Traitor's Chase by Stuart Gibbs

Author:Stuart Gibbs
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins

FOURTEEN

AFTER THE ENCOUNTER WITH THE THIEVES, GREG couldn’t get Catherine to talk to him again. He could barely get her to look at him—and when she did, he saw fear in her eyes. When the six travelers sat down to meals, she always made sure she was seated farthest away from Greg.

On the other hand, Milady now seemed to be keeping an eye on him. She was subtle about it, though. Greg would suddenly have the sense that she was watching him, although when he spun around, she was always looking somewhere else, albeit with a slight, knowing smile on her lips. Greg was tempted to just march up to her and demand to know what she’d seen, but he figured she’d somehow manage to turn that around and embarrass him in front of the other Musketeers again.

As for the Musketeers themselves, relations between them grew more and more strained as their travels continued.

Thus, Greg could barely contain his relief when, twelve agonizing days after first setting out on the river, the forest suddenly fell away from the riverbank, revealing a city in the distance.

“Arles,” Aramis said. He—and everyone else—seemed to be thrilled that their time on the boat was finally at an end.

As they drifted toward the city, however, Greg’s relief turned into astonishment. For a moment, he wondered if they’d somehow ended up in Italy. Arles looked nothing like Paris—or any of the small villages they had passed on their journey. Instead, it looked like a smaller version of Rome.

It was far larger than any other city they had encountered, more than twice the size of Paris itself. Many buildings were constructed in Roman style, featuring thick columns and intricate bas reliefs. The riverbanks were buttressed with stone and the roads were paved. An elaborate bridge crossed the Rhône, far more impressive than even the Pont Neuf in Paris, built upon pontoon boats so that it actually floated on the water, with towers and drawbridges at both ends. But most startling of all was the Arena. Perched on a hill above the river, it looked like a slightly smaller version of the Colosseum in Rome. Five stories tall and several blocks wide, it loomed above every other building in the city.

“This doesn’t look like France,” Greg said.

“Until recently, it wasn’t France,” Aramis explained. “It was founded by the Greeks over two thousand years ago. Then the Romans took it over and built it into what you see today. After that, it became the capital of its own country, the Kingdom of Arles, for a few hundred years. The area was only ceded to King Charles of France about a hundred fifty years ago.”

Greg shook his head in amazement. He’d never had any idea that there were Roman cities in France. But then, Athos, Porthos, and the girls seemed surprised as well—and they lived in France. If anything, they were more astonished by the city.

“I’d always thought Paris must be the most beautiful city in the world,” Milady said as they tied up the boat.

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