CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

The battered and broken man limped from the tent, though not without great difficulty, and it was the rattling of his prisoner's chains that broke Monsieur Clopin Trouillefou, self-proclaimed King of the Romani people, his Court of Miracles, out of his swirl of darkening thoughts as he looked towards his prize. Though before he could so much as open his mouth to speak to Notre Dame de Paris's sole bell ringer, who was admittedly looking worse for wear, the chains currently binding the man's wrists together gave another sharp clank as he shifted.

His chained arms were wrapped around his stomach like he was holding his intestines in and to be honest, his men had beaten him into unconsciousness so bad earlier when they'd first escorted him to his Court that they might as well have just left him to the wolves in the damned bloody woods, if not for sweet Agathe. A soul too innocent and saw the goodness in everyone, even in the accursed wretch in front of him.

Clopin silently seethed and ground his teeth in anger. This man had failed to save his cousin. He owed him. Clopin pondered what exactly to do with the demonic whelp now that he'd caught him, resting his cheek in his tanned first and was looking rather bored, as though he'd rather be anywhere else but here.

Satisfying his urge in a bordello, perhaps, but not here. The King curled the edges of his thin and slightly wormy lips upward and bared his teeth in a vicious snarl as he inched his face towards Quasimodo's cold, hardened face, though Clopin after well over two years of knowing the boy now, was not at all fooled.

The way a muscle in his jaw and behind his eyelid twitched told the King of the Romani's that the boy was barely fighting back against his temper as it was, and he was surprised the wretch hadn't broken out of his chains. He could, easily, with one swift movement, and it was puzzling Clopin to no end as to why the younger man had not already attempted it. His thick dark brows knitted together in quandary as he pondered this development.

He supposed he was supposed to love the man in front of him. This red-haired demonic wretch who'd saved his people from a lifetime of persecution. At least for a few months until Paris's King took a harder stance on people entering his country illegally, which made it more difficult for more of them to come and go from Paris as they pleased.

Admittedly, not much of an improvement. So, with that said, how could he learn to love the man who had 'freed' his people and yet did not save his cousin? His answer? He didn't. Clopin's nostrils flared in agitation as he rested against one of the wooden poles propping up the tent and let out a low growl.

"Pitvio," he barked towards the man acting as a guard towards the redhaired wretch and had dragged the younger man in by the lengths of his chains. "Just look at what you've brought me. Another bastard," he drolled, sounding unimpressed as he swiveled his head almost lazily so to regard his fellow Romani. Notre Dame's bell ringer made no comment, though his posture straightened and if Clopin wasn't mistaken, the man's chin jutted out slightly defiantly, his sky-blue orbs darkening to almost a cerulean hue in color as he too silently seethed, though Clopin thought Quasimodo's anger here was unfounded.

He was not the one who had lost everything when Esmeralda perished in the fire. Clopin's face remained impassive, and he offered Notre Dame's sole bell ringer, that demon, that monster, the most pallid of welcomes.

"He isn't looking so well, is he?" he commented, crinkling his nose in disgust as he looked the taller and more intimidating man once over down his slender but crooked nose. "Don't you think we should have left him back in the woods to bleed out, yes? A fitting end for a coward who would not stand up to his father. A betrayer," he snarled, spitting the words, hissing them more than speaking. "And you know what we do to betrayers around these parts, boy…"

Clopin fell silent and waited to see if the monster would respond. The King watched as the boy flinched, though the redhaired bell ringer offered up not a word, and that in it alone of itself already proved that the boy was able to think rationally through his haze of pain. He might—might—stand a chance, after all. Just maybe…

Clopin let out a mock sigh, shaking his head in disappointment as he was rewarded with the briefest flashes of anger from the wretch. Good. He wanted him to suffer. The boy, for his part, remained stock-still, standing in front of Clopin, battered, broken, and on the brink of collapse, but he refused to cower.

This one would not yield. Clopin furrowed his dark brows in a frown as he turned back around and resisted the urge to snort at the look of immense hatred burning bright as anger in Quasi's blue eyes. "There's no need for that, boy," he growled, and he snapped his fingers, pointing towards Pitvio, who shot his King a look of utter disbelief, though dared not question his leader for a second time.

Quasi emanated a tense exhale of relief the moment the manacles were removed from his wrists, which the skin was very nearly rubbed off raw, bleeding and cracked from the pressure of the iron-wrought chains against his skin and shot Clopin a withering look that, had he the ability, would have turned the tanned-skinned Romani man to stone like one of the cathedral's gargoyles.

The King made a show of pretending to preen at his blackened nails, all the while studying his captive as the boy finally relented and took the seat opposite Clopin, upon seeing the man was not going to make a move to stand. He shot Quasi what the redhaired bell ringer could only describe as a wolfish, almost predatory grin. "I suppose you might be wanting to know how you ended up in chains and back from the dead in my Court of Miracles, yes?"

Quasi made a noise that was somewhere between a snort and a grunt and lifted his chin sanguinely to regard Clopin with a look of immense distrust.

"This is a place of miracles," he growled, no warmth in his voice. "Is it not?" he snapped, flexing his fingers, and hissing as a jolt of pain from his wrists shot up his arms and down his spine. He winced, though made no sound at all.

"Indeed." Clopin fell silent and when Quasimodo did not respond, he let out a growl and pointed a slender finger at Notre Dame de Paris's bell ringer. "I always knew there was something strange of you, wretch," Clopin snarled, curling his gums upward and revealing yellowing teeth and blackened gums. "Who would have ever guessed it. The own accursed bastard son of Judge Frollo himself."

He turned towards Pitvio, who was in the midst of pouring him a wineskin of red wine and raised the wineskin in a mock salute to his comrade.

Quasi bit down hard on his tongue hard enough that he tasted the metallic tang of iron and the thick scent of copper flooded his nostrils. When he drew in a breath to speak, he visibly flinched as the sharp rattling sound of his lungs caused him to gasp in surprise. Though he remained otherwise quite still, his gaze unabashed and unwavering, a muscle in his jaw twitching. His neck and shoulders were still unable to curb his violent spells of shivering and his fever.

The wound near his right ribcage and near his thigh had begun to send white-hot flares of pain up and down his slightly twisted spine, curling the tips of his toes in his brown leather boots, no matter how thick the bandages were.

His thick mop of coarse, fiery red hair stuck up in tufts, disheveled, with a clear mind of their own amidst all the chaos, and he was sure, though he could not see it, he could feel it, that he suffered from dark rings below his blue eyes, his cheeks sunken in and hollowed. If there was ever a time when he thought that he truly lived up to his monstrous appearance, Quasi thought it was now.

Clopin spoke, startling Notre Dame's bell ringer out of his inner thoughts. The King leaned back in his chair and crossed one leg over the other, and upon setting his wineskin down on a small nearby wooden table, furrowed his brows.

"Now, I want to know…what about seeking revenge on your father is so damned bloody important. Is it because he holds a vested interest in your wife? Hmm? Is that it? There are still quite a few mysteries surrounding you, Quasi, so why don't you tell me the truth," Clopin spoke up dryly. "You're dying anyway."

Quasi blinked owlishly at the Romani King, feeling as though he had quite misheard. No. No, no, no, I am mishearing this. Father wouldn't. He—he wouldn't. He might not approve of what I have done, but he would never.

And it was then that the snakelike voice in the back of his mind spoke up, a voice which sounded too much like Frollo's for his own comfort and hissed. But you're a bastard, you blind, bloody fool. He could and tried to cross you off without any consciousness on his part. You have the wounds to prove it. He has it his way, and he would take everything from you. First your life, then your wife.

And with it, the murderous laughter of Frollo rang in his ears. Quasi felt like his mind was flaring with wildfire, nostrils flaring angrily.

He can't. He can't. The King sighed, once again jolting Quasi out of his foggy haze of repressed memories. "It is a pity that you failed to kill him, boy, when you had the chance. Were I in a better position, I'd be more lenient. But…"

Clopin paused for effect, and Quasi ground his teeth and throttled his urge to roar like an enraged dragon as the Romani man tapped his chin.

"Pitvio," he called out, his hoarse voice more of a bark than a summons, to which the guard standing just outside the tent's entrance flap gave a nod. "If you had your son bound and chained by a public enemy, how handsome a price would you name to get your bastard back in one piece? Twenty shillings?"

Though the guard did not get a chance to answer as Quasi snorted in response and rolled his eyes, growling in frustration as he carded back a lock of fiery red hair that had the unceasingly annoying habit of falling into his one good eye without fail, no matter how short Sisters Alice or Maria trimmed his hair.

"My father will not ransom money for the likes of me. I am a Monster. Almost-Made, and here you sit, considering bringing me hostage to scare Frollo?" At this, Quasi almost laughed in disbelief at the own words he spoke. The bell ringer turned his head to the side and coughed, spitting on the ground near Clopin's feet, trying his hardest to ignore the blood, and at this point, he didn't even care if he was hung for the gesture or beheaded. Let him.

If Clopin Trouillefou was disgusted by it, the man was adept at hiding his cringing, though when Quasi shifted in his seat and turned back around, there was a look of dawning outrage growing in the man's darkened umber orbs.

"You—"

"Bastard? Yes, I AM!" Quasi roared, curling his hand into a fist and banging them flat on the table. The gesture did not elicit a response out of Clopin, whose facial expression was impassive, though the guard's fingers twitched on the hilt of what looked like a small hunting knife in a sheath worn around his thigh. He rose from his chair so fast to appear directly in front of his captor that in his haste, he overturned it, where it clattered to the ground with a loud clang.

The pressure in the bell ringer's head felt like it finally exploded with a heart-wrenching shout of agony and a gash on the man's neck as Quasi felt his hand move of its own accord and come to twine around Trouillefou's neck, just as poison ivy would wind its tendrils around the stone pillar of Notre Dame.

Quasimodo wound his bloodied fingers around the man's throat, seething with anger, applying just enough pressure to enforce his intended message, but not quite enough to cut off the air supply to the man's lungs. At least…not yet.

"My wife has been taken by our land's Prince," he growled, as a series of memories rolled within his mind like thunder, though only one he focused on.

Sweet Belle. Umber-eyed Belle, the most beautiful thing that could ever happen to an accursed wretch such as him, and now this man would keep her from him? He let out a growl as Clopin Trouillefou parted his thin lips to speak.

Clopin nodded. "I know. I saw the man's carriage leave with her the day she was forcefully removed from her precious sanctuary," he spat, no warmth in his tone. "I—I've heard the stories about you, boy," he growled. "I saw with my own eyes what you did. You broke free of your chain restrains but you did not save her. Though the stories of you in the taverns," he managed to choke out through gasping breaths. "They all get one thing wrong. You've sad eyes. For a killer."

His final statement was the breaking point of Quasi's last thread of patience. At this, the cathedral's bell ringer's throat dried up instantly.

"Father is the one who killed her! I tried to save Esmeralda!" Quasi bellowed, a year of repressed memories coming to the surface and he clenched his eyes shut. "I did not kill her, though I might as well have! Her blood is on my hands just as it is his, and not a day goes by where I wish that things were not different. I cannot change the past! What happened to her was just as my fault as it was his. If I could go back and do it all over again, I would. Why do you hate me so much, Clopin? What more do you want of me?" he snarled, grinding his teeth and fixing Clopin with a pointed stare, and he was not even aware that he'd used just a tad of his overwhelming strength to seize a fistful of the man's jerkin and hoist him upwards off the ground, just so the tips of his boots grazed the surface.

"King, I would gladly take off his tongue for this insolence! Just say the word!" the man called Pitvio protested, his fingers twitching on the hilt of his little hunting knife as he itched to draw it.

Clopin snorted and rolled his eyes, and it was this gesture that caused Quasi's grip around the column of the man's throat to slacken and he released him. He coughed wildly for a minute or two, a hand over his throat, before straightening up and tossing his straight black ponytail over his shoulders.

"And what good would that do me?" growled Clopin, staring at Pitvio as though the man had sprouted a pair of antlers. "This wretch, like it or not, is the only chance of ridding the entire city of Paris of the Judge for good this time."

Pitvio did not answer, merely proceeded to bow his head as a sign of submission and respect to his leader and ducked back out the entrance of the tent's flap. Clopin watched the man leave and shook his head in slight disgust.

"Ah, but God. I could never be like him. Pitvio is a good man, a righteous man, boy, and you ask me, he does not belong in our encampment. But he is a good thief, though he despises every second of it, and because he knows our hideout, I cannot send him away, for if he were to be caught by the wrong sort of people..." Clopin clucked his tongue and turned to Quasi. "But perhaps…you could still be of use. I did have you saved, did I not? You are only alive because I commanded of Agathe to save you," he added, and as if summoned by a spell, the tent flap opened and in stepped a young woman in her early forties, her hair covered by a headscarf, dressed in rags, with a lined, careworn, but still nevertheless quite a pretty face.

"Given that you allowed Esmeralda to perish at the hands of your own father, I was more than content to leave you out in those woods as food for the wolves, but Agathe here convinced me to let her save you."

He fell silent a moment and turned towards the beggar woman, who said nothing, though she offered Quasi an omniscient smile that made him feel uneasy.

"You are at my mercy, Quasimodo, and yet, I get the feeling that had you the opportunity, you would carve out my lungs right here where I stand with those dagger eyes. Is that why you ended up bleeding out on the snow? You kept glaring at some poor fool who meant to gut you like the wretch we all know you to be?" Clopin growled, clenching his jaw shut and waiting for him to speak.

Quasi bristled, curling his wounded hands into shaking fists and resting them at his sides in an effort to prevent himself from striking out at the man with pure rancor. "Your candor will not submit my father to submission. He will never ransom for the likes of me. The Judge tried to have me killed, Clopin."

Clopin's jaw tensed and locked up, tighter than rigor mortis, though he seemed for the most part unimpressed with the bell ringer's crude statement.

"You would…mean to watch him die?" Clopin asked, sensing that the boy's tone was laced with ire, and he could practically see the younger man shaking with just the sheer effort to restrain himself from flying into a rage.

"Yes. If you let me go. He has played a part in allowing my wife to be forcefully removed from our home. He would take away the only good thing in an otherwise desolate existence," Quasi growled. "I have no love left for Father. He killed Esmeralda, and now… he would steal my Belle away from me too. No."

"Good." Clopin signaled he understood the younger man's words by offering the redhaired bell ringer a curt nod of his head. "Pledge to me your will, boy, that you will rid Paris of this heathen of a judge, and I can promise you that your wounds would be hardened scars by the morrow, and…oh. You'll be wanting this," he added, the edges of his lips curling upwards in a twisted sneer.

He snapped his fingers together and the King did not have to wait long as a petite young woman, a tiny little slip of a blonde thing, entered into the tent, face cast downward, and the simple smudge of dirt on her cheeks did nothing to take away from the young blonde woman's natural beauty; her high cheekbones and good jawline. Her blonde locks the color of golden-wheat was cropped incredibly short, as short as a young boy's and her bangs fell in stray wisps and strands just above her delicately shaped brows.

Her simple floor-length long-sleeved woolen brown dress was tattered and torn, brown clogs scuffed and worn with years of wear and tear, and she shivered, though her violent shaking spell ceased the second Agathe draped a bright indigo blue shawl over the young blonde's slender shoulders. When the young woman lifted her chin slightly and caught a glimpse of Quasi's slightly misshapen silhouette in the dim light of the tent, she gave a muffled squeak of fear and Quasi could have sworn that he heard her whimper.

"This delightful little dove is one of my brightest thieves and certainly the prettiest. I caught her trying to pick my own pocket a few weeks ago, and well." Clopin's lips curled into a grin that sent a tremor of revulsion down Quasi's spine. "It was either join me or suffer a thief's fate." He made the sign of cutthroat and Quasi visibly flinched, annoyed.

Quasi huffed in frustration and regarded his attention back towards the visibly frightened young blonde, who was adamantly refusing to meet his gaze. "Your name?" Quasi offered, lowering his voice, and emanating a tense exhale through his nose, hoping that he sounded kind, though fully aware that his voice was pressured with ire. He just wanted to find Belle, to know her baby was safe and unharmed. To see her again. To feel her lips move in sync with his.

"M—Madellaine, mon…monsieur," she whispered, and for a moment, Quasi felt floored. Monsieur. Aside from Belle and Esmeralda, this young blonde who looked to be, now that he was getting a good look at her features, not that much younger than him, maybe by a year or two, was the first to treat him with any semblance of respect. "Madellaine de Barreau. If my King wishes me to escort you to the castle's property, then that is his command, and I will see you get there, monsieur. I have a personal matter there anyways that I should like to…check upon, if it pleases you, while we are there. My—my twin sister M—Maria de Barreau has employment at the Prince's castle as the man's…hearth keep."

Judging by the way the petite little blonde crinkled her nose in disgust and pulled a face at the utterance of the last two words, momentarily forgetting her fear of Quasi's towering and somewhat intimidating physical appearance, it became clear to Notre Dame's bell ringer that her sister was more than likely more than just Prince Adam's 'personal hearth keep.' Madellaine let out a sigh.

"Indeed." The blonde and the bell ringer both swiveled their heads to regard the Romani King, who was looking rather bored with the turn their conversation had taken and was resting his cheek in his fist. "The young lady knows the way to our Prince's shining castle and would see you escorted there by my command."

Quasi nodded and felt the familiar chill that had been plaguing him ever since he had awoken, thinking that he was quite certain that he had died.

He could not quite determine whether it was fear or excitement that twisted in the pit of his churning stomach, but he knew that he wanted this.

His soul was already damned, and his father deserved Hell more than any other living being that Quasimodo had ever known in his limited exposure of other people, so who was he to deny the Romani King his wish of seeing Frollo dead? The beauty of vengeance. What a sweet and bittersweet concept. Truly.

Quasi found his head nodding agreement and complying with the King's demands of its own accord, no longer taking direction from his mind, though he could feel the fierce sparkle of a burning intensity welling in his sky-blue orbs.

Clopin moved towards the other end of the tent and motioned for Agathe, who Quasi had not even felt move to come up to stand beside him, a hand near the small hump on his right shoulder, and he jumped, surprised by her appearance. It unnerved him that he had not even heard the lady move at all.

The young blonde squeaked and practically stumbled over herself in her haste to exit the tent as Agathe motioned for the young Barreau woman to follow her out, and Quasimodo stiffened involuntarily as he felt the girl's shoulder accidentally brush against his. But before he passed through the curtains and back out into the bitterly cold December winds of winter, the king of the Romani people called out to Notre Dame's sole bell ringer, having him on pause.

Quasi shifted slightly to regard the self-proclaimed king as he spoke in a somber, quiet tone.

"It has been said to me once that love is the death of a man's duty. I just want to make sure this…incident with your father will not become a conflict of interest. But that…is my deal. What I am asking you to do is no small feat, but I believe you to be the only one close enough who can get within ten feet of the paranoid man these days. This is the way. The price of your freedom and your life. In exchange, I and my men will spare you, and you are free to find your wife and return home to your precious sanctuary," Clopin growled angrily.

Quasi swallowed down hard past the growing lump in his throat and felt his heart, that damned stubborn corded muscle beat relentlessly within the confines of his chest, and he could feel the strange beggar woman, Agathe, still standing beside him and throwing him an all-knowing smile that he was not at all sure what to make of, though given the King was awaiting his answer, he had no time to ponder it.

"I have no love left for my adopted father, Clopin. He took everything from me. I would see him dead for this. I give you my word," he snapped vehemently, answering the King through gritted teeth.

"Excellent." Clopin did not smile and folded his hands together and wound his arms behind his back and rocked back and forth on the heels of his boots. He fixed the cathedral's bell ringer with a pointed and cold glower.

Quasi scoffed and carded his fingers through his fiery tuft of ginger hair and turned his back on the Romani King, when he asked of him a final question.

"And your sweet little Belle. What about your wife?"