Author's Note: I wanted to take a moment to thank all those who have left such kind reviews. You put a smile on my face each time I see you're having fun like I am!
Chapter 30:
Jehan Frollo was a man of great talents and meager motivation. That was clear enough, as was his conscience, though the latter was due in great part to his thoughtlessness. Were he to examine himself, perhaps he would find that which would cause him to feel pangs of regret.
Instead, he felt similar pangs not on behalf of himself, but upon hearing his family name whispered in fear amongst his companions.
"Frollo's gone mad!" they would fret from behind the rims of their tankards.
"He's going to kill us all!" Jehan heard several times, and at last he had to ask, "What has Claude done this time?"
This question earned him stares rather than an answer, and he folded his arms. "Well?"
His question was answered by a small peasant family stumbling into the inn, with three small children all weeping and haggard parents struggling to keep their own composures. There were some other peasants carrying things for them, and they sat at a table wearily shaking.
"Did they burn it down?" someone asked the father, a balding man who had been laid low despite how robustly he was built.
"No… but we didn't want to be there if they tried," he said softly.
"Who is they? What is it?" Jehan asked. So rarely did the hairs at the nape of his neck stand up that he had forgotten what the sensation meant.
Why was he so afraid?
Was it because Claude might come for him? He'd always thought he was safe…
He shook himself. There was silly, and then there was this.
The peasant man looked morosely at him. "Our mill… our home… Minister Claude Frollo wanted to burn us alive in our home."
Jehan stood frozen in place, and swallowed heavily. Was he at all responsible for this?
No, of course not! Claude didn't need his help over-reacting to everything! He'd always done that!
Someone was bringing the family warm beer, and offering soothing words, and Jehan wondered if he had a home and said Claude was tossing him out whether he would also get free beer.
He shook himself.
He had to do something!
But what was someone like him supposed to do? Talk to the madman and see if he would calm his rage? But that could get him in trouble, too!
He looked at the children who sat at the table with their parents, pale faced and looking nervously around the inn and all the strangers in it.
This was the fault of his brother.
If anyone were to do something about it, who else could it be?
Jehan slid off his chair and walked to the door. The night air was bracingly cold, but of course, it would be. It worked to cure him of some of his drunkenness as he strode out into the starlight.
Where to begin looking for Claude?
If he was on some kind of righteous rampage, he could be anywhere, but it would more than likely be somewhere he expected to find Egyptians.
Still as he wandered the streets, he was halted by a voice calling him from above like that of an angel.
"Hello down there!" cooed the voice of Fleur de Lys de Gondelaurier. "You should get out of the streets! It isn't safe tonight! The vagabonds are running amok! I've hired men to keep us safe in here, come up, my sweet Jehan!"
Jenhan paused, bewildered. Should he continue on into the night, with no true direction aside from somehow possibly stopping Claude?
Or… should he accept the lovely lady's invitation…?
"I know what you're thinking," she said wrongly but surely. "You worry because you are friends with Phoebus, and you do not wish to anger him by being with me… but our engagement has been quite broken off, now, and our love can blossom now, my dear lovely philosopher!"
Jehan raised his brows. Now that was another prospect, entirely!
How could he refuse?
"You need only wait a moment, mon petit chou!" he called up to her, and giddily pranced through her door, the troubles of the other Parisians forgotten.