Imperfect Night

By the time Jean reached the palace he could already see the smoke rising up to meet the towering spires. Though the guards upon the gate were stiff and still, he could hear the shouting rising from beyond the walls.

He felt ice in his gut as he ran on, skirting the outer wall, looking for this way in that Talbot had found. He had reached a patch of scrub clinging to the wall, bushes and a tree providing some concealment, when suddenly Talbot and Olivier dropped down from the wall and into the bush.

Talbot had his blue coat on, but he was not wearing his battered top hat, the stolen hat that made him so distinctive around town to those who knew him. He was holding it in his hand, upside down, and Jean could see that he had a host of pearls inside, along with the glitter of two golden rings, one set with gems and the other not.

"What did you do?" Jean demanded. "What did you do?"

Talbot glared at him, his lip curling into a sneer of cold disdain, but before he could speak Olivier said, "We killed the princess."

Jean stopped in his tracks. His eyes widened. Cold spread out from his heart to engulf his limbs. "You... you what?"

Talbot rolled his eyes. "Thank you, Ox, tell him everything why don't you?"

"First we-"

"That was sarcasm, you blistering idiot!"

"Tell me," Jean said, his voice as cold as ice and as soft as the first tremors that herald an earthquake. "Tell me everything. Tell me what you did. Tell me why."

"Why not?" Talbot said. "Why do you care? Because you thought she was going to save you? Because you thought that she'd care about us? You're even stupider than this lummox. She cared more about her horses than she did about the poor. I've done us a favour, what's one less spoiled and pampered brat in a world that has too many of them?"

Jean bellowed with rage as he surged forward, driving his fist into Talbot's stomach. Talbot gasped as he doubled over, dropping his top hat with a clatter as pearls began to spill out of it. Jean grabbed him by the hair, by that long, greasy dark hair, and hammered his fist into Talbot's face, once, twice, three times. Talbot was too surprised and confused to respond, and Jean's fury was as inexorable as the storm and as ferocious as a charge of cavalry as he threw Talbot onto the ground and kicked him twice for good measure.

"And you," he snarled into Olivier's face as he rounded on him. "What did you do? How... how did you... what did you do?"

"We locked her in the stable once she went inside, then set fire to it," Olivier said. "She gave us all her pearls and rings to let her out, but we left her inside instead."

Jean was rendered speechless for a moment. "You... you burned her alive? You... you animal! You savage! How could... what kind of a person does that?"

Olivier's face was devoid of expression. "A rich one," he said.

"What, these?" Jean gestured to the hat full of pearls as he planted himself foursquare across it. "You're not getting these devil's wages, not while I'm alive."

Olivier's hand clenched into a fist.

Jean smiled. "Are you going to hit me, Olivier? After all I've done for you?"

Olivier blinked. "Maybe."

"Good," Jean said. "That makes me feel much better about this." And he struck first. Olivier was big and strong, but Jean was no weakling himself and he was fast and fierce, too things that Olivier was not, and he went down fast beneath Jean's fists.

"Get out of my sight, both of you," Jean snarled. "You want to be Talbot's friend, you can see how he takes care of you. I don't ever want to see you again. If I do... you don't want to know what I'll do if I see you again."

They crawled off, creeping on their bellies like snakes, moaning and groaning in pain. Jean watched them go, making sure that Talbot didn't try to creep up behind him and stab him in the back, but when they were out of sight he looked down at the hat full of pearls, pearls that seemed stained with blood to him though they were as pristine and beautiful as they ever had when the princess had worn them.

Though not as beautiful as she who was now dead.

Jean collapsed against the wall, hunched up against it like a child, his head in his hands, as he began to weep for the end of all his hopes, and the death of she who would have been their champion.

It began to rain, the heavens pouring down upon his head, but Jean barely felt it. The rain could not prick him more than his conscience right now.

"Hopeless," he muttered. "It's all hopeless. Maybe it always was."

"Why are you crying child? Are things so terrible?"

Jean raised his head, and saw a short, dumpy old women in a periwinkle blue cape staring down at him, a kindly expression upon his face.

Slowly, he climbed to his feet. "Are they not terrible, grandmother? Is this not a world where all hopes die and all ambitions go unrewarded, and those who hold them are punished for them."

"What makes you say that?"

"Princess Cinderella, she... she went from being a house maid to a princess, she rose above her station, she climbed higher than it was her place to climb... and now she has been struck down for it by envious and angry people. I thought that she would... I hoped... what is the use of it all?"

"If people didn't dream, life would be unbearable, don't you think?"

"What is use of dreams if we are punished for trying to attain them?" Jean demanded. "And even when we are not, they are always revealed to be futile in the end. I call myself the Knight of the Alleyways, I try to live by a code and the world mocks me for it. I am no knight. I have no steed nor shining armour."

"Is it armour and a horse that makes a knight?" the old woman asked. "Is it a crown and a gown that makes a princess?"

Jean frowned. "Is it not?"

The old woman shook her head. "It is in the heart. Cinderella had the grace and elegance of royalty long before she wed a royal. You have the courage of a knight, the desire to protect-"

"I haven't protected anyone," Jean said.

"You don't mean that," the old woman replied. "What about Marie, and Angelique?"

"How do you know about them?"

The woman smiled kindly. "Cinderella lives. Your hopes may live with her."

"How do you know that?"

"Listen," she said. "What do you hear?"

Jean listened. The shouting had died down by now. "Nothing but the rain."

"Precisely. If the princess were dead they would be ringing the bells for her, and singing a requiem in the cathedral. She is not dead."

Jean gasped. "Praise be to God." He looked down at the top hat full of jewels. "Then, if she lives, she will be wanting her pearls back." He looked away, in the direction of the gate as he considered how to do it. "Thank you old-" he looked back, but the old woman was gone as though she had simply disappeared.

"Old grandmother," Jean murmured. "Are you there? What in the name of all things?"

He scooped up those pearls that had fallen out of the hat back into it, and the began to creep towards the palace gate.

Cinderella's eyes opened to see her bedroom, crowded near to bursting with people: the King and the Grand Duke, her ladies in waiting and her maids, Etienne Gerard; and Eugene, sitting beside the bed in which she lay, holding her hand tightly as though he were trying to prevent her from falling.

"Oh, thank God, you're awake," Eugene said, his brown eyes wet with tears.

Cinderella smiled. "You saved me. I knew you would."

Eugene opened his mouth, but before he could say anything Etienne spoke for him, "He rushed into the burning stable to get you out."

"And then he carried you upstairs in his arms, yelling for help," Christine said. "It was so romantic."

Augustina looked at her.

"Well I thought it was," Christine said defensively.

"And the horses?" Cinderella asked.

"All safe and sound, and calmed down now," Etienne said.

"Cinderella," Eugene murmured. "How did this happen? Do you know who did this?"

"I'm afraid not," Cinderella said. "Somebody locked the door into the stable once I was inside, and then they told me to give them my jewellery so that they would let out. I said no, and so they set the fire. I gave them everything, but they didn't open the door. They left. I didn't recognise his voice, and I gave them my wedding ring, I'm so sorry-"

"No," Eugene said softly. "No, Cinderella you don't have to apologise for any of this. What is a ring, what is a necklace, what is any of it? So long as you're safe that's all that matters." He kissed her hand. "I was so worried."

"It's alright," Cinderella said. "I'm fine now."

"The doctor said you should stay in bed for a few days, your highness," Augustina said. "We have been charged to make sure of it."

"I see," Cinderella said. "Thank you all for coming to visit me like this."

"We were all so worried about you, your highness," Serena said softly. "If something were to happen to you, we would all be heartbroken."

Cinderella smiled. "Thank you, Serena. That's very kind of you."

"Why did you lie to her?" Eugene asked Etienne when they were alone.

Etienne shrugged. "What would be the point of her knowing the truth?"

"She would not think that I am better than I am," Eugene said.

"It isn't as if you froze up and couldn't go in," Etienne said. "You would have, if I hadn't stopped you."

"Why did you stop me?"

"Because it was too dangerous, the roof could have come down at any moment. And you are the prince, the heir to this country. We could not risk losing you over something like that."

"Something?" Eugene snapped. "My wife is not a something."

"What good would it do to tell her that I didn't think she was worth you risking your life over?" Etienne demanded. "Answer me that to my satisfaction and I will go back up there and tell her the truth."

Eugene was silent for a moment. "But she was worth your life?"

Etienne spread his hands. "What am I, your highness, but a crony of the royal family? A man with no honour who has all that he has from licking your boots?"

"You are a good friend, for all that you sometimes give your tongue a fork," Eugene said softly. "Thank you, for saving Cinderella's life."

Etienne sighed. "I do not believe the girl is worthy of you, but, in the end, that hardly matters, does it. She makes you happy. That is the important thing. So I went and got her, because it gladdens you that she lives. Whatever I think, your happiness is all that matters at the ending of the day."

"You are a good friend," Eugene repeated.

Etienne said, "That's what you keep me around for."

Jaq huddled in the darkness, alone, listening to the rain hammering down outside.

He heard Gus coming before he saw him, heard his heavy feet approaching.

"Whatcha doin'?" Gus asked.

"Nothin'," Jaq said.

"Everyone else gone to see Cinderelly," Gus said. "You not comin'?"

"Nope."

"Why not?"

"Shoulda been a help to Cinderelly today," Jaq said. "Cinderelly in trouble, Cinderelly nearly... me useless."

"Nightcat-"

"No matter about cat-cat," Jaq shouted. "Me shoulda done somethin' anyway! Me not deserve to be Cinderelly's friend. Me just..."

"Just what?"

"Leavin' me alone, Gus-Gus," Jaq said. "Me no wanna talk to nobody."

Gus stared at him for a moment, then left Jaq alone. Listening to the rain.

"Mesa sorry, Cinderelly," Jaq muttered. "Mesa real sorry."