Traitor's Chase (10 page)

Aramis and Greg examined the parchment in the firelight. It was a rough map of Paris: only the outline of the city wall was drawn on it, along with some wavy lines to represent the Seine and a small oval for the Île de la Cité. There were several strange marks on it, however. Three random points on the wall were indicated with arrows. And beneath the Île de la Cité was an odd collection of symbols:

To στέμμα της Mινέρβας

“Where did you find this?” Aramis asked. “We searched Dominic's office and living quarters a dozen times over after he was imprisoned.”

“Not well enough, apparently,” Milady said. “Although I'm not the one who found it.” She pointed across the campfire to Catherine, who had wandered close again. “
She
is.”

Greg and Aramis shifted their gaze to Catherine, who shrank, as though uncomfortable being the center of attention. “A few days ago, I was told to clean out Dominic's office,” she explained. “It's being given to someone else. And while I was cleaning, I noticed a loose stone in the wall. When I pressed on it, it slid aside, revealing a secret compartment. This was inside. I thought it might be important, so I took it to Milady.”

“And that's when I contacted you, D'Artagnan,” Milady said.

Aramis turned on Greg, suspicious. “You never said Milady had approached you.”

“I didn't realize she wanted to talk to
all
of us,” Greg explained. “The entire exchange lasted only a second.”

Aramis frowned, as though he didn't necessarily believe that, then returned his attention to the map. “What is this?” he asked, pointing to the strange inscription beneath the Île de la Cité.

“I have no idea,” Milady admitted. “I was hoping you'd know.”

Aramis frowned at the marks and shook his head. “No. They merely look like mystic runes to me.” He turned to Greg hopefully. “Any ideas?”

Greg shook his head sadly. “I've never seen anything like it. It looks a tiny bit like hieroglyphics....”

“The language of the Egyptians?” Aramis asked, intrigued.

“Yes, but as far as I know, that's all actual symbols, like birds and eyeballs and things,” Greg told the others. “I don't know what these are.”

“Another code, perhaps,” Aramis said with a sigh.

Another code?
Greg thought, remembering how much the one in his great-grandfather's diary had stymied him.
Why can't anyone just write down what they actually mean and make life easy for once?

“And what do you think
these
indicate?” Catherine asked. She pointed to one of the three small arrows marking spots on the city wall.

“They're secret passages into the city,” Athos said.

Everyone jumped, startled. They wheeled around to find that Athos had come silently up behind them. Now he regarded the others coldly, as though annoyed they'd convened without alerting him.

“Secret passages?” Aramis was stunned. “I've never heard of any secret passages into the city.”

“That's what makes them secret,” Athos chided. “They're only known by certain members of the military.”

“Why would anyone build secret passages into Paris?” Greg asked.

“In case the city was ever conquered,” Athos explained. “If an enemy took Paris, they would only defend the gates. But if there's a way around the gates, a liberating force could sneak back inside and take the enemy by surprise.”

“But
our
army only defends the gates,” Aramis protested. “If an enemy knew about these entrances,
they
could sneak into the city as well.”

“That's why they're supposed to be secret,” Athos explained. “I only knew about the location of this one.” He pointed to the arrow on the southern side of the city. “Dominic Richelieu obviously knows of two more.”

“And now he's allying himself with Spain,” Aramis said.

Silence descended as everyone grasped what this meant. Finally, Milady voiced what they were all thinking. “He's going to help Spain invade Paris.”

Greg felt as though he'd been punched in the stomach. “So what do we do now? Send a pigeon back with the news?”

“I think that'd be wise …” Aramis began.

“No, it'd be a waste of a valuable pigeon,” Athos argued. “We're merely guessing that's what Dominic intends to do.”

“It's a very educated guess,” Aramis countered.

“But a guess nonetheless,” Athos told him. “And even if we're right, we don't know how he plans to invade—or when. Or with what size force. Alerting the king before we know any of this serves no purpose.”

“He could seal the tunnels,” Aramis shot back.

“If we knew exactly where they were,” Athos said hotly. “But we don't. We only know that
Richelieu
knows where they are.”

“Perhaps the king knows of them,” Aramis said. “Or one of his military advisors …”

“And what if we're wrong?” Athos demanded. “Then the entrances will be sealed and of no use should we ever truly need them.”

“You'd rather have them be used against us?” Aramis asked accusingly.

“We are not sending a pigeon!” Athos roared, so loud that his voice echoed through the forest. “Not until we have found Dominic and Michel and determined once and for all, what they are truly up to! To do anything else would be rash and stupid!”

He spun on his heel and stormed off into the night, leaving everyone else stunned by his outburst.

Greg turned to Aramis. His fellow Musketeer was angrier than Greg had ever seen him, seething with rage over the way Athos had spoken to him. “Protecting the crown is not stupid,” he spat, then stormed off as well.

Greg watched him disappear into the darkness, feeling like he was teetering on an abyss himself. If the Musketeers were going to have such a big argument over merely sending a pigeon to the king, what would happen when the stakes were life and death?

To his surprise, Catherine was suddenly beside him. “Do you think it's possible,” she whispered, “that Dominic could really be planning an attack on Paris?”

“I think anything is possible,” Greg replied sadly. It now seemed that Michel and Dominic were determined to alter the history of the world—and Greg feared that the Musketeers might not last as a team to stop it.

TEN

T
HREE DAYS LATER, THE
M
USKETEERS ENCOUNTERED THE
first hostile village.

It sat on the banks of the Saône River, a tributary that flowed to the Rhône and eventually to the south of France. At first, Greg was thrilled to see the town. After a week traveling in the forest, any sign of civilization was a sight for sore eyes. From a distance, it appeared picturesque as could be, straight out of a storybook.

As they grew closer, however, Greg found it far less attractive. The buildings were little more than hovels, with patchy roofs and collapsing walls. Unlike the cobblestone streets of Paris, the roads were rutted dirt tracks often reduced to mud.

The residents didn't look much better. Gaunt and pale, their faces were caked with dirt, their hair was stringy and matted, and their clothes were more holes than fabric. Worst of all, many had small, bloated pustules on their bodies.

Greg had expected that, in a remote town like this, people would have been thrilled to have visitors. Instead, everyone glowered at them with their sunken eyes.

“What's wrong with them?” Greg whispered to Aramis.

“You've never seen Black Death before?” Aramis responded.

The plague!
Greg recoiled in his saddle, suddenly wanting to get as far from this town as possible. He knew from history class that the plague had wiped out millions of people in Europe in the 1300s, over half the population in some places. But he didn't know that it had still been around after that. He clapped his hand over his mouth, afraid to even breathe the air. “Is this common in the countryside?”

“I have no idea,” Aramis admitted. “Luckily, Paris has been spared of late. We haven't had an outbreak for almost a decade.”

Greg shuddered. Now, every prick at his skin made him quiver, fearful that it might be a plague-bearing flea. “Why do they seem so unhappy to see us?”

“Because they don't trust outsiders. Many people suspect the plague was brought to them by travelers.”

Greg swallowed. For once, people of this time weren't wrong about something scientific. At some point, some infected traveler probably
had
brought the plague to this town. “But we couldn't possibly make them
more
sick,” Greg protested. “If anything, we could get infected by
them
.”

“They're not taking any chances,” Aramis said. “No one knows what causes the plague, so people shun plenty of things: full moons, black cats, children born with strange birthmarks. You've remarked before that people of our time are overly superstitious? This is why. There is so much that is unknown, so much to fear in their lives.”

The town wasn't large. It took only a few minutes to pass through the heart of it, although Greg, uneasy from the glares of the plague victims, felt like it took ten times as long. On the far side, a small, rickety dock with a few boats tied to it extended into the river—although only one boat actually appeared seaworthy. It was a small barge, wide and flat and completely open to the elements, but it was big enough for the entire party and it had a mast with a tattered sail.

Porthos pointed to it and addressed the entire town. “Who here owns that boat? We'd like to purchase it.”

There was silence. Finally, a young man stepped forward. “We have no desire to do business with representatives of the king. The last ones who came through here robbed us blind.”

Greg exchanged an intrigued look with the other Musketeers, all of them thinking the same thing at once. “Was this around two months ago?” Aramis asked. “Was one of the men very tall, with long black hair—and a missing hand?”

Many of the townsfolk reacted with surprise. “Yes,” the man admitted. “But there were
two
men like that. Twins, one with a hand and one without.”

“Those were not true representatives of the king,” Athos told the crowd. “They are imposters and enemies of France. In fact, we have been dispatched by the king to find them and dispense justice. What did they do to you?”

There were some murmurs through the crowd. Finally, another man stepped forward. He was healthier-looking than most of the others, his arms thick with muscles from a lifetime of hard work. “They stole my boat,” he said. “I'm a fisherman, and I had the finest craft in town. They asked me to sell it, but I refused. It was my livelihood. So they used black magic on me.”

“Black magic?” Greg asked, incredulous. “What happened?”

“The one without the hand put me to sleep,” the fisherman replied. “He got off his horse—I thought he was going to
talk
to me—but then he grabbed me and placed a magic cloth over my face. The next thing I knew, it was nighttime. I'd been asleep for hours and my boat was long gone.” He shot an angry glance at the rest of the townsfolk.

“The men threatened to do the same to all of us if we stood against them,” the young man explained defensively. “We didn't know he was asleep. We thought he'd been killed by mere touch.”

“I
did
try to stop him,” a man with a scraggy beard said. “But he threw fire at me and made a pigsty explode!”

The Musketeers and the girls reacted with alarm. Aramis looked to Greg for help. “The guards at the Bastille said something similar after Dinicoeur freed Richelieu. That he could put men to sleep by touching them and make walls explode with a simple gesture. What do you make of it?”

“Where is this pigsty?” Greg asked.

The bearded man pointed to a spot a few yards away. There was a small blast crater in the ground.

Greg dismounted his horse and went to inspect it. He could feel the eyes of the entire town on him. The people seemed to be unsure if he were brave or foolish for entering a place where magic had been used. Apparently, no one else had dared approach this spot since the explosion; the charred remains of the wooden sty were still scattered about.