XXII
I don't own PotO.
It seemed to be an eon of jostling along cobbled streets leaving the city. Christine heard shouting, an indistinct babble of anger in a rising tide of violence. Raoul's voice cut through the noise and the wagon shuddered to a halt. She whimpered, curling into herself. Her swollen eyes had healed just enough for Christine to see thin slits of a blank grey sky over wagon's wood siding and indistinct blobs of color, churning restlessly. Was it a riot? The wagon shuddered beneath her. She uttered a broken cry, throwing up her hands upon seeing the snarling face of a man.
"That's enough! Get away from her!" Raoul shouted, groping for his pistol. The man swiped at the bulging sack holding their foodstuffs, but the wagon lurched. The man disappeared. Dizzily, Christine realized Raoul had dove for the man and succeeded in fighting him off. A heavy thud in the wagon bed announced the return of their food.
"Let us pass!" Raoul bellowed, brandishing the pistol.
The two of them left Paris without any further molestation. Another epoch passed in painful monotony. Christine's fingers wormed beneath the tattered remnants of her shift and found the warm rectangle of his locket. It was always warm, no matter how chilled Christine's skin grew. She found that she wanted to live. Oh, the grief and the pain were still there, and in that, she was grateful for Bruno's work to distract her from it. But she found she no longer wanted to die.
As Raoul had so eloquently put it, Christine needed to keep in mind what he would have wanted. He had been her friend and lover, her savior and anchor. And now he was gone. How did one go about living after such a loss? She thought she had when her Papa died, but that had been cloaked in shock, blunted by fever. The wound was still there, a deep, yawning thing on her soul. Perhaps, in part, that was why she had clung to him so fiercely. He had been the first man since her Papa to care. Upon closer inspection, had his love for her simply been a rash reaction to the first scrap of kindness thrown to his starving soul? Was it a thing born of wine and lust and desperation?
Near dusk, Raoul broke the silence.
"That was close, huh Christine?" Raoul's shout was half-lost in the wind.
"I have Erik's pistol, found it on the ground outside the Populaire. Only problem is, it isn't loaded."
A bluff? Raoul had taken her from Madame's brothel and fought their way out of the city with an empty bloody gun? Christine exhaled through her nostrils, which had healed just enough to allow for a whistling stream of air. There was vanity enough in her to hope it would heal straight. She must look like a bloody horror if Raoul's crude commentary was any judge. Would he have even loved her like this?
The assorted aches and pains coalesced into one massive throb beating in time with her heartbeat. Her throat was dry; congealed blood lingered in the folds of her mouth. In his haste to free her, Raoul had given her nothing but brandy for sustenance and her stomach was reminding her of this fact rather plaintively.
"Raw!" God, her voice! Christine had the vague impression of a memory where her insane laughter rose to a shriek and broke as Bruno's heavy fists rose and fell. Tears clotted in her eyelashes at the loss of her one true beauty. Gamely, she tried again: "Raw, plea!"
"Huh? Did you say something?" he asked. Christine braced herself as the wagon swerved off the road and slowed to a stop. A horse whinnied and then quieted under the murmur of Raoul's voice. Feet crushing snow and then he appeared above her, windblown and snow-pelted. While he exuded an air of laconic endurance, he was obviously very cold in naught but his tattered shirt and trousers. Raoul squatted down next her.
"What is it?" he asked.
"Hung. . . hungree." She struggled to marshal the correct movements of lips and jaw and God, it hurt!
"Hung . . . oh you're hungry? Why didn't you say so?" he chided with a gentle shake on her shoulder. Christine managed a nod, and groped with her good hand, tugging one of her blankets off. Raoul shot her a look of profound gratitude, draping the raggedy thing around his shoulders. Christine watched him straighten and crane his head around.
"Let me move a bit farther off the road." Raoul whistled and chirped to the horses and Christine let out a soft sound of distress as the wagon listed sharply to one side before evening out.
"Sorry, snow bank," Raoul said. He slowed the wagon and dismounted. She could hear him crooning and patting the horses.
"Right, well, there's a tree over there. I'll get us a fire going. Some broth would be best, I think." Christine rasped out her agreement.
"Right," he said, clearing his throat, "I'll get to it."
Christine lay back, contemplating the snow-dusted bower of branches above her and listened to Raoul's steady stream of muttering and cursing as he attempted supper. The product of his efforts amounted to warm, salty water with spices clotting the surface. To Christine it was heavenly, especially coupled with softened hunks of warm bread. After Raoul scraped the tender insides from the burned crusts, the bread was quite satisfying.
"Good?" Raoul's voice was tentative, wide eyes endearingly anxious.
"Good," Christine repeated, nodding.
"We'll sleep here. The horses are tired." The weariness coating Raoul's voice gave him away.
The wagon bed shuddered under his weight and Christine flinched a little as Raoul lay behind her, curling an arm around her. But he brought with him the heat of the fire, and slowly her body relaxed against him. Silence filled the space between them, the bone-aching cold beginning to recede as they shared warmth. Sleep beckoned; Christine feared the dreams that lurked there, the ones that promised the taste of lost joy.
"He really loved you, you know," Raoul whispered. Christine uttered a low moan, curling into herself. Why must he grind salt into her raw, bleeding wounds?
"You can't just throw something like that away, Christine. It's precious. It makes the rest of us feel like the world can be . . . can be good, you know?" Raoul's words pricked her like the sharp jab of a needle.
"He . . . he is . . . dead," she forced those evil words past her abused throat and jaw. A vital part of herself was gone, why did it matter if she gave Raoul hope? The world was a bleak and evil place peopled with monsters like Méchant and the Madame and Bruno. Raoul's hand, heretofore engaged in stroking her arm, abruptly tightened. Old fear sank its talons into Christine. Was Raoul a monster like them? He could do whatever he wanted to her, Christine's only protector was in the ground.
"I know. Don't you think I know? Don't you think I see his blood on the ground, see Méchant's men haul his body away whenever I close my eyes? That's your fucking problem, Christine. You can't see anything beyond your own pain. Erik was my brother as well as your lover. And you're fucking welcome for my saving your bloody life!"
Raoul began to rise, when Christine hauled on a handful of his thin shirt. He couldn't leave. If he left, she would be alone with nothing but her pain. Contrite, she rasped: "I am . . . sorry Raoul. Thank you. For the soup. For ever'thing." In her narrow field of vision, the fire burnished his hair to a bronze sheen and revealed pale, bruised features marred by an expression of irritated surprise. He sank back down, exhaling through his nose. Burrowing close, he rested his pointed chin on her shoulder.
"I never really understood why Erik was so enamored with you. There are prettier, cleverer whores. Now I understand. You snag the heart, Christine, and hold it tight." Raoul uttered a harsh little sigh and nestled closer to her. The tree and the wagon blocked most of the howling wind and the soft snuffling of the cobbled horses created a soothing melody. Tucked in tight in a nest of dense wool blankets and straw, it was surprisingly cozy. Christine and her Papa had bunked down like this during their years wandering the Continent, when money was too meager or an inn was too far.
Beneath the heap of horse blankets with a man curled behind her radiating warmth, Christine felt her tension ease, the pain dull to an inane ache. She didn't realize Raoul's hands had begun to wander until a callused palm cupped her hip. That hand inched with cautious surety up her belly and cupped her breast. Her sleepy lassitude evaporated and she snatched at the offending hand. God, would it always be this way? Was her body her only currency and worth?
"Stop," she snapped.
"Suit yourself," he grumbled, and promptly fell asleep.
Christine lay wakeful, puzzling over it. From their prior conversations, she was aware of a subtle current of attraction when Raoul spoke to her. The way his eyes lingered, his blunt appraisal of her beauty. But Raoul was also every inch the prostitute Christine was herself. If she was honest with herself, she had thought that Raoul was more inclined toward his own sex. It was also puzzling that he would find her love for Erik as proof of the world's goodness while trying to bed her. Puzzling, or telling of his own estimation of his worth. But beyond Raoul's inclinations, Christine's own feelings on the matter were firm. She had sampled the exquisite beauty of actually making love to a man. Anything less would be obscene and . . . and . . . cheap. There would be no one.
Ever again.
"Christine, wake up. There's a coach coming." Raoul's voice intruded on her blessedly dreamless sleep. Groping her way upward toward consciousness, Christine strained her ears and heard the whine of turning wheels, the jangle of harness and the clomping and blowing of horses.
"Wait . . . is that-?" Raoul's tone was odd, breathy and excited.
"Oh my God! Christine! The crest! It's the same one! That's my family!" A sharp leather crack and Raoul urged the wagon after the coach, shouting. Pain screeched through her at the abrupt movement. Her sleep-dulled mind whirred. Erik's family? Here? His sisters, oh God, was Claire with them? She felt sick.
"Hang on, Christine! They're stopping!" Raoul said. She crawled from her sling and rose to her knees, straining to open her abused eyes wide enough to see. Her head spun and her eyes swam. All she saw was a white blur of sky and field and road, and an indistinct black blob ahead.
"Wha . . . what's going on?" If she took her time and enunciated carefully, her speech was at least halfway intelligible. Weakly, she sank back onto her pile of horse blankets, clinging to the sack of foodstuffs for ballast.
"Lie back now, you fool woman. You're injured, remember? There's someone getting out. An older woman. And two girls—Christ, my sisters!" Christine's heart sank. Older woman: Claire. At last meeting face to face with her rival. In her mind, Claire had always been tall and slender and gorgeous with a smile like a sliver of ice.
"Jacqueline and Elise," Christine said.
"Yes," he whispered. He turned to her, raking his fingers through his damp, snarled hair.
"Do you think they'll like me?" he asked shyly. Christine didn't have time to reply when a voice reached them.
"Are you all right? Do you need help?" a woman's voice asked.
Raoul swung down from the wagon, vainly trying to smooth his hair. From her place leaning against the wagon bed, Christine strained her eyes against the painfully bright glare of the sun and snow and saw two slender girls and a woman approach, a woman old enough to be Christine's grandmother. Relief loosened her joints. Not Claire, then. She looked back at the two girls, her heart giving a painful lurch at the sight of Elise. God, she looked like the wild-haired daughter of her dreams. But in her dreams, their daughter always had his eyes. Those beautiful green eyes . . .
And Jacqueline, elegant and regal, standing with proper grace, she looked like such a lady! Raoul's coarse voice interrupted her musings.
"Uh yes, uh I'm . . ."
"Oh Jackie, look! That lady's hurt!" Elise said, brow puckered in dismay. Christine blinked in surprise and tried to smile. Her ruined face probably made it a horror.
"Quiet El, let the man talk," Jacqueline said, hugging her sister to her side beneath the shelter of a fur-lined cloak. Raoul cleared his throat and brushed ineffectually at the straw on his trousers.
"I'm Raoul," he said, "I am the son of Michel de Chagny." Christine watched the shock settle in. Jacqueline had the grace to hide her dropped jaw behind her gloved hand, while Elise gaped openly. Immediately, Elise swiveled toward the woman.
"Madame Villon, is that true? Is he . . . our brother?" Villon, the housekeeper. He had told her about the woman who had become a nanny and confidante as well as housekeeper in the long years of her tenure at the de Chagny holdings. Open shock rounded her eyes and dropped her jaw, but the keen, assessing look said Madame Villon saw something of her employer in Raoul.
"I think so, mistress. Look, he has your papa's eyes and build. Did he ever tell you that you had a brother named Raoul?"
"I thought he was a bastard," Jacqueline said, squinting at Raoul with wary eyes. Christine flinched for Raoul's sake. Though obviously parroting whatever she'd heard from the adults around her, the girl's casual contempt while uttering the word stung.
"I am the son of Michel de Chagny. You should let me see him, he'll know me," Raoul said firmly, hand balled at his sides. Tense silence fell. A deep, weary silence seemed to rob the three de Chagny women of their energy. Oh God, did they know about what had happened to their brother?
"Michel de Chagny is dead. He died three days ago," Madame Villon said softly. Christine couldn't stifle a gasp. Dead? She had known he was ill, but . . . And now that he was gone, didn't that make Raoul the Comte de Chagny?
"I miss Papa," Elise said, hanging her head. As she did so, she caught sight of Christine and pointed.
"Who are you? Why is your face all messed up?" she asked, obviously eager to avoid the painful memory of her father's death.
"Remember your manners!" Jacqueline reminded severely. Christine found her voice and carefully said, "I'm Christine." Joy lit Elise's chubby face.
"Christine? That's the name of Erik's friend, the one he likes to visit." A rush of bittersweet pleasure filled her. He had talked about her. She had meant something to him.
"I am his friend," she croaked. Always. Elise's smile was dazzling.
"Isn't it wonderful? A brother and a friend all in one day!" she squealed, squeezing her sister's hands. Jacqueline looked like she had bitten into a lemon, blue eyes wide and livid. Christine swallowed hard. Young as she was, Jacqueline knew what it meant to be a married man's special friend. Christine could feel the weight of Madame Villon's look and waited for the words that disowned them. Madame Villon's lips pursed.
"There isn't room for either of you in our carriage. I am under the strictest orders to get these girls to the Château safe. Be sure you don't slow our pace."
And just like that, Christine's future upended again.
XXX
With a horse like César, the journey from Paris to his Reims cabin could be made in a day and a half. Erik kept a punishing pace. Punishing for Erik's battered body, that is. After the blood-soaked madness at the Opera and his duel with Bruno, Erik's mind felt sluggish, stupid with pain and exhaustion. He snatched sleep in the saddle, shoveled down the half-stale sandwich Elaine had given him and shivered beneath Nadir's threadbare coat. The wind was nearly as cruel as the river, slicing through his clothes as if it was nothing and curling against his naked skin.
When he stopped for the night, head pillowed on his saddle and pistol in hand, he sank immediately into the grip of a nightmare. A nightmare where a monster savagely beat the woman he loved into a bloody pulp. A nightmare where he watched, helpless as Claire and Raoul were murdered, his home burned, where all he loved was shattered, desecrated and destroyed. Erik awoke to misery, both of body and mind. Erik's arms wrapped around himself, wanting to whimper for Christine's comfort. He wanted to kiss her awake in a wide bed all their own, hold her until the sun rose and spend the day making her smile. She deserved so much more than he could give her.
Under the bower of a tree where he was tethered, César let out a low whicker of greeting. The night was brilliantly clear and cold, the snow like milk and the stars like cold shards of diamond. Erik shied away from thoughts of Bruno, the gutted townhouse, Nadir's wasted features. He had bought justice in Bruno's blood. The ledger of his debts revealed so much he had yet to repay, but that act of bloody revenge brought him some comfort. Christine or Raoul would never have to wake in fear of a monster's shadow. He groped for his tin flask, numb gloved fingers fumbling to twist the cap. Once open, he took a long drink. The water was cool and crisp on his tongue, washing away the faint aftertaste of terror.
Nadir was a dab hand with bandages, Erik would give him that. The wounds on his arms and chest from his duel were duly disinfected and covered, his bullet wound repacked and his left arm in a sling to aid in his shoulder healing. Such encumbrances made it difficult to ride, but Erik found a way to manage.
"Any more bandages and people will think I am a burn victim," he told César dryly. The stallion snuffed in reply, before resuming his browsing for edible tufts of grass.
Erik ached, right down to his marrow. Now that he had won free from the madness of Paris more or less intact, Erik turned his thoughts to all of the upheavals of the past few days. The terrain of his world had been completely leveled. His father and Claire were dead. Raoul and Christine were injured and traveling alone, believing him to be dead. Elise and Jacqueline fled to their refuge, no longer children thanks to the horrors they had witnessed. Nadir's life was in ruins. Erik lay on the cold, hard ground, his hurt shoulder throbbing unmercifully.
"Christine," he whispered. Her name was the first thing he said upon waking, and the last thing before sleep. It was his prayer, until she was in his arms again and the world was whole.
A/N: Thank you everyone for your reviews and enthusiasm! They keep me writing.