couldn't possibly eat another mouthful, Finn and Lucas sat kicked back against the wall, sipping wine and watching as Porthos and D'Artagnan regaled the crowd with an impromptu demonstration of the finer points of swordsmanship. Several tables had been pushed aside for the two to occupy the center of the room, where Porthos was discoursing upon the advantages of the Parisian style of fencing over the Florentine style. The Parisian style, as defined by Porthos, consisted of holding a rapier in one hand and a wine goblet in the other. He kept up a steady stream of chatter as he parried D'Artagnan's playful thrusts with exaggerated flourishes of his sword and Moreau's customers were loving it, guffawing, shouting 'Well struck!' and pounding on the tables.
Aramis, emphasizing that he was preparing for the clergy, occupied himself with trying to convert the prostitutes. One at a time, he took them upstairs to lecture them upon the virtues of clean living and piety.
'I keep thinking about what Mongoose said,' said Lucas. 'I just find it hard to believe that one of the musketeers could be an impostor. Surely, it can't be D'Artagnan. Porthos seems like the real thing, all right, and Aramis-'
'If one of them is an impostor,' said Delaney, 'I'd say that this is our most likely candidate, right here.'
Athos came back to the table, having left to get more wine. He sat down heavily and set several bottles on the table, bottles that were refilled periodically from casks Moreau had in his cellar.
'This wine is swill,' said Athos, 'but my throat is parched and I'll settle for almost anything. Come, Francois, Alexandre, drink up. It's our duty to get rid of all this garbage so Moreau can go out and buy some decent wine.'
They refilled their goblets. Athos kicked back his chair to lean against the wall beside them. He frowned as he saw Aramis heading upstairs with yet another potential convert.
'Women,' he said, scornfully. 'They'll be the death of him yet.' He was slurring his words slightly. 'It's a wonder he hasn't gotten himself poxed already.'
'You don't much care for women, do you?' Lucas said.
'I have no use for them.'
'No romance? Never been in love?'
Athos stared out into the center of the room, eyes unfocused, seeing something other than the swordplay and the crowd.
'Once,' he said, softly.
'What, just once?'
'It was enough, my friend. I will say, rather, that it was much more than enough. I was young and foolish and in love,' he said those words as though they were an epithet, 'and I did not do well in my selection of a mistress.' Jerking his head slightly, as if suddenly aware that he had said more than he meant to, he reached out and grabbed one of the bottles off the table, knocking over two others in the process.
'I have another mistress now,' he said, loudly, brandishing the bottle. 'She's loyal and true and never strays far from my reach. She never fails to satisfy me; she never lets me down. She fills me to the brim with her warmth of loving kindness and she does not deceive me. Veritas in vino!' he shouted, raising the bottle high in a violent gesture that toppled him from his chair. He fell to the floor and remained there, dead drunk.
Lucas glanced down at him. 'You were saying?' he said to Finn.
'On the other hand, maybe it's one of the others,' Finn said.
Lucas didn't say anything. Delaney glanced at him and saw that he was staring intently out toward the center of the room. A young, elegantly dressed cavalier had come down the stairs and he was circling around the mock combat in the center of the room, heading toward the door.
Misinterpreting his stare as an effort to keep his eyes in focus, Finn rocked his chair back down, away from the wall, and set his goblet down upon the table.
'Hell,' he said, 'I've had about enough. What do you say we call it a night?'
Lucas glanced at him sharply. ' What did you say?'
'I said, what do you say we call it a night?'
Lucas rocked his chair forward so hard that the few remaining upright bottles on the table were knocked over, spilling their contents onto the floor and into Delaney's lap.
'Christ, what's with you?' said Delaney, jumping up.
Lucas stared at the door, through which the young cavalier had passed seconds earlier.
'De la Croix' he said, softly.
'What? Lucas, what's the matter with you? You look like you've just seen a ghost.'
'I have,' he said. 'Come on.'
'What? Where are we going?'
'Come on, I said! Hurry, before we lose him!'
Simon Hawke
The Timekeeper Conspiracy
'Lose who?'
'The red knight!'
'The… what?' Lucas was heading for the door, pushing his way through.
They followed the young cavalier carefully, keeping their distance and staying in the shadows.
'Lucas, are you sure?' said Finn. 'It couldn't be a mistake?'
'I told you, I never forget a face,' said Lucas, vehemently. 'The last time I saw that face, it belonged to the woman who was with Jack Bennett. And the time before that, it was in 12th-century England.'
Delaney shook his head. 'That's crazy. You've had too much to drink. It's a physical resemblance, that's all. It can't be the same man!'
'Then what was he doing with Jack Bennett, an underground contact? I told you I saw that woman before. No wonder I couldn't recognize her! She was a man dressed as a woman! I'm telling you, Finn, that's Andre de la Croix!'
Finn thought back to their mission in the 12th century and to a mercenary knight who had sold his services to Prince John of Anjou. Lucas had met him in the lists at Ashby and had taken such a battering that he hadn't been able to see straight for hours.
'He must have been in the underground all the time!' said Finn. 'What's he doing here?'
'That's what I intend to find out,' said Lucas. They were in the Rue des Fossoyeurs. The cavalier went up to No. 14 and knocked on the door. 'That's D'Artagnan's house!' said Lucas.
Finn glanced behind them, but he couldn't see anything in the dark streets. 'If Mongoose has his people tailing us, I hope to hell they're not sleeping on the job,' he said. 'This could get nasty.'
They crept up to the window and peered inside. The cavalier was seated at a table, talking with an old man whom they had last seen entering the house in the Rue St. Honore.
'Jack Bennett,' whispered Finn. 'What the hell is going on here?'
'It looks like Mongoose was right,' said Lucas. 'Our friend D'Artagnan is a Timekeeper.'
'I can't believe it,' said Delaney. 'D'Artagnan can't be an impostor!'
'You have any other explanation?'
'No, but… it just doesn't fit. It would mean that they've had us made right from the very start, before we even arrived in Paris!'
'Well, there's only one way we're ever going to know for sure,' said Lucas. He went over to the door and pounded on it.
Someone said, 'Who knocks?'
In a perfect imitation of D'Artagnan's voice, Lucas said, 'Damn you, Bonacieux, let me in! I've forgotten my key!'
A moment later, the door was unlatched and as the person on the other side started to open it, Lucas shouldered his way in with Finn following close behind.
Jack Bennett was knocked back into the wall. Andre de la Croix leapt up, rapier drawn.
'We meet again, Sir Knight,' Lucas said, speaking in Norman.
De la Croix hesitated, obviously taken aback. Bennett clawed for something in his pocket, but the point of Finn's rapier was at his throat in an instant.
'Don't do it,' Finn said, in English. 'Let's have it. Slowly.'
With a look of resignation, Bennett handed over his laser.
