Maybe it was the ambient magic from the spell being broken filling us with a crazed fervour, but at that point each and every one of us were ready to take the Dauphin on our shoulders and carry him to Paris and storm the city one way or another and crown him king, be damned the hundreds of thousands of men who'd sworn to fight for Napoleon to death….and all their guns.
Thankfully for the continued health of all of us, the Dauphin's response was a single flat "what"
And like a record needle being ripped off its track the mood died.
All of us knelt there, unsure how exactly to go from there. Then one of us….I'm not sure who...started to laugh. Then like a virus his laughter infected the rest of us and we were soon all laughing our heads off, myself included.
There were a few notable exceptions. One of the was my brother, through his swollen black eyes, his eyes seemed to zero on Belle and how she clung to the prince's side as the two of them laughed with us.
It felt like we were laughing for ages before I finally managed to get control of myself and stood up. "Your majesty, I apologize for how my fellows barged in on your private home." I bowed low, trying to remember everything Mama and that old Harridan she found from GOD knows where to try and teach us an officer's etiquette. Neither me nor, for once, my brother had done all that well under the old bat, much to the consternation of our poor abused knuckles, I just hoped I wasn't making a fool of myself.
Thankfully it seemed that the prince didn't care as all he did was smile and say. "Don't worry about it, if I had been in your shoes I would have thought the same. I'll freely admit I was monstrous to look at but not anymore. Not anymore!" That last part he shouted in absolute joy, which sent the staff, who'd been silent since the prince had come down the staircase, into an eruption of cheers. We villagers simply looked around at the mad, wild joy on each and everyone of their faces, more than one of us looked more than a little uncomfortable….and Gaston looked ready to collapse.
Deciding it was high-time to end this I cleared my throat. "Well your majesty I believe we need to leave, our wives, mothers, and sweethearts need to know we're alright and what's actually up here. But we'll be sure to come by later."
A few of the men grumbled but one hard look shut them up and with a few squashes we turned around and made to head back home.
"Wait! Pierre!" Belle's voice calling out my name made me pause. I turned around and saw Belle hurrying down the stairs and making her way through the crowd, the staff making room for her quickly while the villagers were a bit slower to do so. When she was standing in front of me she seemed at loss for words for a moment, then she grabbed me around the back of my neck and pulled my head down low enough for her to kiss me on the cheek. Turning red as a beet I started to splutter but went dead silent when I heard her say, "Thank-you Pierre. For all you've done. God bless you."
I simply smiled and said, "It was the right thing to do Belle. And"- I gestured to the prince who surprised the others by bowing his head in respect to me -"I think you're more responsible for this turn of events anyway. I just helped speed things along. Good-bye. I'm sure we'll see each other soon."
As I headed for the front door I paused for a moment and turned to see the Prince heading down the stairs and embrace Belle. A slight twinge went through me before I sighed and turned back around muttering under my breath, "Ships passing in the night." Then I was gone.
Walking down the stairs to the courtyard I started looking around for Louis as well as Gaston's horse Thunder, another fine use of his share of the tavern's profits. I'd never figured out HOW he managed to get that damn good a horse considering there was a WAR going on but I knew my brother could be convincing when he wished.
When I spotted the two tied up near the inner gatehouse I turned to my brother. "Gaston, do you think you can ride?" I asked him.
My brother, still being helped by LaFou, simply glared at me, before nodding and hobbling his way towards his horse. It was then I noticed that the other men were avoiding eye contact with him. It took me a moment before I realized what was going on. My home village had a large number of families descended from soldiers who'd fought for the Bourbons and they'd never lost the loyalty of their fathers and grandfathers for the king, even through the darkest days of the Revolution and the Terror.
They had only raised arms once since the start of the madness, the day we'd learned the king was dead, executed as an enemy of the PEOPLE of all things. My father, my big, laughing gentle father, had been enraged at the news. Enraged like he never had been and never would be again. With one blow he'd knocked the messenger off his horse and came within an inch of beaten the man to death with his own fists. Then he'd gathered a posse to take revenge on the closest revolutionaries they could find, which ended up being a small requisition patrol out looking for supplies for either the armies or the city of Paris which had still been suffering from a lack of food.
There were about twenty soldiers in the patrol and a hundred men from our village and the valley it sat in. They fell on the Jacobins like an avalanche. None of the bastards had survived, all while the men of the village had bellowed, "For the King! For the King!"
The arms and uniforms had been taken and the bodies buried under a large boulder. Those guns were still hidden in the furthest part of our tavern cellar, oiled and cleaned occasionally to keep them ready in case a time when they would be needed came.
It was those men and their sons who had followed Gaston to war partly for his charisma, partly because they had respected our father who'd become something of the village hero for instigating and leading the raid against the Jacobin patrol. Now they had almost murdered the lost Dauphin, breaking one of their most strongly held beliefs. All because of the jealousy of their town hero. The emotions that had been burning since the night before were now turning on my brother if the growing anger on their faces were any indication.
I was proven right a moment later when Quentin, the young Shepherd boy, purposefully stuck his foot out and tripped Gaston as he passed by, sending him tumbling to the courtyard. He lay there for a few moments, groaning in pain. I really might have broken a few of his ribs during our fight. None save LaFou moved to help him, including myself.
He struggled at first, groaning in frustration and pain. LaFou attempted to pull him back up, but with a wave of his arm he pushed the much smaller man back, he would do this on his own. It took him a minute but he was eventually back on his feet and continued his hobbling.
I shook my head, squashing the guilt that tried to take root. My brother needed this lesson driven home about his pride and the consequences of it. Gaston had always been an arrogant man, proud of his strength and abilities as well as the easily gained accolades of our fellow villagers. He'd never failed at anything in his life, until he'd decided to set his heart on Belle.
He'd been at a loss when his usual tricks had either been unsuccessful or had been outright spurned. He'd simply shaken it off at first with his normal bravado, but ever since the attempted wedding right after Maurice had left late in November, something had snapped in him. He'd brooded for hours by the fire for days. Until the night that Maurice had come back howling about a beast having kidnapped Belle. After that his pride and frustration had driven him to concoct the mad plan that had resulted in this entire night's events. I'd saved my brother from death, but I wasn't going to save him from the deserved ire of our neighbors.
When he finally managed to pull himself onto Thunder, I nodded and mounted Louis. Then I rode through the group and said, "Alright, follow me, we're heading home, the rest of the Valley needs to know about what's happened here."
I saw Gaston flinch out of the corner of my eye, whether from pain or the thought of the rest of the community learning what he had almost done I didn't know. The others nodded or voiced their agreement and quickly fell in behind me. When we crossed the bridge and re-entered the woods a thought occurred to me. The mirror that Gaston had taken from Belle so he could find the castle was likely still in Thunder's saddle-pack, I knew that he wouldn't have taken it with him into the castle.
Making sure that the men were still moving I rode to the side of the trail and waited until my brother and LaFou who was walking alongside him while holding the reigns. Kicking Louis into a walk I grabbed his satchel and plucked the mirror from it.
When he looked up at me I merely said, "Belle mentioned it. I wanted to see it for myself." When he didn't say anything I merely rode back up to the front of the column if the ragged and dejected looking men could be considered as such.
Considering for a moment I muttered, "I wish to see Napoleon." There was a bright flash of light and then a green glowing ring appeared around the edge of the mirror, blinking away the bright light I looked closer and saw...I went green and quickly shouted, "NEVER MIND! ABORT! TURN IT OFF!"
With a flicker the image vanished and I saw my nauseated face looking back at me. There some thing's man was not meant to see, watching a naked Corsican bathe was one of them.
I turned back to the others and said. "Well it still works. I guess I'll have to give this back eventually."
There were a few mutterings of agreement but that was it.
I decided then that the men needed to be reminded that this was a happy day. "Buck up men, I realize that we all almost made the worst mistake of our lives, but look on the bright side. The Dauphin is alive, and has returned to us. And he doesn't seem to hold a grudge against us. This is something to celebrate, right?"
There seemed to be a slight shift in the mood but not nearly enough. Thinking I remembered a song my grandfather had taught me, which he claimed our ancestors had helped make the first time around.
Song: watch?v=4h5M78YVN8M
I hummed the first few bars then broke into song, this wasn't a song and dance number...but it likely was going to, which was what I was counting on to break the gloom. Beside it was a fitting song, describing the rise to power of the first Bourbon king Henry IV.
Vive Henri IV
Vive ce Roi vaillant !
Ce diable à quatre
A le triple talent
De boire et de battre,
Et d'être un vert-galant.
De boire et de battre,
Et d'être un vert-galant.
Au diable guerres,
Rancunes et partis.
Comme nos pères,
Chantons en vrais amis
Au choc des verres,
Les roses et les lys !
Au choc des verres,
Les roses et les lys !
Chantons l'antienne
Qu'on chantera dans mille ans,
Que Dieu maintienne
En paix ses descendants
Jusqu'à ce qu'on prenne,
La lune avec les dents.
Jusqu'à ce qu'on prenne,
La lune avec les dents.
Vive la France,
Vive le roi Henri !
Qu'à Reims on danse,
En disant comme Paris
Vive la France,
Vive le roi Henri !
Vive la France,
Vive le roi Henri !
Translated it meant.
Long live Henry IV
Long live this valiant king!
This fourfold devil
With the three talents
Of drinking, fighting
And womanising.
To hell with wars
And enmity, and spouses.
Let us all together
Sing as true friends.
Clink the glasses.
The roses and the lilies.
Let us sing the refrain
That we will sing in a thousand years:
May God maintain
His descendants in peace
Until we take the moon with our teeth!
Long live France
Long live king Henry!
To Reims we dance,
Singing as they do in Paris
Long live France
Long live king Henry!
At first none of the others joined in but as I sung about the roses and lilies several of the men joined in, by the end of the verse they were all singing. The final verse we belted at the top of our lungs, seeming to make the trees around us shake.
The men seemed in a slightly better mood, then I said, "One more time, all together now!"
With that we all started back at the top. This time you could feel the jovial patriotism and love of king and country in our voices as the magic of the song did its work, we felt like we could and eventually would take on old Bonnie himself and boot his ass back to Corsica and plonk the Prince back on his throne then the world would start making sense again.
In that odd way music can sometimes shorten a journey: we left the forest, heading into the village proper when we finished the last verse holding that last line of "Long live King Henry!" with everything we had.
The rest of the village exited their homes as we came in singing like we'd won a battle. The triplets were among the first to approach our party. Confused at seeing myself leading the party they spotted Gaston sliding off his horse to crash to the ground.
Paulette screamed at the sight of my brother's injuries and rushed to his side, her sisters right behind her. To their shock and my surprise, three of the men blocked their way. They were Raoul, Robert, and Remy. The burly red-head with the Ahab beard, the short black-haired man with the permanent stubble, and the lean one with the grey hair and billy-goat beard. (Remy was rather sensitive about his early-set greying so we rarely mentioned it.)
All three girls gaped at how three of his closest friends were preventing them from helping him and almost immediately Claudette asked, "What happened?"
I cleared my throat and dismounted, keeping the mirror in my hand, ready to use it for evidence. I wasn't going to like the fallout from this…not as much as Gaston though.