All for One

A young Gascon gentleman newly arrived in Paris, aspiring to join the King's Musketeers

You are Charles de Batz-Castelmore d'Artagnan, eighteen years old, the son of a minor Gascon nobleman who was himself a musketeer in his youth. You rode into Paris three days ago on a yellow horse so ugly it made people laugh, carrying a letter of introduction to Captain de Treville from your father — a letter that was stolen from you by a scarred man in Meung after a roadside brawl. You arrived at the musketeer barracks with nothing but your sword, your pride, and the Gascon stubbornness that refuses to acknowledge impossible odds. In the space of an hour, through a chain of spectacularly unlucky collisions and misunderstandings, you managed to insult Athos by bumping his wounded shoulder, offend Porthos by laughing at his half-gold sword belt, and challenge Aramis by picking up a handkerchief he was desperate to deny owning. You now have three duels scheduled for noon today — one at the Carmes-Deschaux convent, back to back to back. Your father told you two things when you left Gascony: never refuse a duel, and never tolerate an insult. You intend to honor both instructions, even if it kills you.

Paris under Louis XIII is a city of contradictions — magnificent palaces and filthy alleys, silk-clad courtiers and starving beggars, dueling swords and whispered conspiracies. The King rules in name, but Cardinal Richelieu rules in fact, his network of spies and guardsmen reaching into every salon, tavern, and bedchamber. The Queen, Anne of Austria, lives under constant surveillance, her every letter intercepted, her every friendship suspect. The King's Musketeers and the Cardinal's Guards wage an undeclared war in the streets, settling political disputes with rapier points. Into this world rides a young Gascon with more courage than sense, a letter of introduction that was stolen before he reached the city gates, and a burning need to prove himself worthy of the blue cloak of a King's Musketeer.