A/N: Thank you to LadyIngenue for her wonderful notes and encouragement. Do check out her scrumptious Fresme story, 'Father, I Have Sinned', published under the Movies/Hunchback of Notre Dame section of this site. Her Frollo draws on book Frollo more than Disney Frollo, book fans will be pleased to know.

Chapter 2

He passed the night fitfully, falling asleep only to wake from dreams that left him uneasy and afraid, dreading that if he did not see her at once, hold her in his sight – she would be dead after all. That yesterday's glimpse of her had been nothing but a hallucination, when in reality she had been dead and buried outside Paris for three years.

As the first streaks of grey crept into the dark sky he stole down the path to the gypsy camp. The wagons were still there but there was a bustle of activity. Voices called instructions from one cart to another, while tents were rapidly dismantled and bundled together. Out of all the calls he heard but one voice, low and clear, filling him with a sweet joy, a pure relief he had never thought he would feel.

Then she appeared in a gap between tents, a bundle held tightly in her arms – and she saw him.

Scarcely aware that he was moving, he went to her. 'I must speak with you,' he begged.

She was silent, her eyes lowered. 'I have nothing to say to you,' she said at last.

Time had not lessened her beauty. But there was a melancholy cast to her loveliness. She had lost the innocence and uncomplicated assurance which had drawn him like a moth to flame. Now her mouth pouted less, instead thinning with distrust, and her eyes were alert and wary.

'Tell me at least how it is that you are alive.' His eyes searched her face, taking in the dark sweep of her hair, the flash of her eyes, everything he had never thought to see again.

Her face darkened. 'What explanation do I owe you? After the choice you gave me. Do you remember? The gallows – or you. Death – or a fate you knew to be worse than death to me.' Her eyes blazed; then subsided into gloomy impenetrable pools.

Her words were worse than lashes. He thought he would fall down. But he remained standing, somehow, gazing at her with stricken, desperate eyes.

A small shudder of frustration and distress went through her. At last, seeing that he would not leave, she turned away from him, laid her bundle down on the ground and began to sort and repack the jumble of knives and cooking implements contained there. She was frowning, preparing herself to speak.

He waited, trembling, for her explanation. He wished that they might have gone somewhere more private, but did not dare voice that hope. As he waited for her to begin he could not help the movement of his eyes over her arms and hands and the rest of her form, always returning to linger on her face. He was slowly becoming aware of a dull pain in his chest. After his initial joy and relief, the sight of her was now a stinging, sorrowful pleasure. How had he lived three years without seeing her – thinking she was dead – and because of him? And how was he to live after she had gone from his life again?

She spoke in short, brusque sentences, not looking at him.

'The rope was around my neck. I had lost all hope by that point.'

He had to lower his eyes, a shudder running through his whole body as he saw pictured her as she had stood on the gallows, pale and thin, blue-lipped.

She paused, her eyes dark and bitter, weighing a knife in her hand as she deliberated what to say next. At last she shook her head. 'It was your foster son who saved me. Quasimodo. I had once shown him kindness by giving him water when he was tied to the pillory.'

Again Frollo ducked his head, this time in shame, remembering how he had turned aside from Quasimodo in that piteous state, dreading to be identified with the hunchback.

'It was nothing more than I would have done for an animal. But he took it so to heart that, seeing me about to be executed, he risked his life in rescuing me. He threw me over his shoulder, crying 'Sanctuary!' and carried me up the side of the church, depositing me on the tower platform. With sanctuary claimed, the authorities could not remove me. But neither could I leave. I was trapped there, in the company of a man whose shape and features terrified me, at least until I grew used to them, and came to trust his gentle heart. I stayed there for several weeks, too weak and exhausted to care much about leaving.'

So she had been living with Quasimodo in the bell-tower! And to think, had he not covered his window to hide those great towers from his sight, he might have seen her up there. He shook his head, unable to fully comprehend the path that fate had taken. A creeping jealousy began to take hold of him as he thought how Quasimodo had had her all to himself for several uninterrupted weeks. A moment later he banished the feeling, ashamed. Yet he could not quash his gladness that there seemed to be no special affection in her voice when she spoke of his foster son.

And what of her gallant captain? Had she discovered that the captain had survived? His heart stuttered, his skin turning cold with dread. But she said nothing about Phoebus – whose name she had once loved to speak; to his torment.

'For near on five weeks I remained there.' Now she looked at him, her gaze bright and hard. 'News reached me that you had left Paris forever. I rejoiced.'

He did not look away, though his chest felt tight and chilled.

'One night a stranger came to visit me in my hiding place – it was the bishop of Notre Dame. He told me he had learned of my innocence, and considered it his personal duty to help me escape.'

Frollo heard this with surprise, remembering his confession to the bishop on the day he had been barred from Paris.

'He smuggled me outside Paris, and I fled, joining the first of my people that I encountered. And so my story ends,' she concluded bitterly.

Her bundle was now wrapped and secured. She rose to her feet, holding the bundle to her chest like a shield. She still would not meet his eyes. His longing for her to look at him, that he might see the full flash of her eyes, made him tremble.

'You are leaving,' he said at last.

'I begged the others to move on during the night, but one of the carts needed its wheels replaced. We had to wait until now to go to the blacksmith.'

He was silent, sensing the unease behind her words. Though the gypsies were welcomed for the entertainment they provided, the villagers' goodwill did not extend to being roused in the middle of the night in order to fix cart wheels – not if the cart belonged to gypsies.

'You are far from Paris, priest,' she said at last.

'I am no longer a priest,' he corrected her. Now she looked at him – staring in surprise. Her eyes swept over his austere clothes, not so unlike a priest's cassock. The smallest of smiles touched his lips. 'Old habits die hard,' he said, gesturing to the dark cloth.

She did not smile back. Her eyes were once again fixed on the ground between them.

'I am a doctor,' he went on quickly. 'I care for the villagers when they are sick. I came here three years ago.' He hesitated. 'It was the first place I stopped in after leaving Paris.'

Her expression only grew more guarded, dismaying him. So many emotions showed in her face and none were the ones he wanted to see. Wariness, anger, fear, confusion – but how could he expect anything else? If only she would look at him –

'Esmeralda!' called a man's voice. 'We are about to depart. Hurry or we will leave you behind.'

She glanced back towards the camp – and without thinking Frollo fell on his knees before her, seizing hold of her hands. Her mouth fell open, and she tried to pull away – but he did not let go.

'Hear me, I beg of you. If there was but one deed I could reverse, it would be my part in your trial and everything that led to it. For three years it has been my deepest, most impossible wish. Now that I find you are alive – there is but one thing more that I long for.' He gazed up at her, tears springing to his eyes. 'Say you forgive me, if you can, that I might lift this blackest guilt from my heart, and give the rest of my life to atoning through my work here.'

Her shock and fear were written openly on her face. A long moment passed.

'Esmeralda!' called the man again.

Her face grew hard. Her lips went tight and pale. She wrest her hands from his and fled back to her people. He watched her go, shaking, knowing he deserved nothing less.

The winter was long and hard. Several of the villagers died of a sickness that spread rapidly through the houses, despite all he did to try to assuage and cure it. He tended to them at all hours, losing himself in the work, walking swiftly from house to house, bringing food and firewood to those unable to fetch it themselves. At last he too caught the sickness but did not stop working until he was unable to stand on his own feet, and a concerned miller's wife walked him home and forced him to retreat into his bed, shivering and delirious. In the few moments of lucidity he had in the next few feverish days, he was aware only of his deep remorse, and his longing for forgiveness. He told himself he should be content that she was alive and well. But he could not rid himself of his helpless yearning for her forgiveness, knowing he did not deserve it.

After five days of drifting in and out of consciousness, he passed the critical stage and slowly grew well again. Soon he was able to resume his work in tending to the villagers, now immune to the infection himself. At last the sickness died away altogether and there was nothing left to tend to but the usual winter colds and bouts of pneumonia.

Spring came and so did the gypsies – but she was not among them. It was another troupe. His voice trembling, he asked them for news of Esmeralda but they only looked at him in silence, their dark eyes expressionless.

She returned in the autumn. On their first night back in the village, as was tradition, the gypsies put on a night-long display of singing and acrobatics – and dancing. When Esmeralda stepped up to dance, silence fell across the gathering. Besides the low roar and crackle of flames, nothing could be heard but the beat of her feet and the siren call of her tambourine. Frollo had sworn that he would not go, that he would not leave his cottage for the duration of her stay – but he was there like all the others, unable to tear his eyes from her.

He stood deep in the crowd, hoping that there he would be able to watch her unseen. Her limbs gleamed in the firelight, her black hair tumbled around her shoulders as she turned and spun. Long ago her dance had evoked tortured feelings of lust and hate in him. He still desired her; what man could not? But now desire was the least dominant of the feelings her dance evoked in him. Far more powerful was the bittersweet longing and regret that gripped him. He thought again of that terrible choice he had given her: life or death, him or the gallows. As he watched her swaying and extending her arms, her head tilting back, sending her hair cascading over her shoulders, he felt himself begin to understand why freedom was so vital to her; so precious that death was preferable to a life lived out under the mastery of another.

As though sensing his thoughts, she turned her head – and her eyes locked with his. His breath caught – waiting for the moment when she would drop her tambourine and cease to dance. But the moment did not come. Instead her movements grew faster, daring and defiant; magnificent. She did not look at him again. When the dance ended she gasped for breath – and he too felt robbed of air.

A/N: If anyone spotted the pun which occurs during Frollo's conversation with Esmeralda (hint: think of religious clothing), I will be very happy indeed. I only noticed it myself after proof-reading this chapter for the third time, but I like to think Frollo, being rather cleverer and wittier than I, was conscious of it as he spoke it.

Please do leave a review, I'd love to know your thoughts. The rest of the story has been drafted, and should be posted within the next couple of weeks.