The Musketeer's Seamstress - By Sarah D'Almeida Page 0,64

innocent of that world that the Dominican disapproved of, had run wild and free through the summer afternoons amid ripening wheat stalks.

“Rene,” his mother said, sharply. “This is my sister’s goddaughter, Lida D’Armato. She’s come from Spain as the intended of the Count de Bassompierre, whom she is to marry in two weeks. Until then she’ll stay with us, under my careful supervision.”

Aramis nodded to his mother’s words, even to her stern warning pronounced last. But in his mind—he couldn’t help it—he was imagining the beautiful Lida naked. He was kissing her lips that so resembled a newly opened red rose. He was . . .

“In fact, quite mistaken about his having any vocation,” the Dominican said. And, with one last look of reproach, he headed out the door.

“Rene,” his mother said. “You will explain to me the meaning of this. I thought you—”

From outside, through the open door, came the sound of hooves, then the smart sound of a man dismounting. A few of Lida’s servants—and a few of his mother’s own, who’d come to watch her arrival—jumped forward to look out the door and see the commotion.

Words pronounced now by one, now by the other servant, reached Aramis’s ears.

“A fancy livery.”

“The red of the Cardinal.”

“Carrying something.”

“Looks like a letter.”

And then a servant in the red livery of the Cardinal stepped into the front hall. He bowed at Madame D’Herblay—who for some reason paled—and must quite have missed seeing Aramis who had, without anyone noticing, drifted behind a couple of servants holding a trunk made of that painted leather that was the specialty of the Spanish city of Cordoba.

“Madame D’Herblay,” the messenger said. “I’ve been sent to bring a letter to the man they call Aramis.”

“Aramis?” Madame D’Herblay said. “I’m sure there’s no one here by that name. It doesn’t sound like a real name.”

If there was one thing that Aramis knew, it was that one didn’t trifle with the Cardinal or his messengers. Fool them, sure. Duel with them, whenever needed. But in this case, if he held himself in secret, it would only mean the messenger would tell his mother it was him—and then proceed to explain, probably in front of the beauteous Lida, why he was seeking Aramis, and all of Aramis’s nefarious nature.

So Aramis stepped forward, and bowed to the messenger. “I have on occasion called myself that,” he said.

“Rene!” his mother said.

The messenger smiled. “Very well, Chevalier. His eminence has asked me to give you this. It outlines your possible choices. I hope you choose well.”

And with those words, the messenger turned and walked out of the house and down the steps, back to his waiting horse.

How had they found Aramis? And what choices could the Cardinal be speaking of?

Cardinals and Passageways; The Slowness of the Quick; Porthos’s Wisdom

“SO there is no passage into the room?” Athos asked.

Porthos shrugged. “It is not as simple as that,” he said. He’d come with his friends, reluctantly, having been pulled from watching street acrobats. Athos had said that the street was no place to discuss such secret matters. This seemed to Porthos very foolish indeed. If he watched people and saw them going into a house together to talk, he would be far more likely to think they were talking of forbidden matters than if they stood around, on a street corner, watching acrobats and jugglers and discussing the matter.

Besides, Porthos liked acrobats and jugglers and since they had taken the trouble to perform on the street outside Athos’s home, all of them somersaulting and walking on wires and who knew what else, he felt the least he could do was watch them.

But no, they must go within to the dark and dreary interior of Athos’s home and there—with serious eyes and serious voices—discuss the matter while a serious Grimaud circled around filling their cups with wine.

At least the wine was the best Athos—who usually served the best wine of them all—had ever served. Two bottles, he said, given to him by his friend Raoul. Porthos was grateful that Athos shared the wine—too good for one of Athos’s solitary drunks. But he was less amused at Athos’s words, Athos’s implication that Porthos had found nothing.

“It’s not that simple,” he said, and, searching his mind for the right word, the kind of word Aramis might well have used, he added, “There are . . . implications to what I discovered that you’re not taking into account. Mousqueton tells me that Hermengarde, the palace maid, says that the Cardinal