Chapter 22:
This was probably getting dangerous, Esmeralda told herself when she reached home, but she didn't want to believe that. She had debated whether or not to leave Phoebus, but she had known what might happen between them if she remained.
While her marriage to Pierre may be a farce, she was not one to willingly commit adultery. She didn't have to be well-educated in church doctrine to know that could get her in trouble with God. That was the rumor, anyway.
She curled around Djali when she finally reached her tent, and the goat did not protest, so they were able to sleep until a fresh commotion began in the Court.
"Frollo's gone mad!" voices were shrieking. "Get out! Get out while you can!"
Pierre stood peeking out of the tent, then back at Esmeralda, clearly trying to ask what he should do without knowing the words.
Groggily, Esmeralda instructed him to help her pack everything she owned, bundling it up to make it as compact as could be.
"Would we really leave Paris?" Pierre asked.
"If that's what it takes… Frollo can't live forever," Esmeralda murmured, shrugging off the idea that she would never see Phoebus again as if it wasn't breaking her heart.
"But how will you ever see the sun god again if—" Pierre was silenced preemptively by Esmeralda's foot slamming down on his.
Clopin's attention then turned unwelcomed in her direction, and Esmeralda wished she'd only clapped a hand over Pierre's mouth rather than cause him to make such a ridiculous noise as he had. "This time, you will stay with me!" Clopin ordered her in their own language. "I've let you wander off much too often now, and it stops here!"
Pierre stared at Clopin as if he'd just sprouted wings and a second head. "Es—Esmeralda?" he asked.
"He's not scolding you," she told him without averting her eyes from Clopin. "I don't know if I can promise to stay with you, I may need to help someone while you're helping someone else."
"I don't care what you think you can do! You are the one he's up there looking for! You're the one he's got people hunting, I bet he's finally wised up and knows that you're not in the church anymore!"
"Even if he does, he may have forgotten what I even look like, it's been so long."
"I saw the way he looked at you," Clopin said. "He won't forget what you look like."
Esmeralda shivered, and Pierre very helpfully said, "I agree, I was with him recently and he had your name written all over the walls!"
Esmeralda and Clopin both stared at him, but it was Clopin who lunged at him.
"You were with him and didn't think to finish him off?" Clopin demanded in a high pitched shriek.
"I'm not a killer!" Pierre protested, and tried to break away from Clopin, whose hands began to close around his neck.
"I am!" Clopin shouted at him.
"Stop! Stop it!" Esmeralda put her hands on Clopin's arms and tried to wrench them away from Pierre's throat.
Djali bit them hem of Clopin's tunic, and aided her mistress in pulling him off the poet, which he eventually did.
Panting, Clopin hung his head, trying to compose himself.
Esmeralda stood in front of him, and put her hands on his shoulders. "I know why you want to keep me safe, but I also know that if this is my fault, it is also my responsibility to help as many people survive it as I can. I'm not going to abandon the people who live topside just to get myself to safety."
Slowly, Clopin raised his head to meet her eyes. "If you and I are separated… and if I lose you…" she could feel his shoulders shake beneath her hands.
"I will feel the same way if I lose you," she said truthfully. "But I won't be responsible for others being torn apart without trying to keep them together. I have to try. When I first faced off against Frollo at the Festival, I was trying to cause a reaction, to spur some kind of change… maybe this is it."
Clopin peered into her eyes with an inscrutable look in his own, but pulled her into a wordless hug rather than continue to rail against her. He pressed a kiss to her forehead then and turned away, still shaking, to supervise further evacuations. "Extra patrols tonight!" he called, and his voice echoed off the vaulted ceiling above them.
It would be all they could do, but even that, Esmeralda thought as she guided Pierre in dividing all their belongings between the two of them and wearing them, then let Djali mount her shoulders so they could appear to be an old man again.
They emerged to find soldiers patrolling the streets of Paris, questioning everyone they found as to whether or not they knew where to find Esmeralda.
Over the course of the day, Esmeralda and Pierre raced ahead of the soldiers, among whom was Phoebus to her disappointment. Their smuggling efforts were moderately successful, though they watched helplessly each time they were too late to prevent the soldiers from finding one family or other.
The worst of it came past dusk, however, when they stood at the edge of a crowd outside a mill. At first, Esmeralda thought the fact that she could see Phoebus there beside Frollo as he entered the mill meant that he would prevent the mad judge from harming innocents.
Mere minutes proved her wrong.