According To Hoyt

This is not what they say, but this is what they MEAN. And it’s part of the reason that this makes me so hot under the collar. Quite frankly, PERSONALY, I couldn’t care less if there ever WAS a man named William Shakespeare, much less who used that name and why. The plays are their own miracle and their own contained universe. But I do care and care PASSIONATELY about this sort of stupidity. It’s not just elitist stupidity — oh, no — that I could even tolerate. It’s stupidity that denies the existence of human individuality and the occasional, erratic, spark of genius. It is also, in many many ways unfathomably stupid about history. 

(To begin with and before I start on the rant — let me point out that people I admire, like Mark Twain and Jim Baen believed this stuff. That’s fine. If you look at what those two people believed in toto both of them believed a lot of things that make you go “Oh, my Lord, no. ” I’m not going to go into Mr. Baen’s beliefs partly because I have them only second or third hand and he was always perfectly reasonable to me. Twain, however — if you want to get the full grasp of this genius’ — and this is not ironical, he WAS a genius — handle on history, read his school-marmish/puritan Joan of Arc. In my experience both Mark Twain and Jim Baen and another half dozen people I can think of, fall under the genius exception themselves. Geniuses can believe any amount of twaddle, because they’re so exceptional themselves they’re used to thinking something COMPLETELY different from the common herd. So. . . for them, the counterintuitive becomes normal and outside their area of specific knowledge they can be very. . . uh. . . odd. Which I think leads to the association of genius and madness in stereotype. Now that’s disposed of, let’s continue to the argument itself. )

First, lets now and for all time dispose of the “Shakespeare was a peasant from an illiterate household. ” Shakespeare was the son of what we would consider upper middle class — a skilled craftsman and for a time an officer of the town’s government. It is highly unlikely that Shakespeare’s father wasn’t literate. His mother perhaps — but that’s harder to determine because in those days it was considered “fast” for a woman to read and write, so they made a “mark” on official documents, even if they could indeed write. 

I don’t have time to go haring off after references, since I’m trying to finish Soul of Fire which is long overdue at Bantam due to my health issues — and my Shakespeare books are in the library at the end of the hall, a room I can’t enter without staying there for at least three hours — but I’m sure they’re not that hard to hunt down. Take me on faith for now, and if you need references I promise to have them for you within the month. 

So. . . “From an illiterate household. ” I will grant you there were probably many, many illiterate people in Elizabethan England. There are many functionally illiterate people now. However, Elizabethan England was NOT the middle ages. The printing press had been invented. People wrote letters to friends and business contracts and were ALMOST as overlawyered as we, ourselves are. Printers and booksellers had a booming business of pamphlets and stories, poems and plays. Without television or radio or any other distractions, people used the printed word as entertainment, solace and distraction. You find printed stuff everywhere, from the libraries of the very rich, to the homes of the relatively poor.

 I’d like to point out right here and for the record that Christopher Marlowe’s father had a printed bible in his house when he died. AND he was “just a shoemaker. ” (He didn’t however have any of his son’s plays or poems. More on that later. ) One of my reference books on Elizabethan England — and again, I’ll have to look for it later — swears that the ratio of literacy was about the same it is now and the range of people who read for pleasure about the same, too. Besides, ALL the playwrights from that time that we give half a figgin about were sons of the middle class. Shakespeare and Marlowe both were — exactly alike — sons of craftsmen. Yes, Marlowe went to Cambridge as a scholarship boy. It don’t mean nothing. The fact he could qualify to Cambridge and earn the scholarship as a son of the middle class tells us there were means for people to learn not just reading but Latin and Greek too at that social level. It is no more astonishing that he should have become learned than that Shakespeare should have written the plays. And no less. Green was a son of the middle class, too. And there are half a dozen others who — without attaining Shakespeare’s stature, or even Kit’s — are still remembered by name and fragments of plays. ALL sons of the middle class. Often disowned by their families. Theater in those days was NOT an intellectual endeavor. It was entertainment produced by the middle class for the middle class. Consumable, fungible entertainment, at that. 

Second of all, let’s dispose now and for all of the idea that Shakespeare was realy Oxford or Marlowe or what have you. (One of the loonier ideas floated was that he was Queen Elizabeth. ) I can’t stop you believing this if you do — I can’t stop you believing the sky is made of green cheese either. To quote Mr. Marlowe “What we behold is censur’d by our eies. ” But go and read Marlowe — who had serious issues understanding what made people tick or seeing anything redeemable in anyone — and then go read Oxford — who was a victim of “very good” education — and tell me that Marlowe could write Shakespeare without a road to damascus experience that, in effect, changed him into something wholly different; or that Oxford could write Shakespeare without his own mind telling him it was too crude by half and what you really needed was a more mannered approach. Piffle. And pish tosh, too. “once you eliminate the impossible, the remaining solution however unlikely. . . ” or words to that effect. In this case, Occam’s razor will serve. You can believe Kit Marlowe lived past his supposed death and changed personality so completely he could be Shakespeare — and no doubt is still flipping burgers somewhere in a joint owned by Morrison and Presley — or you can believe Will was a son of the middle class, a little more talented than most, who made good in London as did others of his generation. 

The current bit of nonsense above seems to hinge mostly on the fact that the plays are too good to belong to that peasant with mud on his boots. An argument that offends me and irks me. Its innanity should be self evident when one of the people suggests the plays are too good to be written by a single individual. Works of such towering genius have to be collaborations. Yes, yes, this makes perfect sense. ALL the works of genius of humankind are, after all, created by committee. Look up Da Vinci; Mozart;Einstein. ALL really groups of people who just chose to pass as a single person. After all such works could not possibly be created by a single person. And look at everything groups have achieved. Say, Microsoft Windows Vista. CLEARLY group work is far superior to any personal endeavor. How could you doubt it? 

This should be enough to expose the intellect of the person making this claim. If you need more, there’s this absolute gem: “It argues there are few connections between Shakespeare’s life and his alleged works, but they do show a strong familiarity with the lives of the upper classes and a confident grasp of obscure details from places like Italy.” Oh, yes, indeed. Because there were NO pamphlets for sale at the time with stories about all these lands. There were ABSOLUTELY no pamphlets circulating with, say, the story of Romeo and Juliet. NONE. (coff) No, no, Elizabethans existed in a vaccum. As for Shakespeare’s confident grasp of obscure details, suffice it to say his knowledge of geography was much like my older son’s who until recently thought California was a city in the great state of Chicago. 

And do I REALLY need to explain why his will isn’t written in the style of his plays? Must we go into the fact that I doubt Mr. King’s will features a sentient car or a psychotic psychic teen? And I doubt J. K. Rowling is planning to store her will in Gingrots? 

As for making no reference to the plays — there was no copyright in Shakespeare’s day. You got paid for the play when you delivered it. And then you got paid for it again — a MUCH smaller amount — when you allowed someone to print the “accurate” version of your play. By that time several hastilly written copies would already be circulating, copied down by someone who sat through the play. This is — to me — one of those infuriating mistakes. The “It’s this way now, so it was always this way. We have copyright, so that’s the natural law of mankind. ” No. It’s not. Get over it. 

If you need more detailed ranting and rambling — even if the plays were by then famous, play writing was — like acting in the Victorian period, for women — something that could make you famous and rich but which was “not quite respectable. ” Shakespeare kept his wild ways — play writing — in London. At home, for the sake of the family he and his wife were raising, he acted the good father and the solid bourgeois. Remember these plays were about murder, adultery and other such things. Titilating, but not CLEAN. They were not the literary things our reverence for them tends to make them. So much for that. 

Smart people, with no knowledge of Elizabethan England specifically make other arguments — among them that there is no such person as “Shakespeare. ” We do, however, have a record of his baptism, of his schooling, of his lodging in London, of his membership in the King’s Men, etc, etc. Shakespeare is, in fact, one of the better documented lives from Elizabethan England. Which, by the way, isn’t saying much. Even though Elizabethans kept fairly decent records as they were, in the centuries intervening, fires, war, revolutions, etc have put paid to a lot of their repositories. So, how can these people say he’s not documented at all? Well — it all hinges on Elizabethan’s approach to spelling, which would be completely understood by any teenager who uses AIM. “If it can be understood and sounds roughly the same, just spell it like that.”  So, yeah, Mr. Shakespeare makes an appearance as a variety of names including — I think, not sure though, since this is how my mom spells it in joking and it’s therefore stuck in my mind — Shogspierre. 

One of the things I find hillarious is that it never occurs to these people to doubt that Marlowe was Marlowe — this despite the fact that the man spelled his name as Marlin, Merlin, Marlown and an endless array of other names. He spelled other words like that too — in fact, he seemed to have my inability to spell a word the same way twice. Sometimes including “the” and “a”. 

And then there is the piece de resistance — there’s nothing in his life that explains these plays. And I have to tell you this argument has me stumped. It brings to mind this other writer — mind you, nowhere of Shakespeare’s stature or talent — who was born in Portugal, in a family that spoke no English — well, her grandfather spoke a little but it was workingman’s English picked up in South Africa during his years there. Pidgin more than anything else — an in which no one else — that we can find proof — read or commented or published science fiction or fantasy. 

In fact Portugal as far as that goes has a paucity of standard fantasy. Elves and gnomes and the like are not part of local tradition, which tends to be more Catholic in its approach to the fantastic. So HOW in the Heaven’s name could this person — or someone who purports to be her — appear in the US fifteen years later, writing SF/F with a strong Celtic flavor in idiomatic English? 

We have no record of this person’s schooling, either, or much of her existence. While someone with a name that might or might not have been her maiden name attended a college in Portugal, this is really hard to prove as the first name was different and a bunch of names in the middle were missing by the time she started writing.  I mean she calls herself Sarah Marques de Almeida. Someone with a similar name graduated from Stow High School as an exchange student, but, notably, her last name is missing. The rest of her birth name is there — Alice Maria da Silva Marques (they went by Spanish rules in cutting the graduation certificate!)  — but not the last name. So, it’s probably a coincidence. And while we’re at it, there is no record in the archives in Portugal of the marriage of this Alice Maria da Silva Marques de Almeida to anyone named Hoyt and no record of her having acquired citizenship or changed her name. NONE. Now, we know processes to do this are a bit cumbersome and cost money, but surely anyone would have gone through them? Other people at the time did. 

All of Alice’s family’s recorded correspondence and such things as relatives’ death announcements in paper refer to Alice, not Sarah. Clearly this person writing about something so different from her background and evincing knowledge she couldn’t have — let alone in a language not her own — is at worst an impostor and at best an artifact of our lack of knowledge of the times. It’s so unlikely as to be impossible, isn’t it? Particularly when you consider how well documented the twentieth century is. 

So. . . okay, I’ve had my fun. I’m no Shakespeare, more’s the pity, and it’s unlikely everyone will ever care to investigate my biography or to claim me.  BUT if they did the recorded parts are a nightmare of inconsistencies.  And CERTAINLY nothing in my background points to what I write.  Oh, there are links, but you’d have to know me personaly and closely to see them.  Something biographers don’t get, particularly several centuries later.

HOWEVER the reason this argument REALLY bothers me is the following: It excludes people from humanity. It divides humanity into groups and judges them according to the group they fall in.  How, you say? Well, I’ve been thinking a lot lately of the intellectual’s tendency to think in “us” fully human and “not us” who aren’t fully human. Part of this is because of course we understand each other and often not “the other. ” Part of it is because in general we rub elbows only with those like us — our tribe, if you will. But the other part — in our century, where we are sort of a little elite of knowledge if not of money — is that we tend to think of the “benighted” masses as inferior and unable to produce someone/something like us. Or, heaven forbid, better than us.  We are, in our own minds, the chosen few. There’s a tendency to identify with the nobility of old — whose education and writing — at least what survived — were often unimpeachable and whose lives were recorded for posterity. So, of course, Shakespeare must have been a nobleman.  Or at least have a Master’s from Cambridge.  

When I hear these arguments what I hear is the denying that an individual can be wildly different from his place of birth and origin. What I hear is that we’re affirming we’re better than “them”, a nobility of the pen. What I hear is that William Shakespeare couldn’t have been himself, but must have been in fact one just like us or, as was the expression when I was growing up “uma pessoa de bem” — roughly translated as ‘being good ton” (which was also used) — a nobleman by any other name. 

When in fact geniuses like him — or Da Vinci who was almost for sure the illegitimate son of an illiterate young woman — tend to be sudden startling occurrences emerging from the human race like lightening bolts to remind us that genetics and environment arent’ in fact everything — that there is in all of us a spark of the sublime. That humans are more than a sum of their parts.   And that people of great mind and talent can emerge

Okay — right about now you’re thinking “Okay, she’s nuts. Of course I’m for people. I’m people.” Yeah, yeah, that don’t mean nothing bud.

Recently, as with the thread in my conference, I’ve been coming across more and more people — arguably sane, often painstakingly educated, provably intelligent people who hate human beings. The hatred goes from the subtle to the spewingly overt and in all cases it puts me — personally — off.

For an example of subtle — if you haven’t read about Arthur Miller’s issue with his handicapped son, go here

http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/post/PLNK1ECGRMUPNVS22 . 

No, I’m not equating his putting away of his son and what must have been a morally excruciating decision with hatred of humanity in general. However — and I’m not dissing the man, I know he has been read, listened to and loved by more people than my paltry words will ever reach — I think the fact that he was able to put away his son and not think about it, and not think of him as his son till very late in life — this might be more of a male thing, btw. I can’t understand it. Particularly when the conditions the child was brought up in were justifiably bad — is predicated on his view of his Down Syndrome cousin as a useless encumbrance mistreated by his own mother. The interesting thing there is that the rest of his family did not in any way see it in the same light. They remember his handicapped cousin as being challenged, but much loved by his whole family and immeasurably enriching of their lives.

Now I know several families raising handicapped children — some profoundly handicapped. It’s not an easy task and not one I envy PARTICULARLY when the child is mentally or emotionally handicapped. Both times I was pregnant, (And this will doubtlessly repeat itself, should it happen again) I felt like I was playing trades with fate. There was this continuous argument at the back of my mind “if the child must have an issue, let it be a missing limb. Yeah. Missing limbs can be fixed with prosthesis. Or let it be blindness. Terrible, of course, but it can be got around. Or deafness. We can do deafness. Just please don’t let it be mental or emotional.” This, I think, is every parent’s nightmare just because of the difficulties in communication, as well as everything else. When my babies were young and pre-verbal, I’ve been known to run from the house into a snow storm, because they were screaming and I couldn’t figure out why or how to make it better. I can imagine that frustration on and on and on forever.

So I suspect the mother of Arthur Miller’s cousin DID yell at her son now and then in a rage. Heck, I yell at my sons now and then in a rage. (Though usually the younger as we have a serious clash of hormones going on.) And I suspect on the whole, the cousin WAS loved by his family who considered him not a curse but a blessing.

It is that Arthur Miller saw only the curse and not the blessing that I think constitutes a “subtle hatred” of humanity. Or at least of humanities’ failings. Yes, I have watched his plays — repeatedly. They were a favorite of TV in Portugal in the seventies — and I think the same thing comes through. This is a personal opinion, mind, and I do not wish people to deluge me with examples of his compassionate words or his empathy or whatever. I never SAW it or felt it. So reading that Amazon blog I went “Oh. That makes sense.”
For the record, I feel the same way about Christopher Marlowe, whose words I love but whose characters and plots I abhor. Many people have lingered on his “sadism” or his love of blood or whatever. That I can excuse as “writing to market” and also the fact that he was — ultimately — a sheltered intellectual (at least in one version of his bio. <g>) so the idea of great massacres made his pulse pound faster and he wrote it. What I can’t excuse is that all his characters are cold and dingy, “good” as well as “bad.” Compared to Shakespeare, who made you love — or empathize with — even his villains, Marlowe made even his “heros” repulsive.

I think — deep down — that’s how he saw all of humanity.

This kind of subtle — sometimes not so subtle, frankly — hatred of humanity glares at me from a lot of current SF and Fantasy (and Mystery too.) Perhaps it’s my quirk, but the line where that hatred peeks from under the layer of hiding is always where the author or screenwriter loses me. I’m sure it’s my quirk because the Matrix did very well. However, the first time I heard the line “We’re parasites on the face of the Earth.” pronounced earnestly (And like it was the first time anyone said it too — sigh) the movie lost me. Or those movies on the future of evolution — I don’t remember who made them? — that played on animal planet, lo these many years ago. We watched them with the kids and the only way I could continue watching them was to comment sarcastically on the designers open hatred of humanity.

No, don’t argue. It’s not the fact that he forecast our extinction that I considered so repulsive. To a certain extent that was to be expected, the same way it’s to be expected that singers will utter swear words. It’s the shock value. Fine. People who are unsure of their creative powers use foul language (yes, and blood) to make sure they hit the mark. Back when I was fumbling lost in the land of plot and character I wrote a lot more horror and my characters swore a lot more. No. What I found a glaring mark of their hatred for humanity is that ultimately they could not allow ANY simians to survive or even — heaven help us — any mammals. Their hatred of humanity led them to paint out all mammals and ultimately leave the Earth to intelligent — if you haven’t watched it you’ll think I’m crazy — squid-like beings. You’ll say I’m making too much of this example and perhaps I am, but the fact is that hatred of all things human is so common in arts and academia alike that I KNEW before I watched this series how it would end. I KNEW that everything human-like would be erased from the face of the Earth. (Though I confess the extinction of mice threw me. You’d think… never mind.)

And then there was the more overt one — a friend’s father, a member of the earliest fandom of sf/f. He visited our house and was a wonderful man, salt of earth. He played with my — then — toddlers and we had some interesting discussions about science and the news and what not. And then I chanced to meet him, just before 2000. He started talking about Y2k. Yes, I know it was a mooch thing, but he didn’t think it would be and he was looking FORWARD to it. He thought 2/3 of humanity would die and he was gleeful about it because — wait for it — it would thin the herd. Better for the Earth and — he assumed — ultimately better for the species.

This was genocide on a level that not even Hitler or Stalin could aspire to. It was a mass death of the guilty and the innocent. But this man — urbane, well behaved, educated — was looking FORWARD to it. And thought it was deserved.
So… how does this hatred of humanity come about? And why should we care?

It comes about in various ways I think. Most of all, though, I find it in urbane, intelligent, educated people. Our arts and culture community. Our leaders of opinion and thought. And I think it comes about because these people stuck out of the herd. My friend Dave Freer might be able to elucidate this mechanism better than I can from an evolutionary/primate perspective, but I think all of us know that humans will try to knock down and “kill” all those who are too different. And probably most of the people reading this blog know what too different is. You were the kid who sat in a corner with a book and who used words like ‘occluded’ that the other kids thought were insults. Now — I have an idea of how this is worsened in our present times and how our education and society fosters it — but doubtless the hatred of humanity in the particularly capable is fostered at a very early age.

Many of us — like doubtless a very young Christopher Marlowe (and I hope to go into him more, myself first. And the differences in what we know of the bios of Shakespeare and Marlowe as related to their attitude to humanity) — found themselves mocked and derided by people we knew were idiots. We found ourselves back up against a corner in the playground by bullies who objected to our being different. (Yes, some like me came back swinging and learned very early to take on as many bullies as came at one, leading to the dreaded phone calls to mom “your daughter broke so and so’s glasses.” “Your daughter bit so and so and his arm infected.” But most people don’t. Most people, particularly women, for whatever reason, seem to have a good handle on self preservation instincts.) And we conceived a self-defensive and seething hatred for the great mass of humanity except those we allowed inside the magic circle. And even those, we were likely to see through the worst possible lens. And hating all of humanity, of course, we hated ourselves with it — partly because the universal hatred of everyone else towards us had to penetrate at some level and lead us to believe we DESERVED it. As little as we admitted it.

Why should we care about it?

Because a disdain for the unwashed masses, a feeling that we should “save people’s souls” over their sinful bodies, the idea that we should build an ideal “homo sovieticus”, all these have at their root a great hatred for humans. It doesn’t matter if you love humans as they could be. It matters that you hate humans as they ARE. People who hate humans as they are and who try to whittle humanity into what it could be or should be or some such have been responsible for the greatest massacres in history — including the horror show that was the 20th century. And yet, humanity was not markedly improved by any of their efforts.

But shouldn’t you hate a species in which 90% or more could be qualified as unwashed masses? Shouldn’t you try to improve it or whittle it, or narrow it down to the most worthy?

No, listen — it’s not even a case of ipso costodiate costodians (and I’m sure I’m mangling spelling and grammar there, but you get the point — Who Shaves The Barber?) — it’s a case of once that sort of thing starts it never ends. There will never be a “most worthy”. The “genius” who starts killing all the stupid people ends up alone. The “compassionate giver” who hates all mean people ends up finding they are all mean. And it’s the fact that the same way you can’t stand outside the window and watch yourself walk by, certainly you can’t look at humanity from outside and say “this is worthy. this isn’t.” Your views are tainted by your eyes. No other way. Arthur Miller would doubtless, given the chance, having rid his aunt of his Down Syndrome cousin. And in the end would render his family poorer and not see it.

So you say “Okay, fine, do away with all of humanity.” And…. substitute what? The octopi chirping as they swing from trees in primeval forests? Certainly all of you know those are no more than the wishful dreams of less-than-all-there film makers.

Humanity might suck raw eggs, but then what else is there? Do those of you who are past adolescence remember desperately wanting to be someone else? I wanted to be tall and willowy and blonde, to be able to flirt effortlessly and to fit into groups without thinking. Fortunately no mechanism was available to try to implement this. No mechanism is really available to make humanity as onto angels, either. And in the end as the only species we can PROVE (yes, yes, I heard of dolphins and elephants and even casts) is sentient and, more than that, the species we belong to — all we have is this suffering red clay. And there is no way to improve it but to improve ourselves. Wishing for extinction is akin to cutting off your head to cure headache.

And now we’re back on why the idea of why feeding fictional pedophiles to fictional dark shadows bothered me so much.

As I said before, I’m not a pacifist. And I refuse to stand with people who think EVERY life is equally sacred. If this seems a contradiction on what I said above, it’s not really. Look, I am a woman of very little faith. I try to follow one religion. I flirt with another now and then. BUT in the end, in the very end, I’m one of those people who can’t believe without seeing. My internal spiritual life is best described by paraphrasing Jorge Luis Borges. “I pray every night because my grandmother told me to. I have no idea if I’m talking on one end of a disconnected phone.” In fact, I suspect I am. Often.

But… humans… humans are here, and I can touch them, and I can love most of them to a point. Ultimately my most hated political future could become a ‘tolerated acquaintance’ if I knew them personally. And I know that. I’m forever struck by the admirable and lovable, even, in people who are otherwise wastes of oxygen. I’ve found admirable people whose political views I DESPISE. I’ve met people who’d killed other people and found them to be good and worthy in the rest of their lives. I’ve known addicts who made those around them miserable, but who had great qualities — be they generosity or a genuine love of their neighbor.

So, having said this, why am I not against the death penalty? Why am I not a pacifist?

Because I love people. And loving people I understand sometimes — sometimes, in rare cases — death might be the best thing for not just the rest of people but the individual himself. This is when other deaths/destroyed lives would come from the person continuing to live. And I’m not talking about things like “Oh, business men who exploit the masses” — that’s nonsense. I’m not talking about abstractions or degrees of separation or penumbras and emanations. I’m talking about people who by direct action destroy others: Mass murderers; pedophiles; perhaps arsonists if they can’t be treated. Those people, ultimately will only continue making themselves and others miserable. Yes, there are indications that these are illnesses, but they are illnesses we don’t know how to cure and which will destroy innocents.

Life imprisonment doesn’t work in these cases, because frankly, it can stop being for life very easily. Once life imprisonment is the worst punishment available, then people start arguing it down. And then you’re in the position Portugal was in the seventies and eighties — and maybe still — where mass murderers will get out in ten years or so and perhaps earlier. And the life of those on the streets is endangered as is any hope of a civil society.

(I’m not dogmatic on this. If you really believe life imprisonment will keep people out of danger, then do. I won’t dispute — too much. I’m simply more cynical, I guess.)

In the same way, war must happen sometimes — with its inevitable trail of deaths of innocents. (And no, I don’t want any discussion of current events in the comments, lest I bitch slap people.) Which makes it only justifiable if it will save a greater mass of innocents. Under that light, I can’t but say WWII was perfectly justified, regardless of the opinions against it in British and American papers at the time by well meaning people. (Before we entered the war. And yes, there were such arguments. Some eloquent.) Whether we saved Europe’s soul by trampling its body is something else, and yes, I do have an opinion on it, but it’s a discussion in its own, probably running to several pages, because I do go on…

Anyway, if you look at death penalty and more broadly at “he needed killing” not as a revenge thing or a consummation devoutly to be wished for, but as something you do because it MUST be done — because it’s the only thing that will save the greatest number of innocents — then the idea of feeding even the bodies of pedophiles to inhuman and supernatural shadows will revolt you. Whether pedophilia is an illness — mental or genetic or whatever — or simply a human failing — just a particularly repulsive one — these people are still human. Amid the darkness, there will be occasional glimmers of light. They — all of them, every human alive — were once innocent babies. Chances are better than even that any piece of scum on the street was once someone’s beloved little boy or girl.

We might need to eliminate them to keep the community safe, but what remains in them of our own humanity — the mirror of our own worthiness — demands that we recoil from things like feeding them to another species, real or imaginary.

The rest — the idea of the great things to come once we just eliminate or purify humanity — is for the chirping, tree dwelling octopi.

 

 

The Many Inconveniences Of A Sin Of Vanity; Flying and Fighting;

Murder Done

 

 

Monsieur Pierre Du Vallon – a huge man with broad shoulders and a wealth of red hair and beard – knew that his besetting sin was vanity.

Oh, he wouldn’t put it that way, though his friend, Aramis often put it just that way. If pressed, Monsieur du Vallon, whom the world had known for years as the Musketeer Porthos, would say that he knew himself to be a well set man, twice as broad, twice as strong, twice as valiant as all others. Pushed further, he might admit he had a fine taste in clothes and that his sword play was the best ever seen. This he did not consider vanity, as such, but a mere statement of facts. It only seemed to him odd that most people refused to acknowledge these truths.

That this made him particularly vulnerable to the admiration of those who did know Porthos’s true worth, Porthos would be the first to admit. It had been Aramis’s admission that Porthos was the best fencing master in Paris which had caused Porthos to try to teach the effete young man – then known as Chevalier D’Herblay – how to fence in time for an impending duel. It had, however, been Porthos’s real worth as a teacher that had allowed Aramis to kill his opponent in that duel – in direct violation of the king’s edict against dueling. And this in turn had forced both D’Herblay and Du Vallon – his second in the duel – to go into hiding, as Aramis and Porthos in the king’s musketeers.

None of which, Porthos thought as he stood in the middle of the vast, empty room, explained why he found himself now waiting for a student who was a good two hours late.

The student, Guillaume D’Jaucourt had approached Porthos a month ago and had told Porthos that he knew Porthos’s secret. He knew Porthos’s true identity. Porthos had shrugged this off, because who would listen to a son of minor nobility, a young boy just turning twelve. And besides, Porthos was fairly sure that the king and Monsieur de Treville, captain of the musketeers, knew his identity. He was fairly sure, even, that it was an open secret in the court. It was only that – Porthos thought – as long as no one could prove it, the king didn’t need to punish Porthos for Du Vallon’s trespass.

But then the young man – who had begged Porthos to teach him fencing – had said that Du Vallon had been universally acknowledged as the best fighter and sword master in all of Paris – which is to say in all the world.

Porthos’s inability to resist hearing the truth thus stated, had made him agree to teach the boy to fence. And he’d done just that for weeks. The youth – a stripling promise of future manhood – had proven deft with the sword, capable of parrying and thrusting with the best of them, and with fast and deceptive enough footwork to rival Porthos’s own.

Not that Guillaume was ready to fight duels. He was all of twelve, with dark read auburn hair, grey eyes and an intent, serious expression. He’d listened most attentively to Porthos instructions not to duel. After all, the Musketeers didn’t take boy recruits. But he’d proven a willing student, ready and capable of great work.

He’d always been on time. Punctual like an Englishman. It was only today that he was late. Very late. And Porthos found himself worried against his wishes.

The room where Porthos stood was in the bottom of floor of the lodgings he rented. Situated at the back, it faced the garden and the back gate. It had been – in the distant past when the house had been built and when this area of Paris had still held fields and farmers – the loggia of the building, the place where harvest was brought in and fruits and vegetables stored.

Vast and cool and windowless, it got all its light from the door when it was opened. Why the landlord hadn’t converted it into rooms to rent, Porthos didn’t know nor care. But when he’d found out that this room sat here, unused, at the back and bottom of the house, he’d made it his business to ask the landlord for the use of it.

Given the musketeer’s size and girth, few men of normal size thought to say no to him. And so Porthos, and his friends – Aramis, Athos and D’Artagnan – had for some time commanded the use of this room for their sword practices. Musty and smelling of long-disuse and dried apples, it was nonetheless broad enough and secret enough they could have mock duels without calling on them the wrath of the Cardinal Guards with their fanatical enforcement of the prohibition on duels. And here they didn’t have to listen to comments and heckling from other musketeers as they did when they practiced at Monsieur de Treville’s residence.

Aramis had snickered and said it was vanity that had led Porthos to line the narrow space with many mirrors. And though Porthos felt aggrieved by the accusation, he did not know how to defend himself.

For there was this in Porthos, able, accomplished giant that he was – that words scared him more than any foe might whom he could meet in field of battle or duel. Words slipped through his mind, where sounds and sights and senses resounded as clearly as church bells on a silent summer afternoon.

So he lacked the words to explain to Aramis the mirrors were there for two reasons – one to propagate what little light came through the open door. And another, to allow him to study his movements and those of his opponents when they practiced sword play. If it allowed him to examine the excellent cut of his doublets, the fullness of his hat plume and the way his broad, ankle-long venetians molded his muscular legs, so much the better.

But now he looked in the mirror and did not see that. Instead, above the worn linen pants and tunic, in which he’d dressed for the lesson, he saw a pale, intent face with dark blue eyes staring in puzzled wonder.

Because Guillaume hadn’t come.

And this, he told himself, might not mean anymore than that the boy had been stopped by a zealous father or an officious mother. From things the boy hadn’t said, from hints and notions and occasional mentions of his family, Porthos understood they didn’t mean for him to learn to fight.

Why, Porthos couldn’t hazard to guess. Who understood parents, anyway? Porthos’s own father hadn’t wanted his son to learn to read, being fully convinced that learning to read would soften and feminize his huge son. Porthos hadn’t been able to master reading until he’d come to Paris in search of his fortune.

Perhaps Guillaume’s father intended the boy for the church and perhaps he subscribed to the – not particularly popular – notion that churchmen should be men of peace. In which case, Porthos should introduce him to Aramis, who had once been a seminarian and who still considered himself in training for the habit, but who could wield the sword with murderous skill and intent.

Still, Porthos told his very worried-looking reflection – Guillaume’s absence meant nothing. Absolutely nothing. Just that his family had caught him sneaking out of their lodgings. Or perhaps that the boy had changed his mind about wanting to learn sword play. Which meant Porthos should never have agreed to teach him in the first place. Or not for free. At least if he’d demanded money the boy might have taken the whole thing more seriously.

The Porthos in the mirror ignored these rational reassurances. He bit worriedly at the corner of his lip. Porthos grumped, and smoothed his moustache out of his mouth and glared at his reflection.

The reflection glared right back, his eyes full of worry. Worry for what? The boy was fine. He’d missed one lesson. What was there to that?

Porthos’s thick fingers pulled and stroked frantically at his luxuriant red moustache. What was there to it? Only this. That the boy had been so intent, so decided, so capable of hard work, that Porthos refused to believe he would give up on his lesson so easily.

And because Porthos had made sure the child understood that he wouldn’t continue teaching him unless he showed for every lesson punctually, Guillaume would know that this one miss could mean the end of his apprenticeship.

The Porthos in the mirror looked triumphant, justified in his worry. And Porthos stomped. God’s Blood! So, the boy was late. And so, perhaps something had happened to him. What was Porthos to do to that? He was not the boy’s father.

And on this there was a sharp feeling of something that inarticulate Porthos would never find the words to describe. He had the sudden forlorn feeling that, had life been different – had his family lands not been poor and forsaken and inhabited by peasantry just as poor and forsaken; had his father known how to plant the land with newer, more fashionable crops – he would now be married and have a half a dozen children clustering around him. The longing for that life that had never happened surprised him. He would have liked half a dozen broad shouldered sons, clustering around him, learning sword fighting and horseback riding from him, and admiring their father’s strength and courage.

He growled at the Porthos in the mirror, whose image was giving him these ideas and, removing his hat, flung it with force to the dusty stone floor of the room. Oh, curse it all. God’s Death! What was he to do about this? And what did Guillaume have to do with these children that Porthos had never had and would probably never have?

What he had to do, the frowning, worried reflection seemed to tell Porthos, is that Porthos had enjoyed Guillaume’s company as if Guillaume were a replacement for those sons Porthos would never have. And the boy had responded to Porthos that way too. He’d listened to him with full attention and learned to repeat his movements faultlessly.

No. Nothing short of a major disaster would have prevented such a determined and cunning boy from coming to his lesson.

Slowly, Porthos picked up his hat and dusted its plume. The devil of it was that he had no idea at all where the boy came from. Oh, the child had told him his name, but D’Jaucourt was not a name that Porthos knew. It must be the name of a family recently come to Paris from the provinces and probably renting lodgings meaner than Porthos’s own from some landlord, in some part of town. What part of town, only God himself knew. That is, if He had paid any attention to such an unimportant matter.

Porthos hadn’t bothered to find the family home because the child was clearly coming to his lessons in secret – but assiduously.

As a huge sigh escaped his lips, Porthos wondered how to track someone – how to find them and discover if a mishap had befallen them when you didn’t know where they were coming from or what their route was to get here?

He walked to the door and looked down at the garden, slumbering in the early morning cool soon to turn into heated midday of very late summer. Very well. So, he knew that the child came in through the garden gate at the back.

Without much thought, without much more than a need to move, a need to do something, Porthos walked impatiently down the garden path, past the kitchen garden with its parched-looking rows of herbs, and down, past an area where trees shaded the path, to the unpainted, rickety gate at the back that had been barely visible from the practice room’s door.

He opened the gate, satisfied at its shriek, and looked out at the broad plaza back there. Back here, truly, you wouldn’t know you were in Paris. This garden gate opened to a bucolic landscape – the back of several houses, narrow alleys running between the tall walls that encircled gardens.

There was a vague scent of roses in the air, and Porthos remembered that Guillaume had come in yesterday with a rose in his cap – a bright red rose with wide-spread petals, of the sort that often grew along the lanes of Porthos native village. Guillaume had said they were flowering just up the lane from here.

Like a dog on the trail, Porthos followed the strong scent of roses across the plaza. Peering down a lane, he saw a straggle of nearly wild roses pushing over the top of a rickety stone wall. The roses were exactly the same color and look as the one Guillaume had worn.

Convinced he at least knew the boy had come this way, Porthos trotted down the narrow alley. It was barely wide enough for his shoulders and it was hemmed in by two very long, very high walls, both of which, from the noise and talks emerging from beyond them, probably hid to communal gardens shared by several rental houses or houses filled with rental rooms.

At the end of the alley, another alley ran across it, forming as if the top of a t. Porthos frowned. Right or left? If he went right, and the boy was coming in, late, from the left, he would miss him completely. And then Guillaume would wonder where Porthos had gone.

What had Guillaume said about his route here? What that might give Porthos a clue as to where the boy came from?

Vaguely, because he hadn’t been paying much attention, Porthos remembered that Guillaume had complained of the heat of a smithy he passed on the way here. It had been a couple of weeks ago, when August was at its hottest, the sun beating Paris to a red heat, as though it had been metal laying on Vulcan’s own forge.

And now straining his ears, Porthos could ear as if hammers on metal. From the right. He hastened down the right side of the alley, till he came to a busy forge. It took up the bottom space of a tall house, but it had at least three doors, all of them open to the day. There were anvils with sweating men pounding on them, and there were boys working frantically at the bellows, and there was a nobleman – from the attire – in a corner, holding a nervous white horse who was being shoed by two muscular young men.

Porthos bit at the corner of his moustache. So – there was a forge. Pray heaven it was the right one. Now… from here…

Something about a fish monger’s. Just down the street. Porthos’s nose led again, till he came to a fish monger’s in a huge plaza. From there so many roads led on that Porthos found himself quite at a loss. Until he remembered Guillaume admiring Porthos’s new boots and saying that he’d seen some at the cobblers on the way here, but that his father would never give him money for them.

Peering down the streets, Porthos found the cobblers. From there, he remembered the boy making some mention of a tavern at the end of an alley and how musketeers sometimes drank there. The boy hadn’t wanted to discuss the tavern much, but he’d told Porthos it was the Hangman.

From Porthos’s foggy memories of being led by Athos to every tavern in Paris, when Athos was in one of his drinking moods, Porthos found the alley that led to the back of the Hangman.

He walked down half the alley before he saw the boy. At first, he thought it was just a pile of clothes, though the clothes were purple velvet and the hat had a plume uncommonly like Guillaume’s. It was crumpled against a wall, on the muddy ground of the alley at the back of the tavern.

But when Porthos approached, his big feet raising dull echoes from the packed dirt, the bundle near the wall stirred, the hat went up, and a flushed, haggard face with bulging blue eyes stared at Porthos.

“Guillaume,” Porthos said. “What is wrong, boy?”

The boy looked at Porthos. His eyes were wide, and shiny but didn’t seem to see him. “The angels,” he said. “The angels flying.” He was very red.

“Oh, here, boy. How much did you drink?” Porthos asked, feeling annoyed with Guillaume and with himself. It was clear the boy had got hold of wine somewhere. Clumsily, Porthos reached for the boy and tried to make him stand, but he only flopped around like an ill-stuffed rag doll.

Guillaume’s arms moved, outward. “Flying,” he said.

And here, Porthos was momentarily confused. The boy was flushed, and he acted drunk, but there was no smell of alcohol about him. Could he have gone mad? Or was he ill?

“Here,” Porthos said, trying to support the boy as he would one of his comrades when wounded or drunk.

But the boy twisted and convulsed.

“Thirsty,” he said. “Very thirsty.”

Porthos, despairing of holding him firm, finally lifted him up and threw him over his shoulder. He would take Guillaume back to his lodgings then call on Aramis. Aramis knew nearly anything and everyone. If the boy was sick, Aramis was the best person to find the boy’s family. Sick or mad, they would need to know.

Porthos hurried back towards his lodging at a semi-run. The boy, thrown over his shoulder, talked constantly, but not of anything that Porthos could see. “Beautiful,” he’d say. “Angels. Flying. Flying. Birds. The sky is so blue.”

These words, as they walked through narrow, darkened alleys made the hair at the back of Porthos’s neck stand up. It was as if the boy were talking of some reality only he could see.

Suddenly he stopped and convulsed, then again. There was a sound like a startled sigh.

It didn’t surprise Porthos when he put the boy down on the floor of the practice room to find the boy had died. Still he checked it, with a finger laid against the boy’s neck, a hand searching for a heart beat that wasn’t there.

At long last, he stood and slowly removed his hat in respect for the small corpse with his wide-open eyes, his expression of surprise.

Guillaume D’Jaucourt was dead. Who knew from what? Who knew how to contact his family? Who could break the news to them? And – if murder had been done – who could ensure the killer was found?

Athos, Aramis, D’Artagnan. The names of his friends, the other three of what all called the four inseparables, came unbidden to Porthos mind. He never doubted it.

Slamming the hat back down on his head, he left the practice room, closing the door gently behind him. Athos, noble as Scipio and twice as wise, Aramis, learned in theology and the labyrinthine ways of Parisian society, D’Artagnan the young, cunning Gascon. Those three would know how to help Porthos seek justice for his apprentice.

 

 

 

Up and Down The Staircase; Alarm and Peril

The Demands of Friendship

 

The two men looked as different as two men could look. Early morning, on the marble staircase that led from the antechamber of Monsieur de Treville’s antechamber to his private office, they fought a mock duel for the right to ascend the staircase.

Defending it, on the higher step, was a dark haired, pale skinned man. His features would have made a classical sculptor weep and his zeal-burned dark blue eyes could have graced a mystic or a saint. But he stood, sword in hand, with the adept grace of the veteran duelist. His tight laced, Spanish cut doublet and knee-breeches, now more than a decade out of fashion, lent him a timeless air and also the air of one who would have control over his own body.

His name was Athos and had been Athos ever since he’d joined the musketeers to hide who knew what shame or disgrace. Throughout Paris it was rumored that he came from the highest nobility and that his crime was such that, if named, it would cause the heavens to shudder.

The rumors were almost right. Before assuming the musketeer’s uniform as other men take the penitent’s cowl, the man had been Alexandre, Count de la Fere, descended from one of the oldest and most honored noble houses in the kingdom. And the sin for which he sought to atone was the execution of his countess for what had then seemed to him sufficient reason – but which seemed more monstrous with each passing year and more unjustified with each new rigor of his chosen penance.

Facing him, on the step below was a man in his mid twenties. With his long blond hair, his soft, supple clothes that dripped with lace and screamed with edging and which gave him the appearance of a dandy, he might look soft and effeminate. No one who saw him would retain the illusion long and certainly not after seeing the feline leaps, the graceful falls, the seemingly careless lunges of his sword play.

He called himself Aramis and said he was merely sojourning in the musketeers till he considered himself worthy of joining a monastical order. Indeed, only some years ago, as the young and naive Rene Chevalier D’Herblay, he’d been a seminarian in Paris, intent on taking the orders for which his pious mother had destined him from birth.

But D’Herblay’s weakness was women. And unfortunately women showed the same propensity towards him. Which was why he’d been found reading the lives of saints to a lady of slightly less pure reputation than her family would wish. In the resulting duel he’d killed the lady’s brother. Because dueling was illegal, ever since then he’d been hiding in the Musketeers, under the name of Aramis.

Now he climbed the stair, pressing his friend close, his thrusts so carefully aimed that they did no more than slit the fabric of Athos’s doublet.

“You really must learn to cover your right,” he told Athos with a smile that might pass as a smirk. Athos frowned.

Aramis smirked more widely. There was an excitement in taunting Athos. Aramis had known his friend long enough and seen him in close enough situations that he realized inside Athos there was as if a wild beast, looking out and snarling in fury and held in check only by Athos’s intellect and Athos’s conscience. There was the feeling that at any moment the control might slip loose and the beast escape the confinement of the well trained nobleman.

But not now, and not over a game. Instead, Athos smiled back, one of his rare smiles, this one tinged with the amusement someone might feel towards an impertinent child. He charged down the stairs, pressing Aramis close and making Aramis sweat in trying to parry all the thrusts.

The rules of this game, as it was played by the corps of musketeers — the best sword fighters in the reign of his Majesty Louis XIII of France — were that the first to be pressed all the way up the stairs to the landing in front of the door to the office of Monsieur de Treville, their captain, or the first one to be pushed all the way down the stairs and off the steps altogether would lose the game. The loss usually involved many jokes from all their comrades and, inevitably, a round of forfeited drinks stood by the loser and a round of celebratory drinks by the winner.

Aramis had no intention of losing. He’d lost the last three times he’d played this game with Athos, and the one he’d played it with Porthos. He’d not yet succeeded in challenging the cunning Gascon, D’Artagnan, to this past time. The cunning newcomer to their group had a way of smiling and ignoring the best taunts and challenges from the rest of them. Unnerving when it had been so easy to challenge him to a duel on his first day in Paris. One must conclude either that the Gascon had grown prudent – something as unlikely as a fish growing wings – or that he valued his purse higher than his life. This last was quite likely, particularly as his purse, like that of the rest of them, was so often empty.

Aramis’s was not exactly brimming with coin just now, and he knew while he might be able to forego paying drinks as a winner by pleading poverty, he could never forego paying the forfeited drinks to the winner and any hangers-ons should he lose. And Athos could drink most men in Paris under the table, while showing no other sign of inebriation than a profound and growing melancholy.

On this thought, Aramis found himself on the very last step of the stairs, defending himself ineptly with his sword held too close to his body, while Athos charged down the steps, his lips curled in that curious snarl-look they got when he was near claiming victory. Seeing Athos like this, always raised the question whether the musketeer would remember in time that this was a friendly game and stop himself from spearing his friend through.

Aramis was fairly sure he would and yet he was not willing to lose the remaining content of his purse. Making use of his agility, which was his greatest asset in any duel, he made as if to leap down, then ducked under Athos’s sword arm and came at him from the other side, pushing Athos’s sword out of the way with his doublet-padded fore-arm, and physically forcing his friend to take three steps up hastily. This gave Aramis room enough to lope upwards two steps and reengage Athos in sword play.

 

From beneath came the sound of shouted encouragements. “There’s life in Aramis yet.” And “For a priest, he doesn’t fight badly.” And, of course, “He is right, Athos does leave his right shoulder shamefully uncovered.”

All of it followed by the clink of coins that indicated that bets were being made and paid by the mass of musketeers down there, in the waiting room.

Aramis tried to ignore them, as he concentrated on pushing Athos up yet another couple of steps, an intention that Athos resisted with his not inconsiderable skill at parrying. In a way these mock duels were harder than the real duels, where Aramis could simply have tried to thrust his sword through his opponent’s heart. But he would never injure Athos, or not voluntarily.

Together, Athos, Aramis, Porthos and even the newcomer, D’Artagnan, had dueled and bled. Their friendship had been cemented by a hundred instances of mutual defense, a thousand shared secrets. They could no more kill each other than they could commit suicide. One would feel much like the other at any rate. And not killing Athos while forcing him up the steps was harder than it would have been to kill just about anyone. After all, they’d practiced and fought together so long, each knew the other very well and every move could be antecipated.

It was easiest of all to fight each other to a standstill. To get through, Aramis must block every thought and every move that didn’t have anything to do with sword and footwork, and the unyielding body in front of him… He must forget it was Athos. Only remember he must not kill him. He must…

With swords clashing, in the sound of metal, and, with their swords gripped between them and held upright, with too little room to move, Aramis pressed forward with his body, forcing Athos up one step, two, another… Very quickly.

And then Athos recovered his balance. And on that balance came the ineluctable fact that Athos weighed more than Aramis – his rather solid mass of muscle and bone still looked lean enough but was by far more hefty than Aramis’s gracile figure. Once Athos had firmly planted his feet, Aramis could not budge him.

Athos speaking through his teeth said, “Will you claim forfeit, Aramis?”

From his voice, it was hard to tell whether it was a taunt or whether he truly meant for Aramis to forfeit the game and concede defeat, even though the younger musketeer was nowhere near losing. From Athos’s maddened dark blue eyes, too, it was hard to tell if he even remembered what humor was.

“Sangre dieu, Athos,” Aramis said. “Would I forfeit?”

“Well,” Athos said. “Then I have no choice but to make sure you lose.” And on that the larger musketeer gave his friend a shove.

Aramis caught himself quickly. A foot behind to recover his balance, and no harm really done, and then – from the door to the antechamber, a familiar voice calling, “Aramis!”

He turned, without even thinking. He turned, half ready to scold Porthos for interrupting him at his game, and then he saw Porthos.

The huge redhead whose ancestors, doubtless, had come to the coasts of France in long ships, was not dressed in the style in which he usually permitted himself to appear in public. That was the first thing strange about it all, because Porthos was vain as a peacock and his normal attire in public was twice as bright as any bird’s plumage. Aramis could not remember his friend ever having appeared in public in this attire of worn linen breaches and a tunic that looked like a beggar would disdain it. No. Aramis had seen Porthos in these clothes, but only in the practice room, in the privacy of Porthos’s own lodgings.

In the normal course of things, Porthos would rather – much rather – die than be seen in public in this shabby a display. But, worse, the face above the clothes looked like Porthos had already died. Pale and bloodless, with a greyish tinge to the lips, Porthos’s skin made his eyes look unnaturally bright, his hair and beard a screaming scarlet stain.

“Porthos,” Aramis said. And thinking no more of his duel or his potential forfeiting of money to buy enough drinks to fill the Seine – or satisfy Athos – he jumped over the elaborate railing of the staircase and landed, sword still in hand, in a hastily cleared space in the hall below.

Too late he realized he had probably forfeited the contest, and was not reassured by the sound of Athos’s landing on the mosaic floor behind him. Not reassured as far as losing the contest, at least but reassured by Athos’s support. He heard Athos sheathe his sword and remembered to sheathe his own.

The crowd was parting between him and Porthos. Though they were all musketeers, battle hardened and ready to defend themselves against many foes, few had the body to obstruct Porthos’s progress. The sheer bulk of Porthos would clear the way. And few of them would stand in front of Athos or Aramis either.

So as the crowd melted away and pressed out of their path, on either side of the room, Aramis and Athos met with Porthos.

Porthos was silent – which in itself was strange, after demanding their attention so forcefully. He looked from one to the other of them, and then at the staircase and the railing over which Aramis had jumped. He frowned, as though trying to make sense of something particularly difficult. “Sorry I interrupted your game,” he said.

“The game matters not,” Athos said. “We can finish another time.”

And, as Aramis let out breath relieved at not being held to forfeit, Porthos nodded. “It’s very important, see? He’s dead.”

“Who is dead, who?” Aramis asked, his impatience tempered by concern. He would easily have been the first to admit that his friend was inarticulate and had a difficult time expressing himself. But today Porthos seemed inarticulate even for himself. As if he were in shock. And why would Porthos be in shock at someone’s death? Death was their profession and their companion, walking by their side night and day.

“Who is dead? Who?” he asked, in alarm and, lowering his voice, as the horrible thought occurred to him that he’d not seen the young Gascon since last night. “Not… D’Artagnan?”

But Porthos’s eyes widened in surprise, as if D’Artagnan’s death had never occurred to him, and then he shook his huge leonine head. “No. Not him. The boy. My apprentice.”

Apprentice? Frowning, unable to understand of what Porthos spoke, Aramis realized that other musketeers were listening in on their conversation and that a hushed silence had fallen in the room.

Before he could think what this meant, he heard a well known voice yell, from upstairs, the entrance to the Captain’s office, “Athos, Porthos, Aramis.”

Aramis turned to see a musketeer – who had been in conference with the captain – skulk down the stairs. At the top of the stairs Monsieur de Treville stood, glaring down at them.

 

Though he was as olive skinned and as short as their friend D’Artagnan, who came up barely to Aramis’s shoulder and no more than to Porthos chest, there was not a man in the room that wouldn’t swear Monsieur de Treville was at least twelve feet tall. And each and everyone of them would have allowed himself to be – cheerfully – cut into ribbons for the captain.

Which was why Aramis’s breath caught in his throat as the Captain said, “If the three of you, gentlemen, would come in to my office, I’d like to be a part of your conference.”

Without a word, Aramis turned to obey. And found that Athos was already ahead of him, running up the stairs. But he had to reach for Porthos’s arm and pull before the giant musketeer realized he must obey. That he hadn’t jumped to the captain’s order meant something was very wrong indeed.

 

 

Monsieur de Treville’s Displeasure; Secrets Kept; Where Plots and Treason Lurk in Every Corner

 

“Am I to understand,” Monsieur de Treville asked, frowning, and rounding on Athos, as he entered the office, “That your young friend, D’Artagnan, got himself killed?”

Athos whipped his plumed hat from his head and inclined slightly. In the anteroom he never bothered remove his headgear, but here, and in the presence of his superior, he had to. “I don’t believe so, Monsieur de Treville. At least Porthos said no. Didn’t you, Porthos?”

 

He looked sideways towards his red-headed friend, to see him standing there, beside Aramis, his mouth half-open and a look of confused thought on his broad features, for all the world as though Athos had just asked him an insoluble question.

Aramis who could be as impatient as any of them with Porthos’s slowness looked shocked at Porthos’s silence. He reached out and shook Porthos arm. “Porthos!” he said. “It is not D’Artagnan who is dead, is it?”

“What?” Porthos said, as though waking. He looked at the captain as though noticing him for the first time, and, whipping his hat from his head fanned himself with it. “No, it’s not D’Artagnan.” He looked around, and homed in on one of the three armchairs that faced a broad desk. He dropped into one of them and only then seemed to notice the surprised look on the face of the Captain who remained standing. “I beg your pardon, Monsieur de Treville,” he said then. “It’s been a hell of a shock.”

For a moment it all hung in the balance. Athos’s memory extended back over the years when they’d all gotten excoriated in this office for small offenses and big, ranging from having allowed themselves to be defeated in a duel by guards of the cardinal to the recent and horrible time when Monsieur de Treville had been convinced that Aramis had murdered his mistress. For an offense like Porthos’s – of sitting down in the captain’s office without the captain’s permission – it could go either way. The captain could laugh it off or he could yell at the musketeer in terms that would peal the skin of an elephant.

The shrewd dark eyes of the captain narrowed as his gaze swept over Porthos. And perhaps because he noticed the musketeer’s unusual pallor, his look of stunned shock, Monsieur de Treville sighed and shrugged.

“Who is dead, Porthos?” he said. “And why do you announce it in my antechamber, thus starting the gossip flowing?” As he spoke, he walked around his own desk, and sat down in his own chair. He waved to Aramis and Athos. “You may sit down as well, gentlemen, since Monsieur Porthos took the initiative.”

Again there was the little surprised motion, as if Porthos hadn’t fully woken till then. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Shouldn’t I have sat down? What…”

“No,” Monsieur de Treville said firmly. “Never mind that. Only tell us who is dead.”

“My apprentice,” Porthos said. “The boy.”

“What boy?” Aramis cut in impatiently, mirroring the impatience that Athos himself was starting to feel. “We did not have the pleasure of knowing that you had an apprentice.”

Porthos shrugged. “I did not see any reason to tell you since it didn’t involve you.”

Athos waited for Porthos to go on and when nothing issued from Porthos’s lips, he prompted. “Well, will you tell us now?”

“I believe I must,” Porthos said. He sighed. “Since otherwise I might never know who murdered the boy.”

“Oh, so it is murder you’ve alarmed my antechamber with,” Monsieur de Treville said, his voice just caught between amusement and impatience.

This Athos could understand, since Porthos often caused both feelings in him. The gigantic musketeer from Normandy was not, at the best of times, a master of rhetoric. In fact, many of the men who assembled in the antechamber right now took him for a simpleton and marveled that such men as Athos and Aramis associated with him. And most of them attributed their friendship to charity.

But the truth was that Athos — who’d despaired of heaven on that day when he’d left his wife swinging by the neck from a low branch in his domain of la Fere and abandoned both title and lands to come to Paris and become a musketeer – had very little interest in charity and very little interest in those who were his intellectual inferiors. He knew that in Porthos’s huge head, beneath the wealth of red hair, worked a brain at least as fast as his own and probably faster. Time and again, in difficult situations, it had been Porthos who had cut through the fog of confusion and theories to see the plain truth: a gift far rarer than seeing the complex truth.

It was just that Porthos – who had once been a dance master; who was unequaled with sword, and whose thought could follow complex puzzles – found his way to words difficult and barred, as though his words must reach the world, one at a time through a small slit in a thick wall.

Now, having declared that he must tell them about his apprentice he’d ground again into silence. His huge fingers played with the gold braid on the edge of his hat and he looked attentively down at them, as though hypnotized by their movement.

“Porthos, you must speak,” Athos said, commanding his voice to gentleness. His life had schooled him little in such. His father had demanded much of him, from manliness to courage, but never tenderness and never charity to those weaker than himself. He’d been inclined to it at any rate, as a young man who read much and thought more. But he’d had to leave tenderness and finer feeling behind after his wife Charlotte’s death. After Charlotte’s murder. “Porthos,” he said, again a little louder, as Porthos turned to look at him. “You must tell us who your apprentice is and why he’s dead and why you’re here.”

Porthos shook his head as though to clear it. “He was Guillaume Joucourt,” he said. “And he came to me to learn swordfighting. And he died just a little while ago. He’s in my practice room. I’m not sure he was murdered, of course. I think he was poisoned.”

“He came to you to learn swordfighting?” Aramis asked. “In the name of all that’s holy, why? Why would anyone come to you for sword fighting lessons?”

Porthos looked wounded, then shrugged. “You did. Once.”

“You were a sword master then. It is different,” Aramis said.

And Monsieur de Treville’s voice cut in, cold and sensible and holding only the slightest tinge of that amusement that Porthos’s caused in most people when they weren’t exasperated at him. “Did he know who you were, Porthos? Or suspect?”

Porthos shrugged, then nodded. “He came to me,” he said. “And tried to blackmail me into teaching him,” he said. “He was,” the huge hand was held up at about his shoulder height while sitting. “This tall. And a stripling with barely as much width to his whole trunk as one of my legs. Redheaded. Freckled. With pimples starting. And he told me I had to help him learn to fight with a sword or he would tell the world my secret.”

“And you taught him?” Athos asked.

Porthos looked up. Suddenly he smiled. For the first time since he’d come in looking dismal and cold and lost, he looked like himself. “Not because of the blackmail,” he said. “Look, he was a child. Barely twelve. And all of us when we were children, we were subjected to our parents’ whims. My father didn’t want me to learn to read, and Aramis’s mother didn’t want him to learn to fight. And Athos–” he stopped. Their eyes met and Porthos’s smile died entirely away and he shrugged.

Athos wondered what he’d been about to say. Porthos and Athos had never, that he knew, discussed Athos’s upbringing. In fact, of all of them, he was the one who’d ever been least inclined to speak of his upbringing and background. They might know of the crime that had sent him into the musketeers, to flee his conscience more than anything else. But of the time before that, they knew nothing. Athos was not curious enough to ask. Porthos had an inconvenient habit of knowing the truth. He looked away from Porthos and at Monsieur de Treville sitting judge-like behind his desk.

“Well, I felt that sometimes parents don’t know what’s best for their child,” Porthos said. His voice had lost some of its force but regained it as he went on. “And Guillaume’s parents might not want him to learn to fight, and they might intend him for the church, but some of our best fighters have been men in orders and some of our best religious men have been fierce swordsmen.”

“Indeed,” Aramis said, not without irony. “His eminence Cardinal Richelieu, himself.”

It was like Porthos not to take this for a challenge but to accept it as a comment, Athos thought. Because Richelieu had indeed been a fierce duelist in his youth.

Porthos clearly saw nothing wrong with the mention of him. “Like him,” he said. “So I thought what harm does it do to teach Guillaume a little sword play, if he can get away from his parents to learn? What ill does it do? Who cares?”

“His parents perhaps,” Aramis said, his voice cutting cold.

“Well, perhaps,” Porthos said, and shrugged. “But I figured soon enough and somehow that boy would be out on his own recognizance and he would do as he pleased. And if he was that desperate to learn that he went through the trouble of finding out who I was and of coming to me,” He spread his hands across the top of his hat. “I thought the least I could do is teach him.”

“And did his family find out?” Athos asked sharply. “Are you sure he died by poison and not from a beating? Some parents…”

Porthos shook his head. “No marks on him. Almost for sure poison, unless someone hit him on the head. He was talking about angels and flying.”

Aramis, facing Athos over Porthos’s inclined head quirked an eyebrow. Athos shrugged. It could be anything. The boy’s father might have found out and punished him severely. But why should he? “Wouldn’t it have been easier for the parents to prevent the boy from coming to lessons?” he said.

“Exactly,” said Monsieur de Treville. He brought his hands up, with his wrists resting on the polished desk, and touched the tips of his fingers together. “Exactly what I was thinking, Athos. I was also thinking that no matter how determined to devote the child to the church few parents would view this delinquency as little more than a show of spirit.”

“And if they were determined to send him to the church,” Aramis said. “They were more likely to punish him by making him repeat maxims of the testament or study his theology.” Somehow he managed an audible shudder in his disciplined, well-bred voice.

Porthos raised his eyebrows but said nothing.

“Exactly,” Monsieur de Treville said again, and then, looking straight at Porthos. “Jaucourt, you said? Not a name known to me. A noble family, you think?”

“He referred to his father as the gentleman Jaucourt,” Porthos said.

“I’ve never heard of them,” Monsieur de Treville said. “Of course there are many families come from provincial domains in search of fortune or royal favor in Paris whose names wouldn’t be known to me. But usually, if a family is at court, some rumor of their presence, some reference to one of their retainers, reaches my ears.” He wiggled his fingers against each other and seemed immersed in black thoughts. “Did he ever tell you how he found out your true identity, Porthos?”

“Sir?” Porthos asked, puzzled.

“If he was truly twelve,” Monsieur de Treville said. “Or thereabouts, surely he can’t have done a great deal of searching out the truth on his own. How would he come by it?”

Porthos shrugged. “It’s… People know it, Captain. I lived in Paris before I joined the musketeers.” He opened his hands and if to signal the obvious. “And I’m not exactly one of those people who pass unnoticed in a crowd.”

Monsieur de Treville nodded, but his long, thin-fingered hand stroked at his well trimmed beard. “Doubtless,” he said, and smiled a little as if to acknowledge that the thought of Porthos passing unnoticed in any crowd was ridiculous. “But it’s been many years, Porthos, and how would the boy know?”

Porthos shrugged again. “Perhaps his father knew?”

“From a noble family so newly arrived to Paris that we’ve never heard of their name? Unlikely, my friend,” the captain said.

“But then,” Athos said, “What do you think is behind all this?” As for himself, he couldn’t anymore have articulated a coherent theory than he could have hazarded a reasonable-sounding guess, but something was working at the back of his mind, something that made the hair stand on end in the nape of his neck.

Monsieur de Treville shook his head. “I hesitate to say it,” he said. “Since it is possible I am wrong and just of habit attributing the worst of villainy to a foe. But the Cardinal bears you some ill will – has born all of you some ill will for a long time, for being the fiercest fighters in his majesty’s musketeers. And since these past two recent incidents in which you foiled his plans…*¹” Monsieur de Treville drummed his fingers on the desktop. “Well, his animosity for you knows no bounds. I would say, Porthos my friend, it is quite likely the boy was sent to you and told who you were. That his death owes something to the Cardinal. And that things are set to accuse you of murder, in an attempt to defend yourself from blackmail. What–” The captain stopped. Porthos was shaking his head violently.

“No,” he said. “Guillaume was sincere and sincerely seeking instruction in sword fighting.”

The captain shrugged. “Perhaps. I did not say he wasn’t. Only that the cardinal was behind sending him to you and that the Cardinal is behind his death. Or might be. Just because Cardinal Richelieu is the greatest power in France, more powerful even than the king it doesn’t follow that every plot and every evil should be laid at his door. However, a lot of them can and it also doesn’t follow he wasn’t behind this one.”

“And,” Athos said, feeling his uneasiness answered by the captain’s theory. “The truth is that it would be all too easy for him to find a young boy of small nobility, dissatisfied with his lot in life and to arm him with the means to approach you. It would be no more unlikely than his finding an orphan and putting her in a position to impersonate the Queen, all without the poor young woman knowing she was being used at all. ² It could have happened that way, Porthos.”

“But… a child?” Porthos asked.

 

“If the Cardinal thought it fit his views of what is good for France, I think he’d willingly kill a newborn dauphin in his swaddling clothes.”

Porthos looked at Athos, intently, his eyes focusing seemingly with all his will. “If the Cardinal has anything to do with Guillaume’s death, he shall be called out, Cardinal or not.”

The Captain looked alarmed. He came out from behind his desk and put his hand on Porthos’s shoulder. “Porthos, my friend. The important thing right now is for you – all four of you, including your friend D’Artagnan, who was privy to the other crime investigations – to find out who the boy truly was, how he died, and if there’s a culprit. If it turns out to be the Cardinal, I shall take it upon myself to seek vengeance. I shall present proof to his Majesty himself. Meanwhile, I would say you must hide this crime. And you must promise me that you’ll do nothing rash.”

“Captain,” Porthos said, sounding bullish.

“Promise me Porthos. Haven’t I saved your life on more than one occasion?”

“Monsieur de Treville, you have, but–”

“Then promise me.”

There was a long silence. Athos could almost imagine the cogs turning inside his friend’s head as he weighed the best course of action.

At last Porthos sighed heavily. “I promise. I promise I shall do nothing until I know. If the Cardinal is guilty though… I will demand my revenge.”

“Then we shall talk again,” Monsieur de Treville said. “Meanwhile, I would send for your Gascon friend and start your enquiries.”