Table Of ContentTable of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
The Many Inconveniences of a Sin of Vanity; Flying and Fighting; Murder
Done
Up and Down the Staircase; Alarm and Peril; The Demands of Friendship
Monsieur de Treville’s Displeasure; Secrets Kept; Where Plots and Treason
Lurk ...
The Disadvantages of a Pious Servant; Yet Another Conspiracy; Not the
Expected Murder
Where Poison Might Be Useful to a Churchman; Pedigree and Ancestry
Possible Poisoners; The Impossibility of Tracing a Noble Boy in Paris; The
...
The Differences Between a Pedigree and a Baldric; The Differences Between
...
A Propinquity of the Heart; When Everything Adds to a Good Impression;
Athos’s Amusement
The Advantage of Moving in Different Spheres; Maids and Duchesses;
Knowing ...
Where Porthos is Missing; Where Information is Missing; Where One
Thinks the Unthinkable
Devotion and Worship; Comfort and Hunger; Where Some Women Are
Infinitely ...
News at Last; The Strange Knowledge of Porthos’s Mind; Suits and
Genealogy
The Hangman; Another Nobleman; A Young and Quiet Girl
A Name Well Remembered; Porthos’s Guilt; A Girl’s Shame
Things Known and Unknown; A Discussion on Poisons; The Beauty and the
Plot
An Odd Avocation; Poison in the World; Belladonna
Accidentally Stepping on Bottles; The Very Great Advantage of Knowing
One’s ...
Foals and Lords; The Follies of Youth; The Requirements of a Large Stable
Horses and Memories; Guillaume’s Trip; Porthos’s Subtlety
Dreams and Reality; The Unreasonable Behavior of High Noblemen; Going
to the Source
At the Top of the Ladder; Accounts and Accounting; A Wife’s Loyalty
The Domains of a Provincial Lord; A Paternal Welcome; When Winning a
Duel Would ...
The Mill House; Childhood Friendship; Improvements and Fortune
Family Resemblances and Family Burdens; A New and Dreadful Code
The Comforts of the Bourgeoisie; Bees and Dogs; Where a Daughter Might
Not ...
Recognition and Identity; Ancestral Tombs; Cousins and Confusion
Where a Roadside Ambush Is Not In Fact a Roadside Ambush; The Effect of
Country ...
A War Council; What the Servants Said; A Wife’s Loyalty
A Lady’s Boudoir; The Commerce Stain; The Matter of the Jewels
Family and Familiarity; The Complications of an Inheritance; The Lot of the
...
Counting Cousins Out; Playing the Blame Game; The Mercy of Enemies
A Rude Awakening; A Lady in Distress; A Monstrous Idea
How One Speaks to Girl Children; The Advantages of Not Being Easily
Convinced; ...
A Husband’s Knowledge; A Wife’s Rage; A Daughter’s Duty
A Daughter Found; Legacies
For the Sake of a Lost Handkerchief
Fathers
Teaser chapter
Praise for Death of a Musketeer
"A swashbuckling adventure that will appeal to fantasy fans as well as
mystery fans.” —The Denver Post
"A fun read. Provides new insight into familiar characters.”
—Margaret Frazer,
author of the Dame Frevisse Mysteries
“A gifted writer who brings new life to our friends, D’Artagnan, Athos,
Porthos, and Aramis.”
—Victoria Thompson,
author of the Gaslight Mysteries
“A cracking good book that succeeds on many levels . . . The evocation of
early seventeenth century France is just as Dumas had it. A round of applause,
too, for writing a book set in a period not already overdone and in packing a
teasing plot, well-loved characters that spring to life, and plenty of authentic
background into a book of just the right length. Waiting until the next book is
going to be hard . . . Highly enjoyable!” —MyShelf.com
“Dumas fans eager for further details of the lives of his swashbuckling
heroes may enjoy this first in a series of historical mystery novels that
transforms those men of action and intrigue into the king’s detectives.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A fun swashbuckling historical mystery . . . filled with action.” —The Best
Reviews
“The author captures their adventurous spirit. Her prose is thick with
description and grandiose dialogue that pulls readers into the era of King Louis
XIII. It takes some attention to keep track of all the intriguing characters in this
mystery, but if you’re looking for something out of the ordinary, this is a fun
read.” —Romantic Times
The Musketeers Mysteries by Sarah D’Almeida
DEATH OF A MUSKETEER
THE MUSKETEER’S SEAMSTRESS
THE MUSKETEER’S APPRENTICE
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
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0RL, England This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents
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THE MUSKETEER’S APPRENTICE
A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author
PRINTING HISTORY
Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / September 2007
Copyright © 2007 by Sarah Hoyt.
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eISBN : 978-1-436-23341-5
BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME
Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,
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To the memory of my grandmother,
Carolina Joaquina Marques,
who told me stories.
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 swordplay 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 Jaucourt had approached Porthos some weeks 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
