Actions

Work Header

Rating:
Archive Warning:
Category:
Fandoms:
Characters:
Additional Tags:
Language:
English
Stats:
Published:
2018-12-28
Completed:
2019-01-02
Words:
17,858
Chapters:
6/6
Comments:
260
Kudos:
29
Bookmarks:
7
Hits:
825

A Cabal of Paris

Summary:

A letter written. A philosopher in trouble. A shot fired. A woman to the rescue. A thrilling tale from the era of handkerchief-based communication.

Notes:

I apologise for the delay of four years, Ysande. Aramis and Athos had distracted me and I had to write about their alternative adventures first.

Chapter 1: Wherein Porthos gets a taste of Paradise

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Immortals are mortal, mortals immortal,
one living the others’ death, and one dying the others’ life. - Heraclitus

‘There is no God,’ it rings through the streets of Paris.

There is no end to Creation. If God is omnipotent and His might truly infinite, He has made other worlds that are just as ours. Has He sent out His Son to all of them, to die for those who live on those distant planets?

He has not sent out His Son to the Chinese and the Mongols; to the Arabs and the Indians. Why would He have sent out His Son to worlds that are not of this Earth?

There is no God.

Has He condemned all who have not been cleansed from their sins through His blood to spend all eternity in Hell?

There is no Hell.

Why, then, is the centre of Earth a teeming cauldron of hot pitch?

“If you consider the size of the Earth’s core – do you truly believe it can hold every condemned man, woman and child, from the days of Adam until the Day of Judgment?”

“Ah, but you’re forgetting, Monsieur: it will not be the bodies of the condemned that will suffer eternal damnation in Hell. It will be the souls. A soul is not corporeal, and Hell can hold an infinite number of disembodied spirits.”

Laughter rang through the chambre bleue, and Porthos glanced at Aramis, attempting to guess by his countenance what his friend was truly thinking. One could never know with Aramis: he was, on the one hand, adamant that priesthood and the Church were his true destiny; on the other hand, Porthos had begun to suspect that, in his heart of hearts, Aramis was a greater heretic even than those atheists who populated the salons of Paris and that he led religious disputes for the sake of the dispute, not for the sake of religion.

“Monsieur Aramis,” Madame de Rambouillet raised a languid arm from where she was reclining on her magnificent four-poster bed, half-hidden from view by the baldaquin that kept out the draft. There was that curr to her voice that she appeared to reserve just for Aramis. “You can wield an argument as elegantly as you wield your sword. But tell me, Monsieur, which side are you fighting on? Is your allegiance truly to the Church, as you so often proclaim? Or do your wit and your tongue serve a different master?”

Aramis bowed, as low as the confined space in the ruelle, where he was stood, permitted, without taking his eyes off the marquise’s face. “Both my wit and my tongue are at your disposal, Madame, if you wish them to be,” he said, and laughter rang once again.

Madame de Rambouillet smiled. “Aramis,” she said pensively. “Did you choose the name deliberately, I wonder? You are aware of course that you find ‘Simara’ in Aramis, which is the name of a demon.”

“How very perceptive you are, Arthénice,” Aramis said, putting a delicate stress on the syllables that were an anagram of the lady’s Christian name. He inclined his head again with his hand pressed to his heart and with that look from beneath his brows that in any other man would be insolent, but which Aramis made appear almost coquettish. Yet, knowing him as well as he did, Porthos saw that familiar shadow pass over his friend’s features that sharpened them into an almost demonic shape. Aramis’ dark eyes gleamed like cinder does in the ashes of a dying fireplace.

He cleared his throat and shifted in his fauteuil in a vain attempt to find a better position. The chamber was dense with heat and the heavy scent of perfume, of flowers, of fruit that spilled over the corbeilles arranged on the tables. There were apricots and peaches and grapes, but also oranges which Porthos had tasted once; the sourness had assaulted his tongue and he had almost spat out the first mouthful; but the fruit concealed an unexpected sweetness under its acerbic veneer, and he had found himself craving more. One day, he had promised himself, one day he would have enough money to keep an orangerie on his estate.

“Pardon me, Monsieur.” A soft voice by his ear, the brush of a flowery perfume, and then a young lady, barely more than a girl, appeared before him in a cloud of green and silver silk. He rose to his feet and bowed.

“Mademoiselle,” he said and faltered. ‘la Principessa’s beautiful Cossack’, he has heard her called, but he had never learned her name. She had arrived in Paris in the retinue of Marie Louise di Gonzaga; whispers had it that she had come on behalf the Polish king, who wished to marry the Italian princess. Porthos was looking down at her: dark hair and eyes that were almost Oriental in their oblong shape; strong eyebrows and the high cheekbones of the Slav.

She smiled. “Gryzelda Zamoyska.” Her voice was a melodious lilt that made him think of the merry murmur of a spring in the thicket of a forest. There was something of a sylvan sprite about her, not quite of this world.

“Mademoiselle Zamoyska,” he said, forcing his unyielding tongue around the unfamiliar syllables.

“Gryzelda, s’il vous plaît,” she said. “It is the custom in my country to address an unmarried young lady by her Christian name, and it’s been long since I have heard anyone other than la Principessa pronounce it.”

Porthos followed her gaze through the open door to the next chamber, where Marie Louise di Gonzaga performed an air de cour by the clavicytherium. Like all Italians, she had a beautiful, clear singing voice; her soprano rose high into the air like a skylark and trembled beneath the ceiling. He looked back at Gryzelda, whose mouth curled into a lopsided smile that gave her an utterly elven appearance.

“I have come this way, Monsieur Porthos,” she had no trouble pronouncing his name, and her alien accent, though noticeable, added to the charm of her voice. “To request a favour of you.”

He bowed again and his hand came up on its own accord to give his moustache a twirl. “Anything, Mademoiselle.”

“I have a craving for this particular fruit,” she said, pointing her fan at the giant pine cone enthroned in the centre of an opulent basket. “Would you oblige me by peeling it for me?”

Porthos eyed the object of her desire warily. With its spikey hide and the thick, sharp-edged leaves that crowned its top, it looked like it could put up a fight. When he glanced back at Gryzelda, he saw she had assumed a demure stance, hiding the lower part of her face behind her ostrich-feather fan. But the dark eyes glittered like peridores.

Porthos twirled his moustache, puffed out his chest and strode to the table, rattling his sword and his spurs on every step. He picked up the fruit with both hands, bracing himself for the sharp sting that would come when spines buried into his skin. But he was pleasantly surprised: despite its forbidding appearance, it was leathery rather than thorny. He flashed a broad smile at Gryzelda and lifted his trophy in the air, ignoring the looks that those among the guests who were neither engaged in a battle of wits marshalled by Madame de Rambouillet nor listening to la Principessa’s singing cast in his direction.

For the merest fraction of a heartbeat, doubt rose in his mind; a pineapple was an expensive commodity, and he was abducting one as if he were a boy stealing apples from the curate’s garden. But Porthos had long found that Fortuna truly favoured the bold. He stuffed the fruit under his arm, twirled his moustache, and then offered his other arm to the beautiful Cossack, whose sparkling eyes were in danger of setting the feathers of her fan aflame.

He led her, or rather she led him, through a door concealed behind a drapery that was the colour of the angry ocean. They emerged in a smaller chamber, whose walls were a shade of turquoise, adorned with purple, sand and golden ornaments. Porthos expected her to stop by an ornate table that beckoned invitingly, but she walked past it and guided him through the next door and into a rosewood-panelled cabinet with a large mirror on the wall. Porthos caught sight of himself – a tall, imposing figure dressed in a doublet of only slightly faded cerulean – and the lady on his arm, whose reflection smiled at him from the depths of the glass like a nymph would from the depths of a pond.

“Let us sit here,” she said, ducking into an alcove. She sank into the window seat and pulled up her knees to rest her chin on them, just like a little girl. Porthos pulled a tabouret closer and sat down, stretching his legs out half across the room. He put the pineapple delicately on the window seat by her feet. The fruit was mocking him with its alien appearance and its thick armour that was just like the shell of a tortoise. He glanced at Gryzelda to ascertain if she was, perhaps, mocking him too; if she saw plainly how unfamiliar this exotic pine cone was to him. But her elven face was flushed with childlike joy, and she reached out a hand and touched the pineapple with the tip of her finger. Porthos’ spirits soared.

“Permit me, Mademoiselle,” he said, pulling out his poignard from its sheath. He gripped the pineapple with one hand and with the other drove the blade into its flesh.

There was less resistance than he’d expected. When he pulled out, a few drops of syrup bled out from the wound, followed by a potent sweet scent the likes of which Porthos had never smelled before. Gryzelda touched her finger to the cut and licked the juice off just like a kitten; he fancied he could almost hear her purr in contentment.

“I’ve wished to taste it ever since I came to Paris,” she said in a voice filled with awe. “I never dared ask before.”

“Did you not come in the entourage of Madame di Gonzaga, Mademoiselle?” Porthos said. “Surely that lady wouldn’t have been so ungracious as to refuse your request, had you made it.”

“Perhaps not,” she said. “But gracious as she is, la Principessa can be very forbidding.”

“And I am not?” Porthos said laughing.

“No.” She shook her head, quite earnestly. “You remind me of an uncle of mine, Monsieur, whom I haven’t seen in many months,” she said artlessly, and he realised suddenly how far away from home she was, that young woman who could barely be older than fifteen years, and how lonely she must be in this foreign city, surrounded by people whose language was alien to her ears. “And,” she continued, the impish smile lightening her face once again, “I always find it easier to ask a favour from a gentleman than from a lady. I find them to be most accommodating.”

Porthos threw his head back and laughed. It wasn’t flirtation, certainly not of the kind that he knew at Court. It was the guileless charm of a child, and he knew now why he had thought of a sylvan spirit when she first spoke to him. Here was a young lady entirely unspoiled by the decadence and the artifice of the royal court. It was fortunate that she had been brought to the Hôtel de Rambouillet. Its hostess was a woman of excellent taste who was renowned for her abhorrence of the coarseness and intrigues of the Court, and she had the reputation of surrounding herself with the most sublime, intelligent and liberal minds. ‘And Aramis,’ Porthos thought, grinning to himself.

“Tell me, Mademoiselle,” he said, “are all ladies in your country as charming as you? I may be tempted to undertake a journey thither.”

It was her turn to laugh. “You don’t even know what my country is, Monsieur,” she said. “I’m certain that if we had a map here, you would not be able to point it out to me.”

“True.” Porthos found it easy to admit this gap in his education. “All I know of the Cossacks is that they live in the steppes of Tartary.” He continued to stab into the pineapple as they conversed, and had succeeded in liberating a few chunks of fruit flesh. He laid them on the handkerchief Gryzelda had spread before herself, and she picked up one and put it in her mouth with an expression of beatitude on her face.

“I’m not a Cossack,” she said calmly. Porthos, who had impaled a pineapple piece on his poignard and was about to taste it, halted with his hand in the air and looked at her.

“No?”

“I know that they call me that. But in fact nothing could be further from the truth. I’m Polish. I was born in the Eastern Borderlands of the Crown. The Cossacks are our enemy, and we are likely to be at war with them soon.”

“Are you afraid, Mademoiselle?”

“No.” She shook her head quite resolutely. “My city has the biggest fortress in the Crown. It was built by my grandfather.”

“He must have been a great man.”

“He was. He died before I was born. I would have liked to meet him.”

Porthos nodded and carried the chunk of pineapple to his mouth. It was like an explosion on his tongue, the flavour even spicier than that of oranges, but also sweeter, more potent; as strong as the finest Armagnac. He caught Gryzelda’s eye and they both laughed like children and reached for another piece.

“My ancestors never accomplished any great deeds,” Porthos confessed to his great surprise. “But I hope I will.”

“I’m sure you will, Monsieur” she said. “Why shouldn’t you? You are a fine cavalier and one of the King’s musketeers. Surely you are destined for greatness.”

“It’s not so easy for…” he said and bit his tongue. She was looking at him expectantly, as if entirely ignorant of what he was about to say. “For a man of my… provenance.” Her expression grew more confused. Porthos cast a glance over his shoulder and then spoke in a harsh whisper. “My mother was from the Indies. She was my father’s property, not his wife.”

There. The words were out, and he sat there with a beating heart. It was not something he generally admitted to. It was commonly known, of course, the colour of his skin gave him away. Yet nobody spoke of it, and if they did – Porthos had long found ways and means to be paid the respect that he was due. The secret was to display wealth, non-existent though it might be, and to stride through the city like a man who owned the streets upon which he walked.

She nodded. “I understand. Where I come from, the Cossacks and the Tatars and the Turks take men and women as jasyr. Slaves.”

“That must be hard.” He shook his head and stabbed a piece of pineapple with his poignard. “Having such savages for neighbours.”

“Oh, it’s not all bad. The traders who travel to the countries in the East bring back amazing things. Tell me, Monsieur Porthos,” she pointed her fan at him and narrowed her eyes, “have you ever tried kava?”

Porthos frowned and shook his head.

“Good!” She clapped her hands in delight and then beckoned the footman, who was stood by the door, to approach her and gave him orders that Porthos only half understood. When a short time later the footman returned, he was carrying a tray with two cups filled with a substance redolent of rotting wood. Once the tray was placed before them, he saw that the cups were filled with a liquid as black as ink, which was billowing that pungent, bitter steam that prickled on Porthos’ tongue.

He looked at Gryzelda, suspecting a jest at his expenses. But she picked a cup up quite happily and carried it to her lips. “I have brought it as a gift for la Principessa. The Turks drink it every morning, as hot as possible.” She smiled at him. “Try it. It is a wonderful remedy for all kinds of ailments.”

Porthos was tempted to let her know that he did not suffer from any ailments and that he therefore was not in need of the heathen panacea. Instead, he twirled his moustache manfully and gulped down a mouthful of the bitter brew so fast that he felt its burn all the way down into his stomach. He almost spat it back out and only restrained himself at the sight of her expectant eyes.

“It is not palatable at first,” she said. “But try another sip, Monsieur. You will get used to it and find the bitterness quite invigorating.”

Invigorating it was indeed, Porthos thought when they were walking back to the chambre bleue. His blood was aflame and his thoughts animated. As they were crossing the turquoise chamber, where the servants had not yet lit the candles, a movement arrested his eye from the shadows. Porthos turned his head and spotted Aramis. The other musketeer stood half-concealed behind a tapestry, engaged in what looked like earnest and intimate dialogue with a person Porthos couldn’t discern. A slim white hand snaked from beneath the folds of the drapery; Aramis took it and kissed it with heartfelt fervour. At the sound of Porthos’ and Gryzelda’s footsteps, he glanced at them, but did not speak, and Porthos knew better than to disrupt his tête-à-tête. He quickened his pace instead and lifted the heavy tapestry hiding the door in the chambre bleue to let Gryzelda pass, and then ducked in behind her.

The room had emptied considerably since they left. Reclining on her bed, Madame de Rambouillet was talking to a man of about forty years of age, with dark hair, stooped shoulders and a large, fleshy nose. He was dressed in the black robe of a scholar, and he spoke like a scholar, in the persistent voice of a man accustomed to lecturing others. Madame di Gonzaga had abandoned her clavicytherium; she was sitting in a fauteuil with her ankles crossed, fanning herself languidly and listening to the debate between Madame de Rambouillet and her interlocutor with a faint smile. There was another lady seated in the ruelle by the bed: a formidable personage of sixty years with aquiline features and ageless eyes, whom Porthos knew to be Marie de Gournay; the celebrated woman of letters, whose quick wit and sharp tongue were admired and feared in equal measure.

“There you are, my child,” la Principessa said when she caught sight of Gryzelda, whom she beckoned closer with a majestic gesture. “My beautiful Cossack has returned to me, Madame,” she added, inclining her head towards Madame de Rambouillet.

Gryzelda exchanged a sidelong smile with Porthos and went to sit by her patroness. Porthos bowed to the great Italian lady, who acknowledged him with a nod and with an appraising glance. She then lifted her fan so as to hide most of her own and Gryzelda’s faces behind it, and began to converse with the girl in low tones. Left to his own devices, Porthos strolled towards Madame de Rambouillet’s bed, picking up a goblet on the way, which a valet filled with La Tâche from the Abbey Saint-Vivant.

“It’s a shame that Monsieur de Voiture couldn’t join us today,” Madame de Rambouillet was saying just as Porthos joined the company in the ruelle. “I think you would have found him quite amusing, Monsieur Descartes.”

The man in the scholar’s robe bowed. “It is most unfortunate. Alas, since I am setting back for Flanders the day after tomorrow, I won’t have the pleasure of an introduction. I will, however follow the good advice given to me by Madame de Chevreuse and purchase the latest collection of Monsieur de Voiture’s verses de société tomorrow. Madame de Chevreuse told me that they will certainly be available at the bookseller’s in the rue de la Monnaie, the proprietor is a cousin of the publisher’s.”

“Madame de Chevreuse was here?” Porthos asked, his interest piqued.

“Have you not seen her, Monsieur Porthos? She left but a few minutes ago,” Madame de Rambouillet said.

“No.” Porthos looked back at the tapestry behind which the door to the next chamber was hidden. “I have not. I appear to always miss her by a hair’s breadth. It is almost enough to make me believe she does not exist in the flesh, but merely in name.”

“Oh, Madame de Chevreuse does exist in the flesh.” All heads turned towards Marie de Gournay, who had spoken these words in a tone of voice that Porthos couldn’t quite read. It reminded him vaguely of Athos, in that it was uttered entirely without inflection and might equally express amusement or might express disapproval. “Most decidedly in the flesh,” Madame de Gournay added, tapping her walking stick on the floor.

“And you disapprove, Madame?” Monsieur Descartes asked, his eyebrows raised in mocking challenge.

“Why should I?” Madame de Gournay said, picking up the gauntlet with great relish. “Are you one of those young people, Monsieur, who think that your elders have always been old? That we never tasted the pleasures of youth and that we have arrived in this world ossified and withered and full of disapproval for the young? Or do you,” she leaned forward and punctuated her words with a stab of her forefinger at Descartes’ chest. “Do you think that I should disapprove, because Madame de Chevreuse is a woman?”

“Not at all,” Descartes said with a bow and a smile. “Quite the contrary, Madame. Incidentally, I am currently finishing my Discourse on the Method, which is also meant to be read by women.”

“That is most generous of you,” Madame de Gournay said. “We will wait most humbly to read the pearls of wisdom that you are prepared to share with us.” She lifted her walking stick and poked Descartes in the stomach. “What surprises me, Monsieur, is that you wish to read Monsieur de Voiture’s verses. I didn’t expect you to indulge in such frivolities.”

“I didn’t expect you to indulge in frivolities, either, Madame. And yet I hear you’ve been translating Ovid’s Ars amatoria recently.”

“That wasn’t for frivolous purposes, Monsieur. It was to earn money, which, as you know, is a matter of the utmost gravity.”

“I am certain Monsieur Voiture’s work is a matter of gravity also,” Descartes said, but Porthos was no longer paying attentions, because the sound of familiar footsteps reached his ears. He turned his head and caught sight of Aramis, who had emerged through the door behind the tapestry and was approaching the company at a measured pace.

“What does Monsieur de Voiture consider a matter of gravity?” Aramis asked, bowing to Madame de Rambouillet.

“He has published new verses,” the lady said.

“Has he indeed?” Aramis said. “I didn’t know that.” He glanced at Descartes with a smile. “I hope you are going to purchase a copy, Monsieur.”

“I am planning to visit the bookseller in the rue de la Monnaie tomorrow,” Descartes said, a faint smile playing around his lips. “I remember that night well.” He turned to Madame de Rambouillet. “Monsieur Aramis afforded me the pleasure of his company one night during the siege of La Rochelle. He drank my entire stock of Anjou wine and insisted on reciting Monsieur Voiture’s poetry until dawn. It was most amusing.”

“I remember,” said Aramis. “I was feeling most melancholy that night. Monsieur Voiture’s verses were an excellent remedy for low spirits.”

“As was the Anjou wine, I dare say,” said Porthos.

“Ah, as you know, my friend,” Aramis said, “with Anjou wine it can go either way: poison or remedy.”

“Are you attempting to be philosophical, Monsieur Aramis?” Marie de Gournay said.

“Not at all, Madame. I’ve never been more prosaic in my life.” Aramis caught Porthos’ eye and smiled at him: a secret, melancholy smile, one that was more suited to Athos’ features than to Aramis’, and Porthos smiled back.

Notes:

Since canon gives us conflicting info on how and when they left, this is set at some unspecified point after The Three Musketeers and long before 20YA. The women introduced in chapter 1 are all historical figures; Aramis would've known them (and it is indeed canon that he frequented Mme de Rambouillet's salon).