Six months later…
It was raining heavily when Chief Inspector Javert rode into Provins.
The ice-cold water scraped and scratched at his face, like a thousand needles thrumming into his cheek.
He embraced the cold, and the pain, and the discomfort. Drawing it in close. Inside his chest. Inside his heart. Pain made him stronger.
He pulled up sharp on the reigns of his horse as he entered the town square, his various deputies and sergeants fanning out around him on their own horses. They were a web, all tied to him, in the centre. If they were the long-arms of the law, then he was their puppeteer.
"Sergeant Malloirave." He barked.
"Yes, sir!" A young man to his left replied.
"I want that Romani camp to the West of here cleared by nightfall."
"Nightfall?"
"Yes, Sergeant. They are a stain on this otherwise upstanding community. Move them on."
"Sir, we have been riding since dawn. I think the other men might appreciate-"
"Do you question my direct orders , Sergeant?!" He roared above the sound of the rainfall.
"N-No, Sir…" the young Sergeant said pitifully.
"Then get to it! Now! No man is to put head to pillow until every person in that camp has quit this place!"
"And what do we do if they refuse to move-on, Sir?" Malloirave asked.
"Then use your skills in…incentivisation, Sergeant."
Malloirave bowed and turned to the other riders.
"You heard him, gentlemen! With me!"
The thunder of horses' hooves rang around the town square. Javert watched his men move-out with a face as hard as stone. Runnels of rainwater ran down his face, into his eyes, down the back of his neck, but he remained unmoving. As deathly still as a bird of prey. Eyes as cold as marble.
Only when the last of them had rode out of sight did he move. Javert directed his horse towards the modest-looking Inn on one side of the town square. As he approached, a stable-hand came running out into the rain. The boy looked up in frightened awe as the Inspector dismounted, his heavy leather coat flapping wetly around his legs as he landed on the cobblestones. But as Javert straightened up to his full height, the boy's eyes widened further. He was a tall man, standing at just over six foot three, and every inch of him exuding power and authority.
His stare was uncompromising. His jaw inexorable. And as he thrust the reigns of his horse into the stable-boy's hands he did not lower his proud chin, not even a fraction, by way of greeting.
The floor of the Inn was soon dripping with rainwater, running off his boots and his coat.
"Chief Inspector Javert!" A man called to him from behind the bar.
He came rushing towards the Inspector, but as he drew closer, a sinking feeling of dread filled his stomach. Javert regarded him coldly, as if his very look alone could turn him to stone.
"Chief Inspector, we have been expecting you." The barkeep added.
"I did have one of my men ride ahead and make the reservation, so I would expect so." Javert answered icily.
"Right. Yes…of course…" the barkeep stuttered. "Uhh, your room is ready for you upstairs. I had my daughter light the fire in there too, so you can dry yourself out a bit."
Javert had turned and abandoned the conversation before the last of the barkeep's words had even been spoken. He went striding off towards a set of stairs, thumping his sodden boots on the wooden floor as he went.
"Oh, and Inspector, I left your correspondence on top of the set of drawers!" The barkeep called after him.
Javert halted, one foot already on the steps.
"Correspondence?"
"Y-yes, Sir. When your Constable arrived here earlier, Madame Jocelyn of the Château de Montrame was here. She'd come to personally collect the crate of bordeaux she'd ordered through us, you see, and-"
"Get to the point, man!" Javert growled.
His voice was deep, like a rumble of thunder. The barkeep flinched and blurted out, "They're having a ball, up at the Chateau tomorrow, and they sent you an invite, Sir!"
Javert ground his teeth together. He nodded once to the barkeep without a single utterance of a word and strode up the stairs.
He found his room without incident, and with a slam of the door, he took off his large tophat and shrugged off his sodden leather coat. He draped both of them over the back of a wooden chair and dragged the chair in front of the roaring fire. His Sergeant, Marais Malloirave, wouldn't be back here with his personal baggage for a good long while so there was nothing fresh to change into. He grumbled, sitting down in the chair, realising that he'd have to stay in discomfort, stewing in his rainwater-soaked clothes, until the Sergeant returned.
" Discomfort makes a man, boy!". The voice of his mentor, Honore Froid, screamed in his mind.
Javert sucked in a breath, surprised at how loudly and how accurately Froid's voice had returned to him. It had been years since he had heard it. Years since Froid had been buried in the ground. And there he was, still admonishing him and chiding him all these years later.
There was little else to do but sit and remember.
The dancing firelight ignited the memories back into life.
He tried. He tried so hard and so often to keep it submerged within. But sometimes, the memories just came rushing up to meet him.
And he was pulled back to a young boy, hunched in front of another fireplace for warmth…
The Prison-Warden's office was fractionally warmer than the cells.
He had a modest fireplace with an even more modest pile of logs, smouldering away inside.
The young boy bent low over the meagre flames, trying to warm up his rigid fingers on the heat. The cell he shared with his mother was freezing. Literally. That morning, they'd woken to find the water they kept to wash their faces had been frozen into ice. So, he huddled around the warmth as if he were a moth to a light. Little body shivering, knobbled back hunched over, filthy hands cupped around the heat.
He gasped and scurried away into a corner when he heard the office door open.
"I asked for the boy to be brought here, Monsieur."
"Very well."
"I should warn you, he grew up in here. He's half-feral, Monsieur."
"Even the most brutal savage can learn the ways of civilisation, Sir."
"As you wish, Monsieur Froid."
The door closed with a metallic clatter. The young boy peered out from his hiding spot and saw a stern-faced man standing with hands behind his back in the centre of the room. He looked around at the seemingly empty space, his small footsteps echoing in the silence. The boy was afraid of the man. He looked pale and angular. Boney and rickety. Like someone had draped white skin over a skeleton. And when the man heard his breathing and turned towards him with large and bulbous eyes, he whimpered.
The boy's breathing became rapid and frightful. The man stared at him for a long moment with those bulbous, wide eyes. A hunter, eyeing up an animal in a snare.
He moved suddenly, his hand reaching into his coat pocket. The boy flinched, lurching for the poke by the fireplace. He had exposed himself, but at least now he had a weapon.
His little hands clasped on to the cold iron and he tried desperately to hold it upright with his meagre strength. Even still, he made a point of snarling at the man before backing into his little corner again. As the man's eyes looked the boy up and down, he could see not a single inch of skin or cloth that wasn't filthy. His dark hair was matted and teeming with lice. And he was missing one of his front teeth, making his snarl of defence seem almost comical to him.
Still, the man paused, one hand inside his coat.
"Are you hungry, boy?"
He blinked, feeling the twist of his stomach inside him. He was starving. He was always starving.
The man produced a heel of bread from out of his coat pocket. He held it aloft, waving it in the air as if it were a flag of capitulation. The boy's hungry eyes locked on to it with feverish want.
"If you want it, come and take it." The man said, waving it towards him.
The boy edged forwards, poke brandished outwards. If he had to fight for food, this wouldn't be the first time he'd have done it. Yet the man remained still, his large eyes unblinking, tracking his every move. The husk of bread remained still in his hands. But the poker in the boy's was shaking. They sized each other up for a while. The old man and the boy.
And then the boy moved.
He darted towards the bread, hungry hands grabbing.
But the man was faster.
He was strong and deft as he snatched the poke from out of the boy's hands. The boy had misjudged the man's strength; frail and thin as he was, he was healthy and powerful. And with a quick move of his body, the boy found himself pinned against him, back on his chest, with the poker pressed hard up under his chin.
He screamed. Kicked. Tried clawing himself free like a feral cat.
Meanwhile the man held the poke underneath the boy's head with unflinching firmness.
"It hurts, doesn't it, boy. Being humbled."
The boy screamed, desperately scrabbling at the iron bar. He tried to twist out of the hold, but the man held him firm and he began crying with frustration.
"But you will learn soon enough. Discomfort makes a man, boy!"
The young boy's cries became sobs and the fight slowly began to leave him. He'd seen women in the prison lose their will to fight, when the guards forced themselves upon them. That's why his mother had told him it was always best to carry a shard of glass or a filed bone on your person. If you had nothing on you, his mother had added, it was best not to fight at all.
Perhaps that's what this man wanted from him too.
He stopped fighting, instead he stood still sobbing quietly, waiting for whatever was to come next.
But the man simply let go of him.
The boy fell to the floor, his bony knees crashing on the floor. And the next thing he noticed was the heel of bread thrown to his side.
He grabbed it from off the floor and began wolfing it down. Another lesson his mother had taught him was to eat quickly or you don't eat at all.
"What is your name, boy?"
The boy said nothing. Instead he shoved mouthful after mouthful into his face.
"Hmm, well if you won't tell me, I will call you 'boy'."
Again, he said nothing, silently chewing on the hard bread and swallowing as fast as he could. He cast an eye up to the man, looming over him like a bird of prey, waiting for him to do something. Yet, by the time he had finished eating the bread, nothing had happened.
They both locked eyes as the boy stood up. Despite his thinness, the man looked clean, clear-cut, presentable.
"You live here, boy?" The man asked.
The boy nodded.
"Your mother. She had you when she was imprisoned here?"
He nodded again.
The man shook his head solemnly. "How shameful. To not only send yourself here, but to bring a child into this hell-hole too."
The boy stood awkwardly, shuffling on his feet. If the man didn't have any more food, he might make a run for the door and leave soon.
"Are you still hungry, boy?" The man asked, raising an eyebrow.
He nodded.
"How would you like to earn your food, rather than scrap for it like an alley cat?"
The boy's brow furrowed. How else did someone get food other than fighting for it? He didn't know of another way.
"I suddenly find that I am in want of an apprentice. An assistant to aid me in my service to the Law. Perhaps take over from me when the time is right. Would you like that?"
The boy blinked vacantly at the man. He was using a lot of big words that he didn't understand. He was only six, after all. And the man's thin, skeletal face still frightened him. He was trying to smile at him, but instead it looked like the vicious snarl of one of the prison dogs.
The man sensed his hesitancy and reached inside his coat pocket again. This time, he pulled out a small wedge of cheese. The boy's mouth was watering in moments.
"I have more. Much more in my house in Caen. A fireplace too." He said, his dark eyes flicking back to the modest flame in the warden's office. "If you come with me, you never need feel hungry or cold again."
The boy took a long time to consider. But after a while, he looked up into the face of the strange man and nodded.
"Very well." The man said solemnly. "I shall accompany you to your mother's cell. There you can make your goodbyes."
The boy pointed towards the cheese with a frown.
"You get this when we leave this place." He said firmly.
The boy huffed, but went walking off, presumably, in the direction of his cell.
The man followed on behind, closely watching the boy as he led him out of the warden's office and down the stinking halls of the prison.
They walked on in silence. The cries of those in pain, mad, starving or merely desperate echoed along the stone. The smell of human faeces and straw made the man's nose wrinkle, but the boy seemed not to mind a jot.
Eventually they came to a wooden door, just like the dozens of other wooden doors along the hallway. The boy pointed at it and stepped to the side. The man approached the small, barred window and rapped gently upon the wood, keen to keep touching anything in this place to a minimum.
"Warden? Where is my boy? What have you done with him?!"
A face came charging up to the window. Wide eyes searching, dark face scrunched in distress. Yet her expression relaxed a little when she saw the boy on the other side of the bars.
"Is this your child, Madame?" The man asked.
She flinched back, as if she expected to be struck, her black hair falling over her filthy face.
"Yes. He is mine." She answered shakily.
He looked at her distastefully, noticing the darkness of her skin.
"You're a Romani." He said with a sneer.
"Yes, Monsieur. That was my 'crime'." She said derisively. "Arrested for telling fortunes and drawings tarot. How else was I to earn a living?! Especially with his father sent off to the prison-ships not one month after he was conceived!"
She pointed a thin finger at the boy and he stood awkwardly, looking at the floor.
"Hmm." The man said, utterly unmoved by her story. "Well, you will be pleased to know that your son has consented to accompany me as my apprentice. He will quit this place immediately. Make your goodbyes, boy."
"Wh-what?!"
The man stepped aside and allowed the boy to approach the door.
"No! You can't..! You can't take my boy! He's mine!"
"I'm afraid he isn't, though. As he was born inside this prison, he was born on state property and is therefore a warden of the Republic. He should have been sent to an orphanage years ago. Lord knows how you bribed the officers and wardens to keep him here."
"He is my son! He is mine!"
"You forfeited the right to call him 'your son' when you birthed him in this God-forsaken place."
The woman began to weep, stretching her hands out through the bars and reaching for the boy's face. He was too far away for her to reach. Too small and weak to stand at the same height as the window.
"My son..! My son…!"
The boy reached a timid hand up to his mother's grasping fingers. She gripped on to him tight, sobs shaking her whole body.
"Please, Monsieur… Please!"
But the man merely took a few steps down the corridor of cells, not looking back for a moment at the crying woman.
A few seconds of weeping passed before he called back to the child.
"Come, boy."
He reached inside his pocket and produced the wedge of cheese again. The boy's stomach twisted with hunger. He took one last look at his mother's tear-stained face through the bars. He would remember her eyes, her desperate screams, as he began following the man, in his most awful nightmares.
"No…! You can't take my son! NO!"
The boy stopped only once to glance back and see his mothers clawing hands grasping at thin air.
"I said come, boy!" The man commanded.
And he turned from his mother and left.
And now Javert was not a lice-ridden and starving boy. He was a forty-seven year old man.
He had never seen his mother after that day. Nor had he thought to look for her. His father had occupied even less of his thoughts. But every so often, when he'd not eaten all day or the chill of bad weather got into his bones, he remembered that prison.
He would laugh dryly in the faces of criminals who told him "you don't know what it's like to be starving or to be on the cusp of survival". Yes he did.
And he wished his early years in that prison had been the only time in his life when he had felt starved and cold…
"Inspector Javert!" A voice called out, followed by two knocks at the door.
He was pulled off of the path of more memories by that voice. In a way he was glad for the distraction; dwelling on memories of the past was fruitless and vain. It did little to solve the problems of the now. Indeed, he was surprised that he had allowed himself to reminisce for so long that afternoon. Still, he groaned with displeasure as he shifted around in his seat; he was still soaked and wet.
"What?!" he called out to the voice.
"Your baggage has arrived, Monsieur."
Javert grumbled and pulled himself out of his chair. As far as distractions went, it was a relatively useful one.
"Enter, Malloirave."
The young Sergeant came bustling into the room, trailing a modest travelling-trunk behind him.
"Report, Sergeant." Javert said in a commanding voice.
"Uhh…there was quite the stir down at the Romani camp, Sir. They're quite settled-in by the looks of things. Been there a good while."
"What makes you think that, Sergeant?"
"The foals in the grazing fields, Sir. They aren't newborns. Maybe half a year old, if I were to guess?"
Javert gave the Sergeant a raised brow.
"My father was a Livery man, Monsieur. I grew up around horses."
"Hmm." Javert grumbled. "Very good, Sergeant."
The young man beamed with delight. That was the closest thing to praise that Javert had ever given. It was also the only time he had seemed even vaguely interested in his Sergeant's life outside of the police. Perhaps his ruminations had affected him more than he'd anticipated.
He watched on in silence as Malloirave fetched a fresh shirt and a new pair of breeches, laying them out on top of the bed for him.
Malloirave gave a click of his heels and stood to the side. Javert nodded once at him and began unbuttoning his wet shirt.
He had never been one for having his underlings help dress and undress him. He had watched the Brigadier Generals and the Majors getting dressed by their personal valets when he had served in Napoleon's armies, and he always thought it a vain and selfish thing. Still, Malloirave made a point of standing close by, just in case his commanding officer needed assistance. He hadn't quite got the hint, after four years in his service, that Javert despised his presence whilst he was dressing…
"Oh, would you like me to read your correspondence, Inspector?" the Sergeant asked, reaching for the letter on the bedside cabinet.
"Mmm." Javert grumbled back, having forgotten it had existed.
The Sergeant tore open the letter and read for a few minutes.
"It sounds like a rather pleasant soiree, Sir. Wine, dancing, music, all at the Chateau de Montrame."
"And you may write back to the hosts and politely decline the invitation, Sergeant."
"Decline, Sir?"
"Indeed, Sergeant." he added firmly.
Malloirave's head dropped a little and he placed the letter back in its place. Javert made the last adjustments to his dry breeches and turned to face him.
"We are merely passing through this town, Sergeant. Why forge relationships where there will be none?"
"Sir." Malloirave said quietly, but the disappointment was apparent in his voice.
Javert didn't have time to pander to the despondency of his green Sergeant. He did up the last of his buttons and reached for his wet leather coat again.
"I imagine my presence is required at the Romani camp, Sergeant?" he asked.
"I…I believe so, Sir. I think the men are having difficulty with the…incentivisation methods."
Javert picked up his tophat and donned it.
"Then let us away, Sergeant."
The Romani camp was in chaos by the time Javert arrived.
His officers were doing their best to force them to move on. He looked about to see them engaged in a variety of prevocational activities. Furniture was thrown out of the coloured wagons. Fires were extinguished by throwing buckets of ash over the flames. Scared horses galloped through the camp with their cut bridals flapping behind them.
"Stop this! Please!"
A Romani woman came running up to the Inspector, tears running down her face and a baby in her arms.
"We've lived here peacefully for months. We do no harm to the people here!"
"You are stationed here illegally. The local Officers should have moved you on as soon as you set foot in their province." Javert answered coldly.
"But we have done no wrong!" the woman cried. "We trade with the locals and-"
"Sell a few bottles of snake oil? Read fortunes in your crystal balls? Dance for the young men at night?"
The woman flinched as the sound of smashing glass rang out over the camp.
"Please, Monsieur, there are children in this camp!" she sobbed.
Javert looked the woman up and down with chilling coldness. The baby in her arms wailed and for a moment, he heard the sound of his own mother's voice in the cries of the child. The woman who had allowed for him to be born inside that hell-hole. The woman who had taught him how to hide from the rapist guards and fight for scraps of leftover food before she had taught him how to write his own name. The woman who had let him go with Froid…
A gunshot rang out through the air.
Javert flinched as terror bolted through him.
It was just a warning shot. One of his Constables had fired into the air to drive off a Romani man getting a bit too hands-on with him.
"Get back! Get away!"
Javert saw the smoke curling out of his sky-turned pistol. He saw the Romani cowering in fear before the Constable.
Yet again, the past came rushing up to meet him.
Memories of another time in his life. Another version of himself. Another nightmare.
He didn't let the memories take form. He pushed it down, driving them away before they could start. Pushing down the rising sense of panic he felt within too.
Anger bubbled up inside him. He hated that he'd flinched. Hated that the sound of gunfire still bothered him. Hated that he still felt like that frightened boy in the prison.
He turned towards the Romani woman with venom in his eyes.
"Save your breath and save your tears, Madame. I have little patience for the scum of this world, least of all your kind."
The Romani woman stared at him with shocked awe.
Javert turned from her and called to Malloirave.
"Sergeant!"
"Yes, Inspector." He replied, appearing at his side.
"Burn it."
Malloirave blanched and stood up straight. "Pardon, Sir?"
"If these people refuse to move-on, then they forfeit their rights to retain their property. Therefore, it must be disposed of. Burn this camp to ash."
Malloirave paused for a second. He took a moment to digest what Javert was saying to him, but then he clicked his heels together and bowed to his superior.
"Very well, Sir."
Malloirave passed the order amongst the other men and they set about fulfilling the Inspector's wishes.
Flame ignited the sky within moments. The first of the caravans erupted into fire in the blink of an eye. Another of Javert's men smashed an oil lamp over a second caravan and the liquid was ablaze before the Romani woman could even gasp.
She cried out, a primal scream of pure loss that soared above the smashing furniture and shouting men and braying horses.
"Iosif!"'she screamed out at the caravan. " Iosif!"
Grace and Artemida paused as they watched the colour of the sky turn orange.
They'd heard the commotion coming from the Romani camp. Seen the policemen on horseback ride out from the town. And then the screaming and smashing noises had started.
So, they stood paused along the banks of the river, unsure of whether to continue on into the sounds of chaos or stay put.
"I've never seen those men before." Grace muttered darkly. "Who were they?"
"They wore the uniform of the Préfecture de Police, Mademoiselle Grace. Although, I've never known them to venture this far out of Paris."
"Perhaps they're passing through."
"Perhaps."
The two of them watched the first spits of black ash float up into the air. Grace had a dreadful feeling in her stomach.
"I hoped this day would never come." Artemida sighed sadly.
"What do you mean?"
"Well…peacefully or, perhaps, not so peacefully," the maid began, pointing towards the uproar. "The Romani always move on eventually."
Grace didn't quite know what to say. She stood in a sort of shocked silence for a while, thinking over the calmness of the last six months. How many times had her and Artemida gently walked into the camp to visit Athalia and her children? How many times had they engaged in a good-natured chat over tea and chicken paprikash? How many times had Grace sung to the baby whilst she watched the men tending to the new foals or repairing their caravans?
All of it now quite literally up in flames.
"This isn't fair. They've done nothing wrong!" Grace cried out, suddenly finding her bravery again.
She took a purposeful step towards the commotion, thinking of Athalia and her children. The other Romani that she'd come to know over the last six months. The measure of peace that their company had given her whilst she'd been stuck in the past.
"Grace, wait!" Artemida cried, grabbing her arm.
Grace looked back at the maid with a frown of confusion. Surely Artemida couldn't watch this happen too. She'd been one of Athalia's guests just as often as Grace had over the last six months.
"It's best not to get involved."
Grace blinked in disbelief. "Not to get involved?"
"This was always going to happen, sooner or later." Artemida said quietly.
"But…but what about Athalia? And Iosif? And little Zaida?"
"They'll find strength amongst their own kind. We must find our strength amongst ours."
"Their own kind?" Grace repeated, shocked that such words were coming from Artemida's mouth.
"Mademoiselle Grace, please. We trade with them, we drink with them, we may even think ourselves 'friends' with them. But we aren't like them. They are Romani. We aren't."
Grace's mouth hung open. The look that settled over Artemida's face cast her in a whole new light now.
"I can't believe this…" Grace breathed. "I can't believe you."
"Mademoiselle Grace, you are naive about so many things but surely you cannot be so naive about this ." The maid said, her voice a measure harder than it had been before.
Grace visibly flinched at that. The words struck her hard.
"This is the way of the world. There are people like us and… others who are-"
"Fine to trade with while the times are good but then you leave them to be abandoned when things turn ugly?" Grace interrupted quickly.
Artemida sighed and shook her head.
"I thought you lot were all about the biblical morality." Grace scoffed. "You know, 'do unto others as you would want done unto you'?"
The maid remained stoic and silent. Everything about her shifted, her whole opinion of her. Grace had thought of Artemida as an ally. Someone to tether herself to in the storm she found herself in. It turned out that she wasn't the safe-port that she had hoped for, and all she felt for her now was disappointment.
"You go back to the Chateau." Grace said coldly. "Tell Jocelyn and Julius I might be late for dinner."
She went striding off towards the commotion, all whilst Artemida called fruitlessly after her.
"Grace!" Grace!"
But she closed her ears to her, determined to try and find Athalia, help her too if she could.
As she drew closer to the Romani camp, the smell of burning wood grew stronger. A few other Romani that she had come to recognise ran past her, coughing and cradling a few belongings in their arms. She grabbed one man by the arm, pulling him to a stop.
"What happened?!"
"The police. They burnt our camp. We had done nothing. We had done nothing!"
Grace let the man go and he ran onwards. It was difficult to see through the smoke and the chaos, so she called out to the fleeing people.
"Athalia!"
"Mama!" The cry of a young boy answered her.
Not who she'd expected to answer her call but it pleased her to hear it nonetheless.
"Iosif! Over here!"
A child came running through the chaos and buried himself in her arms. He pressed himself into her arms and cried.
"I can't find Mama or Zaida." he cried. "I was fishing for minnows in the river when the bad men came. Mama told me not to go that far from camp. She didn't know I was there!"
"It's alright… It's going to be alright…" Grace said soothingly, stroking the boy's hair. "We'll find them."
She turned her face up and cried into the chaos again.
"Athalia!"
"Mamma!"
On and on they both called, for what seemed like an eternity. Then, suddenly, a reply.
"Iosif!"
Mercifully, Athalia came running out of the smog, cradling the young baby in her arms. She rushed to her child and sobbed with relief when he buried his face in her clothes.
"Oh, thank God…" Grace breathed, relief washing through her. "Athalia, what happened?"
When Athalia turned her face to Grace, a snarl of hatred twisted her features.
"The Inspector. He ordered the caravans be burnt."
No sooner had she spoken the name aloud did Grace hear the approach of the thunder of horse hooves. Grace, Athalia and her children pressed themselves up against a willow tree as the horsemen came riding by.
The men of the Police paid them no mind as they galloped past them. They did not laugh, or talk or celebrate their destruction, but instead they were eerily silent. Horsemen of the apocalypse. Grace didn't see the man who led them, in the tall tophat and the flapping leather coat, but Athalia cast a curse after him in her own language as he passed by. Grace could only stare at the cloud of ash and dirt they kicked up in their wake.
"What are we to do now? I have no caravan! No means to feed the children…" Athalia wept.
"Come to the Chateau. We'll be able to give you some breakfast until you're back on your feet."
"I thought our troubles were at an end." Athalia wept quietly. "I thought we had found a place of peace here…"
"I'm so sorry, Athalia… I'm so sorry this has happened to you."
"We grew soft. We allowed ourselves to think that we were safe here."
"I tell you what…" Grace breathed, looking out into the distance, where the horsemen had gone riding off to. "If I find out who the leader of these thugs is, the Police will be getting much more than just a strongly worded letter from me."