her, Madame D’Herblay turned and headed towards the house. Aramis followed, leading his horse, and heard the huffing and puffing behind himself that denoted that Bazin too had dismounted and was leading his horse.
At the end of the path it opened and widened to a cobbled patio in front of the house. The house itself was severe, almost plain—if anything five stories high, a hundred feet wide, and built of dark grey stone could ever be considered plain. But it lacked all the carving and other fripperies that other noble houses sported. The only carving, the only ornamentation, were monumental gargoyles sitting on each corner of the roof. Aramis remembered their spouting water in storms, the music of the waterfall near his window.
There, without the lady his mother saying anything or having to raise her voice to call them, two stable boys materialized, one on each side, and took the leads of Aramis’s and Bazin’s horses. Madame herself led them all the way up the curving steps to the house door. At the top, Aramis realized that Bazin had left—presumably to enter the house through some other doorway reserved for servants. That he felt Bazin’s absence as a loss and wished his servant would come back surprised him.
But the feeling as he went into the front hall didn’t surprise him at all. The hall of the D’Herblay house was tall and narrow, tiled in black and white. The walls, covered in dark red velvet, were hung with the portraits of great and noble ancestors, glaring down, in their warrior poses— swords strapped at waist—with a look of disapproval at his wasted life, his plebeian disguise.
The Chevalier felt an all too familiar sense of having entered a prison. A quiet prison, where only virtuous thoughts would be allowed.
To the left of the hall, a locked door, heavily paneled in oak, led to what had been Aramis’s father’s study.
That room he’d never entered. On two signal occasions, at his insistence, his mother had opened the door and shown him a small room with a desk, a chair and a shelf filled with red-leather bound volumes, all of it covered in dust. Apparently Madame D’Herblay, shocked at her husband’s sudden death, had decreed that this room never again be used nor, indeed, touched.
“Rejoice,” Madame D’Herblay said to the empty hall, or perhaps to the servants who, if they were wise, were lurking in the shadows waiting for her slightest command. “For this son of mine was dead and now he’s alive, he was lost but now he’s found.”
Aramis swallowed hard and reached for what remained of his wit and thought within the terrified mind of the Chevalier D’Herblay. He chuckled, a sound that echoed hollow in the immense hall. “You mean to tell me you shall kill the fatted calf, madame?” he asked.
But Madame D’Herblay only turned around to fix her errant son with a withering glare. “A calf? On a Friday? I wouldn’t dream of it.”
The Chevalier D’Herblay sighed. He had come back home.
Kitchen Wenches and Maids; Food for Thought; A Musketeer’s Loyalty
PORTHOS had never gone to the palace kitchens by himself. Oh, sometimes when it was cold and he’d stood guard too long, he’d sent his servant, Mousqueton, there, for a bit of wine, a bite of meat.
After all, Porthos was a musketeer, a gentleman of the sword. He had been received by his majesty himself, and he was often chosen to guard the royal family. He should not be seen consorting with mere servants.
Besides which, Porthos had long run a deception on all his comrades as well as his closest friends. Proud of his clothes, his weapons, his noble ancestors, Porthos knew he cut a fine figure of a man. He knew he should be consorting with princesses, reading poetry to duchesses and, generally, holding up his place within the nobility. It was neither his fault nor his intention to admit that noblewomen bored him to tears. They talked of lace and silk, of who had danced with whom at the last royal ball—but, most of what they talked about was gossip. The not so subtly disguised venom in their descriptions of their fellow courtiers made Porthos feel queasy and, quickly, tired of their company.
Give him peasant girls, anytime, with their clean laughter, their simple jokes and their wish to make the giant feel happier by feeding him and cosseting him.
He blamed it all on his childhood in his parents’ abode, when he’d consorted mostly with the farmers, who admired