CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
BAITING THE BUG
The throne room was the pride and joy of Nottingham Castle.
But even a simple-minded servant could tell there was nothing prideful or joyous about it today, considering the mood of the monarch who sat in it.
Princess Chloe stared straight ahead along the massive, royal-blue carpet cutting through the middle of the chamber. Towering piles of gold coins sat on both sides of Chloe's throne, sparkling with their magnificent sheen. However, the princess paid them no heed.
She seemed to be lost in thought; never so much as turning her head or fidgeting with her purple gown, which had lavender fur along her collar and the ends of her large sleeves.
Chloe did, however, tap her fingers upon the armrests, echoing the melody of the afternoon rainstorm pattering against the grand windows:
Tap-tap-tap-tap, Tap-tap-tap-tap...
There was a dark aura around the princess. Her mouth was tight, and the inner corners of her golden brow were angled down slightly. Globs of powder did nothing to hide the heavy, purplish bags under Chloe's eyes. She looked exhausted, and that in turn added to her low, thunderous mood.
Sabrina stood beside the princess, as always, wearing a rather depressing shade of blue.
Normally, the handmaiden would have been relieved to see Chloe quiet for once. However, this kind of silence was the kind that made Sabrina's tummy squirm and the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.
It was as though the princess was a firework just waiting to burst open and set everything aflame.
Sabrina cleared her throat softly. "Your Highness," she said, "if I may say so, you're not... well..." She chose her words carefully. "You're not your usual, cheerful, genius self today."
Chloe said nothing. She just continued to stare out blankly and drum her fingers on her throne.
Tap-tap-tap-tap, Tap-tap-tap-tap...
That gave Sabrina an idea. "I know!" she beamed. "You haven't counted your money for days! That always makes you so happy." She giggled and lifted a few coins off a nearby pile before dropping them back down one by one, hoping the clinking sound would lift Chloe's spirits.
It didn't.
Furthermore, Chloe's eyebrows seemed to knit closer together, and her mouth began to twitch upward.
Sabrina sheepishly inched her hand away from the gold and cleared her throat again. "Please, Your Majesty," she insisted with meek friendliness. "Why do you frown so? The taxes are pouring in, the jail is full, and... Oh! I almost forgot!"
The maidservant fell to her knees beside the princess, resting upon the armrest and grinning like a naughty girl about to spill a dirty little secret.
Again, Chloe refused to acknowledge her.
That is, until Sabrina said excitedly, "I have some excellent news, my princess: Sir Adrien has just been arrested!"
It happened so quickly, like a crack of lightning.
Princess Chloe leapt to her feet and shrieked with pure, unadulterated malice, "SIR ADRIEN?!"
Sabrina was so startled, she screamed and fell backwards into a pile of coins, causing it to come crashing down all around her. Bits of gold rolled several feet away.
"Ladybug!" Chloe raged, her fingers curling like claws and her teeth bared like a wild animal as she whirled on her lady-in-waiting. "It's LADYBUG I want, you idiot!"
Sabrina shielded her head with her arms, panting fearfully and making a silent prayer for mercy.
The princess looked away. She took deep, long, angry breaths before running her hands through her blonde curls, being careful not to tip over her heavy crown. Her voice was thick and hot like lava. "I would trade every prisoner in that dungeon for that red-hooded witch! I would give all of my gold if I could just get my hands on –!"
Instantaneously, like an artist splattering a canvas with a different paint colour, the hate and ferocity on Chloe's face was replaced by a look of fresh, amused surprise.
The moody princess turned back to the cowering Sabrina on the floor, and asked in her normal, sultry tone, "Did you say Sir Adrien has been arrested?"
The pale-faced redhead blinked behind her arms. "I did?" She gulped and nodded feverishly. "I mean... yes! I did."
Chloe stepped closer. "When? Where was he found?" she demanded.
"Earlier this afternoon. Outside Nottinghill Church, Your Majesty," Sabrina stammered. "The Sheriff was trying to arrest Friar Fu, but he helped him escape. I mean, Sir Adrien helped the Friar escape, and then the Sheriff caught him. He caught Sir Adrien, I mean."
Chloe inhaled deeply, and a broad smile cracked along her face.
Adrien was in jail. Chloe's sweet, charming, traitorous cousin – the one person on this earth who Ladybug loved "more than life itself".
Dark pleasure warmed the princess's veins, and she clutched her fists together, squealing with wicked delight. "Ohhhhh, this is delicious!" Chloe purred. "I finally have it, Sabrina! I finally have it!"
The handmaiden slowly lowered her arms and stared up at her mistress curiously. "Finally have... what, Your Highness?" she squeaked.
"The plan, of course. The plan!" Chloe stated, as though it were obvious. "The perfect plan!" She rubbed her hands together. "I will use my conniving cousin as bait to trap Ladybug once and for all." Those words were spoken with a solemn, unwavering promise.
"Another... trap, my princess?" Sabrina half-whimpered, half-groaned.
"Yes, my silly servant," Chloe cooed like a mother to her child. "Don't you see? Once Ladybug learns that I have her romantic rogue as my prisoner..." She chuckled to herself. "Why, I bet my crown she'd do anything to get him back."
Sabrina straightened up and rose to her feet, albeit a bit shaken. More coins fell down the disturbed pile as she moved. "I don't... I mean, I do see potential in your plan, Your Highness. But... don't you believe Ladybug will expect a trap?"
Chloe waved an idle hand, still smirking. "Oh, she'll be expecting it – of that, I'm sure," she said. "But it won't matter. For one thing... she won't have any choice."
The way she said that – cold and sharp as a steel dagger – made Sabrina stiffen with dread. "W-W-Whatever do you mean, Majesty?" the little maid dared to ask.
Chloe smoothed down the fur collar of her dress as she walked over towards one of the tall glass windows along the left wall. Each lightning bolt lit up the throne room with flaring white. They also lit the full, malicious features of Chloe's face.
"I mean," the princess finally answered, "tomorrow at dawn, Sir Adrien will be put to the gallows for his crimes against the kingdom."
Sabrina gasped, the sound of it echoing through the chamber. "But... Your Highness!" she blurted, rushing to her lady's side with horrified, teal eyes. "Hang Sir Adrien?! Your mother's sister's son?! Your own kin?!"
Chloe rolled her eyes with annoyance. She knew where her maidservant was going with this.
The nobility called it kinslaying. A monarch or a high-born lord who executed a person of his own blood was forever cursed by the gods.
But the princess didn't believe in such ridiculous superstitions. Besides, Adrien was a traitor, and he would be dealt with a traitor's death. And it wasn't as though Chloe was going to pull the lever herself. She had nothing to fear.
All she cared about was catching Ladybug, and Adrien was the purr-fect bait.
"Yes, my hesitant handmaiden," Chloe said, gazing out into the dark storm with a look of dark humour. "And when our courageous criminal comes to rescue her feline fiancé..." Her eyes lit up as lightning cracked across the sky. "My men will be ready."
Her cold, unfeeling laughter rumbled through the chamber, along with the ominous thunder.
Two birds with one stone, Chloe thought sadistically. Or in this case, a cat and a ladybug!
She laughed again, and Sabrina didn't bother to hide her terror... or her concern for the young princess who was undoubtably slipping further into madness.
The storm finally let up when evening fell, and a red sunset poked out through the fading grey clouds.
Sheriff Roger was relieved he wasn't getting wet anymore. It made his job of constructing the castle gallows a lot easier.
The structure was set up in the stone courtyard before the dungeon entrance. It wasn't as grand as Roger wanted it, but seeing as the hanging was to take place at daybreak, he opted for the quicker, smaller construction.
All it took was a narrow wooden staircase leading up to a square platform about eight feet off the ground, held up by nothing but the foundations. A horizontal beam was held above the platform by two support poles on each side, and from the centre of the beam hung the rope that would serve as the noose. A trap door sat in the middle of the platform, right underneath the noose, and the lever to control it was primed and ready.
On the courtyard ground, a handful of weary peasants watched the construction with fearful eyes. Princess Chloe had allowed the castle gate to be opened for this reason: to remind the remaining people of the consequences of disloyalty and treason. Thankfully, none of the peasants knew the identity of the condemned prisoner. The reveal would happen tomorrow morning, when all of Nottingham (or what was left of it) would be ordered to gather in the castle and witness the execution.
Sheriff Roger hummed to himself as he finished hammering the overhang beam in place. His assistant, Nutsy, worked on the lever, his purple hood pulled on as always.
Standing guard along the edge of the platform was Trigger, the Sheriff's marksman and personal guard. A stout, vulture of a man, Trigger had a crooked nose and a bald head with thin patches of grey along the ears. Like Nutsy, he wore a black uniform with a chain mail shirt and a purple cloak. In Trigger's hands was his favourite crossbow, which he named "Old Betsy" after some charming woman he met years ago.
The Sheriff stepped away from his work and wiped his brow with a satisfied smile. "Well, Trigger," he said to his marksman, "everything's rigged up and all set."
The bald man looked behind him and nodded proudly. "Yep! It's one of the prettiest gallows you ever built, Sheriff!" he said in a deep voice.
Roger snickered and walked over to the centre to adjust the loop on the noose. "It'll certainly fit the pretty outlaw who will swing from it," he noted sadistically. "Right after her fiancé, of course."
Only hours ago, he had put Sir Adrien in his private cell to await sentencing. Roger had just finished chaining the boy to the wall when a guard came by with news of the princess's plan.
The Sheriff could still see the way Adrien's eyes had grown wide with shock upon hearing that his own cousin had condemned him to death... and that his precious Ladybug was her next target. Adrien was still shouting in defiance and writhing angrily in his chains even as Roger slammed the door shut in his face.
The Sheriff was now daydreaming about Ladybug in chains...
... until Nutsy stood up and said in his nasal accent, "Sheriff, don't you reckon we outta give that trap door a test?"
Roger blinked just as the lever clicked down.
The door sprung open at the Sheriff's feet, and he fell into the hole with a startled, "OOF!" Thankfully, he was too big to fit through the narrow opening, so he now lay all smug in there with his feet dangling underneath.
A couple peasants chuckled under their breaths at the sight before wisely taking their leave.
Roger sighed with a frown and tapped his fingers on the platform. "Criminitly..." he groaned. "Now I know why your mama called you "Nutsy"."
The gangly simpleton shrugged with a childish giggle.
At least Nutsy used the name his mother had given him. Trigger's real name was... well, actually, no one knew what his name was, and Roger never bothered to ask. The soldier was merely known as "Trigger" due to his paranoid nature. And his twitchy shooting finger.
The two guards had to help heave their boss out of the hole and seal it back up. This time, Roger took care to keep Nutsy as far away from the lever as possible.
Soon after, a small tapping noise sounded from behind the Sheriff, followed by a creaky call of "Alms? Alms for the poor?"
Roger almost laughed as he turned around.
Most of the riffraff had left already, but now there was a familiar, hunchbacked figure wobbling over to the gallows: her blindfold covering her eyes, her brown dress dragging behind her, her big hat sitting atop her stringy grey hair, her tin cup raised in one hand, and the other tapping her wooden cane against the stoney ground.
It was the same dimwitted, blind beggar woman Roger saw at that snippy widow's house!
The old crone stopped the moment her cane banged against the stairs of the gallows. "Oh, my... So sorry," she said dazedly. "Quite clumsy, I am."
This time, Sheriff Roger didn't hide his amusement. "Look who it is, fellas," he said to his two guards. "Our most generous benefactor!" He let out a loud guffaw, shaking his belly.
Trigger and Nutsy looked at each other confusedly, and they both shrugged.
But the hag seemed to be smiling, and she cocked her head to the side. "Hmm... Do me old ears hear the melodious voice of the Sheriff?" she croaked sweetly.
"You got that right," Roger replied.
The old woman lifted her cane and used it to feel along the stairs and foundations of the structure before her. "What be goin' on around here, Sheriff?" she asked. "What sort of strange cart is this?"
Roger rolled his eyes and proceeded to get back to adjusting the noose. "It ain't a cart, you silly old lady – it's a gallows," he corrected. "We're gonna hang Sir Adrien tomorrow at sun-up."
He heard a sharp, feminine gasp of "No!" that sounded far too young for an old woman.
But when Roger glanced back at the beggar, she coughed into her arm and croaked with soft surprise, "No really? Hang Sir Adrien?"
Nutsy nodded at her eagerly, completely forgetting that she couldn't see him. "You betcha! And maybe it'll be a double hangin'!"
Trigger whirled on his partner and clamped a gloved hand over the soft-spoken idiot's mouth, causing Nutsy to let out a muffled squeal. "Dummy up, you dummy!" the marksman hissed.
Roger lifted his eyebrows at the woman as she scratched her head. Did she know who Sir Adrien was? Was she one of Ladybug's supporters? The Sheriff looked over the old hag's ragged form... and shook his head. What use was a blind, crippled crone to an outlaw?
"A double hangin', eh?" the beggar asked. "Well then... who be the other guy who gets the rope?"
Trigger descended down the steps towards her, his crossbow lifted in both hands and his brow hard with suspicion. "Yer gettin' awf'ly nosy for a beggar," he grumbled.
The woman waved her tin cup side-to-side in a dismissive gesture. "Aw, shucks, fellas, I don't mean to be," she cooed innocently. "But tell me..." She brought her voice to a whisper. "Aren't ya boys worried that nasty Ladybug will show up?"
Nutsy burst out laughing from the platform above. "Well, whaddaya know, Sheriff?" he called to his boss. "She guessed it!"
"Nutsy! Shut your trap!" Trigger snapped.
The simpleton glanced at the door in the floor behind him. "But, we just did, Trigger," he insisted with glossy-eyed confusion.
Roger pinched the part between his eyes with a heavy, irritated sigh.
Then, the beggar woman shook her head and declared, "Oh, it don't mean nothin'. The Sheriff be too clever, too crafty... too smart for the likes of Ladybug, says I."
Roger blinked in surprise, and then beamed at the appraisal. "You hear that, Trigger?" he said smugly to his fidgety marksman. "For a blind woman, she sure knows a good man when she sees one." He chuckled to himself.
The woman sighed with a nod. "Well, good luck to ya, fellas!" she rasped as she turned around carefully. "Now... where's my cup? Oh, right... Hehe, me thinks I'm dizzy in the noodle." She muttered some more of her old-lady gibberish as she tapped away with her cane and walked back towards the castle gate.
The Sheriff snickered at her retreating back, until he saw Trigger lifting his crossbow a little too high. "Put that down, Trigger," Roger grumbled. "You're gettin' worked up for nothin'."
The marksman obeyed, but he kept giving their departing visitor the lazy eye.
"Alms?" The woman called as she went away. "Alms? Alms for the poor? Alms?"
"I don't know, Sheriff," Trigger warned, "I still think that wrinkly old crone knows too much."
"Oh, shut up," Roger snarled as he did another inspection of the gallows. "She's just a blind, harmless, stupid beggar. What's she gonna do – run off and find Ladybug? Ha! Don't make me laugh."
Marinette walked until she made it past the large, iron gate. She walked until she reached the edge of town.
But the moment she slipped into an abandoned, mud-streaked alley, the disguised blunette tore her blindfold, wig, and hat off all at once. Then, she collapsed against the cold stone at her back, which almost matched her ash-ridden face.
Her insides had turned to water. Her heart pounded ferociously. Her mind was ablaze with both panic and certainty.
Marinette almost didn't see the figure who came up beside her; who had waited for her to show up. The blunette looked to see glowing amber eyes under an orange hood.
Rena Rouge. Alya.
"What's wrong?" the hooded outlaw whispered, clasping her friend's shaking hand. "Did you find him?"
Marinette fought back tears of shock and grief as she shook her head. Then, she told her best friend everything.
When she was finished, Alya gritted her teeth and slammed a fist against the wall. "That dumb blonde bimbo! Has she gone insane?! Doesn't she realize what she's doing? If she hangs Adrien, she'll bring his father's wrath down on her! And King Felix's! It could lead to civil war!" She pounded the wall again, wincing from the pain before letting out a soft whimper. "Nottingham would never survive. That idiot has doomed us all."
Marinette hung her head down, wiping her face. "She's doing it to get me," she muttered with a mixture of sorrow and hatred. "Because it's me she wants dead, and she doesn't care what happens next."
No doubt the princess imagined Ladybug crashing the execution in a heroic effort to save her beloved, only to be surrounded by Chloe's entire army of ruthless soldiers. Even with help from Rena Rouge and Carapace, Ladybug would never walk out of that courtyard alive. And neither would Cat Noir.
Nottingham's last hope would be crushed, and Chloe would win.
But Alya was right. If Chloe succeeded, Lord Gabriel – no matter how cold and distant he was – would be struck with horror over the loss of his only child; the last thing he had left of his beloved wife. Then grief would turn into outrage, and the banners would be called.
Chloe was risking all-our war just to catch and kill one young outlaw.
Oh, Adrien... Marinette thought as her eyes burned again. What do I do? How do I stop this?
The night of their reunion, the blunette had convinced Adrien – convinced herself – that she was doing the right thing by focusing on saving Nottingham first before focusing on their future.
If I don't win, nobody wins. Nobody will get their happy endings. Not even us.
And Adrien – so respectful of his lady's wishes – chose to trust her; to believe her, to fight with her.
Whatever you decide, Milady, I'm with you always.
The suffocating pain in Marinette's chest flared with a sudden surge of courage, and her bluebell eyes hardened with resolve like twin seas under a gathering storm.
This relentless feud between her and Chloe had gone on long enough. Now, it was personal.
No one else was going to suffer. No one else was going to die.
Ladybug was going to save Nottingham. She was going to save Adrien. And if she had to give her life to save countless others who deserved to have their lives back, so be it.
Marinette turned to Alya with her chin raised. "We move the jailbreak to tonight," she whispered staunchly. "It's the only chance Adrien's got."
The fiery redhead gaped at her. "Tonight?!" she hissed, more out of concern than anything. "Mari, we don't have a full plan yet! There's no way we'll be ready in –!"
"We've got to, Alya." Marinette's plea was more like a command, and she affixed her partner a look of burning steel being quinched in water. "We have no other choice. We have to try, or Adrien will die at dawn." Her throat tightened at those words.
Alya stared at her, now more with surprise than anything. Her eyes went downcast for moment, lost in thought.
Then, the redhead blew out a breath that sounded like a small laugh. "You always were one to take chances," she mused dryly. Then Alya straightened. "All right, LB. What did you have in mind?"
Marinette brought forth a daring smile. "First, we go meet up with Nino and Uncle Fu," she said. "Then, we get everyone out. Everyone. And finally... we give Her Royal Majesty a run for her money."