The Musketeer's Seamstress - By Sarah D'Almeida Page 0,37

Such troupes were a nuisance. They came from who knew where and they left without warning. And their acrobatic abilities were often put to the use of cunning thefts. But the people would like them.

Looking attentively, he could see, ahead, the briefest glimmer of cloth, the slightest shimmer of silk. They dressed like kings and queens, too, these street performers, though often their clothes were threadbare and the supposed gold only so much painted glitter.

“Come D’Artagnan,” he told his friend. “I know a way around.”

D’Artagnan shook himself, as though waking. He’d been staring mesmerized into the crowd and Athos wondered if the young man wanted to watch the performers. D’Artagnan was, after all, little more than a boy and had come from some miserably forsaken village in Gascony. For him this poor show might be as entrancing as a royal ball.

But Athos could not find a way to ask his friend if he wanted to stay and watch without insulting the youth. So, he made sure that D’Artagnan was following, and then rode his horse apace through a maze of narrow streets, until they’d done a full circle and emerged again on the relatively large main street which had the width to allow two carriages to pass one by the other.

There, Athos spurred his horse to a trot and heard D’Artagnan catch up, behind him. Planchet and Grimaud’s horses’ hooves echoed still farther behind.

Cooks and Maids and the Secrets of the Fire; The Distinct Advantages of an Abundant Moustache and an Appreciation for Simple Pleasures

PORTHOS startled at the cook’s yell at him. He blinked at her, surprised, not used to being addressed by women in anything but an endearing tone. “I came,” he said, as the lie occurred to him almost without his thinking. “In search of my servant, a thieving scoundrel, about this size.” He pantomimed with his hand. “And about this wide, with abundant moustaches and a talent for the fast hand swipe.”

“Ah,” the cook said. “Mousqueton. He’s a scoundrel that one. Faster than a cat and twice as sneaky, for all his size. Why, just last week he made off with a whole chicken, freshly roasted.”

There was something Porthos—who had enjoyed the chicken quite well and thought of it with only the slightest hint of remorse—knew well enough from observing those around him. And that was that two people with a common grievance about the same person would soon find themselves on the way to friendship. And from what he could see, from the way the kitchen noises seemed to have hushed up at the woman’s speaking, this was the person in whose graces to be in the kitchen. Either she was the head cook or the one who had seized the authority in the absence of any other contender. In either case, it mattered not. In this kind of environment she would be the sole authority and appeased as such.

He removed his hat and bowed to her, trying to look meek and yet roguish for it was his experience that meek men never interested women very much, while roguish ones never had their full confidence. Trying to strike a happy medium, he held his plumed hat to his chest and bowed. “Ah, madame,” he said. “You have my condolences, for it’s not the first time the rascal has made away with my own belongings. Surely you noted how he wore gold buttons and lace. Well, such disappear from my chests all the time.”

The cook nodded. “And how come you tolerate the rascal?”

“Ah,” he lied happilly. “It was a promise I made his mother who was my mother’s favorite maid. I told her I would look after Mousqueton and keep him from the gallows.” He sighed, one of his big, contrite sighs.

The woman’s eyes softened. “I have a brother,” she said. “Who is exactly like that. And I wish I could find him as kind a master.”

“So my rascal comes here often?” Porthos said.

“Often and often.” The woman nodded. “He always says he needs the food for his master.” She ran her gaze appreciatively across the breadth of Porthos gold-cloak bedecked shoulders and down his silk-bedecked muscular chest. “As if you’d need it.”

Porthos shook his head in empathy.

“Come on down,” the cook said. “Sit down with me, and we’ll talk about it.”

Porthos walked down the stairs, and, with the cook, sat at a broad table far from the fire and near the door. The cook twitched and made minimal gestures and in no time at all a