal and mockery. He’d learned to be contained within himself and, in himself, contain all his own needs. Without another word, he started slathering the salve on his wound. The yellow green paste smelled of herbs and felt curiously soothing to the skin. It stopped the bleeding on contact.

“One thing I don’t understand,” Porthos said, while Athos was occupied at this task. He took a deep breath, like a man venturing onto unfamiliar waters. “Are we sure that this duchess was the woman Aramis called his seamstress? How could she be a duchess when she’s just the niece of his theology teacher?”

Athos looked up, startled, to meet Porthos’s innocent stare. He made a sound in his throat that he hoped didn’t seem like laughter and reached for the strips of linen that D’Artagnan had left at his hand.

D’Artagnan got up and stepped around to provide Athos with the extra hand needed for this task and said, as he was doing it, “The seamstress who writes to Aramis on lilac-perfumed paper?” he asked.

Porthos blinked.

“A seamstress who seals her letters with the imprint of a ducal crown,” D’Artagnan said, meaningly.

“But . . . why?” Porthos asked. “Why did the niece of a theology professor become a duchess? And how?”

Athos could have told D’Artagnan that trying to insinuate things wouldn’t work with Porthos. Porthos was not stupid, nor was he incapable of deception. In fact, Athos was privy to a deception that Porthos ran on his very own.

However, Porthos was abysmally bad at deception. So bad, in fact, that though Athos hadn’t spoken, he very much doubted either of their two other friends believed Porthos’s light of love to be the princess he said she was. Being naturally bad at deception, and abhorring confusing words and complex philosophies, Porthos naturally found it impossible to believe that Aramis, his closest friend, would run a more complex deception. He also would probably not understand at all why Aramis would