{Chapter II}
The Spider and the Fly
Dom Claude could hardly believe it. Time seemed to slow in its torrent around the figures of the gypsy and the priest, as if they were two upright stones in a riverbed. His pulse reverberated in his ears and his hands shook. She was looking to him, looking to him without hatred and loathing in her eyes. True (and the miserable archdeacon could not deceive himself in this) it was only in her extreme terror that she turned to him for help, but still...
At that moment, her beautiful eyes were for him alone. Not the wretched, thrice-accursed captain with all his airs and his fancy armor. Not even Quasimodo, so faithful and so ignored by them both. It was to him—Dom Claude Frollo, Archdeacon of Josas, priest of the Lord, gentleman, doctor, scientist; to him—apostate, assassin, executioner, demon...her gaze was all for him.
And it was enough.
Something inside the priest snapped.
"MALEDICTION!" he cried at the top of his lungs. "VILLAIN! BEAST! CEASE YOUR OFFICE!"
Henriet Cousin's hand halted halfway to the stone arm of the gibbet. He looked around for the source of the cry, muttering to himself. The little sorceress' death seemed intent on postponing itself as long as possible. "Who orders it?" he asked into the early morning sun, just peeping as it was over the rooftops of Paris. He squinted in the light.
A priest came forward from out of the shadows of the houses, arm extended, cowl flung back to reveal flaming eyes and a visage of adamant. His voice rose in a second cry of rage and desperation. "I am the Archdeacon of Josas! I forbid you to hang this woman!"
The gypsy-girl did not take her eyes off the priest as he spoke. The cord was knotted tightly around her slender neck, and she dared not move for fear of recalling the executioner's deadly attention. But she watched as the scene of deliverance unfolded before her, taking in each breath as if it were her last. Nothing was clear to the poor child anymore accept the gibbet and the rope; she could no more feel dread of the priest than that bell-ringer could hear his own voice. Death had at last looked her full in the face, and she was truly frightened. No fate was worse than the tightening of the rough cord around her neck—that was all La Esmeralda knew for certain. So she watched the priest and tasted the bitter draught of hope.
"It is the king's will," reminded Tristan l'Hermite, returning from the edge of the Place to hurry the witch's hanging. His men were getting tired of holding back the passers-by. He clucked his tongue at the priest. "You are too late, father. She is condemned."
Dom Claude did not know what he was doing. He did not know what he was saying. He only knew that one thing remained between the woman he loved and her marriage to the halter—his authority as a priest.
He could not fail.
"She remains under the protection of Our Lady, villain! Such sanctuary is not for you to trespass upon. Return her to Notre-Dame, or face the wrath of Heaven!"
Regarding the face of the archdeacon, Tristan l'Hermite shrank back a little. He wondered if the wrath of Heaven would look anything like the priest's expression; if it did, it was something most terrible indeed. He motioned for Henriet Cousin to hold for a moment.
"Father, it was not my choice to violate the sanctity of Our Lady. The sorceress' death is the will of our lord the king, and I must fulfill my oaths to him. She must hang."
A cold sweat bathed the brow of the archdeacon; his hands trembled even more violently and the sound of his heart rang in his ears like the bells of Passion Week. But he looked once again at the Egyptian in the executioner's arms and regained his center of gravity. Her eyes had not left his.
"She shall not, I tell you!" Dom Claude cried, and rushed at the astonished executioner, throwing him back against the gibbet with supernatural strength.
Tristan l'Hermite reached for his sword.