A Place of Greater Safety

Cinderella ran, with Jean leading the way, gripping Cinderella's hand in his own. Her chest heaved, her breath became heavier, more ragged, she could feel each impact as her slippers slammed into the pavement, but she ran.

And they followed her. She did not look back, she did not dare, but she could hear their footsteps, their shouts, and she knew they followed.

Ahead of her, Jean did look back. He was scowling, but not, she thought, at her. He turned away, and began to run a little faster, pulling Cinderella along behind him.

A figure emerged from an alleyway in front of them, a heavyset man swathed in a thick cloak. Jean bellowed angrily, lowering his shoulder and letting Cinderella's hand fall from his grasp as he hit the man at full tilt, striking him around the waist and knocking him to the ground with a crash like the felling of a tree.

Jean was up in an instant, rolling to his feet, turning back, gesturing to Cinderella. "Come on!"

Cinderella leapt over the fallen man, but before she could get any further she felt a hard grip upon her ankle.

She looked down, and saw the downed man gripping her tightly. He reached inside his coat with his other hand-

The boy with the first two men reached him, and with a cry of 'She's ours!' he kicked the fellow in the face.

The latest man, the one Jean had knocked down, groaned in pain and let go of Cinderella's ankle. She fled, letting Jean take her hand once more. She heard more shouts, more cries, and dared to look back.

Those who were following her had fallen out amongst themselves. Or rather, there were two groups of people who were after her and it seemed that they would rather fight each other than pursue, as a brawl was developing in the middle of the backalley between the first three and the latter one.

Jean laughed. "Now's our chance, your highness, to the right."

But when the turn came he pulled her left, into a very narrow squeeze of a street, hardly a street at all but a mere gap between the backs of two rows of houses, a gap so narrow that they could no longer run but had to inch their way down it sideways, the hem of Cinderella's skirt brushing against the walls on either side.

When they emerged, Jean took her hand again, and led her through what, to Cinderella, were a dizzying maze of backalleys and narrow lanes, dark streets where the houses loomed too high, blocking out the sunlight. She soon lost all track of where she was - it was normally possible to orient by the palace, but the houses were completely blocking it from view - save that she was in some dirty street that looked much like any other. But Jean seemed to know where he was going, and so she allowed him to hurry her from one place to the next, until she finally had to stop and pause for breath.

"I'm afraid I need to rest for a little while," Cinderella murmured. "I haven't so much in...ever, I don't think." Her mad dash out of the palace had been quite quick, all things considered, and when her coach disappeared she had walked home, not ran. She leaned against a slightly crumbling wall and took deep breaths.

"Don't worry, your highness, you did very well," Jean said. "And they will have a hard time finding you now, anyway."

"Do you know where we are?" Cinderella asked.

Jean nodded. "Magpie Lane. There is not much further to go."

"Not much further?" Cinderella said. "Where are you taking me?"

"Moth Alley," Jean said. "It's where we go when we don't want to be found."

"We?"

"My family," Jean said. "You'll meet them soon."

"Wouldn't it be better if I went back to the palace?" Cinderella asked. "If there are people after me then I'd be safer within the walls."

"Maybe, but if Talbot and the others can't find you then they'll certainly watch the palace," Jean said. "I'm not sure you could get back before they caught you. You're safer here, for now."

"For now?" Cinderella said. "How long do you expect me to stay here?"

"I suppose you're too good for all of this, princess?" a waifish young woman stepped out of the shadows and began to walk towards them. She was pale, and unhealthily thin, with dirty blonde hair and an equally dirty tunic and skirt. Her eyes were bright blue, but narrowed as she glared at Cinderella.

"Angelique, there's no call for that," Jean murmured.

"You risked your life to keep her safe," Angelique snapped. "But of course she is too good to stay in a place like this. She only wants to know when she can get back to her palace and her silk sheets and featherbed and her pretty dresses. Not all of us have a palace to return to! Some of us have to live in places like this every day!"

"I wasn't born a princess," Cinderella said. "I spent years as a servant in my stepmother's house."

"I would give my right hand to be someone's servant," Angelique replied. "To have a roof over my head and a hot meal every evening."

"Angelique, please," Jean said. "You're talking to royalty, show some respect."

Angelique chuckled. "You really believe all this, don't you?"

"Things will get better once she sees."

"Once she's done with us she'll forget we exist," Angelique replied. "If she doesn't have your hand cut off for laying hands on a princess."

"I would never do such a thing," Cinderella cried. "And as for the rest...what are you talking about."

Angelique snorted.

Jean bowed his head. "Come with me, your highness. We are almost there."

Jean led the way, and Cinderella followed. Angelique brought up the rear, shaking her head in derision.

Jean lead her to an alley that was even more cramped than the one they had just left, with only a thin sliver of light draining down from houses so tall it seemed that they threatened to fall over into the street below them.

And in the alleyway, there were children.

It took Cinderella only a glance to see that Jean and Angelique were the only two who could be considered to be even approaching adulthood. The rest were children, as young as she had been when her father died, or maybe younger. Two boys, and a little girl. If this was the family that Jean had mentioned, then he and Angelique must be what passed for the parents of it.

"Your Highness," Jean declared. "Allow me to present my family: Angelique, whose acquaintance you have already made, Thomas, Christophe, and Marie. Everyone, this is Her Royal Highness Princess Cinderella."

Cinderella smiled, but her smile was tinged with pity as she saw the dirt in which they lived, saw how thin they were, how tired they looked, how ragged and calloused where their hands and knees. But she smiled nonetheless, and got down on her knees. "Hello, everyone. It's very nice to meet you all."

"Hmph," Angelique muttered.

The young girl, Marie, looked at her with wide eyes from underneath a tangle of blonde curls. "Are you really a princess?"

Cinderella nodded. "Yes, I am."

"You don't look like it," the boy, Christophe, murmured. He was gangly, possibly taller than Jean for all that Jean was older, and his brown hair was long, and overgrown down to his shoulders.

"You don't look like it, your highness," Jean said sharply, as Angelique rolled her eyes at him.

"It's alright," Cinderella said. "None of that matters now. And the reason that I don't look like a princess is that I'm in disguise."

"Why?" Marie asked.

"Because I wanted to see what was going on," Cinderella said.

"There, you see," Jean said, with a told-you-so look at Angelique. "Did I not say all along that this would be good for us."

"She's playing at being poor for a few hours before going back to her comfortable life," Angelique replied. "It doesn't mean that she cares."

"Can you please not talk about me as though I'm not here?" Cinderella asked.

"I'm sure that you talk about people like us as though we're not here all the time," Angelique said sharply.

"Angelique-" Jean began.

"Don't you 'Angelique' me!" she snapped. "Just because you think she's going to be our saviour doesn't mean I have to believe it and it doesn't mean that I have to like having her here. Our life is her fun day out! Don't you understand that! When she goes home, we're still here, and now Talbot will have even more reason to hate us, or didn't you think of that because you were too busy playing hero to think of anything."

"Stop shouting," Marie said. "You're upsetting Thomas." She gripped the shoulder of the last boy, the smallest boy, who was turned away from Cinderella, hunched up and muttering to himself. "There, there, Thomas, it's alright. Nothing is wrong, you're safe."

Angelique snorted. Jean looked embarrassed, unable to meet Cinderella's eyes.

At last Jean said, "Angelique, it is nearly noon. Would you please take some of the money we have left from...our last patron and get us all some dinner."

Angelique snorted again, but she rummaged around what Cinderella had taken to be a pile of cast-offs, and found some money there. She gave Cinderella one last glare before she set off.

Jean pursed his lips. "Your highness, will you walk with me a little while."

He led her away from the three children, a little out of earshot if not out of sight, before he said, "I apologise for Angelique's behaviour. She is not a bad person. I... I would not like you to punish her for what she has said. As a favour, for my service, I would ask mercy for her."

Cinderella shook her head. "You don't need to apologise for her, and she doesn't need to apologise for herself. I understand what means, even if I don't understand how she feels."

Jean nodded. "That is very generous of you, princess, thank you. I will do what I can to get you home as soon as possible. I would go to the palace at once, but Talbot would recognise me. I would like to wait a few hours, at least, and hope that he has gotten bored or lazy. Once I can get in I will fetch back your husband with men while you wait here, safe."

"That's very kind of you, but that doesn't matter now," Cinderella said. "Or it does, but it isn't what concerns me."

Jean frowned. "Then what does concern you, highness?"

"You," Cinderella said. "You and Angelique and those children. How long have you lived like this?"

Jean shrugged. "Eight years, maybe more. Since my mother died."

"You have none of you any parents?" Cinderella asked.

Jean shook his head. "No parents, or none who wanted us."

Cinderella blinked. "But...there must be somewhere you could go."

"Only the workhouse, and I'll not go there nor let any of my family go there either," Jean said.

"Why not?"

"Because it's a prison, or worse," Jean said firmly. "The workhouse is one of the things I'm keeping them safe from. If any of them go into that place then I have failed them."

Cinderella asked, "Are there others, like you?"

"Many," Jean said. "There are near as many living out of doors in this city as there living in houses."

"Oh, no," Cinderella murmured. "I had no idea. Is that what you and Angelique were talking about."

Jean nodded. "I thought...I hoped...that since you were poor yourself, you might do something for us. I thought that if you did not know how bad things were, then you might find out. I thought...I thought that you might be our saviour." He shrugged. "Angelique thinks my hope is silly. I suppose it sounds silly, when put like that."

"And that's why you saved me?" Cinderella asked.

"I saved you because it was the right thing to do, highness," Jean said. He hesitated. "But...yes, also because I knew that none other would help us as I hoped you would."

"It wasn't silly," Cinderella said. "Unless putting your hopes on me was foolish. Angelique was right, I have been very selfish."

"Your Highness?"

"I disguised myself like this, snuck into town, so that I could find out why people didn't like me," Cinderella admitted. "I have been so pre-occupied with my own troubles, that I had no idea that there were people like you in need of desperate help. I am sorry. Please forgive me."

Jean looked as though someone had just dealt him a stunning blow to the head. "Princess..." he murmured. "Your Highness, it is not for such as I to forgive you."

"You were right," Cinderella said. "I should have been helping you, doing something for those like you. And what have I done instead? Worried about my popularity. I'm ashamed of myself, and rightly so. But I will do much better from now on, I promise."

A slow smile spread across Jean's face, and his tone suggested that he wanted so much to believe but did not quite dare to take the final step. "You mean-"

"Yes," Cinderella said. "I will be your saviour, you, and all those like you. I give you my word on it."