igenlode | The Four of Us (Reply)

The heating was malfunctioning in the library this morning, and I was the only user who actually took my coat *off*... being rather better dressed for it (the temperature was probably much the same as at home) then the rest! But to be fair I was also almost certainly the only one with chilblains on my toes and the fingers of my writing hand...

All the same, I had probably better get on and post this before it ceases to be cold. It will be interesting to see if it gets any better traction than all my "Twenty Years After" book-canon one-shots managed, since I've done my best to make it clear that this is quite definitely based on the BBC TV series instead!

(Since the Soviet adaptations of the books are pretty close to the originals, I'm now wondering in a purely theoretical way what sort of elements would make it clear that a story was clearly based on the screen version as opposed to Dumas. A Mordaunt who is back in France alive and liaising with Jussac in "Twenty Years After" would be a fairly clear indication; an affair between Athos and Madame de Chevreuse probably wouldn't, ironically enough, since I was astonished to discover when I reached the end of the book that the good Comte appears to be quite unmistakably, albeit with an uncharacteristic clumsiness, *flirting* in the final chapter with the mother of his son... something that I had really assumed that Jungwald-Khilkevich had introduced to tie off that particular relationship with an Edmond/Mercedes type happy ending :-)

I decided on a last-minute title change from "Night Watch" to "The Four of Us Together", which emerged from the text and seemed to fit the eventual 'theme' better (it was watervole who clarified to me years ago the difference between the *plot* of a story and what it was *about*, with titles very often arising out of the latter). It may also appeal to the target market better, though I'm not holding my breath for that.

~~And as usual I suppose I shall need a summary of some sort before I can actually upload it...~~

The Four of Us Together

In a winter wood, one young Gascon and three of the King’s Musketeers sleep and stand watch by turns. D’Artagnan is cold but content. (Very early Series 1)

There was a tree root digging into d’Artagnan’s back, and his neck was stiff where he’d wrapped both arms around himself for warmth. High overhead, through the interlaced branches, the moon was moving painfully slowly towards the mark he had set for himself, when his watch would be over. His head began to nod forward, and he caught himself with a jerk.

It was not as if he had not sat up at night before, waiting for the old cob to throw her latest foal, or keeping guard against the fox that had come three nights running to take their best pullets. Maybe these northern woods were dank and more than a little chilly compared to the balmy dark —not, definitely not, filled with the pervasive odour of damp leaf-mould— beneath Gascon skies, but all the same the sounds around him told the same story as those in the dusty, scented thickets of home. Tiny rustlings and the shifting of leaves betrayed the unseen life of the woods all around. A screech-owl called from somewhere further away, and a vixen gave a single sharp bark. A stifled squeal marked the strike of some swift, small hunter taking yet smaller prey; stoat, perhaps, or white-tipped ermine. Snuffling breaths and a glimpse of eyes in the embers of the dying fire would be a badger trundling on his way, near-sighted and deceived by d’Artagnan’s stillness into believing himself undetected.

D’Artagnan had been watching and listening for long enough to be aware of every change in the wood beyond that faint glow of firelight —he knew enough not to let his own eyes stray to those embers and lose what little night-vision he had— and there was nothing moving out there large enough to mean a threat. Neither wolf nor bear nor bristling boar nor, more heavy-footed than any, the human outlaws who had become all too common on the routes to Paris.

There had been rumours, in the last village they’d passed through. Everyone claimed to have heard of someone who’d been robbed, or found with a cut throat by the wayside; Athos, questioning farmers and goodwives with a cool, clipped restraint, had failed to find any who had actually set eyes on the supposed robbers. And the four of them together, d’Artagnan thought, still marvelling at the new, unaccustomed warmth of finding himself trusted as part of that tight-knit group, the four of them should be more than enough to see off any rag-tag band of masterless men.

All the same, Athos had ordered a watch set when they made camp at dusk. There was no point in inviting trouble, and, as Porthos observed, they had been sent out to gather information, not bring back heads.

D’Artagnan was not entirely sure whether that last suggestion was to be taken literally or not. Porthos was easy-going, but formidable when he chose... and the memory of Alexandre d’Artagnan’s blood soaking away into the mud and rain was a scar still far from healing, and one that left his son little pity for those who robbed and murdered.

At any rate, he’d volunteered to take the first watch. The others might be seasoned soldiers who bore the King’s uniform as of right, and who traded jests back and forth while pitching camp with a practised ease that meant he, d’Artagnan, was simply in the way, but this at least was something he could do as well as any of them.

Aramis, who’d been in the middle of teasing Porthos about some complicated story of a goat, a bell-tower, and a pail of strawberries (“Don’t ask,” Athos had supplied under his breath, when d’Artagnan glanced in his direction) had broken off to raise one mobile eyebrow.

“Ah. Never volunteer for anything. You’ll learn...”

Upon which Athos had promptly assigned the second watch to Aramis, rolled himself up in his blankets by the fire, and feigned a very convincing sleep in the face of his friend’s stream of banter. D’Artagnan grinned, remembering.

Of course, it was entirely possible that one of the gifts of a seasoned soldier really was the ability to go to sleep on a chilly night at a moment’s notice. He gritted his teeth, trying not to shiver, and eased aching shoulders against the tree-trunk for the hundredth time. A darker mass of shadow, some way down the slope from the dell in which they’d camped, was the horses dozing together under a tree, huddled against the cold, with only an occasional snort of breath or jerk on a tether to betray their presence. While the horses were quiet, there would be no danger stirring in the wood... and a glance up at the sky told him that at long last he could reckon his watch to be at an end.

D’Artagnan yawned and got up stiffly to make one final check around the perimeter, moving as silent-footed as he could. He allowed himself a brief moment to strip off his gloves and cup his hands over the faint warmth of the fire’s ashes before leaning over to shake Aramis by the shoulder.

He’d expected complaints, or maybe a sleepy delay. But for all his elegance Aramis came awake at once and all of a piece, like an old shepherd lying out on the hill at lambing-time. “All well?”

D’Artagnan nodded, only to remember that it was dark. “No sign of trouble.”

“All right. Get some sleep.” Aramis stretched briefly, shook himself in a ripple of movement, and melted back towards the trees.

D’Artagnan located his own blankets, and attempted to find a reasonably comfortable spot on the far side of the fire. He failed.

“Don’t be a fool.” Athos’ voice, a calm, incisive undertone in the night. “You’ve been on watch and I assume you’re chilled to the bone. You need to come and take Aramis’ place while it’s still warm.”

And a moment later, on a note of exasperation as d’Artagnan stumbled to his feet: “Over here.”

He found himself caught and pulled down into the vacant space between the other two. Porthos turned over with a grunt that might have been protest or merely acknowledgement, and d’Artagnan, struggling to rearrange bedding, had a corner of Athos’ own blankets pulled across him and held there by an iron grip that permitted of no argument.

“Get warm. Go to sleep.” It was unmistakably an order, and d’Artagnan subsided, grateful for the lingering imprint of Aramis’ body and the warm breathing bulk of Porthos beyond. The horses shifted softly in the silence, and all the little sounds of the wood were beginning again... and the tight chill that had made its way deep into his bones began slowly to release its grasp. He let out a long breath, conscious for the first time that he had been shivering.

Athos’ imprisoning arm across him grew gradually heavier and eased a little, no longer an unyielding bar but still one from which he could not extricate himself without waking him. Half-asleep himself, d’Artagnan rolled closer until the weight of it was no more than a draped embrace, and let the shared warmth drift him away at last to slumber.

He woke briefly to Aramis coming back to take Athos’ place, all sharp elbows and angles, and offered up his own blankets in turn. Aramis, shivering, wrapped himself against him without hesitation and was almost instantly asleep. He did not stir even when, towards morning, d’Artagnan was roused by Porthos grumbling under his breath in preparation for the final watch. His presence was replaced by the chilly solidity of Athos settling against d’Artagnan’s back. Someone —presumably Porthos— stumbled heavily over a log and cursed, and the horses snorted and startled in response.

D’Artagnan was conscious of Athos’ listening tension, but nothing moved in the wood, and presently a slow breath eased out of Athos and he evidently composed himself to rest. D’Artagnan, drowsy, tugged the covers on that side up over his ears and burrowed back into the warm half-suffocating cavern beneath, where the night air did not nip so uncomfortably at the end of his nose.

The next thing he knew, there was sun slanting through the trees, and he was being prodded with the toe of a boot. He sat bolt upright in a panic.

“Lovely morning,” Porthos said, grinning down at him and kicking Athos and Aramis again. Neither of them had so much as bothered to open their eyes, obviously accustomed to this manner of morning greeting, and d’Artagnan felt a little foolish.

Aramis, stirred up anew by a vigorous foot, informed his friend sweetly and with an astonishingly creative use of language that he was very much awake, thank you. Athos simply sighed, rolled over, and propped himself on one elbow to give Porthos a level stare.

“Right, looks like you’re going to be the one to get the water, then.” Porthos tossed a leather bucket cheerfully in d’Artagnan’s direction. Taken by surprise, he managed to catch it more on reflex than anything else. Porthos jerked one thumb down the slope. “There’s a stream down the bottom— better risk your neck than the horses.”

Better be born a mountain goat, d’Artagnan decided, clambering down the steepening sides of the little valley between stands of holly, with brambles catching around his ankles. Or at any rate —as fallen leaves slid away from under his heel, and he had to grab onto a sapling trunk to save himself— a Barbary ape...

The skies above, framed against the crest of the hill, were a bright, almost impossibly pale winter blue, but it would be hours yet, if ever, before the sun could touch the bottom of these slopes, and the stream, when he came to its banks, was bitterly cold. He splashed up a double-handful of water across his face and neck to drive the last of the sleep from his eyes, and caught an involuntary breath in response.

Porthos had been down here the night before. D’Artagnan could see the marks where he had slipped in the mud, and for the first time was profoundly grateful not to be groping around on this errand at dusk.

A little trickle of water ran down the hill to his right and tumbled into the larger brook below, and he bent to fill his bucket there. Less chance of a dead deer in a pool upstream, Alexandre d’Artagnan’s voice reminded him in memory, like an approving hand on his shoulder, and though he was not aware of it, it was the first time since the elder d’Artagnan’s murder that his son had been able to think of him without pain.

He scrambled back up towards the others, whistling cheerfully between his teeth, and the horses crowded round him, shaggy in their winter coats with breath steaming in clouds. Aramis was complaining about breakfast —cold meat, the last of the barley bread, and stale wine— and Porthos, tipping the hat Aramis had just put on down over his friend’s eyes, retorted with a tongue-in-cheek eulogy to the supposed joys of the countryside.

“Not joys,” Athos said, completely straight-faced. “I never said joys.”

And, as the other two turned to look at him: “Well, since our friends the bandits failed to take the bait last night, I suppose we shall have to enquire further.”

“Bait—” Aramis broke off, eyes kindling indignantly. “Athos, are you telling me you chose to make camp out here in the freezing night with the intention of getting ambushed?”

“It would have saved a lot of time.” The corners of Athos’ mouth still had not twitched, but d’Artagnan had begun to learn that particular deadpan expression. His eyes met those of Porthos, who grinned widely, and a moment later Aramis, shaking his head, was laughing as well.

And despite the lingering aches and pains of his night’s broken sleep, despite toes numbed with chill, with Aramis draping a cheerful arm around his shoulders and Porthos thumping them both on the back he had no complaint at all to make. Athos was watching them in what might almost have been taken for fond amusement.

“We move out as soon as the horses are ready,” he said briefly, putting on his gloves, and Porthos snorted.

“Fine by me. Some of us have been up and enjoying the country air for hours already.”

Stooping to begin the task of shaking out blankets, Aramis flicked a clot of wet leaves in his direction. “Some of us were awake and keeping watch while you slept the night through like a baby.”

“Now there speaks a man who never shared quarters with a baby—”

“Enough!” On his way past to fetch more water for the horses, d’Artagnan caught the edge of the exasperated look from Athos that accompanied that, and managed, with an effort, to keep a straight face.

But in amidst the orderly chaos of breaking camp that followed, as he poured out oats and helped Athos lift down the saddles from atop the low branch on which they’d been left, he found himself moving easily to fill in the gaps, no longer with that sense of being in the way, but fitting without question into the warm, jostling rhythm of the others around him. The four of us together... only it had ceased to be a marvelling thought, and begun to embrace the casual certainty of belief.