Porthos frowned at the cup as Athos took it to his lips. “Athos… I don’t mean to count, but I think that is your fifth.”

“Sixth. I figured I needed at least that, to…” He shook his head again. “Look, I don’t know what we can do to investigate the conspiracy, but… Aramis, on the off chance the conspiracy exists… And frankly, I don’t like the idea that Marie Michon is writing to Monsieur de Vendôme. We all know he’s hated the King ever since they were very young, and the hatred has only grown with time.”

Aramis sighed. “You can’t deny it’s a sad thing for a sovereign to have been married ten years, and still lack an heir to the throne.”

“I can’t deny it,” Athos said. “But I do find that perhaps Richelieu’s iron grip on France is causing more conspiracies than it should. If every lord were still independent in his own domain, it would be far more difficult to consider Paris, and what happens in Paris, all-important.”

The others didn’t say anything, though Aramis nodded.

And after a while in silence, Porthos said, “But that is not why you are looking like you died on your feet and are looking for a good place to fall over.” And then in a rush, “Or, forgive me, perhaps it is, but I’ve never known you to look like this… well… not since…”

Athos could well imagine what the since was that took up his friend’s mind. He felt his jaw set, and a muscle work on the side of it, like a metronome to his anger and sorrow. Another woman, another… He shook his head, again. “No,” he said. “No, though for all I know that might be tied in. I can’t imagine the lady in question thinks well of me, or has any kindness towards me,” he said. “She has to have heard of me from…” He shook his head again. “She would… You know…” And suddenly, one question rising foremost in his mind, he asked. “Why didn’t she come to me? If it was all a misunderstanding… why didn’t she explain? Surely she knew I loved her still?”

He looked out at his friends, who, at that moment, through the foggy veil of his emotions, looked like so many figures, sculpted in stone, their features blurry. He saw one of them thrust his head forward. It was the blond figure, and it was Aramis’s voice which spoke out. “What do you mean? Who is this ‘she’ you speak of?”

“My wife.”

“Your…” Porthos said.

Athos felt suddenly very exasperated with his friends. He was not sure what he had told them before, but he was sure it had been enough for them to piece together something of his past. “I…” He normally told this story in the third person. He didn’t know how to tell it any other way. And yet, this time he must. “When I was very young, shortly after I inherited the domain from my father… well… I needed a wife and I knew that. My father had neglected to arrange a marriage for me, and I was in no hurry to find one through the usual channels. The daughters of my neighbors bored me; the prospect of marrying a stranger through some arranged exchange filled me with dread.

“I am… in the normal way of life, rather reserved and would prefer to keep private, or only in the company of my close friends. And the idea of coming to Paris, of leaving my domains, made me feel as though my heart was breaking. You see… I was very fond of my domains. I had great plans for orchards and vineyards, and I’d grown up there, amid the rolling ground, and I knew all of my peasants from infancy. I looked forward to living the rest of my life there.” He shrugged, dismissing this as one would dismiss an impossible childhood dream. “And then, suddenly, one of the parishes on my land came vacant and the new incumbent was a young man, almost my age. Very pious. Fervent, in fact. His beautiful sister lived with him. I was aware that in the eyes of the world, she was as far below me as one of my own peasants. But she was so beautiful, so chaste, so religious. I fell in love with her and spent many a pleasant evening talking to her brother in their little cottage. In the way of things, I, who had never fallen in love before, fell in love with this beautiful blond woman and I married her. One week after she’d been elevated to countess, we were out, hunting. She hunted like Diana, a swift rider and an exacting markswoman. She was riding ahead of me, and turned back to say something. As she turned, she went under a low branch. It caught her and pulled her off her horse.” He stopped, because he could hear his voice tremble, on the edge of tears. Fortunately not being able to see his friends’ faces made it easier, but he heard Porthos draw breath as though to say something and, right now, pity was more than he could endure. “I dismounted and ran to her, naturally. She had lost consciousness. I panicked, also naturally, and took my hunting knife and cut her dress away, to give her the room to breathe. Which is when I found that she was marked with a fleur-de-lis.”

This time he couldn’t avoid hearing someone-he thought Porthos-say “Sangre Dieu” under his breath.

“I, after all my careful picking, and my refusal to be drawn in to a contracted, loveless marriage, had given my hand, my lands, my honor, to a marked criminal. You must understand… I was as in love as anyone can be, and I was a callow youth. It would have been better, perhaps, if my father hadn’t raised me away from the world and its fashions, if he hadn’t kept me from society. If I’d been sent to Paris, years before, for a while, and spent some time with young men my age, I might not have fallen for Charlotte. Or, if I had, since she was so very beautiful and so very accomplished, I would have had more resources of mind and heart to turn my crushing pain into something more manageable. I had none of those. Thoroughly provincial, I could think only that my honor was crushed forever. I could divorce her. I could judge her publically, for having imposed upon me. In… in my domains, the feudal law still held. As such, I thought that I could… justly condemn her. Only… it wasn’t like that. If I tried her publically, all my tenants and all my serfs would know of it. It would be spoken about till the end of my life. I could not do that. It wasn’t in my mind-set.

“So, still shocked and grieved, you realize, my mind roiling, my heart in turmoil, I took her, and I lifted her and put around her neck a noose from my saddlebag. And I hanged her from a low branch. Only afterwards, when I was riding away, did I think that because I had not exerted my authority through the normal channels and in an open way, this would be believed to be a murder-that whoever found her would think someone had murdered, and doubtless would think of me.

“Well, I was sure I could defend my actions, but I had started all of this because I wished to keep my family and myself from notoriety. So I did what I could to keep the talk down. I arranged things so that a distant cousin of mine would come and administer my domains in my absence. And I took some possessions from my house, but not too much. I let it be known that I would be going on a long voyage and didn’t know when I could return. I didn’t explicitly say my wife would be with me, but I let it be understood that she would be. That she had, in fact, gone ahead of me. I thought that way, if no one found her, it would be believed that we had left on some voyage together and, if I chose to come back in many years, I could do so and mention she had died, without exciting comment. And if she were found, I would be far, far away, and even though they might suspect me, no one would search for me.

“By nighttime I was on my way to Paris, with Grimaud. By the end of the week I was installed, as you see me, and I’d spoken to Monsieur de Treville, an old family friend, and obtained a post in the musketeers. Since then, every year, I’ve considered returning. But I’ve found I have very little interest in revisiting the site of my misguided idylls. And even if I did, I’d prefer it if the present generation has passed away, and no one there remembers how much in love I used to be.”