D’Artagnan still felt off-balance after the exchange, but he had promised to shoe the horse, and the mention of breakfast was making his stomach rumble.
“Very well,” he said after a short pause. Aramis smiled and turned to head back toward the castle, leaving d’Artagnan to hang the pristine rope lash neatly next to his saddle, giving it a final, longing look before following the other man out.
An hour later, he was bent over a bowl of gruel supplemented with the giblets from last night’s chicken, and a round of soft cheese. Porthos entered, dumping a shapeless cloth bundle onto the table. He grabbed a knife and a chunk of bread from the sideboard without a word and flopped into one of the chairs, a huge yawn cracking his face.
Aramis smiled. “You’ll have to forgive Porthos,” he said. “He’s not a morning person.”
“Being as cheerful as you are in the morning is unnatural,” Porthos grunted. He finished spreading cheese onto his bread and raked his gaze over d’Artagnan with a frown. “You look like hell. What’s wrong?”
“I think our young friend’s sleep was disturbed by things that repeatedly go bump-bump-bump in the night,” Aramis said before d’Artagnan could do more than open his mouth to reply.
Porthos mimed an exaggerated oh of understanding, his face cracking into a smile.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “You get used to it.” The smile grew wicked. “Or else you take a page out of Aramis’ book, and find someone else’s bed to warm when you want some peace and quiet.”
“I resent your implication, and couldn’t possibly comment,” Aramis said in a haughty tone.
Porthos snorted a laugh, and d’Artagnan was struck once again by the easy rapport within the household. Feeling a bit more at ease now that the conversation was moving on from the previous night, he gestured to the bundle at the edge of the table with his chin.
“What’s all that?” he asked Porthos.
“Gift for you,” Porthos replied around a mouthful of bread. He swallowed, and continued, “Took ’em off the men we fought. Thought you might find a use for ‘em. Go on, then—take a look.”
D’Artagnan frowned uncertainly and stood, moving around the table and unwrapping the cloth. Inside, he found a pistol, two daggers, and a serviceable sword belt. He looked up at Porthos, and then over at Aramis, vaguely aware that his mouth was open but no words were coming out.
Aramis smiled at him, sensing that he was at something of a loss.
“We couldn’t help but notice when we brought you back to the castle that you appeared to possess only a broken rapier and the clothes on your back,” he said.
“Well... that and a pony the same color as a buttercup,” Porthos added with a grin. “Athos told us that he intended to provide you with provisions for your journey as payment for shoeing his mare, and this seemed a good place to start. A man should have weapons to protect himself.”
“I... I don’t...” he floundered, before settling on, “Thank you.”
Porthos waved him off. “With the mess we’re in these days, people need to stick together. Help each other instead of fighting over scraps like rabid dogs.”
D’Artagnan’s eyes dropped. “Until I came here, I hadn’t seen much of the former for a very long time—and far too much of the latter.”
He was interrupted by Athos’ entrance, as the man stumbled to the table, bleary-eyed, and flopped gracelessly into a chair.
“Well, d’Artagnan,” Aramis said, “we may have some dogs inside the castle, but I guarantee none of them are rabid. Speaking of which, good morning, Athos. You’re looking particularly radiant today. Sleep well?”
“Shut up,” said Athos pithily, applying himself to a bowl of gruel without looking up.
“Perhaps I should mention that Athos isn’t much of a morning person, either,” Aramis said with a fond smile. “If you’re done eating, shall we saddle up for Blois?”
ON THE RETURN TRIP to the castle, after d’Artagnan made good on his promise to shoe Rosita and had, in return, received his fifteen livres along with copious words of thanks from Aramis, the two chatted amiably enough about light topics—the state of the crops; the unseasonable cold snap earlier that month.
D’Artagnan’s guard was beginning to drop when the older man began to speak of his boyhood desire to join the clergy, before circumstances conspired to change his plans.
“You and I share an interest in religious matters, I perceive,” Aramis said. “I gather you are a flagellant?”
Immediately on the defensive, d’Artagnan replied, “I don’t see how that’s anyone’s business but mine.”
“Well,” Aramis said, “one might argue that it became part of my business when de Tréville and I spent two hours cleaning and dressing the wounds on your back after you collapsed. However, that’s neither here nor there, since I was merely making conversation. As far as I am aware, most practitioners don’t make a secret of it.”
“It’s not a secret,” d’Artagnan mumbled.
“As it happens, I was briefly inclined in that direction myself, during the second summer of the Curse, when things seemed at their worst,” Aramis continued. “I heard a very persuasive abbé arguing that until humanity showed a willingness to punish itself, our Heavenly Father would not intervene to save us from Spain’s Curse. It made sense at the time, but I must admit, once I actually engaged in the practice, I simply could not reconcile it with my own belief in a loving, compassionate God.”
“You still believe God is loving and compassionate?” d’Artagnan asked, his tone turning bitter. “Truly?”
“I have to,” Aramis said. “Otherwise, what is the point of any of this?”
“The point?” d’Artagnan said, bringing his horse to a halt as anger bubbled up in him and unexpectedly spilled over. “The point? Yes, do please tell me what is the point of your loving God allowing an entire family to die, yet leaving a single son untouched to go on alone, without his loved ones! Without friends or the girl he was promised to! What is the point of leaving that son to be responsible for property that had been in his family for generations, only for him to lose it to his neighbors, who rose up and drove him off the land when he refused to share it with them simply because they asked him to!”
D’Artagnan desperately wanted someone with whom to fight; someone who would scoff and belittle and give him an excuse to lose himself in fists and swords until the noise drowned out his thoughts and memories, but Aramis merely regarded him with compassion from Rosita’s back and replied, “I don’t know, d’Artagnan. I’m sorry. I wish I did.”
Eyes burning, d’Artagnan wheeled and spurred his old gelding into an ungainly gallop, fleeing back toward the castle. He glanced behind him through vision blurred by the wind—it was only the wind, he told himself—and was relieved to see that Aramis was not chasing after him.
Chapter 6
Arriving back at the stables, he put the pony away blowing and sweaty, tamping down ruthlessly on the voice in his mind that berated him for doing so as he threw the saddle onto a nearby rack and grabbed up the cat o’ nine tails.