The Three Musketeers (The Modern Library) - Alexandre Dumas [11]
“Coward! Coward! Coward!”
“A coward he is!” mine host agreed as he went to D’Artagnan’s aid, flattering him as the hero of the fable flattered the snail he had scorned the evening before.
“Ay, he’s a coward, a base coward!” D’Artagnan murmured. “But the lady! How beautiful she was!”
“Who?”
“Milady!” D’Artagnan faltered, as he fainted once again.
“Well!” thought the host. “I’ve lost two clients but I still have this one. I’m certain to keep him for a few days. That means eleven crowns to the good!”
(Eleven crowns represented the exact sum that remained in D’Artagnan’s purse.)
The innkeeper had reckoned D’Artagnan’s convalescence at one crown per day for eleven days, but mine host had reckoned without his guest. D’Artagnan rose next day at five o’clock, went down to the kitchen unaided and requested several things. First, he asked for certain ingredients, the nature of which have not been transmitted to us. Then he asked for wine, oil and rosemary, and, his mother’s recipe in hand, he concocted a balsam with which he anointed his numerous wounds. He himself laid compress after compress upon them, steadfastly refusing the assistance of any physician. Doubtless, thanks to the efficacy of the gipsy salve—and perhaps to the absence of any medico—D’Artagnan felt much restored that evening and practically cured on the morrow.
D’Artagnan prepared to settle his score. His only extras were for the rosemary, oil and wine. The master had fasted while the yellow nag according to the innkeeper had eaten three times as much as a nag of such proportions could possibly assimilate. In his pocket D’Artagnan found only his worn velvet purse and the eleven livres which it contained. As for the letter to Monsieur de Tréville, it had vanished.
He began to search for it with utmost patience . . . to turn his pockets and gussets inside out over and over . . . to rummage time after time in his bag . . . to ransack his purse, opening it, closing it, and opening it again and again. . . . Then, convinced at last that the letter was not to be found, he flew for the third time into such a fit of fury that he might easily have required a fresh supply of wine and aromatic oils. Mine host saw this young firebrand on the rampage and heard him vow to tear down the establishment if his letter were not forthcoming. Immediately he seized a spit, his wife a broom, and his servants the very cudgels they had used two days before.
“Give me my letter!” D’Artagnan kept shouting. “Give me my letter or by the Holy Blood, I’ll spit you through like ortolans!”
Unfortunately there was one circumstance which prevented him from carrying out his threat. His sword had been broken in two during his first conflict, a fact which we have chronicled but which he had completely forgotten. Accordingly when D’Artagnan sought to draw his blade, he found himself armed with no more than a stump eight or ten inches long, which the innkeeper carefully replaced in his scabbard. As for the rest of the blade, the host had pawkily set it aside in order to make of it a larding-pin.
Great as his disappointment was, it would probably not have deterred our young hothead if the innkeeper had not realized that the objection was perfectly justified.
“Yes, that’s true!” said mine host, lowering his spit. “Where is that letter?”
“Ay, where is that letter?” D’Artagnan repeated. “Let me tell you that letter was addressed to Monsieur de Tréville. It must be found and if it isn’t, Monsieur de Tréville will know the reason why!”
This threat completed the intimidation of the innkeeper. After the King and the Cardinal, Monsieur de Tréville was probably the most important figure in the realm, a constant subject of discussion among soldiers and even citizens. To be sure there was also the famous Father Joseph, but his name was never breathed above a whisper, so great was the terror inspired by the Gray Eminence, to give the Cardinal’s familiar his popular nickname.