I do not own the Musketeers, the character portrayals belong to Alexandre Dumas and the BBC.

Athos, Aramis, Porthos and d'Artagnan stood behind Captain Treville on the left hand side of the two golden thrones the left one occupied by the King. Two manservants dressed in gold stood behind the thrones their impassive faces mirroring those of the guards on the door. King Louis XIII drummed his fingers on the arm rest effectively marking out his boredom. As the King he was neither accustomed to being kept waiting nor patient enough to hide his evident frustration, even when the person keeping him waiting was his pregnant wife. Anne was far enough along that she was beginning to show and her dresses had gradually assumed a looser corset to accommodate. While it was clear she was thoroughly basking in her respective motherhood, something Louis himself had been impatient for, she had been exercising her husband's renewed adoration a little too far recently.

'Are women always like this?' Louis' question was clearly directed at Treville and to none of the milling nobles at the back of the room.

'Its to be expected Sire, her majesty does now have to be more cautious.' Treville's frank reply never seemed to startle Louis who knew only too well that Treville favoured truth above pandering.

'Yes but its been ten minutes where can she be?' Louis sulked.

'Patience is a virtue Sire.'

At Treville's last words the doors opened and in came the Queen smiling freely at the nobles who bowed and moved aside to let her pass. As customary behind the Queen came her ladies. What was not so customary was that instead of the usual two ladies who waited on the Queen's orders, there was in fact now four. The closest following pair were Anne's usual ladies but behind them followed the new two. D'Artagnan smiled as Constance Bonacieux shot him a small smile, while evidently trying not make her delight at seeing him noticeable. Porthos nudged him 'Stop making it so obvious will ya.' D'Artagnan just grinned in return. Aramis was smiling cautiously too. Only he, Athos and the Queen herself knew the truth of the pregnancy. The Cardinal certainly had his suspicions but since he was fully aware of Anne's influence over the King he seemed to favour keeping those suspicions to himself.

The fourth lady was also new and unknown to the musketeers. The woman did not appear to merit much attention excepting for her unusually pale complexion and hip long dark brown hair which contrary to tradition she left loose rather than pinned.

The Queen sat down on the throne beside the King who leaned over and kissed her offered hand. Pregnancy had given Anne's opinions and counsel more weight in recent weeks. Were she once would never have been sought to attend casual business meetings she now found that Louis wanted her there. As her gaze drifted across those in the room it momentarily lingered on Aramis just long enough to tell the musketeer that he had not been entirely forgotten.

'Well shall we begin then?' Louis clapped his hands together. The first man stepped forwards, le Comte de Rochefort. He bowed before the monarch's gracefully but there was an air of slight sarcasm to his actions.

'Might I first offer my congratulations to her majesty on this happy occasion.' It was a standard statement not a question. Anne smiled in reply. Rochefort then turned to Louis. 'Your majesty I have come to report to you that the peasantry of my lands are complaining about the recent taxes the Cardinal has imposed.'

'Do they ever do anything else.' Louis grumbled and Treville sighed. Louis for all his charming noble pursuits was not adept at maintaining royal diplomacy.

'What do you want Comte?' Louis asked eventually.

'Merely to seek your majesties permission to extract the taxes by any means necessary.' Athos, Porthos, Aramis and d'Artagnan shared knowing glance and Constance's face twisted in a brief moment of disgust.

'Well, we must collect our taxes somehow!' Came Louis' reply. Rochefort, who seemed to take that as an affirmative, smiled like a shark, bowed and retreated to the back of the room allowing the next noble to seek the Queen and King's advice.

'Well there's another smarmy one.' Porthos muttered to Athos.

'His father was a brutal man as well.' Aramis added. 'There's rumours that he has dealings with the English.'

'It won't amount to anything.' Athos reassured. 'His father bled the region dry and lost his head for it. Rochefort is not that ignorant.'

D'Artagnan wasn't listening so much as trying to have a silent conversation with Constance. The new lady who stood on Constance's right picked up on the reciprocation between the two out of the corner of her eye and inwardly smiled. She knew Constance was kind but she also noticed that she carried a confidence in her body carriage that alluded to a frequent exposure to danger. Seeing the conversation between her and the musketeer seemed to answer that question at least. The lady allowed her assessing gaze to pass over the four musketeers and their Captain. They were all handsome in their way she noted but the man on the far right with unkempt dark hair and a melancholy, disinterested disposition caught her eye. Her gaze lingered on his features for a moment before she turned her attention back to the current conversation in hand.

The morning dragged on and eventually with the chiming of the bells to signify lunch, Louis and Anne rose respectively and moved towards the doors. The ladies followed their mistress in the same order they had entered, passing the bowing musketeers and nobles. Constance gave d'Artagnan another discreet smile as they passed which he returned before they passed out onto the terrace where the servants had laid out a beautiful lunch. The lunch for Anne's ladies in waiting was not served at the same long table but at a separate one just to the side. Constance and Catherine took their seats while the other two ladies ensured that their mistress had everything she needed before joining them. The seating choices of the ladies spoke volumes. Both Constance and Catherine were new to the Queen's service, appointed not a week apart from each other, and as such both of them struck up an amiable friendship. The other two ladies who had long served the Queen did not particularly dislike the newcomers but they maintained their distance clearly viewing them as inferiors.

As lunch proceeded Catherine noticed that Captain Treville had taken the end seat of the long table while the four musketeers stood at the opposite side in a parade line. She also noticed d'Artagnan was trying to catch Constance's eye's again and nudged her companion.

'You should probably tell him to stop making it look so obvious,' she murmured. 'I fail to see how the whole court does not know about you two the way he acts.' Constance blushed in her turn but it was clear the other two ladies had not heard what had been said.

Dinner came and went quickly and soon, despite being under the canvas cover, Anne wished to retire to her rooms. Her and all four ladies departed back to the palace. As they stepped inside the Queen's apartments Anne sat down at her dressing table and Catherine stepped forward to remove the Queen's daytime jewels. As she did so she noticed the Queen's melancholy expression and prudently asked if she was well. She hesitated before trying to give an answer but even when she tried her voice failed. Catherine watched as Anne glanced at her with a scrutinising gaze and shifted a little sensing she was being weighed up. Appearing satisfied the Queen took a piece of paper and a quill from her drawer and scribbled something down, her hand covering that which she wrote. She folded the paper and sealed it quickly. Then she turned around to check on her other ladies, the first two were in the process of choosing the Queen's afternoon gown and Constance was folding the bed linens for washing. Anne turned to face the mirror but held the piece of paper in her hand at her side.

'Take this to Aramis of the King's musketeers.' She instructed quietly. 'It is for his hand and no-one else's do you understand me.'

Composing her expression of surprise, with moderate difficulty, Catherine extracted the letter from the Queen's hand and nodded.

'Go now.' Anne said. 'And remember, no-one else.'

As she walked through the palace Catherine slipped the note up her sleeve so it looked like she was carrying nothing. She maintained a disinterested expression but her mind sparked with curiosity. Why out of her most trusted ladies had she just chosen her, a woman who had been less than a month in her service, to deliver this? Clearly it was secret, clearly it contained some scandal or else it would not need to be conveyed this way. Catherine was well aware that Anne had two dispatches, one which passed through the Cardinal and another for more private correspondence which she transmitted through the two main ladies. Thinking back to how the Queen had scrutinised her, Catherine sensed that whatever was in the letter Anne was banking on the fact that even if she did open it she would not understand what it contained.

Her thoughts continued as she requested a horse from the royal stables. She was used to walking everywhere but since entering into her majesties service she had to get used to the idea that such an action was no longer acceptable. Not that she minded too much about the horses for she loved riding and caring for them, but carriage's made her feel sick with their rocking motion and uncomfortable seating.

Catherine was accustomed to Paris but it took a couple of stops on the journey to ask what looked like trustworthy people where the musketeers garrison actually was. She stopped just beyond the entrance and dismounted. Inside she could hear raucous laughter coming from a long table where a group of men were sat. She approached and stood just in the shadowed archway pausing to examine if any of them resembled those she had seen earlier. Unfortunately none did. She was just about to take a step inside the garrison when she caught the conversation.

'So Henry what does your mistress think to your new job? Does she approve?'

'Quite so,' replied the young man whom Catherine assumed was a trainee since he didn't appear to be wearing the pauldron and looked very young. 'In fact she wants me to teach her to fight.'

'What?!' Laughed two of the men sat nearest to him. They clearly were rambunctious and enjoying their wine but Catherine's nerves sharpened at the idea that women were deemed ridiculous for wanting to fight.

'Listen lad, here's a useful piece of advice for you. You don't ever want to teach a woman to fight as good as you can.'

'And why not?' Came an unexpected female voice from the shadows.