The Soldier and the Soprano
Our heroes learn from Philip du Paix that Colonel Jean-Louis Moran, in Paix with his regiment in a reserve rotation, is a traitor who intends to give battle plans to a Castillian spy known as "El Chacal" - the Jackal. They are asked to discover where and when Moran is handing off the plans so that they can catch the Colonel and stop El Chacal.
At the Sign of the Lucky Mule
Sebastien learns from some brother Musketeers that many of Colonel Moran's men drink at the Mule Fortuna, a tavern in the cage, and the heroes go to the tavern in hopes of finding Colonel Moran's batman, a Corporal Reine - the corporal, keeper of the colonel's schedule, might know when the meeting with El Chacal is to occur.
At the tavern, Julien convinces a private named Pierre that he is in fact a long-lost friend, and secures a promise that he can join Moran's regiment the next day. Meanwhile, Aleksei makes an appointment with Corporal Reine to have dinner with the colonel the next night - and in doing so, discovers that Corporal Reine keeps a coded schedule-book for the colonel. The heroes notice that the entry for the Naval Ball - to take place the next evening - is heavily marked up, suggesting that perhaps the meeting with El Chacal will take place there.
Le Merde, Le Gourmand
Julien reports to Fort Paix the next morning, where after some chicanery he is sworn into the rolls of Moran's regiment and immediately put to work mucking out the jakes. During dinner, he sneaks into Corporal Reine's office and ransacks the corporal's desk, finding the little black book - but he is interrupted by Colonel Moran. Thinking quickly, he tells the Colonel he found the desk that way and Moran orders a search of the compound. During the search, Julien hides the book in the latrines.
Meanwhile, Aleksei is having dinner with Colonel Moran, where he discovers that the colonel is a man of faith - a rare thing in modern Montaigne.
Aleksei and Sebastien descend on the Naval Ball, where they attempt to keep up a two-man surveillance of Colonel Moran. The Colonel is quite popular with the ladies, but between the two noblemen they keep a careful eye on him until Aleksei is cornered by Lady Adelaide Moncrieff, a man-eater and the grand dame of Le Labyrinthe's decadent social circle. She convinces Aleksei to retire with her, where despite his best efforts the young man becomes lost in Lady Moncrieff's prodigious bosom.
While Aleksei is otherwise engaged, Julien - having deciphered the black book and learned that it is a lady who is supposed to tell Colonel Moran where the final meet is to take place - rushes to the palace, where he tries to summon Aleksei. He smells of the latrines he has been rooting around in, however, and is denied entry. After Julien makes sufficient fuss, Sebastien is summoned, who after a brief altercation with Julien over the latter's stench learns that it is a lady who will be giving Colonel Moran the meet's location.
Sebastien returns to the ball just in time to see a lady whisper something in Moran's ear and then immediately make to leave; he decides to follow her, collecting Julien as he goes, and the pair shadow the lady to the Cathedral du Sainte-Michelle.
After Julien and Sebastien have gone, Aleksei finally emerges from his tete-a-tete with Lady Moncrieff to find his friends gone and Colonel Moran unwatched. The colonel leaves the party not long after, and Aleksei follows after him, though this proves a dead end.
Cathedral Capers
Julien and Sebastien track the mysterious woman to the Cathedral, where Sebastien trails her inside and sees her disappear into what looks like a cell on the second floor. Needing to know who she is, he makes his way out onto the roof and creeps along until he can see inside her room - where he sees her disrobe (a shameful act if any knew about it) and dress again in the habit of a holy sister. When she leaves, Sebastien climbs inside her room, searches it, and follows her to the office next to that of the missing Bishop of Paix.
Stymied, Sebastien heads outside where he and Julien encounter Aleksei, now having left the ball. They tell him what transpired, and Aleksei enters the cathedral to confront the sister - who proves to be Sister Martine Hunot, the bishop's assistant. Aleksei attempts to get Sister Martine to reveal what she told the Colonel, but cannot - so Julien, listening outside, approaches yelling that he is here to kill the woman. Aleksei steps out and there is a mock swordfight between Aleksei and Julien, whereupon Aleksei returns to the woman and demands to know what she told the Colonel. Shocked, she confesses: she told the Colonel that "she would look forward to seeing him in his box at the opera tomorrow," instructions given to her by someone she will not reveal. More play swordfighting occurs, and Aleksei tells Martine to go to ground for several days before he and Julien make their escape.
The Maid of Dionna
Armed with Sister Martine's confession, the heroes now know where the Colonel and El Chacal are to meet: at the Paix Opera House, during a production of The Maid of Dionna, starring a talented singer named Carlotta on tour from Buche. They make some preparations before the opera - arranging a box opposite that of Colonel Moran, rigging some ropes in the catwalks, arranging to have Musketeers present - and then settle in. Aleksei and Sebastien watch the colonel from their box while Julien, dressed as a servant, keeps an eye on the hallway outside.
During the intermission following the second act, El Chacal makes his move: a black-clad actor (he who plays Rinaldo, the soldier's friend in the play) enters Colonel Moran's box and papers are exchanged. Leaping to action, Sebastien and Julien swing across into Colonel Moran's box while Julien bursts in through the door. The man in black tries to escape up to the catwalks - Sebastien wounds him in the foot and then follows, chasing him along the rafters and fighting off theater crew as he does so.
Battle Above and Below
Back in the box, Julien and Aleksei engage in a madcap swordfight with Colonel Moran, far the superior fencer. Finally, Julien is able to slip a rope around Moran's hand as Aleksei leaps back on the rope, dragging the colonel out of the box. He cuts himself free and falls to the floor below and begins to fight his way through Musketeers to the exit as Julien pelts him with a profusion of chairs, bottles, trays and other items.
Meanwhile, Sebastien finishes off the stage crew and draws his pistol, taking aim at the fleeing man in black. A squeeze of the trigger, and "Rinaldo" drops -- Sebastien rushes forward, recovers the papers and another note, and then hurries down to the stage to pursue the Colonel.
By now, the Colonel has dispatched the musketeers and made it to the exit, where Aleksei stands in his way. A better swordsman than the callow youth, Aleksei does his best to keep his guard up, though he manages to get in a few blows on the by-now-wounded soldier. Still, Moran overpowers him, slamming him senseless into a wall before he dashes outside - only to be caught short by Julien, who catches up just in time to grab Colonel Moran by his queue and knock him out.
A Frantic Search
The colonel subdued, the heroes bind their wounds and look at the note Sebastien finds. It suggests "Rinaldo" was just a messenger, and that someone named "C" is to meet him in the office. The theater has two offices - the theater manager's office, at the front of the house, and the director's office, backstage. The heroes split up, Julian and Aleksei heading backstage while Sebastien and a cadre of musketeers go to the front office.
In the front office, Sebastian and his musketeers discover an array of clerks and the theater manager, who Sebastien proceeds to threaten with a pistol. The man barely keeps it together, but is able to finally stammer out that none of his employees are new, at which point Sebastien rushes back to seek out his comrades.
Meanwhile, Julien and Aleksei have made it to the director's office, which appears to have been torn apart in an effort to quickly pack. They begin to search only to be interrupted by a bevy of thugs, who are dispatched quickly enough - though not before Aleksei sets a sofa on fire. Sebastien arrives just as Julien makes a prodigous amount of water to put the fire out, and all three are subsequently told by a street-rat Julien set to watch the theater exits that someone has killed the musketeers guarding the carriage-house and escaped in a carriage.
The Streets of Paix
The heroes rush to the carriage yard, where they see three carriages tearing pell-mell into the city. Aleksei gets in his carriage and Julien and Sebastien mount horses in an attempt to chase the carriages down. It is a frantic pursuit - at one point, Julien nearly catches the trailing carriage, but is forced to dodge pistol fire and drop back. Sebastien, anticipating that they are bound for the docks, attempts to cut off pursuit as Aleksei's coach and the other carriage crash into each other and then into a fountain. Julien pauses to rescue Aleksei as Sebastien continues the chase.
The musketeer overtakes a second carriage by shooting off one of its wheels, and then - hard after the third - follows on its heels as it bursts onto the quays. It veers west, but as Julien and Aleksei belatedly arrive Sebastien notices a ship preparing to cast off. After a moment of indecision, the heroes abandon the third carriage and rush to the ship, only to see it pull away and a familiar face appear on the stern: the opera singer Carlotta, now revealed as El Chacal, who sent the carriages as a distraction as she made her way to her ship and her escape.
Persons of Note
- Philip du Paix - The heroes' patron, who assigned this task.
- Colonel Jean-Marie Moran - The traitorous colonel, he betrayed Montaigne out of a love for his Vaticine faith.
- Corporal Peter Reine - Moran's secretary, batman, and messenger, he knows Julien's face well.
- Lady Adelaide Moncrieff - The grand dame of Le Labyrinthe, she seduced Aleksei at the Naval Ball.
- Carlotta - A dark-haired opera singer, she is in fact 'El Chacal', a notorious Castillian spy.