DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the original Frankenstein characters. They belong to Mrs. Mary Woolstonecraft Shelley, to whom I'm grateful for spinning such a compelling tale. The OCs, however, are mine.
Note: the story here is set right after the Restoration of the Bourbon royal family in France. At the time, Savoy was an independent kingdom under the rule olf the savoy royal dinasty.
Flames will be used to light the fireplace. It is winter, I could use extra heat.
Updates will be erratic, as I've resumed writing my original fiction project(s).
Enjoy!
He had been on the run for so long that he didn't even know where he was anymore.
He knew it was winter, because the snow and the knifing winds were harrying him as much as the enraged peasants and he knew he was somewhere in the mountains, but that was all.
He had lost all sense of time since running away from the cottage of the old blind man.
He felt weary to the bone, hungry, half-frozen despite his resistance to low temperatures and desperate.
What did he do wrong?
Why were those peasants out for his blood?
He had only tried to help the old man.
Sometimes he felt so angry himself that he could turn around and rend his pursuers limb from limb with his bare hands and that shocked him to the core.
Panting from the exertion, he threw a quick look over his shoulder. No one in sight. He sighed and leaned on a tree trunk, trying to catch his breath.
Twigs rustled and snapped from the direction where he was heading. He almost jumped in surprise.
The peasants closed in from all directions, shouting abuse and waving their weapons. He was cornered.
Growling low in his throat, angry as hell, he launched himself against them, unthinking, acting on bare instinct and anger.
Riding through the snow always made Capt. Lagarde think of the Russian campaign, even if the mountains near his refuge in Savoy were nothing like that cold, unforgiving hell.
The peace of the woods was almost palpable, the air crystal clear.
It always did him good to be alone in the middle of nature, free to think and to reminisce.
After the restoration, he had all but been exiled into this remote place, but it was fine for him. Without the Emperor, without any remaining vestige of the Revolution, France was nothing but a travesty.
Lagarde was content of living in a cosy cottage with his housekeeper and his books as only company, or so he repeated to himself.
A sharp noise tore Lagarde from his reflections.
After almost twenty years in the army, there was no way Lagarde could mistake the noise for anything but a fusillade.
Without second thoughts, he nudged his horse into a canter and towards the source of the noise.
He happened upon a surreal scene: a group of peasants was attacking a very tall man dressed in rags. As in a verse from the Iliad, the tall man was fighting like a mountain lion surrounded by angry dogs, fearlessly and competently, throwing them away like ragdolls.
A well-aimed punch sent another peasant flying through the snow and the tall man broke into a startlingly fast run for the thick of the forest.
Another peasant dropped to one knee and took aim with a rifle. The shot echoed weirdly between the trees.
The tall man staggered and fell to his knees, then picked himself up and resumed his run, staggering and leaving a trail of bright blood on the snow.
The peasants were closing in on him, to finish him off.
Lagarde nudged his horse into motion again and crossed the peasants' path, uttering an inarticulate battle cry.
There was no way he was going to keep quiet while those men murdered their victim in cold blood. The peasants stopped short, almost treading on each other's feet.
"What the hell is going on here?" he yelled in his best battlefield voice. "Bloody murder?"
One of the peasants, the one with the rifle, who seemed to be the leader of the gang, took a step towards Lagarde with an angry expression.
"No murder, Sieur. – he said, his French thick with savoy accent – It's no murder to kill a monster. It is self-defence."
The man puffed up his chest, striking a righteous pose.
Lagarde glanced over his shoulder to the tall man dressed in rags.
He had stopped running away and was now kneeling in the snow, pressing a blood stained hand to his side.
Under a mop of long, ragged, pitch-black hair, his face was gaunt, heavily scarred and ashen pale, his lips dark as a bruise. Admittedly, he looked like he had died a couple of days before and had not noticed yet, painfully thin, his skin stretched taut over bones, and deathly pale, almost greyish.
The rags he was wearing were totally inadequate for the weather and he was barefoot in the snow. He must be on the verge of hypothermia, if not already half-frozen, no surprise he looked more dead than alive, Lagarde mused, and his anger towards the peasants increased.
It was not uncommon for isolated communities to pick on a vagabond or a strange person and victimize him or her, to the point of believing them to be monsters or lycanthropes or witches and killing them.
Lagarde caught the eyes of the rag-clad stranger, surprisingly blue and full of emotions: rage, fear, desperation, resignation and, maybe, a faint tinge of hope.
It was the gaze of a wounded animal, of an innocent victim.
Lagarde could understand that, to the eyes of those uneducated peasants he must look like something out of the Wild Hunt, but he was a person and he was not going to let him be abused further.
"There is no monster here, you lot of pox-ridden scoundrels, only a man! - he yelled - What are the accusations against him? What his crimes?"
The leader of the peasants looked at him uncomprehendingly. "Accusations?" he repeated
"Yes, accusations. If this man has done anything wrong, you should bring him to the court in Grenobl - Lagarde explained - Do you have any proof of wrongdoing?"
The leader remained silent and clutched his rifle tightly.
"As I imagined – Lagarde commented with a smirk. – No proof, no accusations, only prejudice. This is murder, citoyen."
Lagarde could see that the appellation brought a grimace of disgust on the face of the Savoyard and pressed on. "Perhaps it is you who should be brought to court in Grenoble, after all."
The peasant punitive squad was shaken by a ripple of unease.
"Leave this man be and I'll let it pass. Insist and I will see every one of you hanged for murder, my friends. Your choice." he said.
"You'll regret this, you godless Jacobin. – the leader threatened – It is a monster and it will repay your mercy with death." he prophesied, but shouldered his rifle and lead his men away.
Lagarde turned his lone eye back on the stranger, who was still huddling on the ground, his face tight with pain.
Lagarde sighed and dismounted, but as soon as he approached the stranger, he tried to get to his feet and run away, only to collapse again with a cry of pain.
"Easy there, citoyen. – Lagarde said, holding his hands out non-threateningly – I do not want to hurt you."
The stranger didn't reply but looked upon him with an odd intensity and with wariness, exactly like a wounded animal.
Lagarde kneeled on the snow and, even if he was a bloody tall man, felt a bit small beside the stranger.
"They shot you, I need to see your wound." he said gently.
"Why are you trying to help me?" asked the stranger in a slightly accented French. Maybe he was Swiss, Lagarde mused. His voice was deep and rough, as if it was rusty with lack of use.
"You'd rather I left you to die of hypothermia and blood loss here?" Lagarde retorted
"But I'm a monster…" the stranger objected mournfully.
Lagarde scoffed. "You're quite awful, that you are, but you look distinctively human and you bleed like any other human I've ever seen, and I've seen many humans bleed, trust me. – he declared – Now take your hands off the wound and let me have a look."
The stranger obeyed and Lagarde extended a hand to shift the rags to the side and have a look at the wound. The bullet didn't seem to have harmed any vital organ, but the hole was big and was bleeding profusely and the bullet was still there, somewhere.
The stranger needed medical attention and, even if Lagarde was confident that he could help him, he didn't have any medical instruments with him, plus, the man needed some warmth and food (and maybe a bath, later).
"Can you walk?" he asked.
The stranger shook his head. "My head is spinning." he said.
"Right. – commented Lagarde – Give me your hand." he instructed and tried to pull the man to his feet.
Yes, the stranger was definitely taller than him, which put the stranger at least at seven feet, and he was quite heavy especially since his legs seemed on the point of buckling under his weight.
Huffing and panting, Lagarde dragged the shivering stranger to his horse and had him drape sideways on the saddle (he was too weak to ride, now), then took the reins and walked his horse through the snow.
Luckily, he had not wandered too far from his cottage.
"Where are you leading me?" the stranger asked weakly, but still with a strong hint of mistrust.
"To my cottage. You need help." Lagarde replied.
The stranger didn't comment further and lay motionless on the saddle. Maybe he had fallen unconscious.
Lagarde quickened his pace.
It would not do to save the stranger only to let him die of exposure and blood loss.
Apart from human sympathy and compassion, Lagarde felt like he had a lot of questions to ask him.