A/N: And here is another chapter … (oh- and with the way Fanfiction is set up, so I don't get confused if I ever need to trade it out (like if I find a mistake and want to fix it), this will be regarded as chapters I and II. lol

I (and II)

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Streamers of pale scarlet floated across a dusky sky, announcing the dawn, as Christine Daaé pushed her one-wheeled cart through the narrow streets of Paris, while ignoring lewd stares from a few degenerates who had clearly tippled all night, having not yet visited their beds.

In the foreground of the distant daybreak loomed the centuries' old gray stone fortress that imprisoned the king's enemies – from grain rioters and seditious authors to religious adversaries and dangerous spies. Imposing, with its thick stone walls and eight towers that rose five stories in height, the Bastille stood enclosed amid a multitude of shops and other buildings that crowded the city. Yet its accessibility was a sham. High walls and a wide moat encircled the rectangular edifice, the outlet of water flowing through a barred blockade over which a long bridge spanned…

It was onto this bridge that Christine steered her cart.

Her papa did not entirely condone this venture and had been livid when she first proposed it, but after weeks of success, he no longer presented such grim reservations. He loved her, she knew this, had never stated otherwise; nor had she doubted his affections in all of her seventeen years. Yet had she been born a son, he would have the help needed to run the mill instead of relying on the occasional aid of a boy who lived near them.

Crossing the drawbridge that stood between two towers and had been let down to admit those expected, she nodded at the armed guard with sword and musket stationed there. He gave her a cursory glance and plucked the woven canvas off the baskets in her cart, doing a swift routine inspection of their fragrant contents, then jerked his head for her to enter the gloomy interior.

"Best hurry, lass," he gruffly stated. "He's fit to have your head this morn."

Christine grimaced in concern and pushed her cart into a massive inner courtyard of gray stone and past the familiar faces of two other guards who barely cast her a passing glance. She walked on and through a doorway that led down a short corridor to a sparse kitchen, where a stout elderly man lowered a box of wilting cabbages from table to floor. He seemed both weary and agitated and hurriedly looked toward the entrance at the creak of the cart's wheel.

"There you be," he said by way of impatient greeting as he straightened from his bent position and rubbed his white whiskered jaw.

"Yes," she said uncertainly, releasing the handles of the cart to wipe damp hands on her skirt. "As agreed. Every third day."

"Yes, yes," he muttered offhandedly. "I have no quarrel with you, girl." He studied her a moment then nodded, as if in silent accord with his thoughts. "I'll give three sous more if you deliver the loaves to those that get them. What amounts to six prisoners."

Stunned by such an unusual proposition, she glanced down at the six baskets of round bread she had worked all night to bake, the arrangement being three sous for each basket delivered twice weekly. Doubtless, the kitchen guard could procure bread from any baker in the city; doubtless still, Christine's price for her services was the cheapest to be had. When weeks ago, she first delivered a sack of flour to the disgruntled old guard who'd been put to the duty of seeing to its use, she had then suggested she make the bread at home and bring that instead, to which he readily agreed. Initially she asked five sous per basket and had haggled with the man, at last agreeing to three. The coin would be put to good use for taxes soon owed to the feudal lord who owned the land and mill where they lived, as well as another portion due to the king. Papa was usually paid for his labor with a share of grain, and they did need the coin...but this...

What the guard now asked of her, she had never before done.

"Is it even allowed," she asked, "for me to go into their cells?"

"You won't be going into them, you daft girl," he clucked in humor and did a quick appraisal of her slight form. "Not that you pose a threat, though I cannot say the same about them – you being quite comely and them not having had the pleasure of a woman in ages."

His careless words drained the color from her cheeks. "I don't think I should –"

"Five sous then. This one time. If it's the loss of your virtue you fear, you have no need. There be a door that swings inward at the bottom for you to slide the plates through and feed them that way. Only them prisoners between towers and them in the two eastern ones." He hefted the loaded baskets from her cart, in turn, emptying each into a large open crate and setting them back in her cart, save for one basket he did not touch as if she had already agreed to the task. "Leave the cart here while you tend to the matter. Speak not to any of them, mind. Just be about your business. If any of the guards should confront you, tell them old William gave you the task."

Her papa would be horrified to know that Christine did not simply deliver the bread to the Bastille, but had walked within its foreboding depths and to the cell doors.

Therefore, she would not tell him.

Five additional sous would help gain the coin faster to pay the high taxes demanded and, she hoped, have enough left over to acquire quality cloth to patch her and her father's cloaks before winter set in. Perhaps, if she was scrupulous at her task, even earn enough to make new ones.

She took up the full basket, not bothering to inquire what the prisoners in the other towers or those in the dungeons would eat. She had learned that only men of importance and wealth - those who had family or close friends of that caliber and could afford it - were well fed and housed in chambers more spacious. The other poor wretches made their homes in the cold and damp, likely with what rats they could catch for their supper. But that was always the way of things: those who had, had much; and those who did not, scrounged and stole for what little they could manage. She counted herself fortunate that due to Papa's inherited trade, they might never enjoy a surplus but neither would they suffer from starvation…

She shivered at the idea of such hardship that one would resort to the consumption of rodents, (perhaps even diseased with a plague!) as she made her way along a dismal corridor that took her to the first section between towers.

Narrow openings a little more than a foot in width and double that in height had been carved high into the walls. They brought scant daylight into the area, torches from the night still burning where they were bracketed and making up for what light the crude windows failed to give.

She came to the first cell door, noting the panel cut out of wood in the lowermost part where an iron plate on hinges had been fastened. Standing a hands-breadth high and half the width of the door, it offered ample space in which to transport meals, but not even a child's head could fit through the gap should a prisoner try to use it as a means of escape. Above her, a small door within the door was shut - what must be the method the guards used to peer into a cell should the need present itself.

Ignoring the topmost door, Christine lowered herself to her knees and set the basket on the ground. Tentatively she pushed the metal panel, hunkering down to see a tin plate of crumbs on the ground nearby. Swiftly she grabbed the dish, sliding it toward her and set one of the round loaves on its surface, again shoving the plate with the bread through the gap. Immediately she pulled back and stared, waiting, for what she did not know. The muffled approach of footsteps on the other side instantly brought her to her feet and again she picked up the basket, taking a nervous step back.

Thrice more she repeated her assigned task, growing a little less anxious with each delivery made, eventually taking the stairs that wound high to the summit of the first assigned tower. Here, she felt the chill more strongly and knew from questions asked during her first few visits to this fortress that those notorious prisoners of import the king wished forgotten were kept within these round walls of thick stone. The old kitchen guard had let it slip that some affluent families actually paid for their errant sons to be kept at the Bastille, to keep them out of further trouble and teach them a hard lesson. Yet those misguided men were placed within spacious chambers outfitted in luxury, between towers. Not in the foreboding and lofty towers themselves.

She located the plate near the door and slipped the bread inside, hearing from within a man recite what sounded like controversial words against King Louis – as if he read from a published source. She had heard that besides the weapons and gunpowder the armory held, the Bastille was also used to house books and pamphlets the king prohibited, and she wondered if the more privileged of the incarcerated were allowed their use. Perhaps one of those mutinous writers presently occupied this tower cell.

And yet, for all her recent knowledge of the Bastille told to her by the old guard, who perhaps had been assigned to the kitchen because of his senile tongue, Christine knew very little.

The fortress was cloaked in dark secrecy, many of the prisoners escorted through its doors never seen, their identities unknown. Brought in closed carriages with curtains drawn, once they disembarked they were hustled through to their place of internment while the guards faced away so they could not see to spread the tale. With such extreme caution taken, it further surprised her that old William would give her this task, and she wondered if he must be a bit tetched in the head to do so.

Whether she should be wandering through the prison or not, Christine was only twice confronted, the guards taking in her dainty stature and innocuous basket of bread and soon waving her onward after hearing her brief explanation for being there, one of them even muttering a derogatory statement about "lazy old William."

Christine climbed the twisting stairs of the second and final tower she was to visit. As she neared the top, her eyes went wide with shock to hear an angel's distant song!

The voice was so beautiful, so gentle and sweet, it must be an angel, and briefly she was reminded of the childhood tale her father told of an Angel of Music.

Of course, she knew the voice could belong only to a man, doubtful the king believed an angel of God to be his enemy, if indeed such celestial beings did leave heaven to visit the earth. The closer she drew to the tower cell of the sixth prisoner, the stronger the music of the voice came, even though it was still muted by the thick door...

Angel or not, the voice, faint though it was, mesmerized her soul. And for a moment she stood still, drinking in its sweet strains.

Quiet as a mouse that evaded a stalking cat, Christine set the basket down and softly dropped to her hands and knees. Hunkering down with her cheek almost to the flagstones so that she could see, she slowly pushed in the iron panel, first noting that no empty tin plate sat waiting beside the door. Her attention went beyond that, and she drew a soft, startled breath to see the wooden legs of a chair. A table. A bed, outfitted in fine gold cloth that shimmered from the morning light streaming in through a window – and a pair of black leather boots pace away and out of sight.

Christine was so wrapped up in intrigued curiosity, she failed to notice his song had come to an end.

Suddenly a face so terrible - wrought in metal! - swooped down to stare back at her, with eyes that burned gold deep within its gleaming sockets.

A warbled little scream that amounted to nothing escaped her throat as she hurriedly wrenched her body backward. Twisting around in clumsy escape, her foot inadvertently kicked the door panel – and her ankle was suddenly grabbed!

"Let me go," she pleaded in quiet terror, a second scream frozen in her throat.

An unbearable span of terse silence elapsed, then a voice as rich as his song insisted -

"Why are you here? Have you come to spy upon the beast?!"

"I didn't – I…." Christine halted in her defense, feeling a shade of guilt that his accusation held merit. She had been secretly observing his chamber in the hope of seeing the bearer of such a voice. "I didn't mean to," she weakly finished. "I'm sorry."

Still, he did not release her, his grip firm and cold over her black wool stocking.

"Why are you here, girl?" he asked again, his voice more subdued.

Reminded of her errand, she answered the door, "I brought you some bread."

A pause, and then, "Why are you here and not one of the fool guards?"

"I don't rightly know," she admitted. "The old kitchen guard - old William - asked me to distribute the bread. I suppose he couldn't do it for some reason. Please, monsieur, I meant no harm. Please, monsieur, let me go..."

As swift as his attack, his fingers unclenched from around her ankle and he pulled his arm away, the iron panel swinging back into place.

Slowly Christine sat up, her gaze fastened to the door, her mind fixed upon the memory of the glimpse she'd had of his horrible countenance – of iron, unless she missed her guess.

A mask.

It had to be some strange sort of mask, as strange as the beak-nosed mask the plague doctor had worn years ago. This time she did not allow her curiosity full sway, to inquire of him why he would wear such a horrid thing, instead forcing her mind back to her task and selecting a round loaf of bread.

Her hand trembled from the shock of the encounter and she pushed against the panel, immediately thrusting the loaf toward him. For a moment, she didn't think he would take it then saw a glimpse of his long slim fingers that had just entrapped her ankle wrap around the crust. In those few seconds, she noticed the hand was clean, slender and pale, the cuff of his shirt pristine white before the bread was pulled from her grasp and the iron panel again filled the space between them.

With her errand complete, Christine stood and gathered the basket, hugging it to her body. Idly she wondered who would get the remainder of bread, wondered too if she should offer a second loaf as further apology.

Strangely, she found it difficult to go.

"I want to say…" she began, not wishing to leave without some form of farewell, though she'd been ordered not to speak to any of the prisoners. It was too late for that now, so she spoke what was inside her heart -

"I liked your song. You have a lovely voice. Like that of an angel. That is, what I would believe to be like an angel, having never heard one, of course..."

Foolish words perhaps, and when he gave no response, Christine scolded herself for feeling disheartened by his silence and carefully made her way back down the steep tower stairs.

He was only a prisoner, perhaps a dangerous spy or a violent rioter. He had frightened her, more or less attacked her despite the thick door locked between them. Certainly he wasn't anyone on whom she should dwell.

She collected her cart from the kitchen and agreed to return with more bread in two days' time.

Once she crossed the drawbridge and was again part of the throng of citizens who traversed the road that paralleled the length of the fortress, she could not resist a long look back toward the high window of the eastern tower …and wonder about the angel who wore an iron mask.

xXx

A/N: I took some artistic liberties with the Bastille, but tried to stay as historically accurate as possible, using what little info I could find. Hope you guys enjoyed it! Did you like their first meeting? ;-) Curious for more story?