Chapter 14- Something's Lurking

A 'Beast'? What were they talking about? Marchand wondered. How could they be saying that Prince Adam died long ago, his great castle completely destroyed with nothing remaining of it?

Did they take him for a fool? Marchand and his men had broken into Louis' royal banks and institutions quite recently, and found records of a very-much-alive Prince Adam, who had been paying his share of the province's taxes to the tyrant King and Queen up to this very year.

Where was the money coming from? Marchand pondered.

He looked over at Jourdain, wondering if he was thinking the same thoughts, but the younger man was just a dullard. He was shuddering along with this motley group of peasants.

"Who or what killed Prince Adam?" Marchand demanded. "Over twenty years ago, then? Who has been collecting taxes for the King and governing this province? Is there an imposter around, pretending to be a Prince long dead?"

Chip looked in interest at Marchand's blue, white and red badge on his lapel. "Monsieur...I see you wear the Tricolour. Is it true that you are fighting for our Liberty? You want to see Louis and Antoinette lose their heads? Please let it be so!" he said emphatically.

"It is so!" declared Marchand.

"Then you must keep this absolutely secret!" Chip pleaded, his voice hushed and trembling. "There is an imposter, a village peasant- who has taken the identity of the dead Prince Adam so he can deceive the wicked King. He is sitting among us."

Marchand looked to the group of people sitting around the campfire. A youth of about seventeen raised his hand. "I am the one," Vincent declared.

Marchand stepped closer to the boy. He reached in his pocket and took out a fine piece of jewelry. It was a gold necklace with small oval charms, holding tiny portraits of the members of the old noble House of Rohan. There were six in all, spanning four generations including young Prince Adam Vincente Christophe. This mini-portrait was a replica the most well-known painting of Adam, created when he was ten years old. Marchand looked at the tiny portrait of Prince Adam, and gazed down at this boy dressed in modest clothing in front of him.

The boy and the child in the portrait looked amazingly alike, sharing the same brilliant blue eyes.

"The Prince and the Pauper," Marchand said with a chuckle. "I guess fairy tales can be real after all."

"I guess they can," said Chip casually, whose palms were sweating with nervousness. "Sit down and I will tell you a terrifying story. It is about what happened to Prince Adam all those years ago."

The two men joined the rest of the people around the fire, helping themselves to the feast.

"So where should I begin?" Chip said before a long pause to think. He looked over the people gathered, now eating roast ham and potatoes on tin plates like camping soldiers. It reminded him of his days on the Navy ships, where he used to tell the other sailors his sometimes-true, and sometimes-altered versions of the strange tale of his childhood.

Lumiere interrupted Chip's thoughts with a wise suggestion. "How about we begin with why we are here, mon ami? The reason we are eating this feast? Tell them the legend of the lovely Belle! It may keep...it...calm and less likely to...appear." The older maître'd shuddered dramatically.

"Yes- you're right, Lumiere. Gentlemen, this is my good friend Francois Lumiere. He was a servant when this castle was still standing, In fact, both he and my other friend, Cogsworth- the gentleman next to him with the pocketwatch, used to serve in the castle." Chip nodded to Cogsworth. "They helped care for Prince Adam when he was a child. An orphan, because his parents died in an epidemic."

Marchand and Jourdain nodded, chewing bites of the delicious campfire dinner, prepared with Lumiere's culinary oversight. Chip continued, speaking slowly and with a flair for the dramatic.

"There was once a young maiden from Molyneux, her name was Belle. She came to the castle one day, and...even though she was a peasant girl, Prince Adam loved her as soon as he set his eyes upon her. But the problem was, he wasn't sure if she could love him back, because of the way...he looked."

"What was wrong with the way he looked?" Jourdain interrupted. Marchand glanced at the tiny charm necklace. The boy had been handsome, just as his forefathers. And even if he wasn't- well- how foolish could a peasant girl be to reject such riches and provision he would have offered her?

Chip put on the most convincing expression of terror he could muster. "It was a terrible curse of witchcraft! Prince Adam was a spoiled and selfish boy. He made a witch very angry at him because he wouldn't let her in from the cold. She placed a curse on him for punishment. She turned him into a hideous Beast!"

"That sounds preposterous!" Marchand scoffed.

"Sir, you must believe us," the old woman at the edge of the campfire said in her quavering voice. "It is true, some of us were there. We saw it, and you must not deny the existence of the Beast. His undead spirit lurks here, he IS Prince Adam, for Prince Adam and the Beast are one and the same man. If you deny him, he may appear to us..."

"With his monstrous fangs, and claws. You can't incur the wrath of Prince Adam the Beast!" Chip warned the men. "He will only be at peace if we celebrate and honor his lovely Belle, for she died along with him. He kept her from being taken away by her jilted suitor. You see, there was another man who wanted to claim Belle as his own. He found out that Belle did return the Beast's affections. This made him go into a jealous rage. He marched up to the castle with all the village men, burst inside and battled with the Beast. He shot the creature with his bow and arrow, and stabbed him in the back. Prince Adam finally fought back and hurled the man off the castle roof to his death." Chip focused his eyes on Jourdain, for he seemed to be mesmerized, his eyes open wide.

"Horrible tyrant!" spat Jourdain. "He threw a man off the roof, over a girl! That poor man, what was his name?"

"His name was Gaston de Soleil. He's remembered as a hero in Molyneux for trying to fight the Beast. But he was not aware that he was actually the Prince. It was fortunate that he died that way, rather than hung as a traitor," Chip said solemnly.

Marchand's expression was doubtful. "So how did the Beast...er, Prince Adam...perish? Was it the arrow? The stab wound? What happened to Belle?"

"It was raining that night. The tower roof was wet and slippery, and Belle had climbed up there after Gaston cornered the Beast to the ledge. We don't know exactly what happened, but our guess was that he died from his wounds. Poor, heartbroken Belle either slipped and fell or jumped off the ledge when she saw that Adam was dead."

"This sounds so mythical, so unfathomable," said Marchand, shaking his head. "How could the entire castle be gone now? Twenty years is not that long, there are ancient palaces still standing."

Chip nodded. "I understand it's hard for you to believe. But it did happen, Monsieur. After that, the servants mourned their lost Prince and his lady love so much, they couldn't bear to live there again. It took nearly twenty years to burn and tear the castle down, but it was finally done. And all the riches and fine things of the castle- well, we servants and villagers had no choice but to help ourselves to it. We could never track down any of the Prince's relatives, so why not? Why line the King's pockets?" Chip laughed, and was pleased to see Jourdain chuckle along with him.

"We went on with our lives, and we thank the Beast every year for his generous gifts to us. We also refer to Belle as 'Princess Belle,' because we believe they are wed in the afterlife."

Chip finished his tale with a wistful look at the sky; he brushed an imaginary tear from the corner of his eye. Marchand remained skeptical.

"How did this boy become an imposter for the Prince?" he asked, looking over at Vincent.

"That happened sometime later on. This is...Claude. He's a farmer's son," Chip said, gesturing to Vincent. "Everybody in the village noticed that he looked a lot like the Prince's portrait. One day, some nobleman, another Prince- threatened to take our land and rule this province. He wanted to join Lorraine-Alsace with his region, and rule the whole piece of land," Chip explained. "We got nervous, we'd be in trouble if he found out what we did with the castle's treasures. So we hid all the fancy objects and furniture from the castle under our beds and inside barns!" He laughed again.

"So when this particular Prince came to our village, little Claude's parents had a brilliant idea. They took him to meet that Prince. And the whole village convinced him he was Adam. Little Claude cried and cried crocodile tears about the death of his parents, and it worked- the man was fooled! Cogsworth and Lumiere, and my dear, late mother- I remember the three of them asked his permission to let Claude rule the province. With the adults' help, of course. Good old Lumiere did a fine job telling him he'd be his royal advisor until he turned sixteen. So after that day, the Prince left us alone. He was happy as long as the King got his tax money."

"Well that's at least a believable story," Marchand said after Chip finished. "I don't doubt King Louis' greed. Even a child can rule a province, as long as he is believed to have royal blood in his veins and can take hard-earned money from the people. Terrible, corrupt system it is! But...I still can't believe your cock-and-bull story about Prince Adam being turned into a Beast! That makes me think the lot of you are trying to hide something. And what that is, I am going to find out-"

"NOOOOO!" The old hunched-over woman sitting farthest away from the campfire screamed. "DO NOT DENY HIM! I warned you, it is too late..."

She stood up, her face a ghastly mask. She raised her gnarled, white hands heavenward. The smoke from the campfire began to thicken, and turn into a glowing, hazy purple mist.

Dark shadows now fell over the little group, as the sun was starting to sink into the western horizon. The people around the fire trembled as an image formed above them.

The image was of a creature. About eight feet tall, covered with reddish-brown fur, the Beast hovered over the fire in midair where the smoke had been. He looked to be a cross between a bison, a wolf, and a bear, his body hunched over, horns on his head. He wore a princely red cape, and he looked over the assembled people with glowing blue eyes, his fangs beared.

"Master! Sire! It is you!" Cogsworth shouted, his hand over his heart. Chip worried that the aged majordomo might just have a heart attack.

Lumiere supported his best friend in his arms, as Cogsworth was visibly shaking.

Marchand and Jourdain screamed in terror, as the phantom-Beast reached his paws down. He looked as if he was about to scoop them up and devour them.

...

In a matter of minutes, the two revolutionaries had run screaming to their horses near the gate, the animals also greatly disturbed by the apparition. They galloped away just as dusk turned the sky violet over the mountainside.

Delphine waved her wand, and the phantom-Beast disappeared. She then turned her wand over her old-hag form, and transformed back to her middle-aged, blonde and still-lovely appearance.

"Oh dear, oh my!" exclaimed Cogsworth, taking his face away from Lumiere's coat lapel. "I'm so sorry for overreacting, I never expected I'd see him...that way...again in my life!"

"It's all right, mon ami. Neither did I...I almost miss seeing him that way sometimes," said Lumiere.

Vincent grinned at Chip. "Brilliant job!" he exclaimed. Everyone else around the fire agreed, Lumiere patting a relieved Chip on his shoulder. Hélene, however, stood there a little disappointed, wiping white flour off her face. She had been about to stand up and act as the 'ghost' of her own mother- before the men were frightened away.

"So where do you think those two will go now, back to Paris?" asked Vincent.

"I hope, but for now they're probably going back to the village for the night. They're probably staying in the tavern's inn upstairs, and they..." Chip widened his eyes. "Oh no!"

"Oh no, what?" said Lumiere and Cogsworth together.

"Lefou!" Chip exclaimed. He jumped up and ran to his trusty fast horse, hoping he could get to Lefou before Marchand and Jourdain did.