Chapter Text
Milady wakes early – it’s difficult not to, these days. The child inside her seems to kick near-constantly, but it has an especial fondness for the time just before dawn, and never lets her miss it. Her wonder at the feeling of it moving inside her hasn’t entirely dissipated, but it’s certainly dimmed. She misses sleeping late. Today she’s even wearier than usual, having been woken by the child kicking or by nature’s call repeatedly throughout the night. Still, she can doze all day if she wishes, regaining every bit of her lost sleep.
She rests her hand on the ever-growing curve of her stomach and lets her eyes slide closed again. After a minute, Athos’s hand settles just below her own, and she smiles to herself. His face is half-buried in her hair, and she doubts he’s really awake, but Athos seems to be able to sense the child moving even when he’s asleep. He’s in awe of it, and in awe of her for carrying it inside her, and in awe at being allowed to sleep beside her in this comfortable bed and wake with her most mornings – really, her husband spends half his time lost in stupefied amazement, these days.
The rest of the time, he seems more of a mother hen than she could ever be. He worries about her lifting things, her falling down steps, her being jostled in crowds, her not being strong enough to survive the birth. She shouldn’t have taken him to the midwife with her for her last visit, but she did, and now she’s reaping the consequences. At first, the woman was a little stiff – if men are concerned enough about their wives to accompany them, then they normally end up insisting on doctors instead of midwives, assuming men are wiser even when it comes to women’s mysteries. She didn’t welcome losing a client. But Athos acted like the midwife was barely short of a prophet, full of arcane wisdom he couldn’t hope to comprehend, practically begging for whatever assistance she could give him in understanding. Milady’s never seen her dry, clever husband so completely give way to another’s judgement before. By the end of it, the midwife was all but besotted with Athos, and Milady was thoroughly annoyed. His concern warms her, of course it does, and she understands where some of it comes from – his own mother died in childbirth, delivering a stillborn – but she’s no weakling.
Athos believes that if she avoids any kind of exertion, if she eats and drinks exactly as the midwife recommends, if she treats every suggestion as a holy commandment, the birth will go well. He thinks of it almost as some kind of bargain with the universe, from what she can tell. She doesn’t think that way. No amount of lying still on her back (because it allows the child to focus on growing in a way it can’t when she’s moving about, according to the midwife) or drinking milk with every meal (because it will create a stock for her to feed the child with, according to the midwife) will somehow guarantee safety. In any case, her child is strong – in her seven months of pregnancy, she’s done any number of dangerous things, and been subjected to bodily harm a few times, but she can still feel it kicking inside her. Her child is every bit as much of a fighter as she is, and she forces herself to believe that, because she can’t afford for Athos’s obsessive concern to infect her as well. She has enough of her own fears as it is – not that she knows how to share them with him.
They lie still together for a long time, his warm breath ruffling her hair, his warmer hand resting on the child, the morning sun slowly rising and shedding light across the sheets. The only movement is the babe kicking. Then, finally, Athos yawns and rolls from his side to his back, blinking up at the ceiling. “Good morning,” he says sleepily. Then he seems to wake up slightly, adding with a bit more urgency, “How do you feel?”
“Pregnant,” she says, resisting the urge to roll her eyes at the concern in his voice. “But otherwise fine.”
From anyone else, it’s polite small talk. From her husband, it’s a panicked enquiry.
Well, perhaps not just from her husband. Whenever she sees Aramis, he pelts her with interested questions about her health as well. There’s something strange going on there, she thinks, and it’s not just to do with his somewhat excessive preoccupation with the wellbeing of her child. She’s never had much to do with Aramis – when she worked for the Cardinal, she focused her efforts on d’Artagnan, after all, and Athos was always her obsession. Porthos and Aramis she dismissed as simple. She decided that one thought with his fists, and the other with his – well, whatever polite euphemism springs to mind – and that was all. Now that she’s spent so much time with them, she thinks that her previous opinion might have been doing both a disservice, but Aramis catches her attention much more than Porthos. Porthos has troubles, but he speaks of them often – he’s quite open. Aramis, on the other hand, has a secret. That alone she would hardly care about, but it seems he shares that secret with her husband, and she can tell it troubles Athos. Sometimes when she watches them talk in quiet, fierce undertones, she feels the urge to tell Aramis off for whatever it is he’s doing – her husband is quite stressed enough without the additional weight. Perhaps Athos is angry about it as well, since she’s noticed that Aramis cleans stables more than the average Musketeer and is rarely assigned to the relatively enjoyable, comfortable duty of guarding their monarchs.
She makes a mental note to look into it at some point – after all, it’s not as if she has much else to fill her time with. Athos comes over every evening he can spare, and stops by quickly for midday meal as well most days – partly to check on her, partly to make sure she’s eating and drinking as directed by the midwife, and partly just to spend every minute with her that he can. But the rest of his time is filled by being Captain of the King’s Musketeers – it’s not a job for the lazy – and she’s alone in her new house. Well, not alone – she has a housemaid who does the cleaning, a footman to run errands and answer the door, a cook who keeps the larder stocked and cooks the meals, and a nurse for the child who at present fills her time with sewing clothes for the babe and helping the maid clean. That leaves Milady little to do besides read, wander from room to room, wait for Athos to arrive, and go slowly out of her mind with boredom. Is it any surprise she breaks up her day with other activities whenever she can find them?
Perhaps today she’ll go and gossip with the palace maids. Some of them meet regularly in the dress store of Madame Elaine near the Louvre, who worked with the maids many years ago before she married and who allows them to use her backroom to gather and socialise. They’ve welcomed Milady easily to their number. She’s discovered that a belly swollen with child makes women who might otherwise be suspicious coo and offer immediate friendship. She dislikes that they also feel the need to touch her stomach continually, but it’s survivable. They think she’s newly arrived in Paris and lacks company – and, she supposes, they’re not entirely wrong. The information they share so casually is her first priority, though. The maids see everything, after all, and while she can’t use what she hears at present it’s always best to stay informed.
Athos stands up, stretching, and begins the work of strapping all his weapons back on. He always places them as far from the bed as possible, as if he’s worried he’ll stab her in his sleep. Given some of his nightmares, perhaps that’s a real risk. She has her own knives stowed a bit closer though.
“Busy day today?” she says idly.
He shakes his head. “A few small tasks for the Dauphin’s christening tomorrow – escorting ambassadors, that sort of thing. But apart from that it should be slow. I’ll be by at midday… that is… if you would like…” He’s slightly nervous, as he always is – worried about intruding, about pushing her too quickly, but also unwilling to give up time he could’ve spent with her. They’re both a little cautious around each other, right now.
“I’ll look forward to it,” she says firmly. It’s the truth, and not just due to boredom – she loves sharing food with him, chatting about their mornings, tentatively discussing the child and their future. On very slow days, they can even curl up on the settee for a while, her head in his lap, his fingers combing through her unbound hair. The servants probably find them ridiculous.
He will, of course, try to persuade her to drink milk and eat to excess, and attempt to press on her money for the food despite her not needing it in the slightest at present. To her own surprise, Treville (now First Minister) did end up giving her the money promised by Rochefort, more than doubling her savings. She thought he’d consider it preposterous to reward her further for assassinating members of the King’s council, but he didn’t even hesitate. At first, she thought he saw it as recompense for her help against Rochefort, but then she realised he actually felt guilty about allowing her to risk her life and that of her child to kill Rochefort. King and country come first to Treville, and he’s not above risking women and children for that, but he doesn’t like that he nearly got a pregnant woman killed by ordering her to stay in France and letting her come with them to that final confrontation.
Anyway, whatever the reasons, she’s rich, at least by most people’s standards (compared to a comte’s wealth, of course, it’s not quite as impressive). As a result, even with a nice house, four servants employed, and whatever potential disasters she makes allowance for, it will be years before she starts feeling the need to count livres. Since she got it in such a lump sum, she was even able to buy her house and invest some of the money, providing more security. Athos doesn’t like the feel of living off her even slightly, though (even though he doesn't technically live with her at all), so she allows him to give her a share of his wages, which will make the money stretch out even longer. He also likes to bring her gifts, whether expensive or cheap, and it’s embarrassing how each one makes her melt, however practical or foolish it is.
Sometimes he even brings her forget-me-nots, like he would have once long ago – although he always has a slight expression of anxiety when he does, as if afraid she’ll throw them to the ground and berate him for bringing them. After all, the meaning they’ve attached to the flowers is much darker than most – pressed and exchanged for a broken promise, held by a woman seconds from hanging, used as a signature by a killer. But there are other meanings – earlier ones and new ones – and they will always be her favourite flower, the one she wears in her hair, has embroidered into her clothes, has embossed on her knife sheaths. He’s cautious about giving them, but she loves it whenever he does.
He kisses her farewell, and that, at least, neither of them are cautious in.
X_X_X_X_X
Athos finds a faint smile has taken over his face as he strides towards the Garrison. He’s smiling a lot more these days. He knows he’s more even-tempered with the men, too, and they find it reassuring. He sometimes worries he’s neglecting his duties for his personal life, but if he is, no one has so much as implied that to him. He thinks he spends as much or even more time at the Garrison as he used to. Although he fills his evenings with Milady, he’s cut down his drinking to the occasional bottle every now and then with his friends, instead of binging regularly, which frees up a lot of time. This also makes him more effective when he is there, since he’s not nursing an ever-present hangover.
The first week he spent drying himself out again was certainly unpleasant. It was one of the requirements he set upon himself, now that he’s going to be a father – Anne didn’t ask it of him. She doesn’t even know. He didn’t want her to. He told her he would be busy with his duty for a few days and locked himself in the little room he uses for such things. She’s decided to give him a chance to be a father, and he wants to give her no reason to doubt that decision. Sobriety is, strangely enough, one of the easiest steps to take. When he drank to excess, it was always for a reason, and while a lot of his guilt, pain and self-hatred remains, they aren’t the emotions most prevalent in his life at present. Joy, hope and terrible fear hold primacy, and while he sometimes craves alcohol to help with the latter, his wife’s presence is more effective. Well, for the most part – as strange as it sounds, sometimes her lack of fear increases his.
Apart from the occasional complaint about her sore back or feet, and one or two mentions of boredom, she’s been surprisingly positive about everything. She never gives any sign she regrets her choice to keep the child, even momentarily, or regrets staying in France with him. She never mentions the possibility of anything going wrong, never seems afraid of giving birth, never seems intimidated by what’s coming after. The staff sometimes imply to him that she’s been upset or in a bad mood that day, but she doesn’t show any negativity in his presence except for her usual light sarcasm, so perhaps it’s only boredom sharpening her tongue sometimes.
Basically, she’s a pillar of strength, and he knows he should take strength from that as well. Instead, he feels like her unconcern aggravates his own fears, while at the same time making them impossible to share. The stronger she is, the less he feels able to be weak in her presence, and the more dishonest he feels for downplaying his own fears. Oh, he’s sure he gives her indications – his excessive worry over her health, his obsessiveness with the midwife’s orders – but he doesn’t really talk to her about it. He wants to, he desperately wants to, but he won’t. How self-centred a person would he be if he tried to make this all about him? How selfish would he be to whine on about how scared he is? So he stays silent and afraid, and oddly guilty about that fear.
Today, though, he feels happy. He slept well. Anne seems healthy and strong. The world is good.
His happiness, however, shrivels and dies as he enters his office, replaced by suspicion. Porthos and Aramis, clearly in the middle of a furious argument, both look up with smiles so bright they have to be an attempt to soften a forthcoming blow.
“Captain!” Aramis says, looking manic. “We have a… slight problem. I wasn’t there, but -”
“Sure, lead with that,” Porthos mumbles, giving him a glare.
“- we appear to have lost the King,” Aramis finishes.
Athos runs the words through his head a few times, as if that will make them more comprehensible. “You did what?”
Porthos clears his throat. “Me and d’Artagnan were guarding him -”
“- and it seems he got an idea in his head to experience Paris -”
“- as a commoner, so we took him to a tavern -”
“- but a fight broke out and now he and d’Artagnan are nowhere to be found.”
“I was keepin’ the mob from tearing them limb from limb,” Porthos says, looking sheepish. “I don’t know what happened or where they went, but they haven’t turned up again. I spent the whole night looking.”
Athos gets an immediate headache, pounding in his temples. “Why didn’t you come and fetch me?”
“You were at Milady’s,” Porthos says. “Didn’t want to disturb you.” It’s a blatant lie – obviously, what he wanted was to find the King before he had to tell anyone, even Athos.
“For future reference, if something like this happens, disturb me.” He nails the two of them with an indiscriminate glare. He doesn’t bother to rail at Porthos for taking the King to a tavern – it’s impossible to stop His Majesty when he gets the bit between his teeth – but he can certainly be annoyed he wasn’t alerted sooner. Milady’s footman has standing orders to come and grab him if a Musketeer shows up at her doors, regardless of what they’re doing.
God above, he’s going to have to go the Louvre and inform Treville and Her Majesty that the King is missing. That he’s been missing for hours.
“Run me through every detail,” he orders Porthos. Perhaps the King is lying under a table somewhere passed out, or hired a room to sleep it off in, or is currently ensconced in a brothel. If so, though, d’Artagnan should have come and found them, or at least paid someone to deliver a message. It’s not like the younger man not to check in and keep them informed.
‘Every detail’ proves to be unhelpfully few.
“Start back at the tavern,” he tells them, after he’s heard the whole thing, fighting the urge to thump his head repeatedly against his desk. “Check everything. I don’t care how many people you threaten or offend, we’ll deal with the complaints after we’ve cleaned up the current mess. I’ll go tell Her Majesty.”
And the day started so well.
X_X_X_X_X
The talk with Treville and the Queen goes exactly as poorly as expected. She’s furious. By the end of it, Treville has stopped even trying to defend the Musketeers, Constance is shooting him looks of sympathy, and Athos fervently wishes for a strong drink. But they have a plan to buy them time, and Athos assures them that the Musketeers will use that time well.
He speaks to Chaput, the new Captain of the Red Guards, and has him send his people off to join the search. The Musketeers are already looking. Of course, none of them realise they’re looking for the King – he’s working with the assumption that finding d’Artagnan will allow them to find the King, so they’re all searching for him. He doesn’t even tell Captain Chaput, although for once, this has nothing to do with distrust – the new leader of the Red Guards was handpicked by Treville and is completely trustworthy, but he combines being a painfully bad liar with being utterly devoted to the King, and his reaction would give the truth away to everyone in minutes. They can’t let anyone realise the King is missing, and if they tell every guard and soldier in Paris, it’ll be common knowledge by midday.
Midday… he looks at the sky. He’s supposed to meet Milady now. For a moment he struggles between two duties. He should send a message, apologising for not turning up and explaining that he has much to do today. But he hates the thought of not seeing her, and he hates the thought of failing to meet her when he said he would, and God knows he needs to find some kind of a bright spot in this Hell of a day. Then he stiffens as it occurs to him – he at least needs to warn Milady about this. While he has absolute faith in Porthos, Aramis, and d’Artagnan (wherever he is), there’s always the chance the King is dead or out of their reach. If so, Her Majesty won’t have much choice but to write to her brother for help holding the country. It will be chaos in Paris, dangerous chaos. While he’s not sure they can make the connection, the Spanish also have more than a few reasons to want Milady dead for her part in recent events. She needs to know, so she can prepare to shift her household to somewhere in the countryside at short notice if the worst happens.
He surprises himself continually with how desperately, fiercely protective of her he feels, how terrified he is of something happening. It’s a miracle to have gotten her back, one he doesn’t deserve. He keeps expecting that impossible blessing to be whisked away from him somehow. The world doesn’t give out blessings for free, after all: there is always a cost, and someday he knows it has to come due. He never deserved his wife’s love in the first place. He never deserved to know she was alive instead of dead by his hand. He certainly never deserved her forgiveness and willingness to try again. And then when you add in the child they’re expecting… it’s too many blessings, too much happiness, and he’s earned none of it. He spends every day waiting for the other shoe to drop. He’s had this kind of sublime happiness once before, after all, and it didn’t last.
So he heads for her house. The footman lets him in immediately, used to his constant visits, though he has no idea if the servants know he’s Milady’s husband or not. Probably not. If they disapprove of what must seem like an illicit relationship between a wealthy widow and a Musketeer, though, it never shows.
His own men don’t know quite what to make of Milady de Winter. Most of them remember the drama with d’Artagnan last year, the wild rumours that spread like lice through the Garrison: the infidelity, the fight in the square, the morning duel, Athos’s supposed death. Half a dozen even helped Richelieu arrest his wife after that fiasco, and know her face. But since they were told most of that was pretence for an overly-complicated secret mission, up to and including Athos attempting to assassinate the late Cardinal, they assumed the part about him having a wife who slept with his friend was a lie too, just to give an excuse for their falling out. After all, most of them had served with Athos for years, and never seen a hint of him having a wife. Her six-month-long disappearance after her arrest supported the idea she was nothing more than an actress playing the part of his wife, who vanished when the job was done.
Now, of course, she’s back, and her return has created some confusion. The rumour mill has judged it unlikely she’s really Athos’s wife – she’s been absent for too long, and doesn’t go by his name. Very few believe she ever had an affair with d’Artagnan, since they don’t seem over-familiar with each other, there’s no friction between Athos and d’Artagnan, and Athos doesn’t seem concerned about his woman straying. The persistent rumour that she worked for Richelieu is generally scorned – a woman? Really? Finally, a consensus formed – the theory is that she’s Athos’s mistress, who he asked to pretend to be his wife for that little charade, and who used to only visit Paris but has now taken up residency here to be near him. Possibly because Lord de Winter (whoever he is) decided to live separately from his wife now she’s having another man’s child, or perhaps because he met his maker. This technically makes her an adulterer and a fallen woman in their eyes, but since they’re Musketeers and not monks, there’s no judgement attached to this appraisal. Most of them would love a rich mistress of their own, married or not.
Athos isn’t sure if he should be doing something about these rumours – if it wasn’t for Porthos keeping him informed, after all, he would never have heard them in the first place. Part of him wants to tell everyone she’s his wife, announce it to the whole world for everyone to hear. But while that’s true, it also seems presumptuous – she promised to stay and try, and in return, he agreed to take things slowly. She’s his wife, she will always be his wife, but they don’t currently live as man and wife, not fully. Their situation is a work in progress, their position uncertain and fragile, and the last thing he wants to do is give Milady the idea he’s decided exactly what they are and exactly where they’re heading without discussing it with her. And besides, what right do any of his men have to know his personal affairs? They know as much as they need to.
She’s already at the table – he’s late. Her face lights up when she sees him, despite this, and he feels his own lips curve in response. She’s so impossibly lovely, his wife, however many sarcastic comments she makes about being unable to fit through doorways. She’s finally abandoned any pretence of wearing corsets, along with the cloak that hid her condition so completely. The airy, comfortable dresses she’s switched to seem to suit her, along with the flowing hair she plaits loosely most days.
Then her smile fades. She always seems able to tell when something’s wrong. “What’s the matter?”
“A hard day, that’s all. We can talk about it in a moment.” He’s not going to distract her from her meal with bad news – the midwife says keeping her well-fed is very important. He glances down at her plate – to his prejudiced eyes, it looks like she’s eaten hardly any of what she’s put there. He frowns.
With a sigh, she picks up a roll and tears into it. “Stop hovering, Athos, and sit down and grab something to eat. Food is a requirement for everyone, you know, not just me.”
“I could fetch you some more milk first,” he suggests, only half-teasing.
She snorts. “Now that’s something to look forward to about the birth. I won’t ever have to drink milk again. It’s ruined for me now, you know.”
“You don’t take the midwife’s orders very seriously,” he says. It’s the truth. She lets him worry about that kind of thing. Even when she does follow them, it’s clear she’s mostly humouring him.
“Athos, they’re… they’re like those talismans you buy on street corners,” she says dismissively. “They’re a way to feel like you can control the uncontrollable. Drinking gallons of milk will not guarantee I survive childbirth, spilling salt won’t curse the house, seeing an owl doesn’t mean we’ll have a daughter, and prayers are just hopeful lies. Some things you can’t affect, can’t change, however much you wish.”
Honestly, it’s not so far from his own beliefs, deep down, but he prefers to live in denial about that. He needs to believe there are things he can do, otherwise he’ll go mad with fear. With that in mind, he gets up and fills an ewer with milk.
She rolls her eyes at him, but pours herself a glass of it anyway.
The footman appears. “Milady? Captain? There are two Musketeers at the door, a monsieur Porthos and -”
“Let me guess, monsieur Aramis.” Milady lets the roll she just picked up drop and waves her hand at the footman. “You may as well let them in, then.” Any other Musketeers and she’d probably suggest he go out and speak to them in the street, but he thinks she has a sort of fondness for Porthos and Aramis – or at least a fondness for mocking them.
“Told you he’d be here,” Porthos says with satisfaction, being ushered in by the mildly appalled footman. He glances down at the somewhat overfull table (Athos isn’t alone in his conspiracy to keep Milady well-fed at all times, the servants are quite devoted to it too) with a brief expression of longing. The footman looks at Milady in case she wants him to fetch still more food from the kitchen and lay it out for her guests, but at a wave of her hand withdraws back to the entryway again.
“Sorry,” Aramis says. “But you did say we could disturb you at the house -”
“- if it was important, and I think at this point it’s all important -”
“- so we thought -”
“Are you secretly one person in two bodies?” Milady asks, apparently fascinated by this. She eyes Porthos, who seems a little distracted by the food still, then sighs and says, “Want a roll?”
“Yeah, thanks,” Porthos says, grabbing one immediately. He bites off a piece and says indistinctly, “Haven’t had time to eat yet today.”
“Then this must be an even bigger disaster than I thought,” Milady comments. “Does anyone want to fill me in? It’s not like I’ve got anyone to tell.”
There’s a pause, as all three of them exchange glances, then finally Porthos swallows his mouthful and admits, “Could be we’ve… misplaced… His Majesty.”
“You idiots lost the King?” Milady says, somewhere between appalled and amused. Amusement does seem to be winning out, however. “Have you checked everywhere? Where did you see him last?”
Aramis glares at her. “Yes, thanks, we did. It was a tavern. It turns out the proprietor has a deal with a mystery man – he guides drunks out into the alleyway and traps them there, and then they disappear.”
“What’s his side of the deal?”
“Not having his place burnt to the ground, apparently.” Aramis sighs.
“Man thought the drunks got taken for their cash and then dumped in the Seine,” Porthos continues. “But we checked the morgue, and there’s no sign of ‘em there, thank God.”
“Them?” Milady looks between them, then clearly does the math, blinking in realisation. “Ah. So d’Artagnan isn’t just absent because he’s afraid of entering my lair. I see.”
She doesn’t seem too worried about him, but that’s not surprising. D’Artagnan dislikes that Milady is staying in Paris, disapproves of Athos’s relationship with her, and doubts that her child has anything to do with Athos. He hasn’t said a word of this to his friend, but Athos knows anyway. It’s there in his eyes. There’s no doubt Milady can see it as easily as Athos, even though she hardly ever runs into him. There’s not much Athos can do besides ignore it and hope in time that d’Artagnan comes to terms with this. He doesn’t hope for a friendship between them – he’s not a fool – but a ceasing of open hostilities would be nice.
Athos watches as she flicks her eyes around the room thoughtfully and then bites her lip – clearly, she’s coming to the same conclusion he did, that if the King is dead she’ll need to leave Paris, at least for a while. He reaches out and takes her hand under the table, squeezing it for a moment. Milady returns the pressure, then pulls her hand away with a half-smile and uses it to pour herself another drink of milk. The resigned look she gives him screams you’re lucky I love you enough to drink this swill. A moment later, though, she gets lost in her own thoughts again, sipping distastefully at the milk as she presumably calculates how speedily she can get out of Paris and where she should go.
Athos sighs, reluctantly moving his attention back to the issue at hand. “So you have nothing,” he says, defeated.
“Got a theory,” Porthos says hesitantly. “There was a man at the morgue who had shackles. Thing is, didn’t look like a convict, from what we could tell.”
It takes him a moment. “That summer two years ago,” Athos says slowly. “When there were drunks and vagrants being snatched in the streets.”
“Yeah. Went on for months until the culprit was finally caught.”
Athos struggles, trying to remember the name, then gets it. As pickled as his brain was back then, his memory is generally reliable. “Sebastian LeMaitre.”
Milady chokes on her milk.
Athos reaches out and steadies her as she stops coughing and gets her breath back, and she looks up to find them all staring at her. It’s unlike Milady to react so dramatically to something, and even more unlike her to look guilty, so Athos knows immediately that the conversation’s going to get rapidly more unpleasant. “Do you know Sebastian LeMaitre?” he asks silkily, already trying to control his temper in preparation for whatever she’s about to say.
She waves her hand dismissively, avoiding meeting his eyes. “Perhaps slightly.”
Aramis gives a low whistle, because it’s abundantly clear to all of them that slightly means intimately in this case.
Porthos raises his eyebrows. “Maybe we should wait outside?” he offers awkwardly. Aramis brightens visibly at the suggestion, already trying to back out of the room.
Milady rolls her eyes. “What, so Athos can pass everything I say onto you anyway?”
“If you know something about LeMaitre -” Athos starts to say.
“I know enough,” she says, a little too flippantly for the topic. “I know where your missing King is, for starters. He’ll be in the Forest of Evreux. We had a few camps we used, and I can pinpoint their locations if you get me a map. Right at the moment, though, I think they’ll be in the pass.”
“You worked for him?” Porthos asks, his face hardening slightly as he waits for her reply. Few things anger Porthos as much as slavery.
Milady nods. “A few months ago, before Rochefort hired me.”
“You worked for a slaver.” Athos’s tone is flat. He’s bursting with the question of whether she did more than simply work for him, but he won’t ask it, at least not in front of the others. He’ll certainly be unable to resist bringing it up to her later though, whether it causes an argument or not.
“It’s not like I had many options,” she snaps. “The Cardinal was looking for me. I had to avoid towns and cities. I ran into Sebastian and he said he might have a place for me in Gus’s group, and that it was out in the forest, no chance of the Cardinal’s people finding me there. I took the job.”
“That it was selling human beings didn’t make you pause?” Porthos looks more than angry: he looks disappointed, even betrayed. He’s never forgotten who Milady is or the things she’s done, Athos knows, but since everything with Rochefort he’s considered her to be like Treville, or even like himself – someone who’s made a few mistakes and missteps, but with reason, and someone who’s trying to do better. But slavery is indefensible.
“All I did was examine the valuables they took off the men,” she says. There’s no apology in her voice, because Milady doesn’t like showing guilt or regret. “See if they were worth anything. Gus didn’t want to be swindled when he resold them.”
“Gus,” Aramis says. “You said it was someone named Gus’s group? Not LeMaitre’s? I’ve never even heard of this Gus.”
She shrugs. “Gus keeps his hands as clean as possible, most of the time. If you get Sebastian or his brother, though, they’ll probably be able to help you find him.”
“The priority right now is the King,” Athos says coldly. “Aramis, go get a map of the Forest of Evreux. Once we know where they are, we can go get His Majesty and d’Artagnan. I assume you can also give us rough estimates of how many men, their defences -”
“I think I should go in.” She delivers this quite calmly.
There’s a ringing silence. Aramis, on his way out the door, stops stock still. Porthos’s anger fades to concern. Athos stares at his wife, and then says quietly, “No.”
Milady rolls her eyes. “You just said the priority is the King. If you run in with a crowd of trigger-happy Musketeers, you’ll spook them all. His Majesty might die in the chaos.”
“So what, you want to sneak in?” Athos shakes his head, fury rising in him. “I won’t allow it.”
“Not sneak,” she says, as if this is perfectly reasonable. “Walk in. They know me. I’ll tell them I want to buy a few men, and that I’m willing to pay many times what the Spanish will offer. After the King’s clear, then you can wipe them out.”
“That might make ‘em realise that Louis’s more than just some random drunk,” Porthos protests. He does look a little approving at the suggestion, though – probably less because it’s a good plan than that he thinks it’s her way of trying to make amends for working with LeMaitre in the first place. There’s not many things Porthos won’t forgive, as long the perpetrator does their best to make up for their actions.
“So I’ll buy half a dozen, lose him in the crowd. I can come up with a good reason for wanting them, trust me.” She smiles coolly. “A patron with unusual interests, perhaps.” She lets her gaze slide back to Athos. “Lose the uniforms and a few of you could be my guards – they wouldn’t expect me to go in alone.”
“You can’t even ride a horse at the moment!” Athos snaps.
“It’s a good thing that coaches exist, then, although you’re right that the last mile or so will have to be on foot.” She rests her hands on her swollen stomach and meets his glare serenely.
“Anne.” Athos stares her down. “I said no. I’m Captain of the Musketeers, and this is my call to make. You’re not doing this.”