A/N - As a side note to readers confused by the overuse of argot in chapter nine, my apologies. I really forget after using it so much in my writing that everyone doesn't understand it -_-. Sorry! 'Carouble' means a false key and is the Surete name for Scaramouche. 'Cogne' and 'Cabestan' both other argot words which show up periodically mean 'policeman'. I'll try to remember to translate as we go but if I don't, please do mention it in a review or PM and I will rectify.
Also, for those of you who are Surete geeks (I am! I am!), we do realise we're playing a tad fast and loose with the Surete procedure here, and also that Vidocq wasn't in charge in 1830. If possible, please suspend quibbles for the sake of the story. :)
The sharp mixture of fear, caffeine, and (strangely?) camaraderie adulterating Maurice Joly's blood was more than enough to hold him steadily on edge – ready for anything – he knew they would need to be. Under darkness, getting into the prison was not an issue; the quiet and knowledgeable application of a lock-pick (where did Feuilly pick these things up, really?) was currency enough for their passage into the unexpectedly well-lit labyrinth beyond. He felt all his hairs stand on end as they crept through the halls, passing empty cells, occupied cells, alcoves, dark pits of hallways. Daniel followed behind cautiously; Alexandre, all calm and steadiness, took up the rear. Maurice led, the route they had planned burning in his mind's eye, carrying the knapsack with their rope and chloroform and a single pistol, because as Daniel had put it so well, if it came to a fight they would be lost already.
And then there was the guard in the hall, quite a tall fellow but Maurice didn't get much of a look at him; Daniel had already pulled his head back and then there was nothing for it to leap forward and hold the chloroform-soaked cloth over his face. It really wasn't an approved method of anaethesia, but Joly justified its use to himself as experimentation on people who deserved anything that might happen to go wrong.
"He's heavy," Daniel whispered as he lowered the guard's unconscious body to the floor and began stripping him of his uniform.
"I can see the other two down at the very end of the hall," Alexandre murmured as he leaned just enough around the corner to have a good line of sight.
"Right. I'll take care of it," Daniel said as he fastened the last buttons on the coat, which fit him very awkwardly. Nevertheless (Maurice thought) there was something very noble about his confidence, which he knew only seemed to fit as awkwardly as the uniform did.
As he and Alexandre dragged the body back down the hall and into one of those forgivingly dark side corridors, he heard Daniel greeting the guards with some exaggerated tale of woe, the loss of his possessions – some sort of embarrassing, humorous thing that had in all likelihood actually happened to the poor man at some point. It was only Feuilly's questioning eyes, waiting on the next directions, that kept the mix of fear and readiness from turning into total fear for his friend. Maurice was about to turn and exit the hallway when he heard heavy footsteps in the hall and dragged Alexandre further back by the jacket sleeve. A very familiar pair of boots passed by, carrying inside them a very familiar ox by the very familiar name of Pilon.
He didn't pass far, but stopped only a few cells down from the one opposite their corridor and leaned up against its bars with an obscenely satisfied grin on his face. "Hey, kid, remember when I said it was your lucky day?"
"Not this again," groaned an equally familiar voice from within the cell. It had to be Grantaire.
"Oh, yes."
"That's him," Maurice whispered, forcing himself to overcome the chill running down his spine.
"Let's go for it," Alexandre whispered back. Just behind the calm veneer, Joly could see that h is face was taut with concentration. He would have given anything to know they were going to get Grantaire out safely, and a great deal more to know that Daniel would be all right too, but all the same he would happily set aside a large piece of whatever-he-was-dealing-in to know what was going through Feuilly's head right now.
vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv
Feuilly's head was currently a veritable minefield of thoughts.
In between the keeping-track-of-friends'-names and the keeping-track-of-the-plan-of-La-Force and the keeping-track-of-everything-else (because what else was a fanmaker who knew far more of the world than he ought to good for?), Alexandre was also keenly focused on the complicated task of keeping-their-necks-safe. (He was not used to his given name at all. No one had called him by it since he had first started his apprenticeship and the fellows he boarded with gleefully reverted to the truly inventive cognomen of Feuilly. Fan-boy, essentially. But here he was digressing when he ought to be paying attention to the scene at hand.)
He had thought Pilon a towering bull of a man before, but here, in his natural habitat, he seemed even more impressive an opponent. To Alexandre's mind his fists, and the weapon he must surely be carrying – likely a knife, given the streetwise way he was walking – presented the single greatest danger before them. Grantaire – Perceval? – however, seemed to be bearing up well, if wearily, under the pressure."This palaver isn't going to change my story, mouchard. I don't know who they were and that's the end of it," he said stubbornly.
"I think I'm the one who'll decide what's the end of it," Pilon said coldly, unaware of Jol- Maurice stealing up behind him. Alexandre edged out of the hallway quietly, following behind.
Grantaire's eyes panned across them, but his bruised face thankfully betrayed nothing to the man in front of him. "...oh aye? Your knife getting twitchy, is it?" Yes, a knife then. Alexandre hoped that Maurice had made note of this as well.
"Perhaps," Pilon snarled, unable to conceal how much he obviously liked this idea. Feuilly felt his dislike of the man deepening further and further. Pushing his anger back, he looked over to Joly, who gave a decisive nod.
Within the space of a minute, Pilon was pinned flat on the floor and Grantaire was looking on in complete disbelief. "Monsieur, if you value your life, you will keep your mouth firmly shut," Maurice announced in quiet and firm tones, leveling the barrel of Daniel's pistol at Pilon's face. The spy's face spelled absolute fury, but he seemed to place a high enough value on his own skin not to move. Alexandre took the opportunity to relieve him of the knife tucked into his trouser pocket.
"Harlequin?" Perceval said quietly, eyes wide.
Maurice – Harlequin – chuckled a little. "Scaramouche, did you think we were going to let you hang?"
"...The thought crossed my mind a couple of times," Scaramouche admitted with a wheeze. Despite his attitude smacking more of 'Capital R' than anything else, Alexandre suddenly couldn't see him as any less than Papa Scaramouche, albeit one whose grandeur had slipped considerably. He closed his fingers more completely around the knife handle, wondering how much innocent blood it had tasted.
"Give him the key," Harlequin said coldly, turning back to Pilon and jerking his head toward Alexandre.
"I'm not going to –" Pilon began. Alexandre cut him off by pressing the knife blade uncomfortably close to his neck. Pilon paused to consider his options and slowly handed over the key he had been concealing. Feuilly took it and opened the door to Scaramouche's cell with little trouble. There he was, leaning up against the bars with a pained and bewildered look that made Alexandre furious with Pilon for…whatever he had done.
"Pedrolino's distracting the guards," Harlequin said by way of explanation without taking his eyes or his pistol off Pilon. "Can you walk?"
"…I can try." Scaramouche looked as if he were far too touched to bother with any suicide plans. It was a relief. What was not a relief was the way in which he tried and failed to stand, collapsing onto the floor in a fit of wheezing breaths.
"Here, I'll help carry you out," Alexandre said, bending down to help him up and giving a jerk of his head toward Pilon. "Harlequin, what're we doing with him?"
"Lock him in here, of course," Harlequin said, ignoring the looks of hatred passing back and forth between Scaramouche and Pilon. ". Let Scaramouche sit down for a bit so you can tie him up while I keep the gun on him."
Scaramouche accepted Feuilly's assistance onto the cell's sturdy bench with a soft, grateful smile. "Thank you, Pan Twardowski." Alexandre broke into a wide grin; how could he not? He had no idea how Scaramouche could have known, but then that was the trick of Scaramouche, to know odd things no one else did. Monsieur Twardowski, Wizard of Krakow, or else simply the cleverest man in all Poland. Owner of the mirror that predicted Bonaparte's Russian downfall, if legend was to be believed, and the only man quick enough to bargain with the Devil and win. If he had to have a new name, he could have done much worse.
Pan Twardowski caught the knapsack Harlequin tossed to him neatly and tied Pilon's ropes with equal ease before starting to drag him backwards into the cell. "Ugh, does the government feed you bricks for breakfast?" he said as he struggled to pull the spy's bulk over the raised threshold (a proceeding that happily seemed to be quite painful for said spy). Pilon merely scowled back.
Once the spy had been safely stowed in the darkest corner of the cell, Harlequin handed Twardowski the gun before proceeding to chloroform and gag the offending hulk of a traitor. "Dieu, he is an annoying man," Scaramouche commented as Pilon finally stopped struggling and fell unconscious. "…Harlequin, you are magic after all, eh?"
"Maybe," Harlequin said grimly, worry flickering under the surface of his eyes. "We haven't pulled this off yet - we still have to go disentangle poor Pedrolino from the guard's uniform he's donned."
Scaramouche began to lever himself up off the bench with a groan. "...well... perhaps he should... keep it on. Look more natural, a guard seeing a few philanthropistic gentlemen around the prison."
Pan Twardowski caught Scaramouche under the elbow and shoulder to support his faltering step. "You think so?" he said, eyes flickering between Scaramouche and Harlequin for confirmation (he was, after all, the newcomer to this strange quartet). "We'd planned to split up, him to go get Pedrolino and me to help you out of here."
"Heaven forbid I call a change of plans. That - particularly the part where I get out of here - sounds quite brilliant," Scaramouche said.
"All right," Harlequin nodded, "we'll stick to that, then." He locked the cell behind them, pocketed the key, and stole off quietly to rescue Pedrolino.
Pan Twardowski and Pedrolino looked at each other in the low torchlight remaining. "Well…let's be going," Twardowski said quietly, feeling the dynamics between them starting to slip further toward merely Feuilly and Grantaire in a dangerous hallway they didn't quite know their way out of.
"You didn't have to do that, you know," Grantaire said suddenly, eternities later, as they crouched in the darkness beyond the walls of La Force in wait for Pedrolino and Harlequin to reappear.
"We couldn't just let you die," Feuilly answered him, sensibly, the enormity of all they had just accomplished beginning to wash over him a little. "It's nothing, really," he continued in an effort to keep himself on top of things.
"Hell it isn't," Grantaire said with a small groan as one of his injuries twinged. "Didn't think anyone would come for me."
"But here we are," came a familiar, grinning, relieved voice that made its source evident as Daniel tumbled out into the freer air of the Paris streets, followed closely by Maurice. "You two all right?"
"As well as can be expected," Grantaire said with an attempt to grin ironically.
"Let's just get home," Maurice said quietly, all the Harlequin drained out of him.
"Lovely idea." Perceval hoisted himself back up onto Alexandre's shoulder. "Lovely."
Alexandre found he had to agree.