The Musketeer's Seamstress - By Sarah D'Almeida Page 0,4

his body hurting as if he had been flogged, wondered how he could have survived too. He only half believed it.

“Well,” the shriller voice said. “Then where could he be? For he’s not in the room. Phillip yelled down he wasn’t. So he must have jumped. And you see that tree yonder? Look at all the broken twigs and leaves at the base.”

Aramis bit harder into the handle of the knife that had killed his mistress. He stifled a moan of despair. They would find him. They would—

“Ah, here comes Pierre, with the dogs,” said the man, over a low, vicious snarling.

Aramis jumped. He jumped, hands extended, forward and up, towards the garden wall. And met a surface that some mason had taken great pride in making as smooth as possible.

His fingers slid off the stone and he managed to muffle a whimper as he scrabbled with hands and feet and felt skin tear and nails rip. He found a foothold and one handhold, and scrabbled madly with his other hand, till he found another hold, higher up. His other foot found a place to lodge, a bare crack between two stones. More by force of will than by the strength of his hands and feet, he scrambled up the wall.

Balancing atop of it, drawing a trembling breath, he heard the snuffles and whines of dogs. And jumped over.

On the other side, all was dark and still. The evening had deepened and the road that ringed the palace was deserted. Save for the sounds of voices and dogs, now muffled by the wall, all was quiet.

Aramis took a deep breath and wiped the sweat from his forehead to the back of his arm. He trembled and told himself it was with cold, despite the warmth of the balmy air.

Leaning against the wall, he tried to think what to do next. He could not run through Paris naked without being noticed. And besides, very soon they would send someone to his lodgings. They would be there, ready to arrest him before he could get clothes.

He took another deep breath and faced the prospect of going into the night, naked and alone. And where could he go? Any half-wit would also take the precaution of sending guards to wait at his friends’ homes. The four of them were known as the four inseparables. And the Cardinal, who would soon enough make this his business, was no half-wit.

And then he heard, from the left side, as he stood, the sound of dice rolled in a leather cup and a curt, low imprecation, “Damn.”

It could have come from many mouths. But the choice of the single word and the tone in which it was said—as though the gambler had lost a great deal, but didn’t deem it important enough to allow for more than a word—made Aramis think of Athos. Athos always lost at games of chance. And yet he always played.

The voice had been too distant and too faint in reaching his ears to be easily identified. To be sure, it could be almost anyone who had sworn so quietly into the evening air.

But Aramis wanted it to be Athos. Willed it to be Athos.

From the other side of the wall came the barking of dogs, and someone saying, “There’s blood here. He climbed the wall here.”

Aramis ran towards the sound of dice. He would risk it. Knitting himself with the shadow, he ran, hoping that one thing in this disastrous evening would go right. Hoping to find sanctuary.

Rounding the corner of the wall, he emerged into the shadow of the palace, where the bulk of the walls hid the scant light of the stars in the evening sky.

In the dark, he saw three men, sitting in front of one of the palace gates, playing dice. He hesitated. With them sitting, like that, it was hard to tell what the men looked like, save that they were musketeers, wrapped in cloaks and wearing their hats. Three musketeers. But D’Artagnan wasn’t a musketeer.

The one facing Aramis stood and said, “Holla, who goes there?”

Athos’ voice. Weak with relief, Aramis surged forward. He removed the dagger from his mouth, held it tip down in his trembling hand. “Athos,” he said.

Athos, tall, ivory skinned and blue eyed, graced with an incongruous cascade of dark curls down his back, normally looked like nobility incarnate. Less like a man than like a statue whom time and events could not touch. Now his eyes widened in shock; his face went