"What about that one up there?" Grace asked as she sat on the wall of the Pont au Double. She pointed lazily up to one of the many apartments lining the Parvis Notre-Dame.
"Nah, the family of that one are just in Créteil for the weekend. They'd notice as soon as they came back." replied Eponine.
Her friend was sat beside her on the bridge, watching the water pass underneath them and sharing half a baguette together. She tore off a chunk and handed it to Grace.
Grace took it and began to chew silently. She stared up at the beautiful Notre-Dame cathedral and softly gazed at the building in contemplative thought.
This cathedral has seen a plague, a Revolution, two World Wars and an invasion…and it was felled by an electrical fire in 2019.
Grace remembered watching the news that day and seeing the images and camera footage of the beautiful building before her on fire. Smoke rising from out of the roof. The Paris skyline pink with flames. She remembered the outpouring of grief and sadness from people all around the world when they heard that this building in front of her was ablaze.
And she could see why now.
Notre-Dame was a towering spectacle. A beautiful, alabaster monument to the peace and grace of God. Spectacular and mesmerising. It loomed gigantic above the city around it. Almost as if it was floating above the poverty and squalor beneath. The two great bell towers cast a shadow over the bridge upon which Grace and Eponine sat and this was the only spot in the city where Grace found herself looking up, into the sky, rather than looking down at the mud and the gutters.
Everywhere she looked, there was the placid face of a Saint or the grotesque expression of a gargoyle to study. Hundreds and thousands of small details that would take her a lifetime to catalogue. She could gaze up at Notre-Dame every day for the rest of her life, and there would be new things to notice every time she cast her eyes upwards.
Grace found herself wondering what coming to the steps of Notre-Dame would be like in 2023. How many of the buildings around her would have been turned into gift shops and expensive cafes? When would they eventually rip up the cobblestones and build the ticket office? She even found herself wondering how many clueless tourists had stood upon the exact bridge she was on right now, brandishing their selfie sticks and posing for Instagram.
For the first time, Grace found herself feeling quite appreciative that she was seeing Notre-Dame like this, in 1831, rather than in the modern chaos of 2023. Somehow, she thought it made the cathedral even more spectacular. Even more of a contrast to the rest of city around it.
Today wasn't the first time she'd come to rest just outside of Notre-Dame. It was a convergence spot. All roads in Paris seemed to lead to the Ile-de-Cite and the foothills of the great cathedral. Grace liked to come here, with Eponine, to look out on the rest of the city and share a quiet moment, when one could be found. The Amis d'ABC, however, also liked to use the square in front of Notre-Dame as a rallying point.
Grace reluctantly glanced down from the cathedral to find Enjolras and Marius doing their best to rouse a crowd with their speech. She could vaguely hear their voices on the breeze as they stood with their backs to Notre-Dame, shouting out over the small crowd they had amassed. The two men were both red-faced with exertion, whilst the crowd looked nonplussed at best.
Grace sighed; this was the third time they'd attempted a rally this week.
"More?" Eponine asked, extending another torn chunk of bread out to her.
Grace took it with a nod of thanks.
Gone were the days of buttered greens and beef bourguignon at the Chateau de Montrame. Decadent dinners of multiple dishes were well in the past.
Any food was welcome food, these days. Enolras was still firmly in charge of their finances and Grace felt bad enough asking him to spend his meagre allowance on their lodgings. She let him keep a hold of their money, and when Enjolras tended to remember she still existed, he might buy her dinner…
"What about that one?" Grace said, pointing to another apartment in the square. "They've had their shutters closed for weeks."
"Hmm maybe." Eponine said with a nod.
Grace had never been involved in anything remotely criminal back in 2023, but somehow she'd found herself helping Eponine to scope out a good looting spot.
Whatever situation Grace found herself in, it was still relative luxury compared to Eponine and her family. Every day, she heard tales of their dilapidated hovel, which they somehow managed to squeeze six people in just the one room. Eponine had explained that this was the reason why she preferred to go walking at night, rather than attempt to catch a few restless hours of sleep with the chorus of snores and grunts around her.
Not that the sleeping arrangements lent themselves to comfort in the first place. Most of the poor and destitute in Montmartre were lucky if they had a blanket and some straw on the floor. And with Eponine's mother expecting another baby soon, the idea of any woman giving birth on the cold, unadulterated floor had spurned Grace into joining Eponine's efforts to try and scrounge some furniture for the family.
Currently, the two of them were eyeing up a few of the well-to-do apartments that lined the Parvis Notre-Dame. Eponine had told Grace that a lot of the lords and ladies that had survived the Revolution often kept rooms on the Ile-de-Cite for when they felt like visiting Paris. The trick, Grace had been reliably informed, was identifying an apartment that hadn't been occupied for a while. One in which, if a break-in were to occur, the owners wouldn't realise they were missing anything for a good long while.
"...Even as we speak, cholera rages through the most desperate and desolate parts of this fair city!" Enjolras roared over the crowd.
Grace sighed and shook her head sadly.
It had been a handful to start with. A lacemaker here, a cobbler there. Combeferre had reported half a dozen or so dying of the disease every week.
But then it steadily began to lay whole streets low. And the numbers were slowly climbing.
Having recently lived through a pandemic, Grace saw the patterns of history starting to repeat themselves here in the past. Fear and misinformation were spreading just as quickly as the disease itself. Cafes in the district had started selling lime tea - a supposed 'cure' for the disease. There were even rumours that the Government had intentionally poisoned the drinking wells. But all Grace had to do was look to the sewage running down the middle of the streets to know the true cause of this outbreak.
The world wouldn't discover that cholera was in polluted drinking water for another decade or so. David, as a biochemist, had been particularly interested in John Snow's investigation into cholera in London, and Grace had rigidly stuck to just drinking weak beer. She'd gotten a few funny looks from the likes of the boys of the ABC cafe for her seemingly strange habit, but there was no way she was going to leave this life shitting herself to death…
Grace had tried encouraging them to do the same, with some mixed results.
"Are you still avoiding drinking from the water pumps, like I told you?" She asked Eponine.
"Shh! He's speaking!" Eponine replied.
"That's how much our dear Louis-Phillipe cares about his beloved Parisiens!" Marius chimed in. "He'd be content to allow thousands of you to die of pestilence, whilst he grows fatter on Madeira wine and marzipan fruits!"
The crowd stirred, shouting back a few exclamations of agreement.
"He's a good speaker, isn't he." Eponine said with a gentle sigh.
Grace followed the line of her sight, knowing that she was gazing at Marius before her eyes even settled on him.
"Enjolras should let him address the people more often." Eponine added.
Grace rolled her eyes and continued munching on her baguette. Eponine, when she was around Marius, was insufferable. It was as if nobody else in the world existed when Eponine saw him. If Grace had been in any doubt about Eponine's affections for him before, just one glance at her friend's face told her everything she needed to know. Eponine's expression was brighter, the dark circles under her eyes lightened, her lips quirked into a faint smile…
Grace remembered feeling like that about a boy, and it hadn't ended well…
Still, she could hardly compare David to Marius. Marius was a kind and considerate soul. He was warm and caring, bright and beguiling. Since their first meeting in the Cafe d'ABC, she had come to know Marius just as well as the other men in the Amis. Grace had also managed to weedle some information about him from out of Courfeyrac: the son of an estranged Bonapartist general, raised by his Royalist grandfather, and he caught in the middle. There had been some sort of disagreement, when Marius had received news that father was dying, that had caused him to leave his Grandfather's house and Marius had wandered straight into the arms of the Amis d'ABC. The funeral that Marius had spoken of in their first meeting had been his father's. But even now with him dead and buried, Marius still refused to reconcile with his Grandfather. At first, Marius had refused even to accept the monetary allowance his Aunt Guillenormand sent him, but after some gentle encouragement from Eponine and the other members of the Amis, he'd reluctantly agreed to channel it into "the cause".
And when Enjolras forgot to buy Grace dinner, Marius always seemed to have a sentime or two spare…
"Eponine, Marius could be reading aloud the names of all the streets in Paris, and you'd think he was a good speaker…"
"Oh shut up." She spat back.
Eponine flung a crumb of bread at Grace and it bounced off her face and went plummeting down to the river below.
"Hey! There's no need to waste food!" Grace exclaimed, looking mournfully down at the chunk of bread, lost in the softly flowing river.
"There's more!" Eponine replied, tearing off another chunk and throwing it to Grace.
Grace fumbled but managed to catch the bread without losing it to the Seine again
"Well, can you tell Gavroche to steal us a baguette that's not stale next time?"
Eponine scoffed and shook her head. "Beggars can't be choosers, Degas." She said with a smile.
Grace huffed and rolled her eyes. But no sooner had she inched the bread towards her mouth did she feel it being snatched out of her grasp.
"Hey!"
"That for me, Monsieur?" A coarse and gruff voice uttered beside her.
Grace felt her arms erupt into goosebumps as she felt his foul breath spill over her neck. She almost didn't want to turn and face the owner of that voice, but she did. Instantly, Grace was met by the terrible grinning face of a wretched gentleman. He was missing most of his teeth, and the remaining ones were blackened and rotted. The rest of him was equally as jaundiced and rickety, with his liver-spotted skin and limp strands of hair hanging from underneath his Phrygian cap. He smiled broadly at Grace again, showing her the half-mushed bits of bread in between his rotted teeth. Grace would have told him off for stealing her food, had she not suddenly felt sick to her stomach.
"Oh God, you aren't here to cause trouble are you?" Eponine sighed despondently at him.
"What kind of way is that to talk to your old dad?!" The man responded with a whine.
Grace's eyes widened and flicked backwards and forwards between the two of them.
"This is your…"
"Thénardier's the name. Unless anyone's asking, then I don't have one!"
He laughed raucously and Grace had to lean away from the spittle and crumbs he spat her way.
Grace could feel the tickle of a tune at the back of her mind and she grimaced.
This guy? Really?! She thought to herself.
He was like Eponine and Marius and Enjolras and Cosette. He was part of the story. This disgusting cretin of a man.
She didn't really want to remember the music for this man, but she couldn't quite push it away.
A slow, plodding sort of a melody.
Alternating between A and E.
Played on bassoons and oboes. Comical and also a little sinister.
And Grace narrowed her eyes at this Thénardier gentleman, feeling like she'd hit upon the crux of him.
"You got a spare soux, Monsieur?" He asked Grace. "It would fill me with pride if I could go home to me dear old wife with a bit o' bread for her and all."
"No. Sorry…" Grace replied weakly.
"Oh, but she's expecting, sir!" Announced Thénardier. "A meek and mild Madonna, ready to burst any day now! A woman needs her strength at this time, Monsieur. And we ain't eaten for three days!"
Thénardier's bottom lip quivered and he dabbed away make-believe tears with his filthy sleeve.
"No. I'm sorry, Monsieur." Grace replied weakly.
His stupid, grinning face instantly soured into a look of contempt.
"Pah!" Thénardier spat, hocking up a globule of phlegm at Grace's feet. "You students are all the same. All the brains in the world and not a penny between the lot of you!"
"You'd keep the soux for wine and steal the bread all the same…" Eponine mumbled at him.
Thénardier shot her a vicious scowl. "You'll shut your mouth, my girl, if you don't want a hiding tonight!"
He raised his hand at her, and Eponine gasped quietly and flinched.
The face of comedy, hiding something sinister . Grace thought. Yes. That feels like you summed up
Thénardier huffed and looked at Grace again with an air of bitter contempt. "I dunno what Eponine sees in any of you. When she started hanging' about with that one…" he said, flapping a hand towards Marius. "… I thought she might have finally made herself useful and seduced him."
"Shut up." Eponine muttered quietly.
Grace blinked at Thénardier in shock.
"I said to her, those posh kids like a bit of rough! I've seen 'em taking girls like you as mistresses, or fling a bit of cash their way for one or two fucks here and there…"
"Shut up!"
"But no. She's got her legs clamped together like an oyster, and we're all still as hungry as ever."
"SHUT UP!" Eponine screamed, shoving Thénardier hard in his chest.
"You tellin' me to shut up!? I'll shut you up, my girl!" Thénardier roared back, seizing her by her lapels and placing his balled fist underneath her chin.
"Don't touch her!" Grace cried.
But no sooner had Grace leapt off the wall of the bridge, did she see Marius also rushing to their side to offer his assistance.
"Unhand her at once, Monsieur!" He exclaimed, grabbing Thénardier's shoulder and flinging him halfway across the bridge.
Thénardier stumbled about and fell on his backside with a grunt of rage.
"Ponine, are you alright?" Marius asked gently.
Eponine nodded silently and looked grimly down at her father, still attempting to pick himself up off the floor. He was muttering curses and expletives under his breath as he rose up to his full height, but he managed to silence himself and look squarely into all three of their faces, one by one.
"You two…" he growled, pointing a finger at Marius and Grace both. "…better not find yourself alone in a dark alley down in my bit of town."
"Is that a threat, Monsieur?" Marius asked derisively.
"It's a promise." Thénardier growled back.
Marius scoffed but Grace had the good sense to look a little scared. She'd fallen foul of men in dark alleyways before and, to be quite honest, she didn't want any more difficulties or enemies out there for her.
Thénardier gathered himself up and went slinking off over the Pont au Double. The saints on Notre-Dame watched him go with an air of captiousness.
"I'm sorry about him…" Eponine said timidly. "I better head home. He'll do all of that, and much worse, to Mama and Azelma if someone's not there to stop him."
"But will you be safe there, Ponine?" Marius asked, his eyes shining with care.
Grace watched as Eponine did her best to suppress a swoon but she dutifully shook her head and sighed.
"No one's safe in Montmartre." She sighed. "But don't worry about me. Ponine knows how to survive in this city."
Eponine bade then both goodbye and followed Thénardier over the bridge, disappearing back into the city.
Grace let out a long sigh and took a seat back on the wall of the bridge. She listened to Enjolras for a short while, still preaching to the slightly growing crowd, and Marius eventually took a seat beside her.
"My heart breaks for dear Ponine." He said quietly. "I know you've come to care for her too, Degas. I just wish there was something we could do for her. Raise her out of that hellish place."
"Isn't that what you all want to do?" Grace asked, pointing towards Enjolras. "Raise all of the poor and suffering out of their misery?"
"Of course. But when Combeferre or Courfeyrac or Enjolras used to speak about 'the poor', they always felt like a bit of an abstract. The plight of 'the poor'. The suffering of 'the poor'… It all feels quite distant, quite separate. But then I see Eponine…"
Marius paused for a moment and Grace carefully studied his face. Did she see care and longing there too, like she saw in Eponine's?
"… Well, she is someone I know. Someone I…"
"Someone you care for?" Grace asked gently.
Marius nodded to himself, his face scrunching into a frown. Grace could tell he was internally grappling with some big feelings or some big thoughts, but it was best not to push it. Telling someone, especially a man, that another person was blatantly in love with them never ended well. Grace had seen it happen with a few of her mates back home in Oxford: The oblivious either tended to laugh it off as a joke, hurting the feelings of the other party, or they'd grow cold and distant, refusing to be alone with that person again.
Eponine would never forgive Grace if she forced that change in Marius. She needed his sunshine in her life, whatever form it came in.
The sound of rapidly approaching horses' hooves suddenly made her sit up.
Grace craned her head to peer over the amassed crowd and saw a battalion of mounted police officers ride into the Parvis Notre-Dame. They circled Enjolras and the crowd one by one, hemming them in, and the air suddenly grew quiet and tense.
"Oh no…" Marius muttered.
Grace instinctively rose to her feet, senses now on edge.
One last horseman rode into the square, his head held high and his piercing blue eyes sweeping over the space. His face was a mask of cold alabaster, his expression echoing the stern indifference of the saints on the cathedral's facade.
Grace knew him in an instant.
She gasped and ducked behind Marius.
"It's him! Inspector Javert" She whispered.
Javert trotted his horse up and down his line of mounted officers. He locked eyes with Enjolras and did not take them off him. Like he was stalking him. Like he was a panther sat atop a stallion.
"As Chief Inspector of the Prefecture de Police of Paris, I order you to disperse at once!"
Even underneath the dark shadow that his top hat cast, Grace could feel the fire of his gaze.
"These people have come to hear me talk! Freedom of speech should be a right in a democratic society, Sir!" Enjolras shouted back.
"You are gathered here illegally! In accordance with the 1828 Bourbonist Laws, banquets, fundraisings, public demonstrations and strikes involving more than six people are banned!"
"The people will not be silenced, Sir!"
"You are all subjects of the King of France, and are therefore all accountable to his law! You will disperse!"
His voice was booming thunder, echoing up through the white bell towers and sending a flock of pigeons scattering. Even Grace found herself trembling in its wake.
"Louis-Philippe may be King of France, but he will never be King of the French!"
The crowd cried out in agreement with Enjolras.
"This is going to get ugly…" Grace whispered to Marius.
"You know this man, Degas?" Marius asked quietly.
"Yes. And let's just say he has a reputation for how he deals with 'unwanted' crowds."
"We have no quarrel with you, Sir." Enjolras said placatingly. "Our quarrel is with the gang of thieves who call themselves 'The State'."
"The State is the Law! And I am the Law!"
The space between them grew deathly quiet. Enjolras and Javert both glowered at one another, jaws clenched tight,
"Sabres!" Javert suddenly cried.
In unison, all of the mounted officers pulled forth their blades and held them aloft. The sound of hissing metal peeled through the air.
"Marius, we need to get out of here." Grace said in a tremble, tugging on his arm.
Grace had hoped that the crowd might be sufficiently scared by the show of force. But her hopes were dashed when a man in the crowd bent to the floor and threw a rather sizable tock at one of the horsemen.
"Oh fuck…" Grace sighed.
More men followed. Dipping to the ground and throwing stones at the armed policemen. Their horses brayed in alarm and stomped all over the cobblestones.
What had once been ordered and civilised very quickly turned into chaos.
Shouts turned to screams. Horses brayed with panic Rubble and rocks went flying through the air.
"Men, detain these criminals!" Javert cried.
The officers charged forwards, sabres swinging, and the screams grew louder.
"Enjolras!" Marius screamed through the chaos.
Grace's eyes searched the faces in the crowd, amongst the stamping horse legs and the silver flash of blades.
"Enjolras!" She cried too.
"Go! Both of you!" A voice cried out from atop the steps of the cathedral.
There he was, all at once. Enjolras. His nose was bloody and his shirt was torn, but he was out of that chaotic crowd. And alive.
"Go! I'll meet you back at the Cafe!" He shouted again.
Enjolras didn't wait a moment longer. He turned on his heels and went sprinting around the side of Notre-Dame.
There was no time to draw a breath of relief; Grace felt eyes upon her. Icy blue eyes from underneath a shadowy brim. She turned to see the steely gaze of Javert fixed her way. His frown was deep and his anger palpable. Her stomach turned to jelly inside her.
Grace pulled her boy's cap down hard over her face.
"Marius! Marius, come on!" She cried desperately.
This seemed to rouse him enough to move, and the two of them finally set off running over the Pont au Double. Away from Notre-Dame. Away from the fighting.
Javert squinted after the two fleeing boys. Something niggled at his insides that made him feel out of sorts. But he couldn't quite place why….
Malloirave rode up beside him on his horse, bringing him suddenly back down to earth.
"Shall I pursue them, Inspector?" He asked, pointing after the two fleeing men.
"They've taken-off in the direction of Saint-Germaine, Malloirave. Into which, they will disappear like two rats scurrying back into a nest. You'll never find them."
"We're… letting them go, Sir?"
"We are picking our battles, Sergeant." The Inspector replied curtly. "And I'd say we have enough to occupy ourselves with here."
He pointed back towards the crowd in front of the cathedral. The rest of the mounted police officers were beginning to wrestle the main ringleaders away to the detention cells, whilst their women wailed and beat their fists against the backs of officers.
Javert sighed to himself. It would all be routine from now on: Another brawl in the street, another dozen or so prisoners to catalogue and detain, another incident report for him to fill out…
But this little brawl, it was all relatively small-fry. None of the demonstrators had been armed. No one had been expecting a fight. So, dealing with them had been easy.
Cracking a walnut with a hammer, perhaps, but it had quashed whatever it had the potential of becoming.
Nevertheless, Javert felt a tug of disappointment inside him. The main ringleader, the student he had been conversing with, he had realised all too late that it was the Enjolras boy. Javert had been so focused on searching for Grace's face in this city that he had neglected to recall Marcelin's to mind too. Now, he thought himself quite the fool. He had stood mere feet from the boy and he had flown the nest, disappeared from right under his nose.
Still, he didn't allow himself to feel too disappointed. He had hoped that finding Marcelin would mean finding Grace, and she was nowhere to be seen.
She had not been here.
Weeks of searching, and she had not been here.
Javert had volunteered himself at the first Army recruitment stall he'd happened upon. Perhaps it had been two weeks, or maybe three, after Camille had ended their relationship. But he had been drawn to the recruiting officer's desk like a doomed moth to a flame.
He'd sold Vendetta to the nearest logger he could find. The horse was the one final thing that tied him to Froid, tied him to France, tied him to his life here. And he wanted rid of it.
The logger had swindled him. Offering him barely half of the worth of a strong, trained beast like Vendetta. But he'd always detested that horse. Javert was happy for someone else to be the recipient of his bites and kicks, because it wouldn't be him anymore. With any luck, the logger would realise in a month or two that the beast was beyond training and he'd be sold for glue.
He'd used the money to buy his uniform, and he put the rest in a soldier's pension for himself. When he came back, the finance officer had told him, he'd have a nice lump sum to return to.
When he came back.
He didn't want to come back. Not for all the gold in France.
Most of the other recruits thought basic training to be a gruelling and punishing experience. Javert had found it little different to the rest of his existence. The Drill-Sergeants were inclined to cruelty and degradation. The rations were basic and watery. The exercises were repetitive and taxing. All in all, he found the transition from his boyhood with Froid into his manhood with the army almost indistinguishable.
It was as if he had prepared and trained for the Army already. It felt natural. It felt normal.
And when the other recruits used to lie in their beds in the bunk-halls at night, moaning about how they could no longer take a piss without the approval of the Staff Sergeant, Javert kept his mouth shut.
He drank the poor-quality wine served in the mess-hall without complaint, he answered his superiors only with a 'yes, sir', he repeated drills and recited the same lines instantly upon command, and he wondered that perhaps he was always destined for the Army.
He learned to hide himself in the marches. The only thing that seemed to smother his pain was the drone and repetition of his feet pounding the mud and grass.
He liked having every detail of his existence commanded and controlled. It removed the need to think. Because thinking only led his mind back to Camille. And thinking about Camille made his insides twist.
He'd always flirted with the idea of the Army, before Camille had put a damper on it. So, he tried to pretend that this had been his plan all along.
To bear the Eagle of the Grand Armée.
To don the royal blue of the Chasseurs.
And to carry always with him his busby hat, his musket and rapier, his weighted pack on his back, and the pride of France in his heart.
But they would all become heavy burdens to bear in the heat of the Egyptian desert.
One hundred and eighty ships had sailed from France, with Javert and his battalion leaving from the port of Toulon.
Forty thousand men. Eight hundred horses. Six artillery cannons per infantry division.
Military bands had played on the decks of the ships whilst the men hollered and screamed out 'La Marseillaise' as they sailed past Napoleon's flagship on the way out of the harbour. And still, Javert's spirits had been as black as coal. He'd taken to the bowels of the ship, keeping himself to himself, nothing of the revelry going on above him touched even the edges of his heart. He listened to the pounding footsteps of the dances and drunken celebration above him in complete silence. Staring up at the rats running over the rafters.
Malta seemed like a distant and pleasant memory. A short respite on the Mediterranean island had stocked the men with as many oranges as they could cram inside their pockets, and one last dalliance with the especially beautiful Maltese women, but it was a short-lived moment of peace.
Weeks at sea had made him groggy with seasickness. The living quarters below-deck swiftly became an overcrowded nightmare, with the smell of human body-odour and the cramped conditions reminding Javert of his early life in the prison. The wine caskets leaked, the salt beef became tainted and the hard-tack biscuits were infested with weevils. The other men in his battalion complained to no end about the shoddy supplies they had been left with, and not even this could rouse Javert to engagement. For the boy that had been dubbed 'yeaux-vert' and had craved food so fervently, his appetite seemed to have died alongside his love for Camille.
If he starved to death on board this god-forsaken ship, then so be it.
He heard rumours that the English were close by. The sailors were half-anticipating an attack from Lord Nelson. They nervously kept an eye on the horizon and squinted through the sea mist for British sails.
But again, Javert thought: if he was blown to kingdom come by English cannons, then so be it.
Still, against all the odds, Lord Nelson didn't find them and Napoleon's fleet landed in the harbours of Alexandria six weeks later.
Men that had been permanently green with sea-malaise for the past month or so went rushing for the longboats. And as darkness fell on that first afternoon on African shores, Javert found himself similarly disembarking.
The air was thick and warm. Buzzing creatures swarmed about their heads. Palm trees swayed on the shoreside in the crackling wind.
And the stars were so clear in the sky. Clearer than they had been in France. Like the hand of God had scattered diamond dust over an indigo silk sky.
They were… beautiful.
Resplendent.
So silent and sure in spite of the chaos beneath them.
Javert's childhood and youth had rarely called for study of the heavens. It would have been perceived as a colossal waste of his time and energy. But now he looked. He looked at it all, concentrating on one star at a time and marvelling at how it could fill the darkness and loneliness of the void around it. And it took his breath away.
In looking up into the stars, he was gone. For just a moment, he felt the burden of himself leave. Dwarfed, dominated, transcended by the enormity of the magnificent cosmos above him.
And it was wonderful to be gone.
But the world beneath would not allow him to fully go.
He sensed the swell of the river increase, he knew that there were too many other men in the boat with him, he felt his longboat capsizing…
The waters of Alexandria harbour came rushing up to him. He plunged, face first, into its black and murky depths, still clutching his rifle in his hands. Choking saltwater filled his mouth and surged up his nose. Screams rang the air.
He couldn't swim. There had been little cause for Froid to teach him or for the Army to instruct him. And neither could most of the men also in the water around him. The water turned into a thrashing of limbs. His woollen uniform turned heavy and sodden, dragging him down. The screaming continued.
But the only thought Javert could muster in his mind was, If I drown here, in this unknown place, then so be it.
Until a hand reached out and grabbed him squarely between his shoulders.
He felt himself being lifted out of the harbour. A fist clenched around the sodden fabric of his jacket. And the next thing he knew, he was staring up at the stars in the sky, on his back, on the deck of another longboat.
"Fortune hasn't abandoned you today, Monsieur!" said the acutely grinning Chasseur who had pulled him to safety.
Javert coughed and emptied his mouth of the sea water he had swallowed.
"That's right, get it all up!" the Chasseur said, patting him forcefully on the back.
Javert retched until his stomach burned and the Chasseur grinned, his gap-toothed smile hovering over him.
When Javert breathed deeply, looking up at his saviour, he found the man's canteen extended out towards him. He took it without a second thought, downing a hearty swig of water hungrily.
"Oi! Leave a little for your old confr è re, Burgelesse!"
Javert felt the canteen being snatched back away from his lips and for a moment, he stared at the man who had pulled him from the water in shocked silence. Other Chasseurs were pulling more drowning men from the water and soon the longboat was filling up with more sodden and half-dead men like him, but the man who had made himself known as Burgelesse took a seat beside Javert.
"I almost left you, y'know." Burgelesse said, his voice a little too light and jovial. "You weren't screaming. I thought you might already be dead."
Javert had been about to say 'You should have left me', but something about the face of the man beside him, and his moronic gap-toothed smile made him stop.
"I learnt how to swim just before Lonato, when we marched to Lake Garda. I've been with General Bonaparte for a while, y'see. All the way through Italy, and proud of it..."
The man began to ramble, and Javert was still too shell-shocked to interrupt him.
"...And back then, my old commanding officer told me 'there's nothin' more dangerous than a soldier that doesn't know how to swim, Burgelesse! It can be the difference between life and death.' Life and death, he said!"
He paused for a moment, looking to Javert for some kind of conformation. Javert nodded silently and swallowed hard.
"Th-thank you." he stuttered.
"Ahh, just doin' my christian duty!" Burgelesse boomed, slapping Javert on the back again. "Of course, my old commanding officer also told us that eating a rotten peach could also be the difference between life and death…"
Burgelesse talked on about his old commanding officer, going through all of the advice and pep-talks he'd given during the long and eventful Italy campaign. It seemed that Burgelesse barely paused to draw breath and eventually Javert tuned him out.
The longboat's hull ground on the gravel of the shore, and with a shuddering stop, Javert found himself on the shores of Egypt. Forty five men had drowned during the landing, but there was no time to mourn them. Javert was helped to solid ground by the ever-chattering Burgelesse, and the surviving men began the set-up of their first camp upon African soil.
As the rest of the army assembled on the beaches, Javert, as well as several others who had fallen foul of the water, began disrobing and attempting to dry out their sodden uniforms, kit and rations on the sandy ground. Spirits were low; after weeks of the misery of the sea, they were all now plunged into the darkness of this unknown land, far from France, and with the bodies of the drowned floating just offshore.
Burgelesse had stayed stuck to Javert's side. He talked incessantly and was entirely too chipper for Javert's liking, but he had the rough and readiness of an experienced soldier. Burgelesse had the unnatural ability of being able to speak about one thing, whilst his hands and body were utterly preoccupied by another thing. For the past few hours, he'd been beguiling Javert with the various merits of goats cheese, whilst he swiftly moved about camp, establishing a fire and setting to cleaning his rifle, as well as taking Javert's sodden weapon from out of his hands.
Javert watched him in a sort of silent fascination. He didn't speak ;Burgelesse didn't need him to. He conversed with himself and spoke enough for at least two men combined . And even if Javert had wanted to join the conversation, the shock of almost drowning had stolen his voice.
All night Burgelesse talked of some nonsense or another. He filled the silence and plugged the void in those strange hours. Those full lips and gappy teeth never once stopped moving. Javert studied his face carefully as he spoke. He was clearly a weathered soldier, perhaps fifteen years Javert's senior, with skin taut and brown, like a leather satchel. He had a soldier's frame too; not large and bulky, but short and compact. Built for endurance and stamina. Squared and lean. His fingers were blackened by tobacco and gunpowder, but they moved with almost a strange, quick grace as he worked on the rifles.
And then the sun rose.
Dawn broke over the horizon and the temperature crept in behind it.
Egypt, Javert soon discovered, was unbearably hot.
For a boy that had grown up in Caen, and the mild wetness of Northern France, the heat in Africa was stifling.
His boots fit poorly and the sweat ran down the back of his woollen coat. It was a bad uniform for a country that made skin blister and temples throb.
Soon, the canteens were empty, as were the meagre wells the scouts had discovered nearby in the night.
When the shadows were at their shortest, the generals rode amongst the men and ordered them to form marching columns.
"Here we go! On the move!" Burgelesse said, rubbing his hands together and getting to his feet.
He swung his rifle over his shoulder and extended a hand down to Javert. He took it silently, and the experienced soldier pulled him to a stand. Javert wobbled on his legs, but Burgelesse held his shoulders firmly until he was still.
"Come on, soldier! You're in the army now. Ain't nobody gonna look after you but you!"
Nevertheless, Burgelesse handed Javert his rifle back, as well as his backpack of supplies, and winked at him.
Javert had done nothing for this man. He had made no attempt to foster any relationship with any of the men in his battalion, and if it were his choice, he would not have fostered a camaraderie with a man like Burgelesse. And still, here he was. A brother in arms.
And all Javert could do was blink wordlessly at him, not sure of what to do with the tiny spark of emotion inside him.
"Besides, you don't wanna be at the rear of the columns." Burgelesse added, pulling Javert into formation. "Makes you easy pickings for the enemy!"
Javert marched on as if in a dream. The summer sun beat down mercilessly upon them as boots pounded the earth. True to Burgelesse's warnings, he could see horse-mounted men on the horizon, swooping in every few miles or so to sink their sabers into those at the back.
Thirst raged in his throat. Empty canteens rattled. Eventually, his sweat even stopped coming.
When they reached the walls of Alexandria, the shouts went up and the cries of the Generals roared loud.
"Take the city! Napoleon forbids raping and pillaging! Take the Sheikh alive!"
The steady and pounding march suddenly stopped. Men became like locusts and swarmed. Burgelesse seized him by the arm and dragged him on as the first shots rang out.
Gunfire, prattling and sharp, rang in his ears. Every piercing sound sent a shockwave of terror through his body.
"Move! There'll be wells inside!" Burgelesse screamed in his ear.
He gripped his rifle tight to him, arms shaking and breaths rapid. Burgelesse took off running, aiming for a crumbled hole in the city walls. Other men were swarming it too, desperately scrabbling over the tan rocks in search of water.
The instinct to survive told Javert to follow. Burgelesse was an experienced soldier, and he was still as green as the spring barley. He didn't need prompting again and rushed after his newfound comrade with speed.
The city was strange and different to anywhere he'd known in France. The domed ceilings of mosques towered up above, with flat-roofed, squat houses crammed tightly around them. He saw his first Egyptian in that moment, a sniper leaning out of a nearby upper window, shooting at the French soldiers below. He was soon dispatched by a sharpshooter and the Egyptian fell from the window, landing with a sickening thud on a cart of terracotta pots below.
It was the first time Javert saw a man being slain.
"Come on!" Burgelesse prompted him, and with rifles pointed outwards, they made their way through the streets.
He had his finger poised over the trigger of his gun, but his hands were shaking so violently he wouldn't have been able to fire it if he'd tried. Somehow sensing this, Burgelesse led the way, glancing back to him every few paces and giving him a reassuring grin.
The Officers had said no pillaging and raping, but as they passed through the streets of Alexandria, Javert could hear women screaming. They passed the bodies of old men with bayonet wounds leaking from their chests. Wailing children, huddled in the doorway of their houses. Soldiers dragging robed women out into the street by their hair. But most of the French soldiers swarming the streets weren't concerned with tormenting the locals; they were searching for wells.
Javert's ears practically burned when he heard the distant splash of water.
Burgelesse abruptly halted.
They both turned towards each other with the spark of covetousness in their eyes.
Burgelesse smiled wide and let out a gleeful laugh. They both broke out into a run, their dry, crusty mouths leading the way.
There were dozens of men poised around the well. They drank from their canteens with vigour, water pouring over their faces, down the corners of their mouths, drenching the front of their uniforms. The sight of it almost moved Javert to tears.
Another private lifted his face from out of the well's bucket and shook his sodden face with a laugh. The other soldiers around him laughed too, continuing to gorge themselves on the delicious water.
Javert and Burgelesse were soon at the well-side too. They dipped their canteens into the bucket and the seconds it took to glug full felt like a lifetime. But soon, they were both able to quench their thirst, raising the neck of their canteens to their lips and almost inhaling the sweet liquid.
"Ain't that the best drink you've ever had in your life, ehh?!" Burgelesse laughed, elbowing Javert in the arm.
It was true. It was the most delicious drink Javert had ever had. In his whole existence, he could not recall a drink that tasted better than the one he had poised on the edge of that well, with Burgelesse beside him.
"Better than cognac…chartreuse… the finest champagne in all of France!" He replied with a deep, throaty laugh.
"Well, I'll be the son of a whore! He does speak!" Burgelesse exclaimed. "I'm not gonna lie, I was beginnin' to think you might be some sort of mute imbecile."
"And I was beginning to think you'd never shut up." Javert responded dryly.
Burgelesse burst out into raucous laughter. He slapped Javert on the back, just as he was about to take another deep swig of water. Javert spluttered and spat out his mouthful, all whilst Burgelesse screamed with laughter.
If this is what soldiering was like, then he might be able to make a decent go of it.