JMJ

TEN

Leading La Esmeralda out onto the balcony, Quasimodo felt a strange buzz run through his body. Never had he done anything close to rescuing anyone before. He had only sneaked down the side of the cathedral once or twice before in his life and the second time had led to disaster even if it had also led to his coming to know his new friend. Suppressing a shiver, he came to the rail and glanced down at the square below.

He could see the guards stationed not too far away in various locations watching the doors, and his determination solidified. There was no way he would let Esmeralda get caught by these men and endure the same treatment as he had by those same guards— or worse: being hanged.

"Okay," said Esmeralda coming close beside him. "What do we do now?"

"Hang on."

"What?" whispered the girl.

"Hang onto me, and I'll climb you down," said Quasimodo.

Esmeralda quickly agreed, and after she had climbed onto his back, she was as light as Quasimodo had hoped. Thus making he made his way down in a very sheltered spot behind the cathedral where no one would see just as he had gone down for the Feast of Fools. He disappeared into the late afternoon shadows. Behind the sharply cut stones in a ride with vertigo, Esmeralda at times clung very hard to Quasimodo, and he felt very strange being held onto so tightly by someone who needed him. No one had ever needed him before for anything other than ringing the bells. The responsibility over the girl strengthened him, and with a skill he did not even know he possessed he managed to reach the ground with greater ease while holding someone who was counting on him than the manner in which he had slipped down alone.

The guards were still about not far away, but in the shelter of the cathedral and the trees of the grounds, they managed to whisk across the street without being seen as far as they knew. At least no guards had spotted them. Once the pair thought themselves safe they stopped in the nearby alleyway.

"I see no sign of them anymore," she said quietly looking around a corner with caution. "I think it worked."

"I told you it would," said Quasimodo grinning in spite of himself.

"They probably don't think I would try to sneak out until nightfall anyway," said Esmeralda as she turned to her rescuer, and she smiled warmly in return. "Thank you, Quasimodo."

"I was just glad I could help you," Quasimodo replied twiddling his fingers, "it was the least I could do, for I could never repay you for what you did for me the Ninth Day of Christmastide. Uh, but I would've done it anyway even without that, for picturing anything bad happening to a girl as kind as you—"

Before he knew what she was doing, Esmeralda leaned over and kissed Quasimodo directly on the cheek.

"Thank you," she said again.

Such in a stupor was Quasimodo by her action that he did not know how to respond as the girl, still smiling, backed away and wished him luck before she dashed into Paris.

He nearly forgot where he was as she stood in the alleyway in a dazed sort of manner as he touched his face where the warmth of another had actually touched him in a kiss. But he was not so far out of it that he did not hear someone coming just then, and in a sudden fright he leapt away back to the shelter of Notre Dame. When he was certain it was safe again, he slipped up the side as he had gone down and climbed back to his tower.

#

One person took note in the flight of La Esmeralda. He had not seen the entire climb of the hunchback to the ground, but he had seen enough to know that was how it had been accomplished. With a beer in his hand Pierre Giroux watched from a window across from the street a moment with care as the bell ringer and the gypsy girl raced into an alley. Then standing up casually from his table he paid for his drink and left for the stables. Evening was setting in, but he was still in time to catch Quasimodo slip back to the cathedral and, more importantly, to see Esmeralda slip further into the back streets of Paris.

With casual care upon his horse, he followed the girl a ways. He was some distance behind her and often could not see her at all, but he had a mind, one must understand, to make certain no one would disturb Esmeralda on her way back home, wherever home was for the poor girl or if she truly had a home at all. Admittedly, also there was some curiosity involved, for he also wished to know where the girl stayed. Her welfare began to become more and more important to the knight whose instinct truly was saving the damsel in distress and the righting of the wrong.

Though, it should have also occurred to him that stalking a girl at night was not a noble thing to do in any occasion. Anyone who might have been witness to it might have thought him as bad as Sir Phoebus had turned out to be.

The further he followed, however, the quieter the streets became so that by the time he got off his horse in the queerest place he had been to in Paris, it seemed as though he had entered a ghost town. The buildings were rundown and all piled on top of each other. It was a slum, yes, but it was more than that somehow. He had lost sight of Esmeralda by now, but he was too caught up in the silent colorful banners hanging about as he came under a mournful stone arch and peered at the queer world inside. It was as silent as death or at least the silence before a storm, but just as he was passing through the archway to the other side, lightning apparently struck as he felt a strange tug beneath his legs.

"AH!" he cried and fell face first onto the ground.

He was not down for long, despite the pain of a face full of gravel and stone. Wrenching himself upright he reached for his sword, but he was not fast enough to unsheathe it as suddenly he saw his pursuers leaping out all around him as though materializing out of the shadows. They were mean and beastly and ragged, but they seemed to know what they were doing despite their boisterous shouts.

One tried to grab the reigns of his horse, but Ensoleillé, the knowing creature, would not be captured. Rearing with a cry, the horse bolted after kicking its would-be ensnarer square in the jaw.

As for Pierre Giroux, his enemies were far too many and fighting on their own turf as they surrounded him. One revealed a rope as Giroux at last wrenched out his sword between the shoves and kicks and even a bite from someone. A dog barking made the chaos even greater, but it came after not before the bite. The dog merely continued to urge on its fellows as the rope was soon knotted tightly around the knight despite his noble fight to free himself. One voice at last staggered him and caused him to lose against the rope.

It was the voice of Esmeralda.

"Wait! No, stop! What are you doing?"

"We should hang him!" shouted one man.

"Slice up like a ham!" shouted another.

"Slice his head off with his own blade! The intruder!" snarled the voice of a woman rising up from behind the rowdy men.

"Well, I got a nifty little blade right here!" shouted one man wrenching a rough-edged dagger from his rope belt, and he sniggered vilely.

"No, don't kill him!" gasped Esmeralda. "He's a fool but not an enemy!"

But her protests were soon lost as the shouts of the others reached their peak. Giroux tried once again to escape out of the grasp of his captors, rope and all. He was pushed downward at their feet, and he moaned as their unintelligible battle cry blared against one man.

"STOP!"

The silence was immediate; though the voice was no deeper or more menacing than a tenor. In fact it was lighter than nearly all the rogues' voices closest to the knight, perhaps even lighter than the woman in favor of the beheading. Not only was there silence, but a sudden reforming from their animalistic performance to that of at least as civilized as a band of righteous thieves.

The people further back from the thugs looking out from windows or merely shouting at the sidelines became downright humble and the thugs themselves became as stately as knights. La Esmeralda could at last be seen and she, as everyone else, was turned towards the clear voice like to the call of a hawk, and the man to whom the voice apparently belonged was indeed comparable to a hawk after a fashion. At least his nose was a bit like a falcon's beak, and his dark eyes were alert to everything around him, but there was a sanguine gleam in those eyes which could nearly be likened to the glint of a mischievous boy or even a child of the fay.

He was neither very tall nor very broad, but he could not be considered short, and no one could dare to call him weak. He had the power and energy of a jackrabbit just waiting to be used, but he withheld it to some degree as he strutted onto the scene. His mischievous grin turned sinister as he came to the bound and gagged Sir Giroux. He wore upon his head a broad-brimmed hat as of a musketeer, which he bore like a crown upon his head with a long cock feather stuck into its side. From beneath the hat and hanging just above the shoulder, his black hair shone nearly blue in the queer torchlight around them, and his rich dark skin gleamed with equal intensity so that the body beneath his shady plum and heather-colored clothing was brighter than what he wore as though he were a lantern shining behind broken colored glass. His heavy gold looping earrings were the only things that gleamed brighter save the powerful brilliance in his deep amber eyes.

"What's going on here?" demanded the man with some annoyance as he straightened with false pomp and arms flung around his back, but directly afterwards he was grinning from ear to ear down upon the captive. "Interesting to see a knight bound for once. Can't usually catch much glimpse of that treasure without the danger of losing your own life for the sake of Allah."

"He was trespassing, sir," one man began. And soon the others all began talking at once. "He followed La Esmeralda here!" "Now he must die for it!" "He's seen too much already!" "He's seen you!" "We got him bound" "We got the weapons." "His horse escaped!" "It's just a horse!"

"Yes," interrupted the man holding up his hand for silence and closing his eyes importantly. "Well, I fear no single knight beholding my true glory in the dead of night. Ungag him at least. I want to talk to him."

The gag was ripped roughly from Giroux's face and Giroux suppressed the urge to growl.

"Do you know where you are anyway, monsieur chevalier?" asked the man now squatting down confidentially to Giroux's side and placing his hand warmly upon his shoulder.

"My guess is the Court of Miracles," replied the knight calmly trying to retain what dignity still remained to him.

"Ah, but the Court of Miracles is just a myth," said the man. "After all, who would believe a whole troupe of vagabonds and misfits would join together in the agony of their plight, become worse in their plight as to transform into cripples, and blind men, and sickly weak, only to return to their royal wasteland with wealth to please them as rich as kings and their maladies vanished?" After patting the knight's head he stood up crossing his arms broadly over his chest as he let out a slight chuckle. "All under the command of a mythical beast, the King of Truands, the infamous and feared, the one called 'Clopin Trouillefou' in whispers of terror behind closed doors and used to frighten children who think they want to sneak out at night. And now here before you like the phantom who bested Sir Phoebus, the dearly departed" (Here he took off his hat from his head and placed it over his heart and wiping away a false tear) "is the mythical band about to take out one more knight?"

"You killed Captain Phoebus?" demanded Giroux.

"Don't be absurd," retorted the man placing the hat promptly back onto his head, and he turned away. "I wouldn't waste my time sneaking into town slitting people's throats with their own swords. I'm not an assassin! I'm a man of standards, but I do have one question that's bothering me exceedingly."

"What?"

"What is your business with our little Emerald?" asked the man pointing to the girl in question.

"He tried to help me earlier today and—"

"Ah, ah! My dear, let the noble knight speak for himself," the man tutted.

"I was—" started Giroux and coughed. "Well, I wanted to make certain that no one would try to … capture her."

"Oh, sad story," remarked the man. "Such lack of creativity. Wouldn't you say, boys?"

The other nearby men laughed to themselves.

Picking up Sir Giroux's fallen sword from the ground he pointed it slowly towards the knight's face.

"Do you believe this silly stalker and trespasser, La Esmeralda?" he asked.

"I know he means no harm," Esmeralda insisted.

Bringing the sword to his face broadside, the man examined the edge and shifted the blade around a little to give it a full analysis.

"I'm not without mercy," muttered the man meanwhile as he examined the blade.

"We're not going to hang him, sir?" asked a particularly dangerous looking ruffian.

After a pause the man looked at his fellow with a certain amount of disinterest.

"No, no, no," he said stabbing the ground and leaning upon the handle of Giroux's sword. "I think a knight deserves a fair chance of dying with honor or giving the chase, especially if the girl vouches for him."

Sir Giroux leered. "Hmph."

"Well, you are trespassing, after all," said the man idly almost as though he would yawn, and he examined his gloved fingers intently as he continued. "The only way people can come to the Court of Miracles is by private invitation or marriage. As you've come here without an invitation or a wife of the court, then by law you must die."

"Whose law?" Giroux demanded.

"Why, my law," the man sniffed.

"And who are you?"

Sweeping off his hat for a gallant bow, the man replied, "Clopin Trouillefou …" (His subjects bowed then before their illustrious king.) "and it's an honor, most gracious knight. Sir—eh." He placed his hat once more upon his head. "Sir whatever-your-name-is," he muttered, "and I'm entirely at your service. Until you're hanged anyway."

"So then what are you waiting for exactly?" Giroux asked.

"Well, I was going to offer you a chance at nobleness, remember," said Clopin. "A dual. In the true sense of the word. You kill me, then you go free. If I kill you, well …" Clopin shrugged almost childishly then sneered menacingly.

"No! Don't do it!" gasped Esmeralda.

"It's either that or we hang you right now," said Clopin, and turning to a man on hand he clapped his hands together twice in a regal manner. "Harceler! Go get the noose."

"At once, sir!" exclaimed a very ruffled looking man.

"No!" snapped Giroux.

Clopin halted Harceler and turned to Giroux. "Yes? Something we'd like to say, sir knight?"

"I don't trust you. Any of you, but it seems I have no choice but to accept your dual."

"Oh, good!" exclaimed Clopin eagerly, "I haven't had a good dual in a while. Hopefully you'll put up a good fight." And to his subjects he said, "Women and children clear the area! We're having a bloody dual, wouldn't want the fragile ones to be scarred for life or anything. Untie the criminal! And here's his sword! I have my own."

Once more he released a sinister grin, and he watched patiently as Pierre scrambled to his feet the moment his bonds were loose enough to push his way out without the help of his ruffian captors.

"Show him into the main court!" Clopin then said, and turning around with theatric flare he made for the said destination himself.