different part of the house. “I understand why you must. Till your friend is proven innocent, you must investigate. But after he’s proven innocent, come and see me again, Alexandre. I want you to stand godfather to my son.”
The Best Intentions of a Novice; Dark Eyes and Dark Thoughts; A Message from the Cardinal
“I dreamed of her again, last night,” Aramis said. He sat in his room, on a chair and had, unconsciously, adopted a pose that had been common to him in early adolescence— his body slumped down on the seat and his arms hanging over the arms of the chair.
The black suits his mom left out for him were linen mixed in with wool and itched like the fires of hell.
Which the man standing at the foot of the bed, in the black habit of the Dominican was about to remind Aramis of, if Aramis was any judge of the expression in his eyes.
“I despair of you, Chevalier,” the Dominican presently said. He looked over at Aramis with an expression of the deepest despair and betrayal. “Indeed, I do. You are so gifted, in your preaching and your thought, so capable, so clearly . . . called to the life of the church and to convert others to the wonders of the faith—and yet . . .” The Dominican opened his hands, as if to signify that he couldn’t possibly help Aramis if Aramis didn’t reform his ways. “Don’t you understand,” he asked, leaning close. “Don’t you understand that the woman is dead? She’s even now suffering the pains of hell that her sin with you earned her. And yet you . . .” The monk looked like he would presently make a very uncharitable comment about Aramis, and Aramis looked away before the poor brother disgraced himself by stomping his feet or growling or something equally undignified.
He looked towards the window of his room, which was open to the still afternoon air, warm and suffocating with a foretaste of summer in its stultifying heat.
Oh, he’d entered this of his own volition. Or at least, he supposed it had been his own volition, though when his mother was around, when she was concerned in anything at all, it became hard for Aramis to tell which was his decision and which his mother’s gentle manipulation. Though she was his mother, Aramis wasn’t blind to the reality that he’d got his guile and his ability to manipulate others from her. Nor that the master remained superior to her pupil.
After she’d taken him to the cemetery and the gallery; after he’d seen where the enmity of the Cardinal had got his father, Aramis could only think to avoid the like fate. And avoiding the like fate—his mother had assured him— meant taking the habit as soon as possible.
But now Aramis had started thinking that it made no sense. After all, being a musketeer had helped him avoid his father’s early death so far. Aramis had simply learned to use the sword better than anyone who wished to kill him.
And the more he thought about it, the less he could believe that the Cardinal would have killed Violette because he meant to entrap Aramis. She was too close to the Queen, too high of rank, too connected in the court for the Cardinal to kill her as a mere pawn to his purposes. No.
Violette had been killed for other reasons. And Aramis was here, hiding, while he left his friends to figure out the crime. He chewed, thoughtfully, on his lower lip. The idea that his safety, his ability to return to Paris as a free man depended on the cunning of Porthos made him sigh. Porthos, after all, had many admirable qualities.
Porthos’s loyalty Aramis would vouch for; his strength could not be impeached, and even where his intelligence was concerned, Aramis didn’t think it was quite so dim as many in the musketeers would avow.
In fact, having known Porthos for these many years, Aramis was sure that Porthos was, if not brilliant, of more than average intelligence. Even if his was a peculiar form of intelligence that often had trouble translating itself to words. But Porthos’s cunning—well, Porthos’s cunning could only be considered at the same level as Porthos’ sense of fashion, which often made Aramis cringe and caused sensible people to shield their eyes.
Then there was Athos. Athos was, of course, very intelligent. Or at least, he’d read a lot of books. And been given as good an education as