Chapter 10- The Villagers' Ruse
"Your Highnesses, Prince Adam and Princess Belle," Fabien began, "please forgive Mademoiselle Dufresne's actions and sudden appearance here. She is under my supervision. She has cast protective spells on this castle to protect you from the revolutionaries. So far, they have succeeded."
Delphine stood silently at his side and nodded.
"So that's what's going on," Adam said grimly. "Who has given you permission?"
"No one, Your Highness," said Delphine quietly. "I decided to do it myself. You need all the protection you can get from the people who wish to harm you. I just wanted to use my power to help. You have children. Don't you want them to be safe?" She glanced over at Vincent and Hélene.
"Why can't we leave the castle?" Hélene asked the Enchantress.
"Child, you have to trust me. I will lift the spell when the danger has passed."
Hélene turned to Adam. "Papa, I'm sorry! We met her over a week ago. She used magic to tell us what was happening in Paris and told us about the...when you were a boy," she said guiltily.
"She has just prevented an invasion, Master," Chip interjected. "The castle is invisible to outsiders."
"Invisible?" Adam glared at Delphine. "There were invaders?" He looked back and forth between Delphine, Fabien, Lumiere, and Chip, seeking their confirmation. The four nodded.
"A band of revolutionaries, I'm certain, Your Grace," Lumiere concurred. "They turned away and left; as there was no castle to be seen."
Adam and Belle glanced at each other, trying to ascertain what had happened, and if they could trust Delphine. Should they allow this woman, who had taken years away from Adam and the servants' lives, to intervene once more?
"Please come to the parlor, Mademoiselle, and Monsieur," Belle suggested after a long pause. "Let's all talk about this."
...
That same night, in the village, a group of twelve men burst into Gaston's Tavern, tired, weary, and demanding answers.
The leader, a tall, imposing man named Jean Marchand, looked around for assistance. His eagle eyes focused on the assistant bartender, nineteen-year-old Henri-Gaston Lefou. "Tell me where I can find the chateau of Prince Adam!" he bellowed at him.
"The chateau of Prince Adam?" Henri looked at Jean with a bit of bewilderment.
"Yes. It is a very short ride from your village, is it not?" Marchand pressed.
"That's the Prince who rules over our region, right?" Henri asked in feigned ignorance.
"You don't know who your own Prince is?" The man was seething with impatience. He looked around at his comrades, who had taken seats at the tables around the bar.
Lefou quickly approached his son, carrying the two empty tankards he had been cleaning. "Oh! I know! His name's Adam Vincente Christophe, and he's married to Princess Belle-"
"But where is his CASTLE?" Marchand hollered. His deputy, Jourdain, approached the bartenders with rolls of maps. He unfurled one and laid it out on the bar counter.
"Messieurs, we need your assistance. Look at this!"
Lefou and his taller son looked down at the map. Marchand plopped his index finger on the little dot labeled 'Molyneux.' He moved his finger a tiny bit to the side, to a little crown symbol close to the dot.
"It's right there! Just a little to the south, on the mountain range. That's where the castle has always been, correct?"
Lefou glanced over at his son worriedly. The boy shook his head, just a tiny bit, but enough for his father to get the message: no. Henri was always such a smart boy. Book smart, like Sophie, but street smart, too.
"Um, no...sorry, Monsieur, but there's no castle nearby. You sure you're in the right town?" Lefou asked the man.
"Maybe the map maker made a mistake!" Henri suggested. "Maybe the Prince's castle isn't near Molyneux. Maybe it's near a town called Jolyneux."
"Or Rolyneux!" Lefou added, nodding enthusiastically.
"Who made that map? It looks ancient, Monsieur. All yellow, and wrinkly. Why do you want to know where the Prince's castle is, anyway?" Henri inquired.
"We are in the midst of a revolution, you fools!" Marchand bellowed. "The King and Queen of France will soon be dead! Scepter and crown shall tumble down, and liberty will come to the people! You will no longer be subject to tyranny, poverty and starvation!"
"What tyranny? Nobody's oppressing us," Henri said calmly.
"Nobody's starving in this town, heh-heh," concurred Lefou with a nervous chuckle. "Are ya hungry? We're out of cinnamon rolls tonight, but-"
"How?" demanded Marchand. "How can this backwoods little village be prospering? You all have bakeries and shops full of delicacies, fine fabric for clothes, an abundance of food, while the rest of France- except for those selfish nobles- suffer and starve in the streets!"
Marchand looked around the tavern, full of animal taxidermy, enormous ale kegs, chess and dart boards. It was a tavern of happy, comfortable citizens. This village wasn't suffering one bit.
"We're self-sustaining," Henri told them. "Game hunting and farming has supported this town for a long time. We had a drought this spring and summer...but we got tons of rain starting September!" He gave Marchand a disarming smile.
The boy couldn't explain why life was good in Molyneux, and the nearby towns in the region, while there was so much poverty in other parts of France. It was just the way it always was. They'd never paid taxes to Prince Adam because he never asked it of them. In fact, every Christmas Day, he and Princess Belle left five hundred livres in the church basket to be shared among the villagers.
Of course, there was the matter of the diamond mining going on in the mountain behind Adam's castle...but that was a well kept secret between Adam and Belle, and the villagers.
Marchand looked at Jourdain and took off his hat, wiping a tired and sweaty brow. He turned to Lefou.
"Someone shot one of my men, out in the wooded trail. We don't know who it was and wish to stay in your town to investigate. We have to bunk for the night. Are there rooms vacant in the inn? Your sign said there are two boarding rooms upstairs."
"Gee, I'm sorry, Monsieur, but the rooms are taken. Ladies are sleeping up there, so shh...we have to talk quieter-"
"Is there anywhere else in town we can stay?" Marchand interrupted Lefou abruptly. "Our fallen man has been taken to the doctor, and there are twelve of us who need shelter tonight."
"We can ask around, couldn't we, Papa?" Henri asked. "Do you think Maman would mind if a few of them could stay at our house?"
"I guess. Wouldn't hurt to ask. And we can ask Noel and Luc, and Jean, and our cousins," his papa agreed.
...
Upstairs, in the second floor bedroom above Gaston's Tavern, the Duchesses Catherine and Joséphine lay in a rustic, patchwork quilted bed.
"Did you hear that, ma petite? Someone downstairs just said 'revolution,' and something about killing the King and Queen! This is dreadful, so dreadful!" Catherine fretted. "What if they already captured Prince Adam and his family, and are taking them away?"
Joséphine rose from the bed and looked out the window, at the many horses hitched near the tavern. "We can go tomorrow. Renaud is up and walking around. He's well enough to drive the carriage, I hope."
"We don't know if the people here are sympathetic to the rebels or not. Now I'm certain we can't trust anyone, Joséphine."
"Let's just keep doing what we are doing and act as commoners. Renaud will get us to the castle tomorrow, for certain, Maman. Please, let's try to sleep." The young woman settled back in bed next to her mother, and put a comforting hand on hers.
"I cannot sleep in this dirty filth!" Catherine said with a sob. She closed her eyes, the better to not see the shadows of animals cast along the walls from the dusty old hunting trophies.
...
Another urgent case disturbed the town's doctor, Dr. LaFontaine, late that night. Two strangers burst into his sickroom carrying a third man, who was dripping blood from his stomach. The man made no sound and appeared to be unconscious.
The strangers laid him down on a bed next to the one still occupied by the previous shooting victim, Renaud. He awoke, and uttered a few oaths at the chaos that interrupted his peaceful sleep.
The elderly doctor and his apprentice wiped the patient's wounds with clean cloths, and found that the bleeding had stopped. Dr. LaFontaine held his candle at the man's face. He had a pale, bluish tint to his skin.
He held a mirror under his nose. There was no fogging up of moisture on the glass.
"Are we too late, Doc? Is it bad?" asked one of the men in an exhausted voice.
"Messieurs," the doctor announced sadly, "I am terribly sorry. There is nothing I can do to treat this man. He is with God now."
"We don't know who did this! The shots came out of nowhere!" the same man raged.
"Someone must have been threatened by all of you," Dr. LaFontaine said sympathetically, making certain that anything regarding Prince Adam, or defense of a castle, was not to be mentioned. "Where was this poor gentleman from?"
"He was from Paris, as I am." the other revolutionary's voice, a softer tone, explained. "I want to just take him home-"
"Only until Marchand gives orders to go back," the first man interrupted firmly.
"But we..." The second sighed in resignation and sniffled, not able to hide the grief of losing his comrade.
"I'm so sorry, son. I can make some arrangements for him in the morning. What was his name?"
"Tomas. Edouard Tomas, he was twenty-two," replied the firmer male voice.
Renaud, meanwhile, shut his eyes tightly and wished for the conversation to end, and the lot of them to just leave. Finally, he opened an eye and watched the two revolutionaries cover the man's face with a coat and carry him back outside. He shifted so he was in a more comfortable position with his sore shoulder, then settled his head back down on the pillow and drifted off.
...
The next morning, Renaud got up out of the bed, his shoulder still painful and his right arm immobile. He went to the tavern and knocked. No one answered, as tavernkeeper Lefou had gone with his friends to check up on the invisible castle. Renaud pounded on the door with his left hand. "Mistress Catherine! Mistress Joséphine!" he yelled.
"Monsieur...hello?" a woman's voice said behind him. He turned around to see Sophie Lefou and her youngest son, Jean. "The mistresses are at the café having breakfast. Would you like me to take you to them?"
"Yes- merci, Madame. I would like that." The young man flashed her a charming grin. She smiled back, pleased to see the much-talked-about patient at the doctor's house up and about.
"Aren't you the man who was...shot? Shouldn't you still be in bed resting?" she asked him.
"I'm fine, Madame. I just need to speak to the ladies." Renaud insisted.
"Well, alright then. Come with us," Sophie said cheerfully.
Little Jean stared up at the man in awe. "Gee, Monsieur, I'm so glad you didn't die!" he remarked.
"Jean, that's not polite. Think of M. Luc," Sophie admonished her son in a whisper.
She knew that their friend Luc Saggitaire was still burdened with regret for shooting down the innocent coachman. Now he had no horses for the winter, due to his promise to compensate Renaud for his recklessness. The shooting of the stranger had been the talk of the village- at least before the events of yesterday.
There were some very odd things going on, the invisible castle being the main event, and the shared feeling of the men last night that they, too, turned invisible as they tried to fight against the invaders.
The villagers were not aware of the most recent shooting, at the castle gate. The revolutionaries had brought their fallen man in late at night.
Earlier that morning, the townspeople met in the church and decided that they would all deny the existence of a castle near Molyneux. It had been Henri's idea. Sophie and Lefou had beamed with pride at the leadership and brilliancy of their son. The boy was absolutely certain it was the right move. Incidentally, the Lefous as well as the two Saggitaire families happened to be hosting some surprise overnight visitors. The families had given the revolutionaries a place to sleep, but spoke to them as little as possible.
Sophie and Jean showed Renaud to the town café. When he opened the door and stepped inside, Joséphine's face glowed with happiness. She got up from her table, where she'd been eating quiche with her mother, and ran up to embrace him.
"Renaud! You're well again!" Renaud patted her shoulder politely while Joséphine hugged him tightly around the waist. "Now we can go. After you have something to eat," she told him.
Madame Gigi Goulet, the new owner of the Café Molyneux, brought him a plate heaped with her own recipe of quiche and croissants. "Here you go! Piping hot!" she said to him as he graciously sat down.
"Lovely service by such a beautiful woman!" Renaud remarked to Gigi with a wink.
The forty-year-old blonde woman giggled girlishly, and went back to her work with a sashay of her hips. As she passed by her friend Sophie, Gigi leaned down toward her and whispered in her ear. "I may be married but I'm not dead!"
"I was thinking the same thing," Sophie said, laughing. The injured man was the handsomest fellow the townswomen had seen in a good while. If it weren't for his good looks, he probably wouldn't have created the talk and rumors among the women of Molyneux. They all wanted to know his real identity. Many of the women opined that he was a Prince in disguise, coming to see Adam, his believed relative, to help him escape.
"Now, Renaud, we must be getting to the castle as soon as possible. How long will the journey take?" Duchess Catherine asked at the dining table. Renaud shrugged his strong left shoulder.
"Less than an hour, Maman. Don't you remember from back when Chip and I..." Joséphine said with a sigh, remembering her pathetic non-wedding two years before. "The castle is less than an hour away from the village. It is all uphill, so it is tough on the horses."
Catherine looked at Renaud pointedly. "Before you arrived here, did check that the horses were fed and watered?"
"No, I suppose I forgot," Renaud admitted. As he clumsily wolfed down his breakfast with his good hand, he noticed the chubby boy who had come in with his mother. The child was staring at them, listening to their conversation. His eyes were wide as saucers, and his lower lip was quivering as if there was something he desperately wanted to tell them.
"Son, do you want something?" Renaud asked the boy.
"Um, no." Jean shook his head swiftly, and ran into the kitchen where his mother was talking with Gigi. He poked her in the back. "Maman!"
"Oww! What, honey?" Sophie said in exasperation as she looked at him.
"There's a problem!"
"What problem, sweetie?" Sophie sighed. Jean's 'problems' tended to be trivial, and occurred a few dozen times a day. It usually involved tattling on his older siblings, but the other three children were busy. Sylvie and Aimee were helping cook for Marchand and Jourdain- much to the girls' displeasure- and Henri and Lefou were going to the castle, to see if it was still vanished.
"Those people are going to the castle, they said! But they won't SEE it!" Jean exclaimed.
Sophie looked at Gigi and gasped. "Oh, no! What should we say?" She looked back to see the three customers finishing up. Joséphine was helping Renaud stand, and it appeared he couldn't use his right arm. "I think he's going to take their coach and drive it up himself."
"They're for sure not the people who want to hurt Prince Adam and Princess Belle, right, Maman?" Jean asked.
"No, honey, they're not. The girl is Chip's friend," Sophie assured, stroking her son's messy brown hair lovingly. The small boy looked relieved.
"And you know what I said might be true about Mr. Dreamy over there," Gigi said with an admiring smile, stealing a glance at Renaud.
"How will they make it to the castle to see Chip and the royal family, if they can't see it?" asked Jean.
Gigi nodded in agreement. "They need a guide, someone to drive for them and help them to find their way in when they get there. And they won't even believe it exists, just like those men who came to town!"
"I wish one of the servants who could actually see it was in town," said Sophie. "We need a guide who's gotten inside before. Where are your sisters this morning, Gigi?"
"At home, probably, with their kids," replied Gigi. Mimi and Fifi were in the same conundrum as Sophie was, cooking for and hosting the strangers who invaded Molyneux. Gigi was spared the chore because she was a working mother, running the café. Her husband, Jean-Claude, was checking over the road to the castle, as were her sisters' husbands, Luc and Noel. Lefou and Sophie's two daughters were watching over Gigi and Jean-Claude's two children, Gerard and Genevieve.
"I have to get back home and help my girls." Sophie said. She would have offered to drive and guide the threesome herself, but Sylvie and Aimee, who were fifteen and thirteen, were burdened with so many chores back at her house. She worried that the aggressive revolutionary men would still be asking about the whereabouts of the royal family. Sophie and her friends the triplets hoped they might have already left.
...
Renaud shrugged off the constant questions about his health that Joséphine kept asking.
"I said I'm fine! I can drive you to the castle!" he said in irritation. Joséphine looked up at him, hurt at his harsh response.
"Renaud, how dare you speak rudely to Her Highness! Do not forget your place!" Duchess Catherine scolded. "You would have never spoken that way in the presence of her father!"
Renaud looked straight ahead as he walked up the street to locate the Duchesses' coach. He clenched his jaw tightly, not saying a word back to Her Highness.
The coach was parked behind the tavern, where it had been kept by the Lefou family, who had been caring for the horses while Renaud was recovering. A large livery stable was at the rear of the tavern building. Renaud walked inside and saw his team of horses drinking from a water bucket; someone had already fed and watered them. He and the Duchesses stood in the stable together, watching as the horses finished drinking. They needed to be ready for their journey ahead.
A group of men came in behind them. They walked past to their own horses, also being held in the livery stable. One of them was speaking loudly as he strode past.
"Mark my words, Jourdain. The Princes, the Dukes, the Counts and the King and Queen themselves- all will be dead within the next few years! Or perhaps sooner!" Marchand proclaimed. "You and I will stay to question them about Tomas' death. Dubois- you and the rest take Tomas' body back home. We will meet in Paris soon, and get to the bottom of this misunderstanding. Godspeed to you, and Liberté!" He threw his right fist into the air.
"Liberté!" the other men shouted back to him, their fists raised high.
Duchess Catherine put her hand to her mouth in anguish. Her daughter grasped her arm.
"Conceal your emotions, Maman." Joséphine whispered to her. "We must keep a low profile, remember?"
Renaud casually walked over to Marchand and Jourdain and gave them a friendly smile in greeting, while Catherine cringed, trying to keep her terror in check.
He exchanged a few pleasant words with them. Noticing his injury, the two men offered to help him with hitching the horses to the carriage.
"Looks like a right fancy carriage for people like you- did you steal it from one of the dead tyrants?" Marchand asked Renaud pointedly.
Renaud laughed. "I most certainly did. To the victor come the spoils!"
The remark caused Marchand and Jourdain to guffaw as well, and they raised their fists to him in the revolutionary salute. Renaud raised his fist in return.
A short while later, Renaud had the horses secured to the stagecoach, and Catherine and Joséphine gratefully climbed inside.