Athos waved the servants away, tossed back a cup of the full-bodied wine, then poured yet another and drank it. And found Aramis watching him with a cool look. “When you drink so much, Athos, it can only be because you wish to make yourself drunk. And if you wish to make yourself drunk, it can only be because-as you accused us earlier-you have been running all about, trying to get yourself killed.”

Athos frowned at him. “Wide off the mark, my friend,” he said, quietly. “Wide off the mark. When I wish to get myself drunk, it is that I am very much afraid I might kill someone. And not in duel.”

Aramis’s eyebrows went up. He took a sip of his wine, and said, almost fearfully, “Athos, you must tell us-what have you done?”

“Well,” Athos said. He walked towards the window, and looked out through the small panes of glass towards the street immersed in darkness. “I know you will, all of you, consider me disloyal, but I could not consider that Monsieur de Treville would have any hold over the Cardinal. Not if the Cardinal felt that his own life or interests were threatened.”

“No, I don’t consider you disloyal,” Aramis said.

“Nor I, either,” D’Artagnan said, his words slightly slurred by the drink. “The thing is, I thought that Monsieur Treville might very well be able to delay the execution of Mousqueton, but only that. There would be little else he could do.”

“It has occurred to me,” Porthos said, “that there wouldn’t be much the captain could do. I mean, they… they torture people in the Bastille, and if he couldn’t keep Mousqueton from being tortured, then he couldn’t keep him from being executed. People will confess to anything under torture.”

“So you all agree with me,” Athos said, as he drank yet another cup of the wine. It would take a while to take effect. All the more so, because he had long since grown used to the wine as a palliative for his distress. But even so, the more he drank, the more he would look to his friends as though he had justification for any wild words, or wild thoughts. He was glad too that there were only three candles lit in the room, so that perforce the details of his expression would be obscured to their eyes. He walked from the chairs to the window, then back again.

“You are behaving like a caged lion, Athos,” Aramis said. “And this, again, is never good.”

Athos shrugged. “I think there’s very little good in recent events. Let me explain first, my reasoning, when the three of you left me standing alone on a street corner while you went to investigate multiple and disparate things.” He walked towards the window again. “I thought that since the captain could do next to nothing against the Cardinal, it would come down to the Cardinal in the end, and we would have to deal with him directly.

“Now I couldn’t imagine living like this, waiting for the Cardinal’s trap to spring, so I…”

“So you did what you always do, and ran headlong into the trap?” Porthos asked.

Athos gave his large friend a surprised glance. Sometimes one forgot that Porthos, for all his difficulties with language, had a mind sharp enough to see through people’s motives. He shrugged and felt his cheeks heat. “You could say that,” he admitted, at length. “You could say I did, for you see, I reasoned that if it finally came to the Cardinal wanting someone to… to defray the conspiracy, I would…”

“No.” Aramis had half risen from his seat, his features contorted by something like anger. “You cannot have meant to deliver the Queen to the Cardinal, for that must be your whole plan.”

Athos frowned at his friend, and finished drinking the cup of wine he held. “It might be,” he said, and dipped his head a bit. “But I will admit, my dear Aramis, that the situation seems to me somewhat more complex than that.”

He had the gratification of seeing Aramis raise eyebrows at him.

“I mean,” Athos said, “that there might indeed be some sort of conspiracy at work, though most of the part where the Cardinal thinks it applies to him… well, it seems to have originated whole cloth out of his mind.” He poured himself more wine, then said, “As far as my conversations, first with his eminence,” he said.

“Athos,” Porthos said, in shock, his hand going to his sword hilt, then forcibly away, as though he had but remembered that Athos was his blood brother, and one of those who had so often and unstintingly risked his life for Porthos. As though only awareness of that kept him from drawing, even right here, in Athos’s own lodging.

Athos looked back at him, pleased to note that his eyes were becoming unfocused through the action of the alcohol. “Well, Porthos… I needed to do something. And no, Aramis, I was in no hurry to implicate our Queen in anything. In fact, as the Cardinal so kindly reminded me, a Queen’s value by far trumps a pawn’s, so that I would not even consider such an exchange.” He shook his head. “But I…” He drew a long breath. “I have told his eminence that I will try to unravel this conspiracy against him, if conspiracy it is.” He frowned, as he dredged from the depths a memory fast becoming clouded by the wine, the exact words and implications of what the Cardinal had told him. “Aramis, you who are up on all court rumors-have you heard of the Queen and… Marie Michon courting Ornano, the governor of the Prince’s house?”

“Oh, that,” Aramis said. “I heard some rumor that they were opposed to the marriage of Monsieur, his being the heir apparent and all. But I’m not sure…”

“I’m not sure either, except that the Cardinal seems to think that this means they are in a conspiracy to kill him, which he seems to have got from some correspondence between the Queen and Marie Michon. He also hinted-though I cannot credit it-that they intended to kill the King. Or rather, Rochefort hinted that. It is, I’m sure, something destined to spur me on into investigating this conspiracy the Cardinal pretends to see.”

“And will you investigate it?” Aramis asked. “How?”

Athos shrugged. “That, my friend, I do not have the slightest notion about. The Cardinal himself hinted that I do not… That I lack the cunning, and the contacts to penetrate this sort of court intrigue. I confess…” His gaze was now fairly unfocused, which promised that by the time he got to talking about what he feared, his brain would be fogged enough that perhaps he could avoid making a complete fool of himself. “I confess my intention was simply to buy time-to have Mousqueton unharmed, until we could find who killed the armorer.”

“Right,” Porthos said. “And that’s the sort of thing we know how to do.”

Athos looked at him, and lifted his cup of wine a little, in a silent toast. “That is indeed, Porthos, but perhaps this case is a little more complex?”

“How more complex?” D’Artagnan asked, and, from the way his voice sounded, he was quite a good bit ahead of Athos in pursuit of a good drunk. “So far… well… if it was not Mousqueton-and don’t glare daggers at me, Porthos. I don’t believe it was Mousqueton-then it seems likely it was something happening in the man’s life. Something, perhaps, having to do with his wish to marry his daughter to Mousqueton. Perhaps the daughter decided to kill the father and implicate Mousqueton.”

“Right now,” Athos said, “I am quite willing to believe anything of any woman. But it seems a little odd to be judging a creature we don’t even know, save for a report that she is cross-eyed.” For some reason, this struck him as funny, and he added softly, “I will remind you, D’Artagnan, that being cross-eyed is not a proof of being a murderer. In point of fact, it has been recorded, throughout history, that various people have been cross-eyed without being murderers.”

D’Artagnan looked up at him, his expression vacant, which probably meant that, being further on the road to drunkenness than Athos, he would not retain any of this. Athos must remember to ask Aramis to relay to the boy what he heard. Because Athos didn’t think he could repeat it. Right now, Athos shook his head, and poured himself another cup of wine.