a Disney's Beauty and and Beast Fanfic
by
C. "Sparky" Read
Part VI:
"As the Tankard Turns"
It was spring. The winter had been a notably mild one, and it was said that this might have been due to the absence of the dark enchantment that had gripped the Prince's castle - and residually, the land around it - for so long. Belle and Christophe had been married during the winter, because the season held special meaning for the both of them: it had been one year previous when they had first realised feelings for one another. It was still strange for the populous to envision a young woman having feelings for a Beast, even if he were an enchanted Prince, but as it was undeniably so, this fact was not mentioned publicly. After all, that woman was their Princess now.
Christophe was not King, as one might expect a Prince to become when he was married; many are not aware of the complex and often tedious trials and tribulations of Royal Politics. The Principality of Silvermist, Christophe's domain, was but a mere parcel of the Kingdom, and it would not be until the demise of the King of that land that Christophe might, perhaps, assume that throne. There were, however, other Principalities in the Kingdom, as well as Baronies and Shires and Cantons, and while it was likely that Christophe was next in line, it was not etched in stone.
But that is mere exposition and not the tale being told here.
Ignatius LeFou, like his father before him, was the local brewer of the small village of Molyneaux, located in the heart of the Principality. Although he had only been producing ales and such for just under a year, he'd found that riding on Harbin LeFou's coattails had only helped to make his product that much more saleable. This was not to say that he was the best alemaker in the land - far from it - but he was at least, as one might put it, "on his way."
But like his father, LeFou could be careless with his money. Though his income was respectable, he believed in shelling out the necessary funds for producing quality drinks, and his bank account in the nearby city of Aglionby suffered for that. The money he had inherited from the late Gaston was nearly gone, and he had trouble making profits exceed his expenditures. His friends at the Palace tried again and again to get him to pawn off Gaston's belongings, but he dragged his feet; and as no one had yet made him an offer on Gaston's house, he felt no immediate need to sell off its contents.
The life LeFou led had both an up and a downside. Every man wants to be a brewer's friend - the free samples alone is a perk just too good to pass by. But after a lifetime of being the town underdog, of spending years as Gaston's right-hand-man (a position both envied and sneered at by the village men), LeFou often went out of his way to win favor with anyone he could. Although he had gained the villagers' grudging respect, it was safe to say that he was also not nearly as well liked as his father had been, and was taken advantage of quite regularly, both financially and socially. He remained the butt of many a prank, and, unwilling to appear like he couldn't take a joke, he just tried to pretend he didn't notice.
Things might have gone on like that for years if it weren't for what happened next.
One afternoon merely days after the first signs of spring, LeFou walked out of the back door of his house to see a young woman - more of a girl, really, barely eighteen - leaning over the fence of the horse paddock, petting his black mare.
LeFou's first impulse was to run straight for the girl, screaming for her to get back. After all, Stella could be dangerous. But then he checked himself.
Although while Stella had belonged to Gaston she had been vicious towards anyone but himself and LeFou, the latter had been spending nearly every day of the past seven or eight months trying to get her to first allow him to ride her; and then allow others to not only handle her, but ride her as well. At last she had been willing to let LeFou's friends Bain and Bernaud ride her. It had been a major victory.
But this was the first time LeFou had seen a total stranger walk up to Stella and just start petting her. It was a very good sign, and he felt briefly grateful to the girl for simply proving that Stella was at last manageable. He'd always worried that one of the village men might kill her after a bout of violent behavior. He was glad to see that there was hope. He headed for the paddock.
Before he could say anything to the girl, however, she looked down at him and said, straightforwardly, "There you are," as if she knew him very well.
"Er, good afternoon," he replied, struggling to remember if he had ever met this girl before, perhaps while in Aglionby. Finally able to leave Stella with Bain, he had started making trips there a few months ago, and he had met more people than he could ever hope to remember. Many of them had been young women, interested in the attentions of an up-and-coming businessman. But he just couldn't place this girl's features. He certainly didn't remember her smile - and she was smiling at him now, quite broadly. He wondered if perhaps his collar looked funny, or he had a smudge on his face. He fidgeted. "Can I help you?" he said at last.
"Is this Stella?" asked the girl, giving the mare's muzzle a final pat before turning her full attention on the short man. "I thought she wouldn't let strangers near her."
LeFou blinked. That was odd. "I didn't know she was so famous," he remarked.
The girl pointed to the grey stallion, currently rubbing his shoulder against a post of the rear of the paddock. "And that's Omri? He's a beautiful animal."
Now he was sure. "We haven't met, have we?" LeFou queried, perplexed. Was this person a horse fancier? He looked her over, trying one last time to remember her. She was of average height, with light brown hair (most of it concealed by a bonnet) and hazel eyes, with a sharp nose and a longish neck. Her clothing was almost strikingly plain. If possible, she smiled even more broadly at the question.
"Oh, no, I forgot. Not yet."
She's a strange one, LeFou had to think. "Well, then...who are you?" he asked bluntly.
At once the girl laughed delightedly, clasping her hands together, as if LeFou had just told a terrific joke. He moved away slightly in alarm, and she stopped laughing abruptly.
"I'm sorry," she said, though she still smiled. "It's just that it's such fun to have a secret." She glanced at the house. "Can we go inside?"
LeFou frowned. "Inside?"
"Yes." The girl rocked on her heels a bit. "I have something very interesting to show you."
When LeFou hesitated, the girl stopped rocking and looked at him earnestly. "Please," she said, sobering at last. "It's very important, and I've come a long way."
He had to give in.
"What are you doing?" LeFou demanded as he watched, bewildered, while the girl went around the taproom closing and fastening all of the shutters. She had already bolted the door.
"I have to show you something," she said as she worked, "and I don't want anyone else to see."
Oh, boy. "Look, I don't know what you're selling," he said abruptly, at last fed up with the girl's bizarre behaviour and trying to sound tougher than he felt, "but I'm not buying! Now you better take your little 'secret' and hike on outta town before I - what's that?"
The girl, having completed her task, had made her way in the near-darkness to sit at one of the tables. She had pulled something from a pouch at her waist and now it glinted weirdly, although no light struck it.
"Come sit," she said.
With a longing glance at the front door, LeFou obeyed reluctantly, easing slowly into a chair while watching the girl's shadowy form intently lest her head start spinning around or somesuch thing. It would have come as little surprise at that point.
The girl took a deep breath, as if steeling herself, and then looked at the thing in her hand. "Show me Gaston," she told it, and at once the room was awash in flickering green light as white threads of power crackled about the object. LeFou had to shield his eyes momentarily, and as he lowered his hands the girl turned the object around.
It was an ornate silver hand-held mirror, and reflected on its surface was a moving image of Gaston. LeFou recognised the mirror at once, but the image it showed instantly commanded his full attention.
Gaston was talking. "…And pretty soon the first guy says again, 'Did you see that?' and the second guy, who's getting really annoyed, says, 'Yes I did,' just to shut him up, and then the first guy says - "
"'Then why did you step in it?'" LeFou delivered the punchline automatically, in synch with Gaston. Suddenly realising what was happening, LeFou reached out and slammed the mirror facedown on the table. The light winked out and the room was dark once again.
"What the hell?" squeaked LeFou, scrambling backwards. He stumbled over his chair and wound up on the floor. "...What the hell was that?"
"It was Gaston."
"B - Wh - How did you do that?" LeFou strained to make out the girl's expression, to see if she was laughing at him again. It was too dark to tell.
But she didn't sound like she was laughing when she said, "It's a magic mirror."
Suddenly LeFou forgot the strange image long enough to remember the mirror itself. "Where did you get that?" he asked. He made no effort to get up. He hadn't the strength.
The girl's silhouette shrugged. "Gaston had it on him when he was found. It really ought to have been smashed to pieces in the river, but apparently magic mirrors are unbreakable." A pause. "I'm sorry," the girl said at length. "I know I've shocked you." Leaving the mirror on the table, she got up and knelt beside LeFou. "Are you all right?"
LeFou started at her. She was crazy, she had to be crazy. No, he was the one who was crazy. "Gaston is dead," he protested weakly, lying there.
"No he's not," was the reply. "He's alive and well and he wants to see you."
Her name was Jessamyn Lacroix, and she was from Danvers. It had taken her six days to reach the village by horse-drawn buggy, and she had come alone. Danvers, which was known for its fishing and little else, was a tiny out-of-the way community located downriver from Molyneaux, and lay on the very outskirts of the Principality. It was there that Gaston, battered and broken and practically comatose from exhaustion, had been hauled out of the river by an elderly fisherman and his son and brought to the local doctor's house almost a year ago. A man of lesser stamina would never have survived. Luck probably had something to do with it as well. The doctor, as it happened, had two daughters: Jessamyn, and the eldest, Emeline, to whom Gaston was currently engaged to be married.
"And that's why I came here," said Jessamyn, pouring a little more brandy into LeFou's tea, because he looked like he needed it. "Gaston's always going on about you, so I thought it would be a nice wedding present to bring you to Danvers to be his best man." She smiled at her own cleverness. "He showed you to us in the Mirror. Otherwise I wouldn't have known you."
Jessamyn had finally opened one of the windows, so it was no longer too dark to see anything. LeFou tentatively looked her in the eye. "He...talks about me?" He tried not to think about what exactly he had been doing when two strange women - and God knows who else - had been observing him from afar via the Mirror.
"Does he ever." Jessamyn took a drink of her own, nonalcoholic tea. "It's always 'LeFou and I' this, or 'Me and LeFou' that, or 'I remember when LeFou fill-in-the-blank.' You must have been joined at the hip."
LeFou was silent a moment. "He really wants me at his wedding?" he asked.
"Well...he didn't say so. But it stands to reason." Jessamyn held his gaze, her eyes twinkling. "I didn't tell anyone what I was planning," she said. "Just that I was going to go get a wedding present, and I talked Gaston into letting me take the Mirror. It's going to be such a terrific surprise."
LeFou slowly drank the last of his tea, set the cup down carefully on the table, and walked to the counter without a word.
Jessamyn frowned after him. Obviously, she had been expecting a different reaction. "You're - You...Don't you want to go?" she demanded.
"Sure I do. You can stay the night here if you want. You can use my sister's room."
Jessamyn 's frown turned into a scowl. "Was Gaston your friend or not?"
LeFou was pouring himself a stiff drink; that spiked tea just hadn't quite done the job. "He was my friend."
Jessamyn exhaled sharply, slumping in her chair. "Then what on Earth is wrong with you?" she shouted. "I come here and tell you your friend didn't die a year ago and you act like I came to collect taxes! You're the strangest person I ever met!"
"Obviously you don't know yourself very well," LeFou couldn't stop himself.
Jessamyn snorted, an unladylike sound. "Nice," she said, rolling her eyes. "Then she looked at him. "I can really stay here tonight?" she changed the subject.
"Yes."
"Then I'm going to go get some of my things," she said, standing up again. "I left my cart at the stables."
LeFou hesitated, feeling awkward. "I could go with you," he offered.
"I'm fine." Jessamyn unbolted the door. "Hey," she said, turning around. "You...you won't go telling anyone, about Gaston? Um...that he's alive, I mean, not yet...I - " She broke off. "He's been safe way out in Danvers but...if word gets out that he's alive, the Prince..."
"I don't know what the Prince would do," interrupted LeFou. "Gaston did try to kill him, but then, all the men of this village wanted to do the same thing, and he forgave all of us. But...I won't tell, anyway."
They looked at each other. After a moment, Jessamyn left without further comment.
LeFou lay awake for a long time after going to bed, staring at the ceiling. He didn't think he would ever sleep again. Gaston wasn't dead. All this time, he hadn't been dead. He was in Danvers, of all places, and who the heck ever went there? Nobody. LeFou couldn't imagine Gaston being happy out in the middle of nowhere surrounded by a few fishermen, without even a tavern to display all his hunting trophies. Where would he put his trophies? In an old-fashioned pavilion? LeFou hadn't ever been to Danvers (because no one ever goes there! he thought wryly) but somehow he was sure a little place like that would have an old canvas pavilion in the center of town.
Frankly, he was as scared as if Gaston's ghost itself had come back to haunt him. Maybe Jess was right; maybe he should have been happier to hear that his former best friend hadn't died a horrible death after all. But he was uneasy. It wasn't as if things would ever be the same, after everything that had happened. And what about the Prince? Would he fling Gaston in gaol and throw away the key? Or perhaps just have him executed? Probably not, LeFou's better judgment told him. But even Gaston couldn't hide in Danvers forever; and when the secret got out, everything was bound to get unpleasant, one way or the other. Would he be the one to spill the beans? That's the sort of thing I would do, LeFou thought bitterly to himself. He felt like the proverbial jar of worms.
A soft light shone under his door, and he sat up. It was obvious that Jessamyn had lit a lantern in the taproom, but it had been so long since anyone else had moved about his house at night that, even knowing whom it was, it seemed a bit eerie. After several minutes had passed and the light had not gone outside nor been extinguished, he threw on some clothes and left his room.
He found Jessamyn in the taproom, staring up at the portrait of Gaston, which he had hung back up rather recently on a whim. The bearskin rug was also back in front of the fireplace, although Gaston's chair remained pushed to the side, covered with a sheet.
Jessamyn didn't turn around when LeFou cleared his throat to let her know he was there. "I've never seen him like that," she remarked.
The statement caught LeFou off guard. "What do you mean?"
"Like..." Jessamyn seemed to search for words. "Standing so tall. He was hurt very badly," she told LeFou, looking over at him as he stood beside her.
It was hard for LeFou to imagine Gaston as anything less than he had always been. "How badly?"
Jessamyn shifted her weight from one foot to the other. "One arm was broken in two places," she said slowly, "and a few ribs - a couple were showing." LeFou felt his blood run cold. "Both legs were broken in several places too," Jessamyn went on, "and his left knee was...Father says it will never be the same. He healed really well though, and he's gotten so much stronger. But..." She looked back up at the painting. "I've just never seen him like that."
LeFou didn't know what to think. Gaston had always been so hung up on his appearances and the way he carried himself. "How is he - with...Um...how are his looks?" he asked awkwardly, not knowing how else to put it.
Jessamyn turned from the painting and walked towards the wooden bench LeFou had dragged in front of the fireplace. "Of course you'd ask that," she said with amusement. "I forgot how well you must know him." She sat. "I never heard such whining in my life over a few scars easily hid by clothing. It's not as if that mealticket of a face of his was so much as bruised. He probably only survived drowning because he was fighting so hard the whole time to make sure to keep his head above water so nothing would happen to his precious face." She crossed her legs and frowned into the empty fireplace. "And it's not as if he didn't have any scars before, anyways. I mean, that big one alone…"
LeFou, with the aid of a stepstool, fetched the tinderbox from its place on the mantle - he probably wasn't going to get any sleep that night anyway. "Do you mean that goat bite?"
Jessamyn sputtered. "Is that what that is? A goat bite?" She laughed. "He wouldn't tell us."
LeFou transferred some kindling from a basket to the fireplace. "He told me he was throwing rocks at a goat when he was a boy, and it chased him down and bit him on the ass."
Jessamyn giggled madly.
"Believe me," went on LeFou, as the fire crackled to life, "I've seen that thing more times than I could count. Gaston thought it was macho to throw off all his clothes and jump in the river every chance he got, especially when it was near freezing."
At that revelation, Jessamyn laughed even harder.
LeFou sat beside her on the bench, smiling despite himself. "Yep, those were the good old days," he mused.
Jess caught her breath and wiped her eyes. "So, you ready to go surprise the heck out of the big dope or not?"
Jessamyn's laughter had been infectious, and the sudden upsurging of memories of Gaston peeling off his underwear and running starkers towards the icy river yelling "Come on, LeFou, it's fun!" (and LeFou's standard deadpanned reply: ""Oh yeah, I'm on my way") had made him feel a little better. "Yes," he admitted.
The girl sensed the change in attitude and nearly clapped her hands for joy. "Great! When do we leave?"
LeFou considered. "I'll need a few days to fill some orders," he said, "and I'll have to tell Monsieur Channing at the general store not to take any new ones..." He'd told her all about his business over dinner. She'd had no idea. It would take some doing to become known way out in Danvers - although, Jessamyn had admitted, several of the men had recognised Gaston the moment they saw him. But then, he was Gaston.
Jessamyn made a face. "A few days? We can't go sooner? They're holding the wedding for me as it is."
"I can't just disappear to go to Danvers," LeFou argued. "I couldn't get back for at least a few weeks, and I have a business to run. I can't afford to lose any customers."
"Well I'll help you," replied Jessamyn at once. "How hard could it be to pour beer into barrels?"
"I'll never move again," groaned Jessamyn, flopping into the front of the wagon.
LeFou climbed in and took the reins. "I didn't tell you," he grinned. "Filling the barrels is the easy part. Then you have to deliver them to the general store. This wagon of yours is handy, though; I usually just have Omri pull a little cart."
"Stop being so damn cheerful," Jess complained as they headed back towards the town square. "I'm in pain."
"Aww," mocked LeFou. Jess tried to kick him but it was a feeble attempt. He laughed. "Listen," he said, "Let's stop by Gaston's - " He stopped short and lowered his voice to a whisper, although there were no villagers near enough to overhear. "Let's stop by Gaston's and get some of his things for him."
"Good idea. For once." She stuck her tongue out at him.
LeFou rolled his eyes. "Thanks. You know, you're like the annoying little sister I never had. Lucky me, I only had an annoying older sister."
"How much older?"
"Nine years."
"Wow! That much?"
"Yeah well, I was a...surprise." He grinned at Jess, and she grinned back.
"So where's she live now?"
"Aglionby, with her husband and...what is it now...six kids. Here it is." They'd reached Gaston's house.
"Do you think anyone will wonder why we're taking things out of his house?" whispered Jessamyn as she and LeFou carried a trunk of clothes between them back to the wagon.
As if in reply, Bertram happened by just then with a basket of bread he was delivering to someone down the street. "Er, bonjour, LeFou," he said, gazing curiously at the stranger. "Have you finally sold that house?" he guessed.
"Um…no," LeFou floundered. "Just...some clothes, and stuff."
"For my brother," Jessamyn piped up helpfully. "He's about Gaston's size."
"Really?" Bertram arched an eyebrow. "There aren't many fellas around who could match Gaston's build. What's his name?"
"Rupert," replied Jess without hesitation.
"Hm...Don't know any big Ruperts..." Bertram shouldered his basket. "Well. Good day to you both." He went on his way.
LeFou and Jessamyn looked at each other, then pushed the trunk into the back of the wagon. "So," said LeFou conversationally, "do you think 'Big Rupert' will like his new wardrobe? Or maybe he'd prefer stripes," he added, opening the trunk and holding up a pair of monogrammed underwear.
This time, Jessamyn really did kick him, although it wasn't hard, and they both laughed.
The next morning LeFou and Jessamyn loaded the wagon, adding a couple of medium-sized kegs of ale for good measure. LeFou locked his door and left a note pinned to it for Bain and Bernaud in case they happened by (as they surely would) explaining that he had had to go out of town for a few weeks. As an extra precaution, he didn't say where to.
Jess drove the wagon while LeFou opted to ride Omri and lead Stella. He and Jessamyn entertained each other by swapping humorous stories, many about Gaston; and by the time six days later when Danvers came into view, LeFou couldn't deny that his nagging reservations had just about vanished. He was going to see Gaston again and he couldn't wait.
"What are you grinning at?" Jessamyn asked LeFou curiously as they paused at the edge of the trees.
"Nice pavilion," LeFou commented smugly.
Jess pouted at him. "Smartass," she said. "Now, I want you to stay here while I go ahead. Come when I call." She smiled mischievously. "This is going to be some surprise."