2. Where Chains will never bind you

The night was starless and very dark. Without doubt, in the gloom some mighty angel was standing, with outstretched wings, awaiting the soul.

Jean Valjean could not tell. All he knew was that he was floating in a star-strewn void, or maybe falling gently, he was not certain. But he was cradled in the arms of eternity, and he was not afraid.

How long he spent there he could not recall later on. There was no time anymore. The clock had stopped, its hands melting to stardust as the void gently consumed him, washing him clean of all he had known. What had just been before him receded into a distance, becoming a dim memory. It was still there clearly in his mind, but somehow the emotional connection was broken, as if a long time had passed in a moment. He was aware of who he was, of who he had been, and then again, he was not.

The clock was reset, ready to start anew.

And then Jean Valjean stepped out of the darkness into the sunlight.

Blinking like in a haze, he tried to take in his surroundings. It was bright, and it was warm, that much he understood. Then it dawned on him that he was standing in high grass. There was a tiny yellow flower just before his left foot. And a blue one a little further off. And a white one. And another yellow one.

Raising his head as his eyes followed the colourful flowers into a distance, he found that he had somehow arrived on a sunlit meadow, where it was sunk in a little so that it formed a small hollow. There were a few trees ahead, irregularly strewn over the ground that sloped slightly upwards. In one of them a small brown bird moved briefly, then disappeared again amid the green leaves.

Where was he?

For a moment a bee buzzed around his head before it continued on its way through the warm, fresh air.

Was this Paradise?

Funny, Valjean thought, it looks like any other pretty meadow. Pretty, yes, but still just a meadow with trees in it, and a couple of bushes.

But then again, the kind of splendour that came from Heaven was not the impressive, pompous kind most people on earth expected. It was the simple beauty that mattered.

And the gift to see beauty in something simple.

This was a beautiful place.

Valjean took a hesitant step, careful not to tread on the little flower before him. He did not feel weary anymore, but strong and very much alive.

He slowly walked up the slope, the grass rustling around his feet, until he came to what might be considered a ridge, where he stopped to take a look at this place he had come to. There was a forest ahead, tall trees standing close together, their light and dark crowns swaying gently in the light summer wind. Closer by, a brook ran through the grasslands, its clear water murmuring merrily.

Yes, there was such beauty in simple things.

For a moment he considered getting down on his knees to pray, but would not marvelling at the wonders of Paradise serve God better?

He was getting confused. Light-headed, perhaps. At the moment he felt as if he could have laughed for no reason at all.

The eternal joy of Paradise, it occurred to him. Heaven was a joyous place, after all.

He continued towards the brook, still treading carefully not to harm any flowers. It was wrong to destroy things of such a simple, serene beauty. Insects were buzzing peacefully around him, and occasionally there was the call of a bird, but apart from the rustling of the wind in the grass and the sound of flowing water, there was nothing to be heard.

No, there was something else, too. It came from some distance, and it was not very clear, but it seemed to be a high voice singing. A woman's voice, or a child's perhaps. As Valjean walked along the clear little river, it grew louder and louder, singing to a simple tune, though he could not make out the words. Then the brook made a little bend, and as Valjean climbed over the small hill beside it, passing a thicket of dog-roses, he could see a wooden bridge ahead, with a narrow, dusty path leading over it and then away around another small hill where the brook had eaten its way through, and on the bridge a boy was sitting with a fishing rod, singing at the top of his lungs.

"My fishing rod, my fishing rod,
The fish won't bite and this is odd!
I wish I had a rusty nail
With which to catch a fat old snail.

My fishing rod, my fishing rod
Is really such a rotten sod!
I'd swap it for a bowl of snot,
But then again, I'd rather not."

Valjean found himself smiling. Walking softly, his feet barely making a sound in the grass, he approached the child.

"My fishing rod, my fishing rod
Is not what fat fish like a lot.
I wish I had a bag of turnips –"

Here the boy broke off, looking up at Valjean and beaming, his brown eyes shining with a mischievous light. "Do you know any word that rhymes with turnips?"

Valjean considered this. "I'm afraid not," he answered.

"Pity," the child said lightly, hitting the planks beside him with his fist, but not seeming angry at all. "Well, doesn't matter. I don't care much for turnips, anyway. Especially not a bagful of them. The fish can have them, since they don't want the juicy wriggly worm on my fishing rod, ungrateful lot that they are. The fish can have all the turnips in the world, for all I care. It's a funny old world, don't you think?"

Surprised, all Valjean could do was shrug. This was an odd little boy. "Perhaps it is," he conceded. "But what would interest me more –"

"Fine," the boy grinned, not listening. "Then we are agreed. Sit with me, why don't you? I can see you're new here. Guess why? Because you're wearing utterly unfashionable clothes. I'd get some new ones, if I were you, or else the girls will laugh behind your back. And right before your nose, too. And to the left and the right of you and above you and below you…" The boy giggled, apparently amused at his own words. "I'd get some tight brown breeches, they're very fashionable. And one of those short coats that leave your bum uncovered so you can happily flaunt it and look at yourself in mirrors. In the mirrors that go down far enough to include your bum, anyway. Or you could stand on a chair. I know someone who does that, or at least I think he does. It's so ridiculous. And a cap with a feather in it, that's good. Look, I've got one." Here he paused for a moment to pick up what had appeared to be a crumpled rag and now unfolded itself to reveal it really was a little brown cap, and with a small, dishevelled black feather in it. "It's no way as good as those others have, of course, but it's pretty good, don't you think? A friend made it for me. He gave me this fishing rod, too, and he actually caught me the worm, though the stupid fish won't take it, so he probably has no taste in worms. Well, I don't blame him. He can hit any target with a stone, though, and he can spit twice as far as I can, though he rarely does it, which is a shame really. I can spit pretty far, too, look." And he spat down into the water. "See? Can you spit at all? Well, never mind, you don't look the spitting type. Though you never know with people, right? People nowadays are so unpredictable, that's what I always say. People and fish, they're all the same. My name's Gavroche, by the way. And who are you?"

Valjean had followed the boy's incoherent little speech with some confusion as well as amusement. This child must have the smallest attention span possible, or he tried to voice all the thoughts in his head at once – or perhaps both. As the boy suddenly fell silent, it took Valjean a moment to realize it really was his turn to speak now. And the boy had asked him his name. What should he tell him? He did not want to lie to this child, this trusting little boy who beamed up at him so merrily, dangling his bare feet from the bridge. But on the other hand, he had lived a lifetime of caution, hiding his true identity, constantly fearing exposure –

No. God, no. Those times were over now, and forever. There was no hiding anymore, never again. "My name is Jean Valjean." Never had he felt so free when he said it; never had he liked this common, meaningless name as much as he suddenly did now.

"That's a funny name." The boy threw his fishing rod down on the planks beside him and got to his feet. "Pleased to meet you, Jean Valjean." And he took his hand and shook it forcefully, grinning broadly. Under his untidy light brown hair, his eyes sparkled in the sunlight.

Valjean smiled down at him good-naturedly. "Gavroche is a funny name, too. A funny name for a funny little boy."

"Little yourself!" the boy protested. "And what's so funny about me?" He looked down himself, from his red neckerchief over the embroidered little vest he wore unbuttoned above a rough linen shirt down to a baggy pair of brown trousers he had rolled up to his knees, waggling his toes experimentally, then curiously regarded the shape they had left in the dust of the narrow road.

After watching him for a moment, Valjean decided to seize the opportunity. "Could you perhaps tell me where we are, exactly?"

"Oh, on the cart road to Rosendale," Gavroche replied without looking up, drawing an odd flowery shape into the dust with the big toe of his right foot, as if this were the most obvious thing in the world.

"Rosendale?" Valjean repeated a little uncertainly. This was a name he had never heard before, and he had no idea where to place it.

"The village. Just a couple of minutes away. Depends on how fast you can walk, or saunter, or run, or skip, or dash, or hop on one leg, whatever pleases you most." Picking up a pebble between his toes, Gavroche lifted it up, then lifted his foot high enough to drop it into his own hand. He examined it critically, holding it between thumb and index finger and turning it around a little, then he carelessly flicked it into the brook, where it disappeared with a soft plop. "You can also walk on your hands, if you wish, only I haven't yet tried it out so I can't tell you if it takes long or not. But I intend to do so sometime – once I've learned to walk on my hands, that is."

"I see." By now Valjean had learned to filter the relevant information out of the boy's talk. "And what is the rest of this place called? I mean, where are we here?"

"On the cart road bridge," Gavroche said. "Duh."

"Look," Valjean repeated his question patiently, "what kind of place is this? Paradise, by any chance?"

"Oh, I don't think so," Gavroche said lightly. "Doesn't really look like it. I mean, they say in Paradise animals run around shaking hands with people, or people shaking paws with animals, and people all run around naked. Luckily, I haven't seen that here yet. Guess it would be a bit embarrassing. You pop out your head of the window in the morning and there's some naked bloke and your whole day is spoiled. I wouldn't want that." Then his grin broadened. "Though a bunch of naked women might be quite educational."

Valjean sighed. There was no point in explaining Paradise as described in the Bible to the boy; Gavroche would still find it funny. "No, what I mean is, am I dead?"

"No", the boy said decidedly. "Because you're talking to me. But if you insist, I can run down to the village and see if there's a coffin for you, and then you can play Talking Corpse all you like."

Getting anything useful out of this boy was hopeless, Valjean decided. But if there really was a village… "Say, if I want to get to this Rosendale, do I just follow the road?"

"If you find it funny, yes. Though I'd run through the meadows if I were you. There's an orchard you might like to see." Still grinning broadly, Gavroche winked at him. "Make sure you keep clear of its owner, though. Foul-tempered old bint, if you ask me. Can't take a joke." He shrugged. "Well, if you want to nick a couple of apples, don't let her catch you."

"I don't think so," Valjean said quickly. Wherever he was, he would not begin his existence here by stealing. "Well then, thank you."

"No, wait! I'm coming with you!" Picking up his fishing rod again, Gavroche rolled up the line, but left the worm on the hook where it was. "Maybe you'll catch me some ridiculous insect," he told it, then jammed his cap onto his head. "Right. Let's go. I wonder what I'd do with some ridiculous insect, though."

Valjean followed the boy along the road, leaving him to discuss the subjects of insects at some length. He did not really pay attention. The sky was bright and clear, and the air was fresh and warm, and birds were singing above him. At one side of the road the brook gurgled merrily before it took another turn and disappeared in the meadows, at the other one there was a field now, the golden corn standing high.

The dusty path was leading slightly upwards now. After what might have been a few minutes, they reached the top of another little hill, Gavroche still chattering merrily, and the village lay before them, thatched and tiled roofs and also such covered with straw among green tree crowns. There were about forty houses, Valjean estimated, most clustered together around what probably was a market square in the centre, but also some strewn out amid trees and fields, all the way to the borders of the forest, behind which mountains loomed up into the clear sky, thin white clouds woven around their peaks like strips of mist.

"Nice, isn't it?" Gavroche asked. "I've been here for some time, and it's a good place to be, both summer and winter. Before that, I used to live in a really big city, you probably can't imagine how big. Thousands and thousands and thousands of people, and not enough lodgings for all, and not enough to eat. I picked a bad lot in the food department, but I'm not complaining. Jolly good place, altogether. And exciting. You know," he continued as they followed the now gently descending road towards Rosendale, "we even had riots and stuff. Like small-scale wars. And boy, we had barricades. And what barricades they were! We fought like heroes, I swear. But then one got me, and here I am." He shrugged. "That's life to you. New environment to poke your nose around. And it's really not bad."

But Valjean was barely listening anymore. "You mentioned barricades..."

"Of course! Ever been at one?"

"Listen, are you a Parisian?"

"Blimey, yes!" Gavroche cried, scaring up a couple of birds who had been sitting peacefully in a tree. "And a rebel! Once we even had a proper revolution, I swear. And we had guns. Know what that is? It's really useful, it goes bang and there goes the bullet –"

"I know," Valjean interrupted. "I was there, too, at one of those barricades." Could it be that everybody came here after he had died?

"You were?" Gavroche jumped into the air and gave what might pass for a war cry. "That's grand! Hang on, now you say it, I think I remember you. Weren't you the bugger who turned up in a shiny uniform but didn't talk much? Yes? I knew it! And you had a big gun, too, didn't you?"

Maybe he had better kept quiet, Valjean thought, for now he had no idea how to calm down the boy, who was bouncing up and down with excitement, all insects forgotten. "And then I went and smashed some streetlights in the middle of the night," Gavroche continued breathlessly. "Isn't it great? And I ran along a street with a cart and made some horrible noise, but then they tried to catch me so I ran for it. Whee!" And he leaped up and punched the air with his fist. "They never caught me, I was just too fast."

Now this stirred a memory. "Were you sent to bring somebody a letter, perhaps? A young lady?" And even though it felt distant now, there still was a sense of pain at the thought, of loss… He had been forced to choose between Cosette's happiness and his own on that night. The choice had been painful, but somehow it had been easy. Because when he had considered it, there had been only one thing to do. His own happiness counted for nothing compared to Cosette's.

"Yes, and I got five francs for it, and this nice chap said I could smash the bloody lanterns all I liked –" Suddenly Gavroche broke off and stared up at Valjean hard, wrinkling his brow. His cheeks were somewhat grimy, Valjean noticed, as if they had been in contact with all the dust on the road a little too long. "Was that you, by any chance? Was that you, too?"

For a moment Valjean hesitated. "Yes, but that doesn't mean I like it when people smash things," he said at last. It had been a terrible night, with all the blood and death and despair…

"No need to worry. I'm rather happy here. I haven't yet felt the urge to smash anything." Gavroche kicked a stone that lay in his way and laughed with delight as it ricocheted off a low stone wall encircling a garden. "Here we are. Charming, don't you think?"

They had reached the outskirts of the village, framework farmhouses with sheds and stables around them. On a field of grass a group of brown cows stood, chewing lazily and occasionally flicking their tails to chase away the flies buzzing around them. Chicken clucked in the yards, and somewhere ahead a cockerel crowed.

They passed a house where two men sat by the entrance, dressed in clothes of simple brown, one sharpening a scythe with a whetstone while the other was scratching a shaggy dog's ears. Gavroche waved, and they waved back. "Where's your faithful sidekick?" one of them cried.

"Or rather, the one whose sidekick you are," the other peasant corrected, laughing.

"At the blacksmith's, I bet," Gavroche called back. "Working the bellows or something."

"Well, be sure to tell him there's been trouble with the folks from Lowford again, out on the fields, will you?"

"Right, I'll tell him. Whee, this is going to be fun!" Gavroche punched his palm with his fist, almost dropping his fishing rod. "Bloody Lowforders. In for a sound thrashing, if you ask me. Nothing serious, though." It sounded as if he regretted this fact. "It's pretty peaceful around here, one could almost grow fat and lazy just lying in the sun." But then he suddenly frowned. "There are rumours, though. Bad rumours. Something's brewing in the mountains, they say. Something bad. They say something's woken that's been sleeping for centuries and stuff, for long, anyway, something that should better have stayed where it was, wherever that was. They say when it wakes, then it brings… I don't know. Dark times. Evil times."

A sudden gust of cold wind swept along the cart road, whirling up dust and tearing at Valjean's hair. At once the sun seemed dimmed, as if something had passed over it…

"Whoo, spooky." Gavroche laughed, and the spell was broken. "There, look," he said, pointing backwards. "There's dark clouds coming. We'll have rain before noon, you mark my words. C'mon, let's get going again."

There was a low, narrow bridge ahead of them, at the side of the road, leading over a small, clear rivulet. Beside the bridge and over most of the road's width, its course was paved with cobblestones so that it formed a ford. While Valjean crossed the bridge, Gavroche plodded through the water happily, which only wetted half his calves, and then laughed at the wet footprints he left behind while his bare feet were soon dust-encrusted. "The best things in life are the little things," he said wisely. Then he grinned at an old woman sitting outside a house on a bench, stroking a cat while watching a couple of small children playing.

The houses stood more closely together now, and a couple of other roads met the one they were following. There were people about now, men and women, mostly in simple linen clothes, going about their work or just sitting in the sun chatting idly. Once a rider clattered past them, a man on a tall grey stallion dressed in tight-fitting blue breeches, a scarlet shirt and a pair of high white leather boots. Gavroche clicked his tongue at him irritably. "Show-off," he commented contemptuously. "Rides around on his horse like he's in a big hurry, but there's nothing behind it except he wants to show people he bought a new horse off some horse-dealer in one of the neighbouring villages. I bet he claims it came all the way from the Jade Sea, though. Stupid git."

Valjean frowned after the man, though not because of Gavroche's words, but because of the clothes the rider had been wearing. They had been… exotic. Like from medieval times, Valjean imagined, though he did not know much about medieval clothing, to be honest.

And Gavroche had wanted to explain to him what a gun was, he remembered. Now, in this context, it suddenly made sense. Wherever he was, he had come into a different time.

A happier time, perhaps? A happier place, though, certainly. Most of the people on the street were garbed in a simple manner, yet none of them wore rags, and none of them seemed to be starving. Most of them looked happy and content with their lives.

Perhaps this really was some kind of Paradise? He would have to ask someone, once he found someone who would not just laugh at the question.

"You might find a bunch of folks you're familiar with," Gavroche said just then. "I did, anyway. Can you see the big house ahead, where the road forks off? There, right at its end, close to the forest. I think we'll go there and poke our noses in for a moment, shall we? We'll go and visit some friends."