CW: Sexual Assault
As the dark brown eyes from the market bore through me my breath began to quiver, the tears from my eyes ceased. I sat on my knees in the dirt and the straw of a cell in the dungeon, at the mercy of Clopin, king of fools. Feeling the weight of his gaze once again I froze, I held my breath, my heart beat slowed, and even the throbbing of my injured hand stopped for a second as he stared at me angrily through the darkness.
"What are you doing here?" His voice clawed through the darkness. He took a step towards me and, panicked, I reached out behind me with the hand that wasn't injured and falling back onto the ground I meekly used my hand to drag myself away from him. He pursued, taking another step towards me, slowly, until I had backed myself into the corner. I pushed myself as far back against the bars of the cell as I could, unable to glance up to see my opponent advancing. I saw the outline of his shoes in the darkness as he reached me in the corner and crouched down.
As I held my breath, silently, my face grew hot and began to burn beneath his eyes. I shuddered out a sobby breath finally, gasping for air, unable to look up past the mangled shape of my hand in my lap, through a veil of hair in the darkness. Once more, I attempted to uncurl my fingers from the tight fist they had been clenched into. The pain shot through my entire torso and I gasped loudly. Suddenly, in the darkness, a warm hand firmly grabbed my wrist. I winced and turned away from him, afraid. Clopin held my wrist up, and I felt his eyes study my hand.
"...They... made me..." My voice cracked as I tried to hold down my sobs, it sounded barely recognizable to me.
"Who made you what?" Clopin barked back.
"Your... people..." I managed to respond. Clopin dropped my wrist and stood up, he was silent for a moment before he cursed in disbelief. "They sent you?"
He released it and stood up silently. Clopin crossed the cell to the far corner and slid down into the matted straw and hay of the cell floor.
"The palace dungeon is a slow way to die. I suppose it's fitting that I'll be here to watch you rot." His voice sounded from the corner, cold and defeated. I sat frozen, shuddering out noisy breaths that defied the bravery I had imagined having when faced with the Gypsy king once again. Instead, all I could do was quiver, trying to steady my breath in the dim, stale air of the dungeon.
The palace dungeon, in spite of the many small eyelets that sat at the top of the cell's tall ceilings, felt darker somehow than where I had been left deep inside the catacombs. Even in the darkness, the vast emptiness of the tower room could be sensed. Shudderings from doves and the occasional coo would echo down from the rotting beams overhead, illuminating further the dismal space of the dungeon. The catacombs, though far beneath the city, were filled with a stagnant air and warm. In the dungeon, however, the freezing air from outside howled through every gap in the hard, cold stone. As I sat against the bars of the cell, cradling my injured hand, I found I was unable to slip into the comfort of how helpless I felt and drift to sleep. My heavy eyes remained closed, but every rustle of activity in the large room sent waves of chills down my back. I tried to keep aware of Clopin's disgruntled form in the corner, each time I sensed movement I would hold my breath, in fear of him approaching once again. Occasionally I would open my eyes and carefully raise my gaze from behind my hair in order to see him myself, but all I could make out was his form. It was his gaze that I felt through the cold darkness that night, and every so often it would pull me from my thoughts, terrified that I would awake if I managed to fall asleep to his hands around my throat.
At some point I must have slipped into a sleep, as suddenly the sound of the door to the dungeon boomed open and as I opened my eyes, I noticed daylight through the small windows at the top of the cell. Clopin's head shot up and in the dim light I saw his dark eyes flash in my direction, before he scrambled to his feet and backed up against the wall. Heavy footsteps thudded down the stone hall, I held my breath knowingly until they stopped in front of our cell. The door groaned open and I tried to steady my breath. My body ached, my neck stiff and my hand throbbed with every breath I took. The cold iron of the key still inside my bodice pressed against my cold and damp skin. Stomping into the cell, one guard went toward Clopin, who stood backed against the wall. The man grabbed his arm and when Clopin resisted he hit him hard across the head, causing him to fall back. The guard produced heavy irons from and clamped them onto Clopin's thin and weathered wrists.
"You call these shackles?" I heard clopin sneer.
"Shut up." Replied the guard, who pushed him forward, causing him to trip toward the door.
A pair of thick boots appeared in my sightline on the ground and before I could look up, rough hands in leather gloves grabbed me from under the arms and lifted me onto my feet. In one swift movement I was pinned against the hard wall, my head smacking the back. I winced beneath the hair that covered my face, and the hand of the guard pushed it back with one hand while his knee held me to the wall, pressed firmly on my thigh. My eyes fell to the dark corner of the cell, even as the guard tried to meet them with his own in the dim light. His hands then reached down to the base of my skirt and began to feel their way up my legs and onto my thighs. I closed my eyes tightly and turned my head further from him, my hand which wasn't twisted into an aching fist pushed back on his shoulder weakly as his hot breath crossed the skin of my neck, his mouth closing around it, tongue sliding back and forth. He lowered his knee and pressed his body against me, his hands wrapping themselves around my thighs and lower back.
"Come on." The guard, holding the chains of Clopin from the door boomed. The guard's hand opened my thighs wider and pressed himself further towards me in response, his mouth moving towards the edge of my dress. "I said come on." The guard yelled from the door once more. The man on top of me pulled away and turned to him.
"This one is mine." He spat, turning back to me. The other guard appeared behind him and firmly ripped his shoulder away from me, but the guard remained on top of me, pinning me to the cold wall. The guard pulled him back harder.
"Claude Frollo is waiting. First we take the gypsy, then this one." He yanked on the chain holding Clopin's irons, causing him to lurch forward. I felt the heat of Clopin's eyes burning through the pressure radiating from the man's loins and the body trapping me to the wall. I glanced up quickly to catch the intense stare from Clopin, over the shoulder of the guard. The guard caught our look and my eyes darted back to the corner. He smirked and I felt his hands unsnake themselves from my thighs. As my skirt fell back below my knees and the man backed away, my sore and tired legs gave out from beneath me and I sunk back onto the floor. The man let out a frustrated grunt and assisted in escorting Clopin outside of the cell. I felt the guard's eyes on me one last time as I heard the heavy door lock, before the sounds of all three men disappeared down the hall way.
I held my breath until the heavy door to the cell row shut behind them, and let it out in one long, heavy exhale that shook as I did. My knees pushed my arms up and my icy fingers slid into my hair- now a tangled nest of dirt and sweat. Time continued to crawl by- measured in the passing of unequal seconds signaled by a loud drip of water from the small window in the wall above me to a small puddle below. The dim amount of light from the window had become somehow even dimmer, until as hours passed the cell was almost pitch black, save for the burning torch somewhere down the long hallway. Every part of my body was aching heavily from my frozen position on the floor, but I couldn't move, or look beyond the veil of matted hair that obscured my gaze, staring just in front of me to the floor below. Suddenly the door to the hallway slammed open and I could hear the voices of the guards once again. I lifted my head, my heart began to beat so intensely as my breath quickened it pushed the heavy iron key against my rib producing a sharp pain. As the key had warmed up, pressed against my flesh I had all but forgotten about it. The phantom hands of the guard from earlier lingered on my thighs and sent a cold chill up my spine. If they were to return the key could easily be found. The footsteps in the hallway were rapidly approaching and I frantically dug my hand into the front of my bodice and struggled to pull the key out. My shaking hands shot towards my boot, awkwardly shoving the key down the side as the door to the cell swung open. I covered the motion by pushing myself up from the ground with the same hand, my weak arms feeling for the support of the damp wall behind me to push myself to be standing. As I looked up I immediately saw Clopin's slender frame, held on either arm by each guard, his head hung down as his torso dropped to the floor, dragging his legs behind him. He seemed unresponsive as they used his arms to throw him into the corner. My eyes searched the darkness for movement but he lay slumped in a pile just as they had thrown him I gasped quietly and went to take a step towards him. If he had been killed, the other gypsies would not return for him and I would be left to die. Before I could take another step the guard from before wrapped his arm around my torso and pushed me back towards the wall. I reached out to Clopin but the guard grabbed my arm and pinned it to my side by his hand.
"Now where were we?" He sneered, his breath reeking of ale. I stared back at him, horrified, and as anger took ahold of me for a second I watched my heavy arm lift and cross his face in a hard slap. The second guard, standing by the door, snickered in the darkness and the guard in front of me smiled horribly. He gathered up both of my arms and lifted them above my head, slamming them onto the brick of the wall. I let out a heavy breath as my wrists, and my bruised and swollen hand began to throb under his grip.
"I'll show you what we do to Gypsy spies, and English whores in here." He croaked as I felt his gloves begin to undo the laces on my bodice. I glanced towards Clopin for a sign of life, if not help, but he lay still and fear gripped my stomach once again. Once my bodice lay open, the cold leather of his glove began to slither once again up the front of my skirt and towards my chest, as his hot breath and tongue danced around my neck and shoulders. I closed my eyes and stared into the eternal darkness behind my eyelids, waiting for it to be over. The guard's hand slid out from under my skirts and he undid his belt, still holding my hands up away from me. Just as he had loosened his waist a large, dark shadow fell over the cell from the torch the guard held by the door.
"Gentlemen." A strong and cold voice boomed from the door. We all looked towards it, and the unmistakable silhouette of Claude Frollo slid into the cell.
"Sir!" The guard ontop of me exclaimed in surprise, his knees still pressed into my legs and the grip on my arms loosening slightly.
"What are you doing?" Frollo passed the shocked guard by the door and appeared at the side of the guard ontop of me. I glanced once more to Clopin's figure in the darkness, but the piercing stare of the judge at the undone bodice hanging off my shoulder returned to meet his empty grey eyes. Pain shot through my hand, almost as if the judge had been thinking about when he crushed it beneath the bars of the door just one night before. Had it only been one night?
"I was just..." The guard mumbled, and Frollo glanced towards the guard's undone pants. Frollo stared hatefully into my eyes once more, before a sickly smile crossed his face and he turned to the guard.
"Gentlemen... Please, assure me that the pestilent witchery of this beast has not infected you?" The feeling that arose from him when he spoke, as though his words were heavy smoke, depriving the air around me caused my chest to feel heavy once more. The guard looked up into my eyes and released my arms fearfully, taking a small step away from me.
"No, sir, we were-"
"Good." Frollo interrupted. I glanced up to meet his eyes and the back of his boney hand crossed my face forcefully. Hot tears were swelling up to meet the heat of impact from his strike, but I kept my head turned and low to not show them. "Don't turn those eyes on me, madame. We musn't let such earthly filth possess us, for the sake of our heavenly souls." I felt the guard glance back at me, but I kept my head turned away.
"Y-Yes, sir." The guard muttered back, stupidly. I heard him tighten his belt back up and as he reached for my arm, Frollo gripped his tightly, stopping him.
"Not tonight. I'm to retire for the evening. We'll start with this one in the morning." He spat.
"Yes, sir." Dejected, the guard responded and turned to leave the cell. I let out a cold and nearly silent sigh, but the judge turned to me, as if he had heard it.
"If I were you, I would pray to god that your king makes it through the night." His words bit through the cold air of the cell. Once he had crossed through the iron door and stood on the other side, he spoke again. "Not that he would be listening." The heavy clunk of the key turning from the other side accented his words and the sharp sound of his feet on the stone echoed back down the hallway.