As many have noted, Grimaud's motivations for his hatred of the Musketeers (and in particular Athos) seemed to be lacking. I've expanded the hostage scene in s3e10 to explore a slightly fanciful motivation, and perhaps add a little more oomph.

Aramis, Porthos, D'Artagnan, Sylvie and Marchaux make an appearance as per the episode, but the focus in this one is elsewhere.

Written for the July 2016 Fête des Mousquetaires - 'Beware! Revenge'

Enjoy!

"Beware! If I am not saved I shall be avenged."
Milady de Winter - The Three Musketeers - Chapter 66*

The tame Musketeers skulk after their Captain - heeling dogs to a craven master. Grimaud has reluctant admiration for their stamina - smoke stained skin and haunted eyes telling of the damage he had wreaked. They are one man down and the more dangerous for it - after all - vengeance boils the blood.

Passing the cramped dwellings of the refugee settlement with typical self-assurance, the three Musketeers are brought up short by Grimaud's party.

"Were you really foolish enough to come here on your own, Captain?" Marchaux speaks first, his voice a growing irritant. The man's uses are rapidly diminishing, but the Red Guard remains under his tenuous control. And he provides, if nothing else, a spare pair of hands to keep the Captain's bitch under control.

"You left us with nothing."

Grimaud almost smiles at Athos' soft accusation. A comrade and a few boys. What did these Musketeers know of loss?

Anger is rolling off Porthos, and the priest's gloves are stained with the blood of their wounded. Smoke, or perhaps grief, has turned the Captain's eyes red. The loss of D'Artagnan has struck deep.

"Then we're almost even." Grimaud chooses the words carefully, wanting them to understand that this is only the beginning. "Weapons."

"Hostages," the Captain returns.

Their gall amuses him. He trades a look with Aramis - wonders if the Spanish Musketeer has learnt anything from their last encounter. Grimaud had nearly split the man's ribs and yet here he is again, playing at hostages.

As arranged, Marchaux steps back and raises his pistol at the girl's head. The whimpers of the other captive refugees increase. Grimaud shuts them out. He'd put down each in turn to finish this, but why waste the powder?

"Now," Grimaud demands.

The Captain caves first, Aramis and Porthos following, divesting themselves of swords and knives. His raid on the Garrison had depleted their powder - it amused him - Musketeers without the means to fire their muskets. Nevertheless, Grimaud is gratified to see their weapons stripped away, feeling at last some measure of control.

"Which one of you started the fire?" Once they are disarmed Porthos' anger blazes forth. "I'm interested - come on! Why don't you fight me, huh? Man to man?"

The familiar bluster heralds deception. Grimaud had seen them at it, mouths chattering away while hands quested for pistols and sword hilts. He holds out a restraining hand to Marchaux's man, preventing further prevarication.

"Execute Porthos and Aramis. Bring the Captain to me."

The two Musketeers resist, but it is only for show. There is no fear in these two, cocky and sure that fate will not turn against them.

"I never took you for a coward, Grimaud!"

"And you said your mother was weak?"

Their insults are like the buzzing of gnats. Grimaud knows these men, their strengths and their failings. Let the Captain think his men have been cleanly put to death. There will be time to put that fallacy to rest.

The cadet had spilled all with disappointing eagerness. Grimaud could be surprisingly genial when he chose. In the guise of an old comrade, with the coin to offer the self-pitying youth a generous supply of drink, he had no trouble in gaining his trust.

With one arm propped on the tavern bench and little prompting, the boy told of D'Artagnan - how hard he drove the new recruits and the man's relentless stamina. He told of how the Gascon had earned his place by dueling with the Inseparables in the very courtyard where the cadets trained - now destroyed by fire and smoke - like the man himself. Grimaud had seen the talent. A shame, perhaps, to waste it. But the man's principles had shone bright, anathema to Grimaud's own.

No man could best Porthos in a fist fight, though each cadet had attempted the feat.

"That would explain this," Grimaud asked, with a gesture to the boy's bandaged wrist.

But the cadet shook his head, shame creeping into his gaze as he avoided the question.

A little nudge and he continued. Porthos gave the cadets hope that a man of any background could rise up. He came out of the Court and knew what it was to struggle. Grimaud had sneered at that. What had petty cutthroats over the perversions of the common soldier?

The priest had taught the boy to shoot - had helped set the cadet's broken wrist. A contradiction. The tutelage and the wrist, still splinted, had been a wasted effort, as the boy had likely perished in the fire.

"And your Captain?" Grimaud had asked. "What of your Captain?"

The boy shrugged and took up the fresh glass that Grimaud proffered, his words beginning to slur, his shoulders slump.

"The Captain is often called to the palace - and paperwork - always paperwork. Every time we-" He broke off distractedly with a glance at his injured hand. "But when the Captain watches the training, you somehow want to show your worth. His praise doesn't come easy - weeks can pass without a word - but that's it, isn't it? Success means nothing unless you worked for it."

The words rankled. Unearned loyalty, born of rank.

"But you must know." The boy slurred, coherency failing. "You knew them from before the war?"

Grimaud nodded, letting the lie slip easily between them.

"I heard a rumour - I heard he was a nobleman - but he gave it all up to become a Musketeer."

Grimaud's expression darkened, and he no longer bothered to hide it. The story stank of privilege - but it was no more than he expected. The man's accent and bearing had given that much away.

He began to rise, the cadet's use clearly at an end.

"They said he had a wife-" the boy ventured, having seen the source of next drink rising to depart, "-that he hanged her to see justice done."

A heartbeat and Grimaud had the boy by the throat, the youth's reflexes severely dulled by alcohol. "The name?"

Eyes wide, the cadet stared at this man to whom he had spoken so freely. He had not shared state secrets, but knowledge of his superiors - men who held his great respect. Whatever petty grievance the boy harboured now shrank away. "I don't know."

The bottleneck splintered on the edge of the table and Grimaud pinned the boy's uninjured hand to the bench. Eyes flickered in their direction, carefully looked away.

"The. Name."

A small hesitation and Grimaud made to drive the broken glass into the cadet's palm.

"de - de la Fère," the boy cried.

He set the whimpering boy free, let him shrink away in shame. That name, first whispered in Grimaud's ear many years before, had scarred more deeply than her blade.

"I know what you're thinking," Marchaux says they pass the group of cowering refugees. "It would have been better to lose your men on the battlefield. For honour and glory." He lets his pistol touch the back of Athos' head as a warning before deepening the provocation. "Did D'Artagnan die in the arms of his whore? I would have liked to see the body - pretty face and hair all burned away."

The Captain takes the man's taunts in silence, the hard set of his jaw the only indication that the words rankled.

But the girl turns, face coiled as if to spit. "If there is any honour in war, it is more than you-" Perhaps she sees the violence in Grimaud's face, remembers the last time she defied him, because she falls silent. The twitch of her shoulders betrays a desire to wrap them about her belly. Her righteousness disgusts him, but he cannot accuse her of weakness.

Marchaux brings them to a halt beneath the stairs. Grimaud had chosen the place - the beams crossing neatly overhead, and in sight of their last encounter. He hoped Athos remembered the pain of the beating. Grimaud would not forget his own injuries - crawling from the settlement with the girl's shot lodged in his stomach.

As the restraints close tight about the Musketeer's wrists, Marchaux looks to Grimaud, but the money lender shakes his head. Not yet.

"I'd tear out his throat," Grimaud had said, absentmindedly swilling the glass until a drop of amber liquid crested the rim.

"I don't doubt it," she returned, amused by his casual violence. She was more than aware of the attention she was receiving from the other patrons, scarlet lips curling up in provocative enjoyment, but her eyes were only for him.

He found her history intriguing and enjoyed her confiding manner, the hands that twisted coyly, while beneath the table her leg found his.

Grimaud was not alone in receiving her confidences, though a fool might easily believe himself favoured - but he let her indulge.

"There are worse ways to die," she had said, sharp incisors bared with anger and humiliation, "but I pity the man, or woman, who suffers them."

"Where is he now?" Grimaud asked.

A stiffening of her jaw. A shift of the eyes. "God knows."

He pressed her. She did not visibly recoil, but seemed to slip further from him, taking a slow sip and carefully placing the glass on the table. "Other men have offered to defend my honour."

He did not like to be cast among other men, though the words may have merely been encouragement.

There had been many women - heated limbs in the dark - brazen tramps and daughters of honest men - for coin and for lust. But she was something else. She saw him and saw the world for what is was - stripped of its promises and offering only what one was willing to take.

Bold, he reached across the table for her neck. As her chin rose, skin soft beneath his callused fingers, he pushed aside the ribbon to reveal the fresh mark of the rope.

Grumaud takes the refugee's neck in hand - strokes his thumb softly down the jugular.

"You shouldn't have come."

The vibrations of her words thrum beneath his fingertips while Athos' eyes burn into his back.

"Let her go. You have me where you want me."

Grimaud is disappointed. It's no plea, but given the man's reputation it is closer to supplication than expected. "Not yet." He tightens his grip, wringing a small noise from the girl. "I want you to watch as she dies."

"She's no more afraid of death than I am." The Musketeer's composure grates, but had the situation been reversed, Grimaud would have found equal strength in silence.

"She may not be afraid of her death."

The girl and her secret are a gift. Her throat contracts under Grimaud's hand. She understands what is coming.

One hand gripping Athos' shoulder, Marchaux's lip curls with anticipation.

Slowly, Grimaud shifts the knife to her belly.

His eyes come up - and she nods fearful confirmation.

And Athos comes alive, restrained rage boiling over. Bound hands strike Marcheaux in the face, and a second blow to his dislocated shoulder sends the former Red Guard Captain to the ground. Grimaud prepares to meet the challenge with rising elation, gratified to finally provoke the man to action.

He had underestimated the girl before, and now shoves Sylvie back by his grip on her throat. She stumbles, trapped hands failing to break her fall.

Grimaud sees Athos' blow coming, the man's snarl of rage precipitating the attack. The blow to his neck falls short, and Grimdaud takes it on the shoulder. Ploughing his fist into the man's exposed side, he turns his wrist and withdraws with his knife exposed, slicing through leather.

A blow to the jaw, another to the back, and the Captain is on the ground and struggling to rise.

As Marchaux kicks the downed man in recompense for his own bleeding nose, Grimaud shrugs his shoulder and eases the muscle into a more comfortable position.

"Give me a sword," the Captain grates as he crawls back to hands and knees, face hidden behind his hair, "- and we'll end this."

Grimaud sniffs in amusement, and is almost tempted. But his course is set.

"Your sword skills are no use here, Captain."

"Your skills are wasted here among farmers and tradespeople," Grimaud had said, head heavy with drink. "Come to Paris. I have many contacts."

The weeks of deceit and subterfuge were over. With their operation a success and their association almost at an end, a strange desperation pervaded this last meeting.

"I 'am' a tradesperson - of a kind," she had smiled. "Besides, I've been to Paris, and it does not agree with my health."

"'He' is in Paris?" Grimaud guessed.

She did not answer. Unease showed in the thrum of her fingers on the table top, the flick of her gaze to the door. Fear of her husband, or for Grimaud in pursuing the man?

She spoke at last, her voice a little colder. "It is not beyond my own means, should I wish it."

"And do you wish it?"

She did not reply, recent bitterness seemingly waring with old memories.

She would never voice the request, and he took it into his own hands. "I will see it done."

She watched him, sceptical of his sincerity. "Surely you do not go in for chivalry? Why involve yourself in a stranger's justice?"

He dared to look her in the eyes, knowing she would not fail to see.

In boldly showing his hand, he had clenched his fist upon the table. Now he found the fingers slack and his eyelids drooping. He bit the inside of his cheek, the fleshy tissue grinding between his teeth before it bled. Pain briefly cut through the delirium. "What have you done?"

"I have enjoyed our short acquaintance. Do not spoil it with questions."

He grabbed her wrist, the slim bones catching in his weakening grip. Her other arm came up like a striking cat, and the narrow blade tore across his cheek. With the blaze of pain, he released her.

She tucked away the blade - watched until he slumped onto the table. Only his eyes followed her elegant figure as she lifted the bag at his feet, glancing inside to ensure its contents. The way her lips curved upwards - intoxicating at her deadliest.

"We will not meet again."

Very little touched Grimaud - and few souls were worth his investment. He rarely indulged in vengeance unless there was some greater gain - only a fool risked his life in an act that had no palpable return. And yet...

"Why?" The Captain asks through a split lip. The man's hands scrabble uncertainty on the dirt-encrusted ground - a failed attempt to gain his feet. "Our interventions were... inconvenient but surely do not warrant this?"

Grimaud has the man on his knees, but that old hollowness is not yet assuaged.

As Grimaud drops into a crouch to look her husband in the eyes, muscles pull harshly against his stomach wound. He wishes to understand her past, but sees little to match her vigour in Athos' unbending will. "The Musketeers were an inconvenience - their deaths necessary. But this is recompense for an old wound."

The strange desolation of waking to find her gone...

"If I have wronged you," Athos breaths, his mind scraping back to recall any encounter with the money lender, "I have no recollection of it. But any argument between us can be settled without further bloodshed. Let them go."

Grimaud sniffs, amused at the soothing tone - the words that carefully admitted nothing. "The wound was another's. Let me remind you."

He drags the girl down, feels the pull of her fear.

"Don't do this," she pleads with a pity that is worse than scorn.

The point of his knife slides easily beneath the neckline of her dress. The garish fabric tears - the sound cutting harshly into the silence.

Athos' eyes promise death should he proceed further on this course, but Grimaud only wishes to further bare her throat.

Marchaux's approach is swift and sure, slipping the noose over the girl's head in one movement.

The Captain's nostrils flare, eyes wide. Understanding at last.

Like leaves strewn upon water, the rumours had spread wide by the time Grimaud first returned to Paris. They told of the King's mistress, the green eyed beauty riding in his carriage. It took time to confirm her identity, the now Milady de Winter. If anything, she rose further in his estimation, and he took great satisfaction imagining her among the great and powerful, dragging them into depravity.

But that was years ago. Before the war. And after her fall from favour she had left Paris with Musketeers.

And then nothing.

Grimaud had no doubt that she was dead - that her husband had finished what he had started.

Had she looked to them in supplication or scorn, these 'virtuous' men, as the four Musketeers presided 'justice'? *

If she had spared a thought for Grimaud at the end, it was for this, the promise he had made to see her avenged.

The Captain surges forward, catching Grimaud's collar in a death grip, a silent plea, as Sylvie is pulled back by the rope.

They are so close that Grimaud can smell the smoke on the man's hair, see the fire in his eyes.

"Would you like to give the order this time, Captain?" Grimaud asks, bitterness finding its way into his tone.

A fitting end. Grimaud's first attempt - the chain cutting into the man's throat like a noose - had left no time for regret.

The wooden beam creaks overhead - the makeshift gallows holding up to its first trial.

Athos' hands drag him closer. "She would not want this."

Grimaud breaths sour hate at the words. "What gives you the right to judge?"

Grimaud subdues the man's second attempt to rise by grasping his jaw, while a Red Guard's boot on his back effectively pins him in place.

"Watch."

The rope stretches. No fast drop for her, but the swing - the slow suffocation.

Beneath his grip on the man's jaw, Grimaud imagines he feels a sob, but the words emerge as a whisper, "Where is she?"

Grimaud stills at the words.

Soft footfalls on the upper level give Grimaud a moment's warning before the hanging rope splinters and the girl falls.

No.

Chaos descends. Boots thud upon the earth, figures dropping from the level above. Pistols fire, and the Red Guards react like the undisciplined rabble they are, scattering ineffectively.

D'Artagnan lives. The boy blazes out of the smoke like hell fire, and Grimaud relinquishes his hold on Athos only to find himself reeling back, the boy's considerable strength pinning him to the wall. Then D'Artagnan's knife is driven into his shoulder, his own knife into his thigh.

Laughter splinters through the boards. Forehead scraping against the cramped roof of his refuge, it takes him - the pain, and he throws his head back against the earth and bites down to quell any sound of distress.

In the heart of the settlement, beneath boards and ragged cloths, Grimaud lies hidden.

"...No child could wish for better parents." D'Artagnan's voice. Grimaud can hear the Gascon's accent, though for all he knows they are all gathered together, revelling in their survival.

And sure enough they laugh again, Porthos' deep rumble eclipsing the rest.

"I've got to get the supplies to Constance." The girl's voice. She had survived. But she would bear the mark of the rope, and Athos would remember.

Grimaud shrinks back as footsteps crunch upon the ground, tensing for any sign of discovery.

"He still lives." Athos' voice, more subdued.

"... and our powder." Grimaud catches fragments of Aramis' words. "...and another life to protect."

"I would send them from the city if I thought…" Athos breaks off.

"She wouldn't go… more stubborn than you." Porthos.

A pause, and Athos speaks, with a bite in his tone. "Peace, Aramis - It's only a shallow cut."

"Was he acting alone?"

"Yes," Athos says, with fervour. "I do not..."

The footsteps move away, and Grimaud strains to catch the rest.

Sure that the Musketeers have moved away, he edges trembling fingers to his shoulder and probes the broken sword tip. The blackness returns, but he bites his cheek and fights it off.

"Love makes you weak," she had said once, with bitterness. He had not denied it.

That old hollowness remains.

But Gaston is safe.

The powder is within his reach.

And she? She lives.

Notes:

* Readers of the books will hopefully notice a few parallels.

Story integrated with dialogue from Simon Allen's episode 10.

Thanks very much for taking the time to read. This was a bit of an ambitious undertaking, so I'm still a little nervous about the resulting tale. I'm not sure this particular motivation worked out, but it was a good challenge to try out Grimaud's point of view, and see if I could make it work.

I'd love to hear what you thought.

For those reading Nuit du Loup, I'll return to that now this is complete :)