Chapter Text
The road beyond the old wall was empty. Athos stood beneath the bare branches at the edge of the ditch, his cloak drawn close against the cold, watching the dark opening half-hidden beneath the masonry. A cart waited farther down the road, its lantern turned low. One horse. Empty bed.
Beside him, Porthos rubbed his hands together to warm them. “You’re certain?”
“Claire and Théa confirmed another sweep this afternoon. Eleven men taken near the eastern gate, two more from the market.” Athos watched the tunnel door. “It’s tonight.”
The cold deepened as the hours passed. D’Artagnan had long since stopped attempting conversation; Aramis stood with his back against a tree, arms folded beneath his cloak, apparently determined not to acknowledge the temperature at all.
Then, sometime after midnight, the latch moved. The door swung outward, and a lantern appeared first, held low. Red coats followed — four guards, then two more — and between them, moving in a shuffling line with their wrists shackled, thirteen young men who kept their eyes on the ground.
Marchaux came last, pulling on his gloves.
Athos stepped forward out of the shadow. The others followed.
Marchaux saw them and went very still. Surprise flickered across his face, followed by recognition, and then a smoothing-over that was almost impressive in its speed.
“Captain Athos,” he said. “What brings you out at this hour?”
“We were told another group had been detained this afternoon,” Athos said. “As your records assure us that such men are released after processing, we thought it prudent to meet them personally. To ensure they find their way safely back to their families.” He let his gaze move over the shackled men, then back to Marchaux. “It can be difficult to navigate, in the dark. Outside the walls.”
Beside him, Aramis smiled. “And the streets can be dangerous at this hour.”
Marchaux’s gaze moved from Athos to the tunnel, then to the cart waiting on the road. He understood. There was no possible way he could fail to.
Athos understood something in return when Marchaux looked back at him. Hatred, certainly. And calculation.
“Of course,” Marchaux said at last. “If the Musketeers wish to assume responsibility for them, I see no reason to object.” He gestured to the other guards, who began to unlock the shackles.
The first young man hesitated, looking between the two groups as though freedom offered too suddenly might be another trap. Porthos stepped forward and held out a hand.
“Come on,” he said. “You’re going home.”
Marchaux remained where he was while the last chain fell away. Athos met his gaze across the road. Neither of them smiled now.
“This passage is inconveniently far from the prison gates,” he said evenly. “I would suggest using those, next time.”
Marchaux’s jaw tightened. “I’ll consider it.”
“I’m sure you will.”
Marchaux turned on his heel and walked back toward the tunnel. His guards fell in behind him.
D’Artagnan waited until the hatch had closed behind them and grinned. “Now that was satisfying,” he said.
Porthos laughed under his breath. Aramis looked quite pleased with himself.
Athos watched the men walking ahead of them, frightened, exhausted, still uncertain whether they were truly free.
De Villiers remained missing. Grimaud remained a name with no history behind it. Somewhere beyond Paris, men were still being trained, armed and dressed in grey, and they did not yet know who had ordered it or what purpose the army was meant to serve.
Marchaux would change his methods now. They all would. This had only begun.
Still, thirteen men were walking back to their families tonight who otherwise would not have been.
Athos looked toward the distant lights of Paris.
Small mercies.
The black mourning robes did not suit Constance any more than they had suited Claire back in Pamplona.
She stood before her husband’s grave with a small bouquet of chrysanthemums in her hands, staring at the fresh tombstone as though it might tell her how she was meant to feel.
The earth around it was still dark and damp. A cold wind moved through the cemetery, whispering through the cypress trees and stirring the ribbons tied to nearby wreaths.
Beside her, d’Artagnan brushed a hand against her elbow, offering his arm. She recoiled from the touch as though it had burned her, and moved instead toward Claire. Then she sank to one knee and placed the flowers on the mound of fresh earth.
“He wasn’t a bad man,” she said at last, to no one in particular. “Just misguided.”
D’Artagnan’s jaw tightened. “I asked the Queen to take you into her service just to get you away from him,” he said. “Or have you forgotten that?”
Constance almost flinched at the sound of his voice.
“D’Artagnan,” Athos said quietly behind him.
But d’Artagnan did not stop. “So tell me,” he continued, his eyes blazing now, “why exactly should we mourn him?”
Constance rose, pale as a ghost. She seized his arm and dragged him toward the far edge of the cemetery. They began arguing there in animated whispers.
Porthos let out a long, low whistle. “Talk about choosing the right moment to speak.”
“He always did have a certain gift for words,” Aramis remarked, watching the quarrel from the corner of his eye.
Théa, who stood between Porthos and Jacques, shifted her weight impatiently and crossed her arms. “I agree with him, for once,” she said. “In five years I’ve never heard a single positive thing about the man.”
“That doesn’t mean he should speak ill of the dead,” Aramis replied.
“Why not?” Théa shot back. “It’s not like the dead can hear him.”
Porthos pressed his lips together with visible effort, suppressing a laugh; Claire turned away, covering her mouth with a hand as she fought down a grin.
“Come now, Théa,” Jacques said.
“Matters of the heart are often complicated,” Aramis offered, though his brows had lifted with amusement.
“They shouldn’t be,” Théa declared. She gestured emphatically toward Constance and d’Artagnan across the cemetery. “Because of that self-absorbed tool, she spent years apart from the man she actually loves. Years! And now she finally gets to have him. What exactly is complicated about that?”
“You truly are a master of tact,” Porthos said, shaking his head.
Athos went very still. The words landed somewhere beneath his ribs.
Years apart, indeed.
His gaze drifted across the cemetery until it found Claire.
She had moved a few rows back without drawing attention to herself and now stood before another grave. Older, that one, and a bit more weathered. Athos remembered it well. She leaned forward and placed a single flower at its base, her fingers brushing lightly over Roche’s name carved into the stone.
He walked over and came to stand beside her, and she shifted closer. For a moment they simply stood there together in silence, leaning into the warmth of each other’s presence against the cold wind moving through the cemetery.
She had that look in her eyes again, bright and rueful at once. A distance in it he already recognised. And something else beneath it all that he had not yet managed to name. Athos had noticed it the moment they left the palace, three days earlier.
He adjusted the strap of his glove, his gaze still resting on the gravestone. “Why do I have the feeling,” he said gently, “that I shall be spared quite a few details in the near future?”
Claire turned toward him a little too quickly. Athos met her eyes, the faintest ghost of a smile touching his mouth. “I like to think I know you, mademoiselle d’Arville.”
She studied him for a moment longer and let out a quiet breath. “That you do.”
A peaceful silence settled between them again. The wind stirred the trees above them.
Then she spoke. “Were that true,” she murmured, “where would that leave us?”
Athos tilted his head. His gaze moved slowly across the cemetery, to d’Artagnan and Constance arguing in a corner; to Théa still absorbed in an animated discussion with Aramis and Porthos; to Jacques standing slightly to the side, wearing the simple dark coat of a Musketeer recruit, the position accepted with as little ceremony as Athos had offered it.
“You have your duty,” he said at last. “And I have mine.”
Her eyes flickered once before she nodded. She was already beginning to step away when Athos caught her hand, giving it a gentle tug and pulling her close.
He cupped her cheek, brushing his thumb against it before leaning forward to press his lips to hers. The kiss lingered, long enough for him to feel her softness, her breath against his skin, the way she leaned into his touch.
“And in the space in between,” he murmured when he drew back, “this.”
Claire closed her eyes for a moment, her mouth curving. “That will do.”
And for now, he thought, it would.