Marrying the Musketeer (12 page)

As soon as he lifted the picture, he knew he had succeeded in his quest.
 
He had it.
 
He had discovered the hiding place he had been seeking.

He felt no triumph as he looked at the tiny silver lock.
 
There was only the bitter taste of defeat in his mouth as he found the matching golden key from the ring of keys he carried and matched it to the lock.

The safe swung open, revealing its contents.

With leaden fingers he picked up the heavy ledgers he found inside and stowed them away in a burlap bag.
 
He had betrayed his lover.
 
In serving his King, he had committed an unforgivable sin.
 
Not even the Pope himself could absolve him.

Feeling like the worst sort of thief, he closed and re-locked the safe.
 
He could hardly bring himself to look at the portrait of Courtney as he hung it back on the wall again.
 
It seemed to him that her blue painted eyes were filled with tears.

Boots in one hand and the bag of stolen books in the other, he crept out of the room and into the hallway on his slippered feet.
 
No one challenged him.
 
No one stopped him.
 
The household were all peacefully asleep in their beds, their hearts light.
 
No one suspected the terrible act of treachery he had just committed.

Once out on the street, he turned to look for one last time at the house where his heart lay.
 
He would not return in a week to claim his beloved Courtney as he had promised.
 
He would not return in a month.
 
He would not return even were she to wait a year for him.
 

He had betrayed her so deeply that she would never forgive him.
 
He could not forgive himself.
 
He could not bear to look upon her face again.

Courtney woke from a deep sleep to the sound of heavy knocking on the front door.
 
Her eyes bleary from lack of sleep, she hurried to the window, wondering at the noise so early in the morning.
 

A contingent of soldiers was waiting in the street outside, the leader of them banging in the door with a heavy, gloved fist.
 
“Open up in the name of the King.”

She knew instantly that what her father feared had come about at last.
 
He had warned her only just in time.
 
His enemies had wasted no time in coming for him.
 
They would not be merciful.

With wings on her heels she flew into her father’s bedchamber.
 
She had only a few precious moments with him left to her.
 
She would sustain him as best she could with the strength of her love.

Her father was sitting motionless in his chair by the fire wrapped in a rich purple dressing gown.
 
His shoulders were hunched in defeat and his face tinged gray with knowledge of his certain death.
 
“It is over, Courtney,” he said, his eyes devoid of all hope.
 
“They have come for me and it is all over.
 
Remember what I have told you.
 
Say nothing to anyone, I beg of you.
 
Saying nothing is your best defense.”

She held out her arms to him and hugged him tightly to her.
 
“Papa?
 
What will they do to you?”

He gave a grim smile.
 
“Marry me to the ropemaker’s daughter, I fear.”

The world swam before her eyes and she grabbed at her father’s chair to stop herself from falling.
 
“They will hang you?”

“If I am lucky.”

“And if you are not hanged?
 
What then?
 
Thank God you are too old for the galleys.”
 
Her father would not survive being a galley slave for long.
 
No man did – not even young men in the best of health and her father was too old for such a heavy burden.
 
She was thankful that no one would want the strength of his arms to row for him, or his life would be short and miserable indeed.
 
Better to be hanged at once, than be tormented to death with no hope of rescue like that.

He shuddered.
 
“Then they will lock me up for life in some dank, rotten prison where I shall slowly go mad.”
 
A spasm of pain crossed his face.
 
“I could not bear such a fate.
 
I would far rather die and join your blessed mother the sooner.
 
The best I can hope for is that they will hang me speedily and have done with it.”

The tread of the soldiers’ feet was loud upon the stairs.
 
She sank to the floor at her papa’s feet and hugged his legs to her with all the desperation she dared not show him.
 
She could not bear to let him go, to see the soldiers take him away forever.
 
“What will I do without you?” she wailed.
 
“What will I do without you?”

He patted her head, but there was no comfort in his touch.
 
“Be brave.
 
Marry an honest Flemish merchant as soon as you can.
 
Above all - keep silent.”

He was not hanged as she feared he would be.
 
Not immediately, anyway.

The charges laid against him were theft from his majesty, the King of France.
 
She did not believe them for a moment.
 
Her father was an honest merchant, not a thief.
 
The King of France was a fool to think that her father was fool enough to try to rob him.

For three days she visited him in his cell in the prison, bringing him food to eat and clean linen to wear.
 
He shared the food with his fellow cellmates, dirty, drunken rascals who taunted Courtney with ribald gestures and obscene words whenever she came to see her father.
 
She shuddered at the sight of them and took pains to keep her skirts out of reach of their greedy, clutching fingers.
 
How her gentle-mannered father survived in such a hellhole of sin and depravity she did not know.

“You should eat more, papa,” she remonstrated with him.
 
“You are fading away to a mere shadow of yourself.
 
You should not give away your dinner.
 
Your cellmates need it less than you do.”

“Why waste good food on a condemned man?” her father said, with a weary smile.
 
“I may as well give to the needy while I still can, and hope to reach Heaven after all, despite my sins.”

On the fourth day, he was no longer sitting in his usual corner, his silent face patient as a tomb.
 
His cellmates greedily devoured the food she had brought for him, but could not tell her where he had gone.
 

“Taken off by soldiers,” one said with a shrug, her father’s best port wine dribbling down his chin.
 

“Gone to Heaven by now, I’ll warrant,” said another as he stuffed his mouth full of the sweetmeats she had packed with such love and tenderness for her dear papa.
 

“Hell, more likely,” said a third, speaking through a huge mouthful of the roasted chicken she had brought with her, and there was a burst of ribald laughter as if he had made the funniest jest imaginable.
 

She turned her back on them with disgust.
 
They gave thanks for their dinner by mocking her distress.

The soldier guarding the prison were more helpful, once his memory had been jogged with a handful of gold coins.
 
“He’s been taken to Paris – to the Bastille – by order of the King.”

She felt all the blood drain out of her face.
 
She had almost rather have heard that he had been hanged.
 
He had not feared a swift death half as much as he had feared an unending incarceration in a prison that would slowly drive him mad.
 
“Why?”

The soldier shrugged, but he could not, or would not, answer.
 
Not even the offering of another handful of gold would unlock his tongue.

She walked slowly home again, her basket light but her feet heavier than ever.
 
Four days had gone by.
 
She counted them off on her fingers as if by wishing she could make them five or even six.
 
Four days.

In three more days, her beloved Pierre would return from Paris as he had promised.
 
Together, they would rescue her father from the Bastille.
 
Pierre had the King’s favor.
 
Surely the King would pardon an old man if one of his brave and daring Musketeers begged him on bended knee for clemency.
 
The King would be merciful.
 
He must be merciful.
 
Her father would not survive long else.

Pierre would be here in three more days.
 
She could bear her burden for another three days, knowing that he would be there to share it with her soon.

The open ledgers sat on the table in silent accusation.
 
Pierre de Tournay crossed his legs in front of him and said nothing, waiting in tortured patience.

At last the Monsieur Ruthgard spoke, his voice devoid of all emotion.
 
“Where did you get those?”

Pierre looked with pity on the man he had destroyed.
 
His soul revolted from the duty his King had forced upon him.
 
“From the safe in your study, Monsieur.”

The old man’s face was sallow in the candlelight.
 
“How did you get in?”

Pierre held up the bunch of keys that he had had cut – copies of those that Courtney had delivered to him with such faith and love.
 
His heart twisted as he drove this dagger into the old man’s heart.
 
He had not the heart to say more, to drive home the treachery he had been a part of.

“Which one of my servants betrayed me?”
 
The old man’s voice shook a little, as if he could not bear the thought of having nourished a viper in the bosom of his family.
 
“Which of them sold their soul to the devil for thirty bloodstained pieces of silver?”

Georges Charent gave an evil laugh.
 
“The Judas you seek was your own daughter.
 
Though she is your own flesh and blood, she came far cheaper than you imagine.”

The old man’s face was white with pain.
 
“Courtney?”
 
His voice was a mere whisper but it carried a world of anguish in one breath.

Charent raised one mocking eyebrow in a look of disdain.
 
“Have you any other?”

The old man could barely speak for grief.
 
“What have you done to Courtney?”

Charent laughed again, the harsh noise echoing around the walls of the cells like the discordant shriek of a damned soul in torment.
 
“Me?
 
Nothing.
 
That is a question you had far better ask Pierre.”

The old man’s eyes pierced him through to his very soul – eyes so like Courtney’s that the sight of them made him want to weep with guilty anguish.
 
He put his hand over his face so he could not see the accusation that they held.

“You have not hurt my daughter?”

Charent answered for him before he could speak.
 
“I doubt that it hurt her much, lusty young wench that she is.
 
Or if it did, it was only for a moment and the pleasure of it soon eclipsed the pain.”

“You raped my daughter?”
 
The old man’s voice was a whisper of pain.

Pierre’s mouth was drier than all the sands of Araby.
 
He could not speak – not even if his life depended on it.
 
Charent spoke for him once more.
 
“He did not need to.
 
The wench was willing enough by all accounts.”

“You have dishonored my daughter?”

Pierre found his tongue at last.
 
He could not be accused of such a monstrosity and remain silent.
 
“No one knows of it.
 
Her honor is yet intact.”

Charent’s eyes glittered like the eyes of a cat, a predator sensing out the weakness of its prey.
 
“For now.”