For once, Grace had a captive and quiet audience in the Cafe d'ABC.
She looked up from the battered piano's keys to see Gavroche's little gang staring wide-eyed up at her.
"And then Ariel whispered to Flounder, 'Maybe he's right. Maybe there is something the matter with me'."
One of the little ones was sucking his thumb as he listened.
"'What do you mean, Ariel?' Flounder replied. 'Well, I just don't see how a world that makes such wonderful things can be bad'..."
She paused in her delicate tinkling, just to make sure their small faces were open-mouthed with anticipation.
Grace had always loved kids. Performing for them was a special sort of magic. Back home, she'd once worked in a duo with a singer friend of hers. They'd go to children's parties to perform, her friend dressed up as some kind of Disney princess, and Grace playing the piano accompaniment. Seeing their little faces brighten when Pocahontas or Belle or Cinderella turned up for them never got old. However, they'd had to stop when her friend got pregnant. No one wanted an obviously up-the-duff Queen Elsa at their kid's birthday party…
Today, however, she was narrating, playing, and singing.
Gavroche's little troupe had clearly never experienced anything like this. She doubted they'd ever been to see a performer, she doubted they'd ever heard a story like this, she doubted if they'd ever even been read to before…
"And so, Ariel looked around her cave of collections with wistful, far-away eyes.."
She hoped that Hans Christien Anderson wasn't lurking behind one corner or another… There had been none of his books in the bookshops and libraries Grace had been inside whilst she'd been here, and no other 'fairy-tale' style books either. Hopefully, his stories were already out in the world somewhere, and she wasn't going to cause some major time anachronism by giving the world The Little Mermaid too early…
But she'd already done it with Tchaikovsky and Abba… and this world hadn't imploded. But with such a captive audience as Gavroche's boys, listening with amazement, it was hard to deny them. And who knew, perhaps one of these little ones would become a distant descendant of Walt Disney…
"... and she began to sing."
Grace started the first few tinkling notes of Part of Your World, reminded of the last time she'd played this for Allana back home. She wondered for a brief moment if Mrs Middleditch had found another voice coach for her daughter in Grace's absence. She couldn't quite bring herself to be disappointed. Her ears might one day fully recover.
Grace herself wasn't a fantastic singer… but she was a damn site better than Allana. So, she opened her mouth and began:
"Look at this stuff
Isn't it neat?
Wouldn't you think my collection's complete?
Wouldn't you think I'm the girl
The girl who has everything?"
She saw Joly put down his handful of leaflets out the corner of her eye. He pretended to reorganise them into another pile, but his head was cocked a little to the left as he listened. He'd been pretending not to be listening since she'd started.
On she went, picturing that distant childhood film in her mind's eye and doing her best to sound like Jodie Benson for her audience.
"You want thingamabobs?
I got twenty!"
She announced, picking up a fork from off the piano's lid.
The boys laughed. Joly, in the corner of the cafe, cracked a smile too.
Grace took them through the floating and gentle melody, telling them about a mermaid's desires and dreams. Perhaps it would make them forget about their own world for a little while as they were submerged in Ariel's. They deserved to be kids, just for a little bit.
"When's it my turn?
Wouldn't I love
Love to explore that shore up above."
She paused, the cafe utterly silent as her audience listened in rapt fascination.
"Out of the sea
Wish I could be
Part of that world…"
She finished the song, not missing Joly's small dab at his eyes with the edge of his sleeve. The little boys sighed as a collective and looked at one another.
"Does she see the Prince again, Degas?" One of the little ones asked her, his wide eyes eager for more.
"You'll have to wait and see, won't you."
"But how's she ever gonna walk on land?" The boy with his thumb in his mouth asked. "I've seen fish in the market here. When they bring 'em out the water, they wiggle for a bit and then they die."
"Is Ariel gonna die, Degas?!" Another boy asked, horror on his face.
"No! No…" Grace replied, and they seemed soothed by this. She wasn't going to give them the real Hans Christian Anderson ending; they had enough death and misery in their lives as it was. "But she's going to have to fight really hard to get what she wants, won't she."
"An' you lot, lollygaggin about in here, instead of grafting away down the Luxembourg gardens are gonna have to work hard if you wanna eat tonight!" Gavroche exclaimed.
Grace hadn't heard him come into the cafe. But the boys all sprang to their feet and rushed for the door. They were all gone in a matter of moments, leaving Grace poised at the piano without an audience.
She closed the piano lid with a sigh and stood up.
"Sorry, Gavroche…" she mumbled to the boy. "I know I kept them for too long today, but little Laigle asked for one more chapter and-"
"Oh it's alright. All they'll have to do is put on a bit of a limp, or snap on a fake eyepatch and the rich ladies will be fawning over 'em like a pack of puppies."
He wandered into the Cafe, hands in his pockets. Again, Grace noticed just how much more adult and commanding he seemed when compared to the others. But he was a boy himself. Exactly the sort of age Grace and her Disney Princess friend would have been performing to back home.
"For your time." The boy said, placing a shiny sentime down on the lid of the piano. "Same time again, day after tomorrow?"
"Gavroche, I told you, I won't accept any money off you." Grace replied, pushing the coin back to him.
"You're makin' me embarrassed!" Gavroche exclaimed. "No one expects the cobbler or the blacksmith to work for free."
"Well, it's a good thing I'm not working then." Grace added, winking at him. "And when did you start being honest? Normally you'd just steal what you needed from the cobbler or the blacksmith."
"Yeah, but… You can't steal a song, can you?"
Grace closed her mouth and blinked at him. Gavroche cracked her a cheeky smile and shrugged his little shoulders.
"Anyway, I was asked t'fetch you. Monsieur Enjolras asked me to bring you t'him."
"Oh, I've been gracefully granted an audience with Monsieur Patriarch, have I?"
She heard Joly snicker at that in the back of the cafe.
Since the Amis had all reconvened, after the heat had died down after the riot, they had launched straight back into their cause. No real time had been given for sentimental reunions. It was a quick headcount, all present and alive, and then straight back to business. Everyone had been given their own little list of activities to complete by Enjolras. Joly was currently working on one of his: creating anti-monarchy leaflets to be distributed out to the public. The others, Courfeyrac, Combeferre, Bahorel, Feuilly, were off out in the city somewhere, on their special missions.
Everyone, except Grace, had been given their tasks by Enjolras. And she'd been left, feeling like a loose end, to wait and aimlessly mill about in the cafe.
"He said you might be a bit tart with me." Gavroche said. "But he's waitin' for you now, if you're ready?"
Grace pushed a sigh out through her nose. She hated being 'summoned' to Enjolras like this. Clicking his fingers and then she turns up dutifully at his side. But she reluctantly swallowed down her pride and stood to attention.
"Alright. Lead the way, good Sir."
Gavroche took off into the streets and Grace had to jog to keep up with him.
The boy led her through Montmartre, glancing back every so often to make sure she was following. He nodded his head to the citizens of Paris as he passed them by, knowing each and every one of them, it seemed. With a tip of his cap, he said hello to the rat-catcher, the brick-layers, the washer-women, all of whom said hello back. Sometimes they'd cast a glance at Grace and give her a quick greeting too, but most of the time not.
Eventually, Gavroche led her away from the throng of people out and about on the streets, and sauntered down a deserted alleyway.
"You aren't gonna try and mug me again, are you?" Grace asked, gripping tight to her satchel, sewn into the inner lining of her coat.
"Nah. You're too much of an easy target. I'd feel bad for ya."
Grace choked on her indignation as the little boy bent to the floor. She watched as he toyed with a large, circular iron disc in the pavement, gasping aloud as it lifted away and revealed a large, stinking pit.
"Welcome to the underbelly of Paris!" He announced, standing up straight.
"Ugh..! Literally!" Grace groaned, covering her nose from the smell that wafted up out of the hole. "The sewers? Enjolras wants me to meet him down in the sewers?!"
"Hey, don't shoot the messenger!" He protested, holding his grubby hands up. "I was just told to bring you 'ere."
Grace narrowed her eyes at him.
"Dangle your legs over first…" he said, demonstrating for her. "… and then jump. It's only a six foot drop, or so. Hope you don't have weak ankles…"
Gavroche disappeared down the hole and Grace heard a faint splash down below. She winced, wondering what she was going to put her feet into, but nevertheless, still moved towards the sewer hole and mirrored what Gavroche had done. Dangling her legs into the dimness first, she held her breath and plunged herself into the darkness.
It felt like she was going to fall forever. Her vision was instantly blacked-out and she could have been plummeting through ink, or obsidian or charcoal. But with a shuddering jolt, her feet landed with a splash on the floor of a huge sewer pipe.
Once she'd taken in a few gasps of air, she looked around the pipe. The single beam of light from the hole above illuminated the space around her, although, as she glanced down the pipe, she saw other beams of light, equally spaced apart, every fifty yards or so.
The walls were lined with dirty red bricks, and a small stream of filth flowed down the pipe. Grace covered her nose and mouth again. In a city infected with cholera, she could have done without being down here…
"C'mon. This way." Gavroche said, tugging her on the sleeve.
The boy lead the way, walking off down the pipe, and Grace dutifully followed. She did her best to keep her feet out of the water and sludge in the middle of the pipe, but in the darkness it was difficult to see where she was stepping. On second thought, Grace didn't want to know what she was stepping in.
"I showed 'em this place, I did." Gavroche explained as he lead Grace through the dark. "Me an' the fellas use it to get around without running into the Prèfecture on the streets above."
"A subterranean map of the city…" Grace breathed, glancing up and down the pipe. They branched off for what looked like miles in each direction.
"Very useful, if you don't mind the smell!"
"Hmm…" Grace grumbled.
"You'll get used to it."
"Yeah… People say that to me a lot here…"
Eventually, she heard echoey voices in the distance, strange and warped as they bounced off the bricks. They could have been wailing banshees, or odd warbling spirits in the gloom.
"That's them." Gavroche said, almost as if he'd sensed her unease. "You'll probably be pleased t'know they're in a pipe that's not used anymore."
"Would have been great news, if my boots weren't ruined anyway…." Grace grumbled.
They rounded a corner, and there, waiting for them was Enjolras and Grantaire.
"Ah! You made it!" Grantaire said by way of greeting.
Grace glanced from him to Enjolras, noticing the long rifle her 'cousin' bore in his arms. She frowned at it and then him silently.
"Thank you, Gavroche." Enjolras said. He flicked a coin at him through the gloom that the boy expertly plucked from the air.
Gavroche tipped his hat to them all and went whistling back down the pipe.
After a few seconds of silence, Grace turned back to the men and frowned.
"So, what's all this about?" She asked, approaching them. "Why are we down here?"
"To practise, Degas." Grantaire said with a half-smile. He picked up his own rifle, which had been lying on a nearby wooden crate. "Down here, no one can hear the bangs, you see."
Grace looked to Enjolras for clarification.
"Perhaps I was wrong in forcing you away from the demonstration the other day..." he said to Grace slowly.
Grace raised an eyebrow at him.
"You were right, in saying that you should be doing much more here than you were in Provins. And I'm sorry if I've been…restricting of you. It's because you're, well… family."
Grace knew that they weren't really "family", but the sentiment nevertheless touched her heart.
"But I see now that I cannot give anybody preferential treatment, as it were, simply by virtue of being born to the same ancestral tree as I." Enjolras continued. "In the great fight to come, we will need every man available. Relation of mine, or not."
"Well… good." Grace said, nodding her head. Although she didn't feel like telling Enjolras that, judging from the ways some of the boys had limped their way back into the cafe, perhaps it had been a good thing she'd not been at the demonstration.
"However, I would feel slightly more assuaged in this decision if I knew you were properly able to…defend yourself." Enjolras said, holding out the rifle towards her.
"You…" Grace said, eyeing it up. "…you want me to…"
"To learn how to shoot, Degas!" Grantaire cried, his voice booming in the brick pipe. "Do not feel embarrassed. We taught Feuilly and Combeferre down here too."
She took the rifle from out of Enjolras's hands. It was heavy. She didn't know how to hold it naturally.
"Have you ever fired a gun before?" Enjolras asked her.
She shook her head.
"No. I thought as much."
She swallowed hard, turning the weapon over in her hands. But she looked up at Enjolras with determination in her eyes and nodded.
"Whaey!" Grantaire exclaimed, slapping her heartily on the back. "Come on then, let's get straight to it!"
He grabbed Grace by the arm and pulled her towards a bit of a makeshift shooting range they'd constructed in the sewer. About thirty feet away stood a collection of bottles and jugs placed upon some more wooden crates.
"Right, first off, get your stance sorted!" Grantaire said, pushing Grace's feet apart with the butt of his rifle. "You don't wanna stumble over when the kickback hits you."
"Wait, hang on…" Grace said unsurely. "… I… I don't mean to be rude, but… you're teaching me to shoot?"
"Degas! You cut me to the quick!" Grantaire said, grabbing his breast dramatically.
"I've ensured that our…comrade is sober for this endeavour, Cousin." Enjolras chimed in swiftly.
"My father had dozens of hunting lodges in the countryside." Grantaire said with a small, dismissive wave of his hand. "Every week, we were out tracking deer or boars or partridges or something…"
"My aim is passable, but it's not as good as Grantaire's." Enjolras added. "He's probably the best marksman of us all."
The smile that lit up Grantaire's face could have melted snow. Grace was quick enough to catch it before Grantaire tried to bury his genuine emotion in a deprecatingly theatrical bow. She'd seen a very similar expression on Eponine's face whenever Marius paid her a compliment…
Still, she didn't have time to dwell on this thought as Grantaire pushed her back into the start position, telling her to space her feet apart and turn to the side.
"Right, place the butt of the rifle in your shoulder and look down the barrel. Always keep both eyes open."
"Uhh… okay."
"Do you see the latch there?"
"Yes."
"That's the pan. Lift it up. That's where you're going to pour the powder."
"Umm…"
Grantaire produced a paper cartridge from his pocket and handed it to Grace. "Bite it."
"What?"
"Bite off the top and pour half the powder into the pan!"
Grace did as she was told, tearing through the cartridge with her teeth as the smell of raw gunpowder surged up her nose. For a moment, she was reminded of The Inspector. That dangerous and yet somehow also comforting smell of his…
"Come on, man!" Grantaire prompted her.
Grace shook the thoughts of Javert from her mind and poured the powder into the gun.
"Now you need to cast the rifle down. Pour the rest of the powder down the barrel. And stuff the paper in too. It will stop the musket ball from sliding out."
"But you didn't give me a musket ball…" Grace said confusedly.
"Ha! This one catches on quick!" Grantaire said to Enjolras. "I tell you, you're a faster learner than Feuilly was. He fired about three blank rounds before he figured it out!"
Enjolras held out a small, spherical ball to her. Grace took it in her fingers, feeling a mounting sense of nervousness inside her. It was heavier than it looked. Pure, solid lead. But she put the musket ball inside the barrel of the gun too and turned back to Grantaire to be told what to do next.
"Then get your ram, and pack it down."
Grace's hands were shaking a little as she followed Grantaire's instructions. It took her a while to line up the ram and get it into the barrel of the rifle, but she eventually did.
"Remember to take the ram rod out. I've seen people in a rush forget and they end up causing their whole gun to explode!"
"Oh, God…" Grace said nervously.
"Then you can full-cock the rifle." Grantaire said as he reached up and pulled back the small lever at the top of the gun for her. "And you're ready to fire."
Grace gripped the rifle firmly. She glanced down the barrel, aiming for one of the glass bottles at the end of the sewage pipe. She tried to calm her hammering heart, tried to stop her hands from shaking. But as she squeezed the trigger, panic rose up inside her.
The bang was deafening.
The spray of smoke and gunpowder plumed into her face.
She felt a firm stab into her shoulder as the rifle kicked back into her.
And as she gasped and coughed, waiting for the rush of adrenaline in her body to subside, she peered down the shooting range.
Grace had hoped to see a smashed bottle, or a destroyed jug, but there was nothing. They were all intact.
"Oh well." Grantaire said with a shrug of his shoulders. "Not to worry, Degas. No one's ever a crack-shot on their first attempt. Did you close your eyes when you fired?"
"Well, yes. The smoke…And the noise…"
"No, no, no no, no… Remember what I said! Always keep both eyes open! I know it's a natural instinct to want to shut your eyes when the gun goes off, but you've got to un-learn that instinct."
"How?" she asked unsurely.
Grantaire held out another paper cartridge to her. "Practise." he said with a playful grin.
"And you've got to learn to repeat all of that quickly." Enjolras added, his brow set in that familiar, serious frown. "And under duress."
"Duress..?" she repeated, a slight warble in her voice.
"Come! Go again!" Grantaire commanded, waving the cartridge at her again.
Grace let out a long puff of air and took it from him. Swallowing hard, she looked down at the rifle again, feeling that the colour and flavour of her life here had changed very suddenly.
"Right. Tell me again…What do I do first?"
The Battle of the Pyramids was a smudge in his memory. He couldn't recall that much of it, despite being told throughout the years, that it was a grand and historic event that changed the shape of the world…
To Javert, it was just another brawl in the desert but on a grander scale.
The pyramids hadn't even been visible that day. They'd been over fifteen kilometres away, hidden in the warping heat of the sands. Not a mere stone's throw away, as the painters and poets would have had the world believe.
All Javert could recall was having the rip-roaring shits. Burgelesse too. Napoleon had spoken of 'forty years of history gazing down upon them' on those field outside of Giza. But if the eyes of history were looking down upon them, they would have seen hundreds of men like Javert, fresh out of the desert and having gorged themselves upon the watermelon fields of the Nile delta. The Generals had told them to cook or boil them first, but to desperately thirsty men, these orders went unheeded and they gulped them down raw.
Javert didn't know of a single soldier in his battalion that didn't have diarrhoea on that day.
The Mamluks then receded back into Upper Egypt. Running away, down the Nile, pursued by one of Napoleon's Generals. The savants went with them too, including Laplace and his star charts, and the tales of what they saw in the heartland of Egypt made the French public salivate with wonder.
Javert and Burgelesse, however, had not gone with them. Instead, they had been left in Cairo.
But the British, those spectres that had chased them all the way from Malta, finally caught up with them.
They could hear the pounding of Nelson's fleet just off the coast. The night sky lit up with the ochre of canon fire. Every single French ship that had brought them here, destroyed. And Burgelesse turned to Javert and told him,
"Well, we're stranded here now."
But if Napoleon himself had felt a stir of unease, he hadn't shown it. Again, he had stretched out his hand and ordered the Grand Armeè into Syria. Perhaps he wanted to be Alexander the Great, perhaps he wanted to do what Louis IX had failed to do in his Crusade. But the ambitions of great men meant little to the rank-and-file likes of Javert and Burgelesse. They were told that they would be moving out for Acre, and they did as they were told without complaint.
Once more, with backpacks mounted on their shoulders and Chasseurs hat firmly placed on their heads, they returned to the desert.
Javert had steeled himself for another soul crushing march through the desert, but that was not to be the case. They kept to the coast, taking Jaffa and Haifa without much of a fight, and as they journeyed on into the Holy Land, spirits remained high.
Acre was built on a peninsula, jutting out into the sea to protect its harbour below the southern wall. From a distance, Javert could see the dome and minaret of the main mosque and the palace of the Ottoman lord from up on the hill just outside the city walls. But as they grew closer, on the ramparts they could see the heads of the scouts and the first battalion that had got too close…
Soon, the French were digging in, excavating a line of trenches across the neck of land that faced the walls. They were camouflaged somewhat by the straw bales and gardens and orchards and the ruins of the ancient aqueduct. It took a week to fully scrape out the dirt from those zig-zag trenches, and it was back breaking work. Javert's hands blistered and his spine bent crooked as they removed spade after spade of dirt from the earth.
"If I wanted to be a labourer, I'd have stayed in Caen." He muttered to Burgelesse.
"Rather be putting bullets into men, would you?" Burgelesse asked, eyebrow raised at Javert.
"Wh…No. I mean…I meant-"
"I'm only teasin', Soldier!" Burgelesse laughed. "Are you ever gonna tell me why you left Caen? I ain't met a soldier yet that wasn't running away from something in France."
Javert went quiet, wiping his brow of sweat and resuming his digging. One of the reasons he'd come to like Burgelesse was because he did the talking for the both of them. He wasn't used to Burgelesse asking him to speak…
"Ahh! I knew it!" Burgelesse exclaimed.
"Knew what, you grande guele?"
"A man your age, and that particular shade of melancholy that hangs over your head, ain't no other reason you'd join the army but because of a woman."
Javert almost froze in place. He broke out in a cold sweat as Burgelesse laughed teasingly at him. Camille had chased him the whole way through the desert, lurking at the edges of his mind to seize him with sorrow as soon as he had a moment to himself. It took a tremendous amount of effort to drive her out of his thoughts, and now there she was. Raven-haired and obsidian eyed. Right in the forefront of his vision.
"Go on then, what was her name?" Burgelesse asked.
Javert swallowed hard and resumed his hard digging. Spade striking the soil rhythmically.
"Camille." He grumbled.
Her name, that had once tasted so sweet and rich on his tongue, now felt bitter.
"And was she beautiful?" Asked Burgelesse.
He thought about ignoring him. Perhaps Burgelesse would get the hint and drop the topic, or perhaps he'd talk and talk and talk, badgering him until he just gave up the information he wanted…
"Yes." Javert said shortly.
"And was she soft?"
"Yes."
"And was she cruel?"
"Yes."
Burgelesse laughed again. "I must've heard that about forty dozen women, from 'ere to Turin."
"Well, this one was especially cruel." Javert grumbled, striking the soil again. Pain shot through his hands as he dug, but he liked it. It distracted him from the pain in his chest…
"Beautiful women often are. Broke your heart, did she?"
"Christ sake! Can't you see I don't want to discuss it?!" Javert roared.
Burgelesse shrank back from him as if he were a desert cobra.
"It helps to talk about it, Soldier…" he said quietly.
"Not for me. And if you mention it again, I'll bash your head in with this shovel. Perhaps that will finally shut you up!"
Javert threw his spade down into the dirt and went striding off into the camp.
For weeks, they didn't speak.
A knock yanked Javert back into the land of the living. It felt like he was being dragged over glass. Plunged into an ice bath. Raked over hot coals.
"Burgelesse?" He called out, sweaty and feverish.
"Uh, it's Malloirave, Sir."
Javert tried to blink away the last of his delirium. It was becoming harder to keep the memories at bay, especially the ones he didn't want to remember.
His brow was slick with sweat, although he trembled with cold as soon as he removed his blankets. The contents of his stomach lay at the bottom of his chamber pot under his bed. And he couldn't stop shaking.
"Sir, do you need any assistance?" Malloirave asked again.
He tried to sit up, but pain shot through him, emanating out from the wound above his hip. He ground his teeth together as he swallowed his pain down, scrunching his eyes tight.
He almost didn't want to look at it. It had been getting steadily, inevitably worse ever since the day of the dyers riot. But he forced himself to see it.
Inflamed.
Weeping.
Red.
He covered himself up again, as if he could somehow bury it in his bedsheets and it would just go away.
"I…I have an illness Malloirave." He called out to his Sergeant, voice shaky. "Nothing to call the doctor over, just a migraine, I believe."
"Oh, Sir… My mother used to get them dreadfully. Would you like me to bring you some supper?" Malloirave asked on the other side of the door.
Javert retched at the idea of eating. He would have vomited into his chamber pot again had there been anything left inside him to get out.
"N-no…Thank you, Sergeant."
He was shaking so violently, he struggled to keep the quiver out of his voice.
"I shall tell the men that you're indisposed for tonight."
"V-very good, Sergeant." He answered thickly. He swallowed down the bile in the back of his throat and tried to compose himself. "You can lead them on their evening and morning patrols in my absence."
"Of course, Sir. I hope you feel revived soon, Sir."
Malloirave clicked his heels and Javert could almost picture him saluting to the shut door in his mind's eye. He listened intently for the sound of Malloirave's boots to recede into the distance before he let out a long sigh.
He was thirsty. But the water jug was all the way over on the other side of the room.
Javert tried to stand on his feet, but each muscle in his body shook and trembled too. His legs almost failed him as he stumbled over to his set of drawers. The jug rocked on top of it as he collided with it, but he picked it up in both hands and drank like he'd never had water in his entire life.
When he set it down, he caught his reflection in the small mirror above the drawers.
The man that looked back at him was haggard. Sallow. Sunken-eyed. Drenched in sweat.
And frightened.
He bent his head and tried to centre himself. He did not permit himself to feel afraid. If he was going to die, then he was going to die. No use fretting about it.
But perhaps that would have been the lie he'd have told himself before.
Now, as he stumbled back into his bed, it did little to calm his racing heart.
He had changed. He wasn't the man who looked upon dying as something inevitable anymore. There was much, it turned out, that he wanted to live for.
He wondered what Grace would think when he didn't turn up for their next scheduled meeting on the Pont au Double. Would she turn up herself at all? After all, he'd behaved so abysmally towards her, and it pained him to think he'd be taking that argument to his grave. And if she did turn up, put it aside, would her first thoughts be ones of relief? She'd finally be free of those loathsome and tedious meetings with the bad-tempered Inspector.
But as he lay himself down and closed his eyes, Javert prayed that he might dream of Grace when his feverish sleep took him once more. But he knew he wouldn't. His mind seemed to want to torment him with the worst moments of his life.
He couldn't be allowed to die peacefully. No. That would be too much like a kindness for him.
The countryside of Acre wasn't like the desert.
It was lush. Gentle. Accommodating.
The friendly Druze villagers were happy to trade their fruit and herd animals with the French soldiers and their camp became more and more like a country fair as the days rolled by. Wine, spirits, figs, bread, grapes, butter… They had it all in abundance.
Occasionally the Ottomans would fire a volley of artillery their way, but Napoleon returned this little show with canon fire of his own. And on and on this tit-for-tat exchange went for a month.
And then it started.
Like the slow encroach of a toothache, it had carved out a deep and putrid cavity in the ranks by the time they'd realised they were in trouble.
Plague.
With all of its swelling and sickness and buboes and pus.
Then the demand amongst the soldiers wasn't for fruits and meat anymore. It was for quinine, lemons, vinegar, alcohol… anything that they thought would protect them from the spread of the disease.
The Generals told them to wash their feet and faces and hands in warm water mixed with the strongest gin they could find to avoid getting it. But for the men who had already caught it, Javert could hear their screams as their pustules were lanced from halfway across the encampment.
They eventually built a hospital for the sick. On the slopes of Mount Carmel, the dead and dying were brought to the doctors. At first, it had been perhaps twenty a day, with the grave-diggers burying four poor souls before sun down. Then, it crept into the hundreds. And the graves soon became plague-pits.
Burgelesse was waiting for him, eyes wide with fear and neck swollen with buboes. Javert covered his mouth with his handkerchief as he drew nearer. But he could hear Burgelesse struggling to draw breath under the huge, bulbous protrusions pressing up against his windpipe. Dark patches of blood had bloomed under his skin and he stank of his own faeces. The doctors had tried spreading hay on the floor to soak up the piss and vomit, but the whole place smelt like death. Sour, acrid death.
He silently grappled for something to say. Something that would stop the inside of his chest feeling hollow.
Burgelesse had once plucked him from the water and saved him from drowning. Now it was his turn to save him, he couldn't.
He couldn't save anybody.
What was the point of him being put on this earth if his presence in it didn't matter at all?
He couldn't bring his mother with him out of that desolate prison, he couldn't make Froid his father, he couldn't make Camille love him…
…and now the closest thing he'd ever had to a friendship was going to wither and die in this dreadful place.
His already cold heart hardened a little more as he watched Burgelesse struggling for his last breaths.
He extended a hand out to Burgelesse, but stopped himself. They'd been told not to touch the sick. With shaking fingers, he clenched his jaw and lowered his hand back down to his side. Burgelesse looked up at him with fear in his eyes. He wanted someone to hold his hand through death, to sit at his side and whisper comforts to him, but Javert couldn't.
Javert had never been taught to show much care or affection, but he wished, so desperately, that he could in that moment. He ground his teeth as hot, furious tears rose in his eyes. Fists balled at his side, he shook with anger.
He opened his mouth again, desperately trying to think of something to say to the dying man.
What would he want someone to say to him when his time came? What would offer him a small modicum of peace when faced with the great, yawning chasm of death?
But Burgelesse gurgled and looked into Javert's eyes.
"Do you…" the dying man choked out. "Do you…t-truly think… God can't find us here?"
Each word was a battle. Each breath a rasp. His chest heaved and his eyes popped as he fought for air.
"B-because…I'd like to…I need to see m-my boy again."
Javer closed his eyes, trapping his tears inside him before they could slip out. He had been told that lying was a sin by Froid. But he couldn't look into Burgelesse's frightened face and tell him the ugly truth. Not now.
"No. I don't think that." Javert told him softly. "And if He gets lost, I'll tell him where to find you."
Burgelesse smiled weakly at him. Something light settled over his gaze and Javert felt a little envious that he'd never known a peace like the one he saw in Burgelesse's face in that moment.
And when they buried Burgelesse in the plague-pit at the back of the hospital tent, Javert buried the last twitching remains of his heart with him.