CHAPTER 7: In which the royal assassins attack
The next day was a Sunday. It began normally enough, by Parisian standards. Belle and Beast ate what amounted to a breakfast with the Marquise, at one o'clock in the afternoon. The hostess then suggested they should all find some entertainment, and Belle recalled that their old servant Babette was playing in a stage show with a matinee on Sundays. Thus it was decided they would go to see the performance.
The play was de Beaumarchais's The Marriage of Figaro, a four hour long musical comedy about the marital problems of a frisky young Count and his wife of two years, as it intersected with the marriage of their servants Figaro and Suzanne. Babette played the relatively minor role of Fanchette, an attractive peasant girl who was sleeping with the Count and who by the end of the play was arranged to marry fan-favorite character Chérubin. Babette was a little long in the tooth for the part, but from a few rows back it didn't show too badly. It was very much the kind of minor role given to an upstart actress; the kind that an actress starting out as late as Babette usually never graduated from.
After the show, the trio of nobility went backstage to speak with the actors. It was a crowded backstage area, with one large, very messy makeup table and mirror that all the players shared. Props and costumes were suspended from beams on the ceiling — as he moved along, the Prince kept getting whacked in the face with them.
Babette recognized Belle before she successfully identified the ravishing young man at her side. But she was thrilled to see them both.
"Lumiere said you were here!" squeaked Babette, "Are you going to remain in Paris for good?Or do you mean to return to that castle?"
Belle noticed the derogatory that.
"We haven't really discussed it," said the Prince, switching from holding Belle's hand to hooking his arm through hers. "But if it were up to me, right now, I would remain in Paris. This has been the best time of my life! I've made friends, people see my artwork, I can go outside anytime I want, there are things to do! I've never been so happy!"
Never been so happy. Belle could feel her hopes of a return to the castle where she'd always been happiest slipping away. She compelled a placid smile notwithstanding.
"I do not blame you," said Babette to her old master. "Even if the British or the Prussians or Swedes invade —"
Another actor in the room, apparently overhearing their conversation, cried out: "They will! Just you wait!"
The remark was heard but not acknowledged. " — I would sooner remain here than wind up in that world of wolves again," finished Babette.
The old acquaintances chatted for a while longer on pleasant and unimportant things. Murderella occupied herself by assisting some stagehands who struggled to move a heavy box of props — she lifted both the box and the stagehands to where they were needed.
Finally it was time for goodbyes. The Prince promised to keep abreast of Babette's acting career and to see all her upcoming shows. Goodbye bises all round, and off the three nobles went.
Now it was approaching dinnertime. The carriage of the Marquise was directed back to her mansion.
When they pulled up to the gates, the street outside seemed to be in some disorder. Two workmen were digging up the road directly in front of the gate, a sack of tools between them. The coachman was annoyed by the unexpected obstruction, which barred his entry into the property.
"Hey! What's going on here?" called the coachman to the workers.
Luigi Bonaparte, trying to impersonate a workman, replied in his neatest French: "We're just following instructions."
Murderella could hear the exchange outside, and she poked her head out the window. "Is there a problem?" she called.
Luigi walked towards her, as if to discuss the matter. "Apologies, madame. We're just doing what we've been told. The sewer beneath the road has something wrong and needs to be excavated immediately."
Without any hesitation, Murderella yanked out one of her pistols. She knew there was no sewer beneath the road by the gate.
Meanwhile, Luigi got a glimpse of the young Monsieur Capet within the carriage. Whether the target was there or not, that was his only concern. He was. Fight on.
"It's Blondie!" called Luigi.
Lucien threw down his shovel and dove to the sack of supplies. It was filled not with construction tools, but with weapons. He hurried to toss Luigi a loaded gun.
The carriage was on the street, directly in front of the mansion gates. From the driver's viewpoint, Luigi was at the left-hand passenger door, the mansion to the right, and Lucien positioned in front.
Murderella leapt to her feet within the carriage. She endeavored to protect her passengers. Barely two seconds had passed since the trouble started, and Belle and the Beast were only just starting to comprehend the danger. They heard outside a whoosh-BANG of a flintlock, followed by a cry from the coachman and a whinny of the horses. That was probably the driver dead.
Murderella fired her pistol at Luigi, who flung himself out of the way and was not hit. She reached for another of her guns even as he did so.
There was a strange, sudden hissing noise along with two metallic thuds. Heavy plumes of gray smoke began rising up on either side of the coach: smoke bombs.
Murderella kicked open the left-hand door, knocking down Luigi. Smoke was already obscuring the surroundings. She turned to Beast and Belle. "Out the other door! To the gates!"
Belle was sitting nearest the door. She hurried to throw it open, and leapt out. In an instant her husband was at her side, his arm around her protectively.
Luigi was flat on the ground. Murderella tried to escape past him, but he seized her by the ankles, pulling her to the dirt. He didn't really want to waste his bullet on her, but he could see she was going to be a load of trouble if not taken out. Getting to his knees and swinging himself round her, he fired his gun as she lay supine.
The bullet made a clang as it hit her in the torso: Murderella's corset was made of steel. She was as good as armored. She felt the impact but wasn't seriously hurt by it.
Luigi realized this and cursed.
Lucien armed himself with two fresh pistols. He came running to the carriage's right hand side, encountering his target amidst the bursting plumes of pale smoke.
Before the Beast had time to notice anything, Lucien, his arm held high to hit a six and a half foot mark, struck the flint of his right pistol.
Belle suddenly felt her husband stagger wildly. He lost his hold, and he slumped back toward the carriage. In the commotion, Belle initially only wondered where he'd gone.
Murderella and Luigi grappled on the ground. Both were trying to get at her criss-cross holster full of guns; the one which she always wore. Luigi's hands were on it — Murderella's massive arms clasped his in captive grip, leaving him unable to act. They wrestled thus when they heard the whoosh-BANG and the loud, weighty thud against the carriage.
Smoke, rising by its nature, was not obscuring much of the ground. Simultaneously Murderella and Luigi looked across the dirt, beneath the carriage. They could see the Prince's legs: they were motionless, and betrayed the position of a man who'd fallen dead through the open carriage door.
Luigi felt a thrill run through him. "You got him!" he cried to Lucien.
Belle heard the remark. She hadn't realized her terror could rise any further. Surely there was no possible way…
Luigi suddenly lost interest in Murderella and her gun. He leapt to his feet and jumped into the open left-hand carriage door, shutting it behind him in the same gesture. Murderella took a pistol with both hands to shoot him through the door. She halted when she realized that Belle was still standing at the opposite side of the coach and was liable to be hit.
Lucien swiftly felt his way to the carriage's driver's seat. The driver was still alive but badly injured — Lucien shoved him from the perch into the dirt below. He took the reigns, and sent the coach and its horses racing away along the road. Belle and Murderella were left standing amidst the smoke.
Inside the coach, Luigi was on the floor. With him was the body of the Prince, lying on his back with an obvious bullet wound through the head, a pool of blood forming beneath his skull. Luigi scrambled to pull in the dead man's legs, then shut the door. The plan had been a success: the Prince was murdered, and now Lucien only had to drive the coach to a convenient point of escape nearby, where the vehicle would be abandoned along with the body of the Prince.
Then, to Luigi's surprise, the Prince whimpered. A second later, he thrashed.
Luigi realized with horror that the Prince was still alive. "Lucien! He's still kicking! Do you have another gun?"
Lucien heard his brother's voice from in the carriage. "You're joking!" he called back, appalled. Knowing that it was improbable that Luigi would joke about such a thing, he struggled to retrieve his other gun while still undertaking some complicated coachmanship in the name of their escape.
Luigi, meanwhile, watched with alarm as the Prince seemed to be getting better and better, like he had only been stunned. He noticed the holster the Prince wore, which had in it another pistol. Luigi grabbed it up. In a second, the assassin blasted off its shot into the Prince's chest: a direct wound to the heart. The Prince let out another pained noise, and fell quiet once again.
But only for a minute.
For his part, the Prince could tell this was something unnatural; this was not a near-death experience, but an actual death he kept reviving from. Each time, he saw that same beautiful, horrible thing he had committed to the canvas at the Louvre.
He had suspected for several months that he just maybe possibly perhaps might be immortal.
Ever since Gaston had killed him — not almost killed him, but actually killed him — he'd wondered. He had not relished any opportunity to test the theory, especially allowing that he might be wrong, but — here he was. He could feel the hole through his head healing up, his brain signaling that he was in incredible pain. His heart, numb and cold, wasn't beating, but that no longer seemed to be necessary to sustain life. The words of the Enchantress, talking of her own accidental immortality, flew through his tortured skull: Oh, it hurt. But that was how I knew…
The Prince rolled onto his side. His ability to think was just being restored. The wound in his head was visibly healed, the blood in his strawberry blond hair being the only trace that remained.
"Lucien!" cried Luigi, aghast. "Get back here, pronto!"
Lucien had to steer into a back-alley. He hurried down the from the coachman's seat and into the rear.
He was amazed to find the Prince visibly hurt, and very confused, but still quite plainly alive. Without any hesitation, he blasted their final bullet into the Prince's head. The Prince went motionless like a burst balloon.
They waited. In another minute, he was twitching.
Luigi simply shook his head in complete dismay. "I think he'll be up again in a minute. He's just not dying."
Lucien was similarly appalled. He struggled to think in a hurry. "I suppose… change of plan. Let's tie him up, take him to Napoleon and see what he wants to do about this. If we can't kill him, we can't kill him. Call him an hostage now."
The assassins hurried to use their belts, neckerchiefs and anything else available to securely tie up their victim. By the time they finished, the Prince's vivid eyes were already blinking back to life from another visit with the terrible and monumental thing.
…