Author's Note: In case you missed the posts explaining what this is all about, a few years ago, some friends and I decided to create a list of writing prompts where our original characters "visited" other books. Seeing as the resulting stories were too much fun to let languish on my hard drive, I've dusted them off to share on my blog :)
Enjoy!
Much love,
Saffron Amatti xx
The clatter of rapiers echoed around the woodlands, along with whoops and cheering.
I could only hope that my blunting of the weapons would be enough to keep the boys from killing each other, and hurried along before they could get into too much trouble.
I needn't have worried, as when I got there the four of them - Lucas, Tommy, Henry, and Clara - had finished duelling and were all laughing, joking, and drinking wine together, looking splendid in their Musketeer outfits, capes flowing behind them as they lounged on the grass.
'Oh,' I said, somewhat surprised to find all was peace and harmony. 'Er, good.'
'What's wrong?' asked Clara, standing up and handing me a goblet of wine.
'Nothing,' I said, sipping the drink and hoping this wasn't one of the many cases of poisoned wine from the book. 'I'm just glad the boys are behaving themselves.'
Clara smirked and leant closer. 'It's very strong wine,' she whispered.
She wasn't wrong, and being somewhat of a lightweight when it comes to drinking, I slowed down a bit.
'Sit down, you're making the place look untidy,' said a slightly flushed-looking Tommy. Lucas, having inherited my alcohol tolerance, was drowsing next to him, and Henry was helping himself to another roast chicken leg.
'So,' I said, taking a seat and tearing a hunk of bread off the loaf, 'what are you four up to today?'
'Well now the boys have finished proving how manly they are,' said Clara, smiling and rolling her eyes, 'We're going to do a little of that robbing-the-rich-to-feed-the-poor thing, like in the book.'
'That's Robin Hood,' said Henry, tossing the chicken bone over his shoulder.
'Is it?' said Clara, frowning. 'Well, what do Musketeers do, then?'
I thought about this, and decided that, seeing as they were rather unscrupulous in the book, particularly d'Artagnan, that perhaps it was best not to give them any ideas.
Especially not Tommy, who was perfectly capable of behaving unscrupulously without any outside help.
'Help people,' I settled on at last.
'Sounds boring,' said Tommy, as Lucas let out a loud snore and woke himself up.
'Well, they usually turn into adventures,' I said.
'Got to be more fun than Castlebury,' said Henry with a shrug.
'I thought you liked the quiet life?' I said sharply.
'I do,' he said. 'In real life, but this isn't, is it? So, just for today, I'd like to have some adventures.' He stood up a little unsteadily, picked up his sword, and started back towards the path.
'I say,' Clara called after him. 'Where are you going?'
'No idea,' he called back. 'I'm going to see where I end up.'
'Just how strong is that wine?' I whispered to Clara.
'I might have topped up the bottle with brandy,' she said guiltily. 'Henry isn't usually like that.'
We watched him leave, debating whether to stop him.
'Oh, let him have his fun,' said Tommy, refilling his wine glass. I took it off him, which met with some complaint.
'No,' I said, holding it out of reach. 'Go and help some poor damsel in distress, I don't know… get rid of an awful husband or something.'
'Is she pretty?'
'Probably,' I said, rolling my eyes. 'But you won't know if you sit here all day drinking yourself into a stupor.'
Miraculously, Tommy saw my point and was shortly following Henry down the path.
'That's two of them occupied,' I said, frowning at a snoring Lucas. 'But what are we going to do about him?'
'Oh, don't worry,' said Clara, pulling a book out of a bag. 'I'll have a quiet afternoon reading whilst he sleeps it off, if you want to go off and get stuff done.'
Seeing as there's still six days of this challenge left, I thought that was a jolly good idea, and left them to their drowsy afternoon in the French countryside.
Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed the gang's trip into another book. If you want to see them in their own stories, you can find all of my books right here (I'd recommend starting with The Problem With Dead People or Wagers of Sin, as they're the first books in the Lucas Rathbone Mysteries and Beyond The Veil Detectives series respectively)