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The late evening sun dipped into the garrison courtyard, sending its last warming rays onto the man who had taken a seat at the large table near the staircase.
This particular hour when the day slowly passed into the evening, with the garrison shutting down its bustling activities and his comrades bidding their farewells with a friendly banter, was Aramis’ favorite time.
Normally the marksman would have preferred the company of his friends, but today their absence was useful. Absentmindedly he picked a piece of bread from the loaf Serge had put in front of him some time ago. Athos and d'Artagnan had not yet returned from their palace duties and Porthos had gone to the Rue de Braque to fetch a pair of his boots that the cobbler had resoled. So Aramis was by himself and his mind drifted back to the events of the day. The little girl …
A few hours before:
While patrolling the streets of the Marais quarter, Aramis and Porthos came along a brawl that obviously had started in one of the surrounding taverns. They tried to separate the drunken and furious opponents, dealing out blow after blow to end the fight. Some of the surrounding passersby dodged and moved on quickly. Out of the corner of his eye Aramis suddenly noticed a woman carrying a toddler on her hip. One of the drunken brawlers stumbled into her, causing the young mother to lose her balance. In a split second Aramis was by her side, just in time to catch the little girl slipping from her mother’s grip. The young woman went down nonetheless, pain written on her face. Porthos, realizing the situation immediately, rushed to her aid, picked her up and carried her away from the melee.
The little girl in Aramis’ arms started to cry the second she saw her mother being scooped up by the big musketeer. “Hey there, little one,” Aramis tried to soothe her. “Mummy’s all right. My friend Porthos isn’t going to hurt her. Come on, we’ll catch up with them, hm?” Something in his voice seemed to calm the toddler. She stopped crying and looked at Aramis wide-eyed. The marksman smiled at her, taking in the sight of her curly blonde hair and two big blue orbs staring at him. The girl’s eyes wandered upwards and a tiny hand grabbed at his hat. Something seemed to fascinate her. “Ah,” Aramis instantly knew what the girl was aiming for. “You like the feather, don’t you? Let’s get you to your mummy and then you can play with it.”
The young mother, now sitting on the rim of a nearby fountain, opened her arms as Aramis approached her. “Julie, ma chérie, are you all right?” she asked, concern evident in her voice. Little Julie, however, paid no attention to her mother, as she was still mesmerized by the feather on Aramis’ hat.
The brawl in the background seemed to have come to an end and most of the participants had stumbled away by now. As there was no more work for them, Porthos returned his gaze to the tableau in front of him.
Aramis knelt down and now placed Julie in front of her mother. “She isn’t hurt, Madame. But I’m afraid she will start crying again unless I give her that feather,” he explained with a smile. “What about you? Are you hurt?” Aramis switched into medic mode.
”I think I sprained my ankle. Julie, no, let go of the hat! Pardon, Monsieur.”
Porthos, who had watched the scene with amusement, burst out into a hearty laugh. ”Now I see why you wear this fancy feather, Aramis. It helps you seducing women of every age.”
Aramis did not even glance at his friend, as he was already occupied with the examination of the young woman’s foot. “Nothing seems broken. I think you’re lucky, it’s only sprained, as you presumed.”
Julie, still aiming for Aramis' hat with the shimmering feather, wriggled in her mother's grip.
“I haven’t forgotten about you, Mademoiselle,” Aramis addressed the toddler. He took his hat off, plucked out the feather and handed it over to the excited little girl. He was rewarded with a broad grin revealing two tiny white front teeth.
“Thank you, Monsieur. I think you’ve made her day.” Julie’s mother smiled at the marksman.
“I gladly give it away,” Aramis replied. “My comrades always tease me about my vanity.”
”Madame, can you walk?” Porthos addressed the young woman. “We can escort you home.”
“That won’t be necessary, thank you. I live over there, in the green house. I think I can walk if I take it slowly. Come, Julie, let’s say goodbye to these friendly Musketeers.”
Porthos crouched in front of the little girl and whispered, “And take good care of this feather, Julie, it was Aramis’ pride and joy.”
Julie grinned at Porthos, then took her mother’s hand. While walking away she turned around once again and waved at Aramis with her new treasure.
The sight stirred something in the marksman. He suddenly felt a strange desire and a great loss at the same time.
Porthos, who had no doubt noticed the shift in his mood, put an arm around his shoulder. “Let’s go home, my knight in shining armor. For today, you have done your good deed.”
Aramis smiled sadly at his friend and let himself be led away.
She had been a heartbreaker, that little girl, Aramis summed up at his table in the yard. But that was not the core of his inner turmoil. Aramis bowed his head, running a hand through his dark curls. A booming voice interrupted his musing.
“Ah, bread, cheese and a cup of wine! That’s exactly what I need now!”
Aramis hadn’t heard Porthos approaching. The big man now took a seat opposite him and dropped a bag on the bench which, as Aramis supposed, contained Porthos’ boots. Aramis forced himself to smile at his best friend.
Porthos frowned. “You all right?”
Aramis shrugged. “Yes, I’m good. Why do you ask?”
Porthos eyed his friend wordlessly. He always knew when something was bothering Aramis. Deciding to drop the matter for the moment, Porthos reached for the wine and poured himself a cup. “The others not back yet?”
“No. I guess the King found some extra duties to keep them busy.”
Porthos chuckled at the idea of Athos giving the king a lesson in swordplay or d’Artagnan explaining the art of throwing a dagger into the centre of a target. For the next couple of minutes they sat in comfortable silence, eating and drinking and simply enjoying the warm evening.
Suddenly, Porthos spoke again. “She was cute, wasn’t she?”
Knowing exactly to whom his friend was referring, Aramis decided to feign ignorance. “Who?”
Porthos played along. “Little Julie. Quite a charmer,” he chuckled.
“Yeah, I’m sure she will turn the men’s heads in a few years,” Aramis admitted.
“She had you wrapped around her little finger.”
“That was easy. She wasn’t the first female to have done it and she won’t be the last.”
“No, but this was different.”
“What do you mean?”
Porthos decided to get to the heart of it. “Oh, come on! I know the way you act around children. You’re good with kids, it comes naturally to you.”
Aramis gave him a faint smile. “What can I say? It’s a gift.”
Porthos doubted his friend’s buoyancy. “And you had that look in your eyes,” he stated.
“What look?” Aramis was taken aback.
“That special one. I saw it for the first time when we left Agnes and little Henri. And I see it every time you look at the Dauphin.” It was obvious Porthos knew he was on dangerous ground now. Aramis drew in a sharp intake of breath. This wasn’t an easy topic to discuss with his friend.
After a few moments, Aramis sighed and his tense shoulders sagged. “It seems to be my fate not to have children. I lost my first child when Isabelle miscarried. It was sad, but I was young and there still was plenty of time to build a family. Then I became a soldier and for many years I was content to serve my king and country and to have my comrades around me.”
Aramis looked up and met Porthos’ gaze. The big man’s eyes were full of compassion and so Aramis kept on talking. “Something stirs inside me every time we are around children, but I never seriously considered marrying and starting a family. Well, and then the Queen and the Dauphin came into my life…”
*************************
Porthos could only guess what was going on in the marksman’s head. The Queen and the Musketeer was impossible to comprehend, and Porthos was sure Aramis was achingly well aware of that fact. Porthos had seen his friend’s suffering, being around his son, sometimes only an arm’s length away from him and not allowed to show a father’s love simply tore his friend’s heart apart. Aramis’ time in the monastery and the years of war hadn’t changed his affection towards his child and its mother. As hard as Aramis had tried to suppress his feelings for them, in the end the heart had won over the head.
Porthos didn’t know if it was wise to approach the subject from a different point of view. He tried nonetheless. “I know it’s hard for you, I’ve seen it over the years. But don’t you think there could be another love for you somewhere out there?”
Aramis frowned and shot his friend a glance that said, ‘Don’t you dare believe I could love another woman besides Anne’, but he held his tongue.
Porthos didn’t even wait for a riposte. “Yeah, I know, ‘Every Jack has his Jill’ and so on and you’re sure you already found your soul mate. But maybe there is another woman somewhere waiting for you? Sometimes more than one thing fits to another.”
Despite his sad mood Aramis smiled at Porthos’ words. “Well, let’s hope then this ‘thing’ lives in France for I won’t travel the world in search of my perfect match.”
Porthos’ face grew serious. “You don’t have to travel or search. She’ll stumble into your life when you expect it the least. Maybe it will take you some time to recognize she is the one, maybe it will hit you like a bolt of lightning – who knows?”
Aramis chuckled. “And they lived happily ever after and had a dozen kids…”
“Three would be enough. Their future uncle Porthos is terrible at remembering names.”
Aramis laughed out loud at that confession. Porthos grinned. He was happy he had lifted his companion’s mood.
Aramis became thoughtful again. “Let’s presume I’ll find that perfect woman – there would be another problem.”
Porthos tilted his head and knit his brows. “What do you mean?”
“If I had a family my responsibility would be to them. I couldn’t expect from my wife to live in constant fear for her husband. I’ve seen what it did to Constance. So if I was a family man I would have to resign my commission – and that would be the hardest thing I could imagine. Leaving you and the others - again…” Aramis shook his head.
Porthos leaned back. He had to let his friend’s words sink in before he could respond. For a few moments there was silence between the men. Then Porthos looked Aramis straight in the eyes. “If you quit I would quit, too.”
“What?” Aramis was shocked. “You can’t be serious!”
Porthos only shrugged. He had made this decision years ago. He had lost his best friend to the monastery once. He wasn’t willing to lose him again. “I’m not getting any younger. And maybe there is a ‘Jill’ waiting for me, too,” he added with a twinkle in his eye.
“Oh, I’ m sure there is,” Aramis replied. “I just can’t picture you as a civilian. What would you do for a living, by the way?” he asked curiously.
“You may laugh, but I’ve already thought about it.”
“You have?”
“Yeah. I would buy a tavern and become an innkeeper.”
For a moment it looked like Aramis wasn’t sure whether Porthos was trying to fool him. But in the next second he clearly had a mental picture of his best friend behind a bar, chatting with patrons, laughing out loud at some of their antics and then shouting at two brawlers to behave. He laughed.
“What? Don’t you think that would fit?” Porthos asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Oh, absolutely, my friend. You’re the epitome of an innkeeper!”
“And I wouldn’t have to worry about my income for Athos will be my best customer,” Porthos added with a smirk.
“And me and the family would come over frequently ‘cause we’d live just around the corner,” Aramis completed the picture.
“Yes, you would live around the corner and I would serve the best rabbit stew in town.” Porthos chuckled.
“And what would I do for a living?”
“Oh, that’s easy. You would do further studies and become the best physician of Paris – if not France,” Porthos answered with all certainty.
“Thank you for your trust in me, mon ami.”
“And you’ll be the best father a child can hope for.” Porthos’ gaze was full of warmth.
A blush crawled up Aramis’ cheeks at the big man’s kind words. No doubt if the marksman was honest with himself he liked the idea of a future with a wife, kids and his best friend by his side a lot. He sighed. “Well, until then we have to work hard and we should start to put some money aside. Me for feeding a family and you for buying an inn,” he picked up the thread.
Porthos nodded. “I already started saving money,” he said and, noticing the astonished look in Aramis’ eyes, continued, “You never know what the future brings.”
At Porthos’ words Aramis raised his cup. “As long as I have your friendship the future may bring whatever it wants.”
Porthos also raised his cup. After drowning it in one big gulp he leaned over the table and ruffled Aramis’ dark hair. All of a sudden Porthos smacked his forehead.
“Almost forgot my little souvenir,” he explained and turned to the bag at his side. After a bit of rummaging he presented a colorful feather. “I thought this one suits you even more than the old one. You know, vanity and so on…”
With a big grin on his face Aramis came around the table and hugged Porthos heartily. “I’m sure you didn’t think of my talkativeness when buying me a parrot’s feather,” he said with a smile. “Thank you, Porthos, this means a lot to me.”
The two men sat down again, continuing their friendly banter. When Athos and d’Artagnan joined them some time later, reporting on the events of their day, Aramis was finally at peace with the world and himself for a long time.