Free The musketeer's apprentice by Sarah d' Almeida Page B

good quality velvet and such a profusion of gold and silver.”

    “What is wrong with wishing to appear nice?”

    “Nothing,” Aramis said. And floundered. “Nothing at all. You know what care I take with my own appearance. But then there is . . . and mind you, I mean no offense about your most excellent Athenais.”

    “You leave Athenais out of this,” Porthos roared causing a few people near them to turn and stare and others, farther up, to run out of their way, possibly convinced that Porthos’s noise was a carriage at full trundle coming up behind them.

    “I did say she was most excellent.”

    “Indeed she is, and you should abstain from mentioning her name at all, except in praise.”

    “I am praising it,” Aramis said, at his wits end. “I have nothing against the lady or her mind, even if she sometimes thinks it fair to make sport of me.” He lifted a hand to stop another outburst from his friend. “But is it, or is it not true that you tell everyone around that she’s a duchess or a princess, or another of the high heads of the realm.”

    Porthos sulked at this, setting his lips in a taut line and glaring at Aramis. “She should be. And she is noble born. And by nobility of mind and capacity of thought, she should be . . .”

    “Oh, I’m not disputing that,” Aramis said. “But still, if you think so highly of her you could just say that—that she’s as good as any princess. Not tell all and sundry that she is a princess.”

    Porthos shrugged. “I know what people think of me. Musketeers. Courtiers. They think I’m rough and dumb. And I . . .” He shrugged. “I don’t want them to think themselves justified and to assume I can’t aspire to the highest ladies in the court. I can, you know? When I first came to Paris, and even when I first became a musketeer, I bedded my share of them. Only they are all so incredibly boring, all full of their own magnificence and beauty and never wishing to talk of anything else. So I have . . . Athenais. But I don’t think that’s what people would believe. They would think Athenais’s station in life is the best I can aspire to.”

    “Yes,” Aramis said patiently. He considered pointing out that the hole in Porthos’s pedigree was of the same kind, but then he thought Porthos would point out that he’d never threatened to kill anyone who discovered that Porthos’s lover was nothing but an accountant’s wife. So he sighed. “And then there’s D’Artagnan.”

    “Eh? What is wrong with D’Artagnan? Oh, yes, I know what he’s said. His father is a younger son and the whole of their property is so small that the area of the cemetery devoted to children is larger than their entire holdings, but Aramis . . . He’s clearly nobly born, taught to use his sword at an early age and . . . Aramis, he at least was taught to read at an early age. He understands you even when you are full tilt in one of your theological speeches and I suspect he understands Athos’s quotations too. At least sometimes he smiles when Athos says something that makes no sense to me. So I don’t see what D’Artagnan has to do with your thinking everyone could believe I would kill a child to hide some imaginary shame over my ancestors.”

    “I didn’t mean any of those things,” Aramis said. “But cast your mind upon your first meeting with D’Artagnan. Did you or did you not challenge him to a duel for having got enmeshed in your baldric and thus showing people that it was not gold on the other side?”

    Porthos’s eyes went very wide, then he frowned as though trying to understand what Aramis might mean by all of this. “In public,” he said. “He did it in public, and when I’d been showing off the new baldric too. What was I to do? Oh, I understand now that he didn’t do it on purpose. He was just in such a blessed hurry to catch up to Rochefort. But at the time it seemed to me that his entire purpose in life was to show the world that my baldric was