Author's Note: This chapter is dedicated to geniusgringoire, with whom I first played out this scenario. The entire Pierre Gringoire plot thread that I'm going to explore is a direct result of the partnership we formed while we role played the scenario, even as my version shifts through the lack of recent collaboration and my desire to maintain a line of distinction between their work and my own. Should this ever meet your eyes, my friend, I hope to make you smile.

Chapter 11:

The cathedral echoed with empty silence, much like the mausoleums Esmeralda and her family sometimes hid within while the cemetery was being patrolled. The arches overhead made up the ribs of some cavernous skeleton, and Esmeralda longed for the peaceful refuge it had been when she first arrived.

She approached the altar of a small side chapel, and was beginning to pray when she heard a voice from close by, muttering from the floor.

There in the shadows, she found a shivering man, squatting in the corner, with a broad-rimmed hat flopping over his head like a leaf which had been rained on too long, and no longer held tightly enough to the tree on which it lived to lie flat. Beneath the hat, the man seemed rather small, but perhaps he was too distorted by the way he sat shivering for her to perceive his true outline.

"Pardon me, is something wrong?" she asked, crouching slightly so that she would not appear threatening, which she knew at times she could.

The fellow seemed to see her for the first time, and gaped at her in the weak points of moonlight which reached through the windows, and the occasional point of candlelight. "You are La Esmeralda!" he breathed at her, as if as he spoke her name he was invoking a prayer. "I saw you dance today!"

Esmeralda squinted at his features, attempting to remember a time when she had seen his face. "I am," she replied slowly.

"Esmeralda!" she heard Quasimodo's voice hiss through the shadows, and she whipped her head about to see him perched on the railing of the walkway above, just opposite her.

She had known he wanted to maintain a distance between them so that if Frollo entered the Cathedral, he would not see them together, but from this distance, she could no longer see the friendliness that made him easier to speak with.

Perched as he was, Quasimodo resembled an owl with eyes that glinted in the candlelight and make him look truly menacing and monstrous for the first time.

What do you want? She dared not ask him.

"Is that the hunchback?" the man on the floor asked her.

"Yes," Esmeralda replied slowly, and turned from Quasimodo to the fellow she'd discovered. "Who are you?"

She saw the man's shoulders jump as if he were realizing he'd forgotten to do something, just before he hopped to his feet. It was a movement much like Clopin's she thought, but perhaps it was due to how wiry both their frames were.

"Ah! Mademoiselle! I am but a humble petitioner at your feet! I am he that writes poems and plays which are sung to me when I am abed by the very angels! The name they say was given to me when I was christened is Pierre Gringoire!" he exclaimed, removing his large floppy hat and bowing. "I am a poet, a playwright, and an itinerant wanderer!"

Esmeralda found herself smirking at this fellow, dismayed that by his accent he sounded like an upper-class Parisian, but he was clearly no such person. It hardly seemed likely that he was a well-liked poet from how overblown he was.

Had he once been well-off? Or had he simply always affected the accent in order to give off the idea that he was something greater than he was? She had known both in her time, but it remained to be seen whether he fell into one category or the other.

"How nice," she responded blandly, maintaining strict neutrality to avoid offending him.

"I thought today would mark my first success… I've tried my hand at nearly every trade, from beggar to monk… and now my play has been rejected by the people…" He clutched his hat in his hands, and pressed it to his chest as if he were a shield that would defend him.

"That is sad…" Esmeralda said as she realized that this was the self-same playwright who Clopin had harassed that morning. If only she had apologized for his behavior…

"Now I don't know what I shall do," Pierre continued. "My life was to culminate at this point…" He appeared to be looking to her for more than sympathy. He needed a place to go.

"Why not go back to your parents?" Esmeralda asked softly. It was a tender subject for her, so she was prepared for it to prove equally so for her new acquaintance.

As she had thought, Gringoire bowed his head. "Would that such venue were open to my feet that I may walk it," he said, long-winded even in this.

"In which case… there is one place for outcasts like us to go if we are out of other options… where we can find friends, family even… you have heard the tale…" she checked over her shoulder at the owlish Quasimodo, who was holding himself utterly still. Was he listening?

She ought not be concerned with whether Quasimodo heard, she scolded herself. Just because he was close with Frollo did not necessarily mean that he would betray her people to their doom.

"The Court of Miracles?" Pierre asked, all but panting at the thought. "It is legendary!"

"Well, I'll tell you how to find it…" she considered giving him the amulet she wore… or one of them… but words were better for this sort of fellow, and the map would serve another better. "You surely know a passage to the catacombs, don't you?"

Pierre nodded eagerly, and so she whispered that if he could get to the passages beneath the cemetery just on the other side of the Seine, he would without fail be directed to the Court of Miracles, and then he should say who sent him, because Clopin would surely accept him as one of the many who resided there due to their great need and the threat of Frollo's constant purges.

At the conclusion of these instructions, another thought occurred to her, and her brows rose, and she clapped her hands. "Both our prayers have been answered!" she cried. "Listen to me, Pierre!" she leaned closer, grabbing him by the doublet to force him closer so he could hear. "Quasimodo shall take me from the cathedral, but I don't trust the soldiers to be stupid enough to miss us… when we leave… I want you to distract them. Can you do that? Are you such an actor?"

In the shadows she could still see Pierre's eyes widen, and knew that her words had connected with his imagination… However, too late she fretted that he could reveal her to the soldiers for coin.

She waited breathlessly until Pierre drew himself taller. "I shall do it!" he declared with no small degree of theatricality.

"Good! I want you to wait, before you do… there will be some time before we are prepared…"

"La Esmeralda! You do not know my work! I can speak for a long, long, long, long…"

A powerful arm wrapped around Esmeralda and swept her backward off the ground, with a bleating Djali, before Pierre had even said his last, "long."

"I'm glad I couldn't hear him," Quasimodo noted as he hurried Esmeralda up the stairs. "He could've kept you there until dawn!"

Esmeralda rolled her eyes, hoping silently that the poet could memorize her instructions as clearly as one of his poems… or perhaps better… she'd never actually heard him recite one.

The trip down the side of the church was so swift all Esmeralda remembered of it was how she had been sure her cries would bring her death to her on the edge of a soldier's sword.

Except that it didn't.

A loose roof tile flew into the alley some ways off and crashed loudly, sending the guards closest to their position in that direction, meanwhile on the other end of the church, she could hear Pierre's elaborate distraction methods.

Hopefully the poor fellow didn't get himself pilloried for being annoying, but at least that was the worst possible crime he could get pinned with, unlike her.

They posed frozen against the statue of some saint or other, Esmeralda would not know the difference, until they saw all the torchlight fade into the distance. Then, Esmeralda dared to breathe, sitting at the saint's feet.

Quasimodo crouched beside her, looking almost as exhilarated as she was. It occurred to her that this was only his second time outside the walls.

It was time to strike at the chains that bound him to the prison, the magnificent prison Frollo had kept him in all his life.

"You should come with me," she said the moment he'd stuttered out something about how he would never forget her. She hoped her eyes were as wide with excitement as she wanted them to be, and that her voice was just as full of glee as Clopin's usually was.

He recoiled from the suggestion, putting up one beefy arm to defend himself from her. "What?" he gasped, and she knew there was a long road to walk before he was willing to completely let himself free of his shackles…

Still, knowing that the guards could return at any moment, Esmeralda made one last play. To stop his babbling, she kissed his cheek, which tranquilized the fuss out of him.

"If you ever need Sanctuary," she said, pulling one of her amulets carefully out of hiding, and showing it to him, "this will show you the way."

He stared transfixed at it.

If he were submitted to torture, or even if Frollo questioned him without physical threat, he could not be allowed to give the most direct answer to the questioning. Instead, what Esmeralda gave Quasimodo was a riddle, "When you wear this woven band, you hold the city in your hand."

He was still confused when they heard the first sign that the guards were returning, and he urged her to go before she could be overtaken.

Though she was ordinarily efficient in her travels home, the heightened security throughout the city forced her to take roundabout paths and pause in alleyways to avoid capture.

However, at last, she and Djali arrived back in their home, only when she did, she discovered a hostile crisis rather than her family's welcoming arms.

As if a play were being reprised before her eyes, Esmeralda saw that a bedraggled young man was squirming on the scaffold as Clopin reached for the lever to snuff out his life… She had seen this play before, heard the jeers and laughter… But she had watched impotently before as an ending befell the first to take up this role.

She recognized the hapless poet she had sent to the Court that very night, and her guilt threatened to consume her. Though she wanted to scream, instead, her voice was bunched up in her throat like a wad of cotton threatening to gag her just as surely as poor Gringoire.

Fortunately for her, the others who saw her announced, "La Esmeralda is back!" for her.

Clopin was much too distracted to pull the lever, he just stared at her as if she were an apparition from the beyond, here to take him along with her to Heaven. He looked more manic than usual, his hair sticking out at all angles as if he'd been mussing it all day. "Essie?" he called down to her as she approached the scaffold.

"I seem to remember another time you were about to kill someone," she said quietly when she was close enough to him. "I sent Pierre Gringoire here," she said, removing the poet's gag.

Or at least, she tried to, before Clopin hurriedly pulled it back into place. "Don't do that, Essie! You don't want to hear that voice!"

Laughter rippled through the uncertain assembly, as the gypsies tried to decide whether or not they were allowed to find that funny.

"How did you get here?" Clopin asked her in a hushed voice.

"With the help of this man," she insisted, again trying to remove the gag from Gringoire. "He was my distraction while Quasimodo helped me down the wall… now… you can't kill him when he helped us. I know what I have to do to save him, and this time I'm old enough." She met Clopin's eyes with the emerald flames of her determination.

"I do owe you a life… but did it have to be this one?" Clopin whined.

She very nearly wanted to slap him, but after what had doubtless been the most terrifying day of his life, Clopin deserved as much of his uncharitable commentary as he wanted. His eyes had softened, and he finally allowed her to remove Gringoire's gag.

"Let's get this overwith," Clopin grumbled, and called for someone to fetch a clay jar, which he foisted into both Esmeralda and Gringoire's hands.

"What is happening?" Pierre asked. "Are you really marrying me? Sacrebleu I am so lucky! None of the other women would—"

"If you value your life, shut up," she urged him through gritted teeth.

This could still go very badly for him if Clopin decided to prevent his pseudo-relation-of-undefined-terms from marrying. He really didn't need any reason in particular, not when he was so cunning with excuses.

Before Esmeralda had fully realized the ceremony was underway, the pot Clopin had placed in her hand was crashing to the scaffold, as if of its own accord.

"Ah," Clopin sighed. "Only four years…" As if they could really expect to live that long, anyhow.

Esmeralda raised a brow at Clopin. "You're taking this very well."

"You still have your dagger on you, yes?" Clopin asked, squeezing her elbow.

"Of course."

Clopin smirked first at her, then at Gringoire. "I promise to clean up after you if you tire of him. Now, go away, I have new gray hairs to pluck out!" he tweaked her nose, and left her there, standing for all to see on the scaffold, with her husband.

"What have I done?" she whispered as the realization crept upon her that she was well and truly married. To this ineffectual stranger nonetheless!

And just when…

Light flashed behind her eyes and a grin penetrated through her imaginings of what life married to Pierre for the next four years might mean.

The answer was clear: no Phoebus for you, idiot.

"Ah… pardon me, La Esmeralda?" Pierre waved a hand in front of her face, and it occurred to her that he had in fact been speaking to her.

"Just Esmeralda, thanks," she grunted.

"Yes, wife, where do we sleep?" he smiled shyly at her.

"I guess you have to stay in my tent," she grunted, and stalked toward it. "I guess it was too much to expect someone to set it up for me," she said as she noticed it was lying out in its usual space in a bundle. "You!" she pointed irritably at Pierre, though she knew it was no fault of his. "Do you know how to set up a tent?"

"I'd better learn, hadn't I?" he asked, and grinned as if he could smell some fragrant pastry as its scent rose out from the finest of all bakeries.

Esmeralda rolled her eyes, it was really uncharitable of her, she knew, but all she could think of was how she wanted to kick herself for her stupidity. It was twofold: Firstly that she had married a man she was not in love with, and secondly that she was even concerned with how her marital status would affect the relationship she had with Phoebus. What did that matter when she could never marry him, at all?

"I can see something is bothering you, Madame Gringoire, what's the problem?"

Esmeralda had just set up the first two posts of the tent into place when those words crawled up her spine on their needle feet and she very nearly screamed. "I've made a horrible mistake! Don't ever call me that again!" As quickly as she could, she disappeared into her tent, arranging the articles which had been folded up in it into a semblance of a room before moving to set up the next two tent poles.

Gringiore followed her into the tent. "I don't understand, cherie! Did—did you want me to die?"

Esmeralda forced herself to take a deep breath. "I… that isn't it… I should never have sent you here… this was never meant to happen."

"So… you didn't fall n love with me for my daring help in your escape?"

She snorted.

"Point taken, no need for explanation! Look… I am eternally grateful, but I know where I'm not wanted… that has always been clear. I won't touch you… but perhaps, with time…?"

"I'm afraid my heart already lives somewhere else… we can be friends, though. A friend is a soul that touches another without becoming one, and that is something I can much more easily accept than becoming one."

"Agreed, after all, we just met!"

She paused, and smiled at him. "You're not so bad… but trust me, you'll need to learn a new skill or you'll attract more trouble than you're worth, poet." She nudged him with one elbow as she set up her own bed, then spared some of her food for his supper.

"Are you sure my poetry won't—"

"Yes. Can you juggle?"

"No," he said as she laid out an extra makeshift bed for him by taking some of the stuffing from her own pallet.

"In that case, someone may have to teach you… That'll be me, won't it?"

"I don't have any other friends… so if you would be so good…?"

She sighed as she settled herself down and Djali curled up beside her. She hadn't realized how tired her limbs were before they began to shudder at finally being capable of relaxing.

"Poet? Do you know of a name called Phoebus?" she asked as her eyes traced the familiar stripes of her tent.

"Oh! Indeed! It is the alternate name of Apollo, god of the sun! He was an archer, and a hopeless lover of women who were always just out of his reach! Oh, and he was a poet!"

"That's enough, thanks… perhaps tomorrow, when I teach you to juggle, you can teach me to spell the name…" she turned over, cuddling her faithful goat as sleep overcame her and she whispered the name to herself, over and over again, until it followed her into her dreams.