Chapter 30 - 'Ah, ça ira!'
So much of the next few days passed by in a blur.
Grace couldn't seem to keep her head on one single thought or one single emotion.
All of these hidden secrets and intertwining pasts…
And the world seemed to march on, despite the massive, ground shaking revelations of the past few days:
Cosette and Eponine were children together.
Marius and Cosette had fallen head-over-heels for one another after one chance encounter.
The name 'Jean Valjean' had slipped from her mouth and still screamed around her mind.
A storm was coming.
And she was in love with Javert.
And quite frankly, she didn't know which one of these revelations made her feel the queasiest.
The boys were all in the café, milling around her in a blur of bodies and banter.
It was rare for them to be in the same place together. Enjolras had made each one of them run miles across the city of Paris, stirring up trouble. But Grace sat amongst their excited chaos, gently staring out of the café window, none of them paying her any mind. If they had bothered to speak to her, she wasn't sure she could have spoken back.
She was at a loose end. She felt like that looming storm was just over the horizon, but she didn't know how to batten down the hatches and prepare for it. Still, if she couldn't run from it, maybe she could dig her heels in and refuse to move any closer to it.
But her heart was so full, her mind throbbing with so many thoughts, that it felt almost impossible to sit still.
She wanted to act. But what to even do? Where to even begin?
So, she'd retreated into herself, spending hours alone, up in her chambers. Wasting down the battery of her recently returned phone, she'd stare at pictures of her mum until her eyes felt sore.
She spoke to her, or at least tried to hear her voice through the storm of noise in her mind. Asking her mum the same question:
Mum, what do I do?
What do I do?
What do I do?
She wished so hard that the pictures would speak back. Stared at the pictures of her mother's mouth for so long she fooled herself once or twice into believing they'd moved. And she finally understood how saints and martyrs swore that the lips of the Virgin Mary spoke to them.
It was only when she got the dreaded 'Low Battery. 20% remaining' warning, did she snap to her senses.
From then on, her phone had remained in her pocket, or tucked under her pillow. She resisted the urge to look at her old life. It couldn't help her now. It was no use to her here. She had to stand on her own two feet and find the best route forwards. But it was hard, knowing that wherever she stepped, the road was fraught with mines.
Grantaire plonked a glass of brandy down right in front of her.
She flinched and looked up at him, bringing herself suddenly back to the ABC cafe from wherever her mind had been.
"Cheer up, Degas." He said glibly. "You've got a face like a slapped arse."
She shot daggers at Grantaire, refusing to crack even the faintest of smiles, and drained the glass in one.
"You got any more of that stuff kicking about?"
"I'll just leave the bottle then, shall I?" He said, placing the brandy down beside her glass.
"Don't count on getting it back."
Grace grabbed the bottle and poured herself another glass. She looked out the cafe window again and Grantaire had the good sense to leave her alone to her thoughts. She appreciated that he'd tried, but she was in no mood for his antics.
Her ears heard the muffled and blended conversations of the boys around her. Feuilly was arguing with someone about Polish independence, Bahorel was discussing the results of last night's boxing match, Courfeyrac was talking in some rather lewd tones about the barmaid he'd spent last night with, and Enjolras, as ever, was barking out orders to the lot of them.
"How are our sections around Notre-Dame?"
"Good. Prepared. We have several allies in that region willing to help us build when the time comes." Combeferre replied.
"And what about the coffin-carvers down by the river? Are they still willing to contribute their timber?"
"Yes. Last time I spoke. Although, if this cholera epidemic gets any worse, we might find that they don't have any timber to spare."
"Hmm." Enjolras said thoughtfully. "Perhaps we should act sooner rather than later then."
Grace frowned and turned her head towards the two of them. She'd not heard any of this before in the stolen snippets of conversations she'd overheard.
Building? Timber? She thought, her heartbeat suddenly quickening. What on earth are they planning now?
She caught Enjolras's eye over the table of maps and plans in front of him. Her stare was searching and curious. However, Enjolras quickly looked away and resumed his conversation with Combeferre in a quieter voice. Grace slumped her shoulders and turned back to the cafe window.
The front door swung open and in walked Marius.
"Now where on earth have you been?!" Enjolras shouted at him from across the room. "I sent out orders to meet here hours ago!"
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I wasn't at my lodgings when your note arrived." Marius said hastily.
"It is important, now more than ever, that you make yourself available, Marius!" Enjolras continued in a patronisingly admonishing tone.
"I know. I'm sorry." He replied feebly.
"So where were you?" Courfeyrac chimed in, sauntering over to Marius with a curious brow raised.
"I bet I can guess…" Grantaire said wickedly.
When Marius turned scarlet from ear to ear, a collective groan went up from the others in the cafe.
"You were down the Rue Plumet again?" Asked Enjolras, his own face growing red with anger.
"You don't know what it's like to be apart from her!" Marius crooned. "My world is all but black and shades of grey."
"Including being here with us? Oh, you're almost as charming as Degas today, Marius!" Grantaire laughed, shooting a sidelong glance at Grace.
Grace returned his 'complement' with a rude, and decidedly modern, gesture. Although Grantaire seemed to understand the gist of it and merely winked back at her.
Eponine had indeed mustered up the courage to take Marius to the Rue Plumet. She had come back from that first meeting to Grace's chambers, eyes red and puffy. Grace had said nothing, merely opened up her arms for Eponine to fall into, and she had cried like a child for hours.
"He loves her…He really loves her…" is all she'd say, in between her breathless sobs.
"I'm sorry." is all Grace could think of to say back, as she stroked her hair.
Since then, Marius had been unbearable to be around. He'd spoken about nothing else, extolling Cosette's beauty and grace as if he'd been discussing a vision of an archangel rather than a real woman. She'd lost count of the number of times he'd secretly snuck off from underneath Enjolras's thumb to meet Cosette in secret. Grace could only wonder how Marius managed to stay out of sight of Toussaint and Fauchelevent.
"How hilarious." Grantaire said raucously. "You talk of battles and barricades, Enjolras, and in swans Casanova, interrupting it all!"
"Barricades?!" Grace exclaimed.
She didn't know why the word sent a bolt of terror through her. But her blood suddenly felt thick inside her.
"Enjolras, what's he talking about?" She asked.
Enjolras gave Grantaire a look that could have soured milk. He turned to Grace with his perfectly serious face and stared at her for a long moment.
"You are no longer a member of the movement. I do not see why we should disclose our plans to you."
Grace flinched away from the blow he'd just struck her.
A tense, awkward silence settled over the cafe.
"Oh, come now, Enjolras." Joly said jovially. "This isn't just anyone, it's Degas!"
"Degas chose 'out', so he stays out. Do not mistake my decision to keep him here as anything other than my….familial responsibilities."
Another blow. Straight to the heart. Grace felt her eyes prickle with tears.
"You are either part of this revolution, or an enemy of it. I will not have half-measures from anyone." Enjolras said firmly. "The people deserve a revolution of total commitment. Nothing less!"
Enjolras turned his attentions solely on Marius, his eyes almost on fire with the heat of his words.
"There are other things more important than your bleeding heart now, Marius. The tide is finally turning. Paris is on our side. Now, you have to decide if you are prepared to sail with it, or miss the boat entirely."
"Be kind to him, Enjolras." Grantaire piped up bravely. He approached Marius and gave him a reassuring pat on the back. "The boy's never been in love before."
"Love is a dangerous distraction from duty!" He roared at Grantaire. "It is a selfish endeavour to even indulge it now! We strive towards a much larger goal than whatever nonsense marrs our little lives!"
"Nonsense?!" Marius chuckled. "Enjolras, I have never felt so felled by anything else in existence! The world is turned upside down. What was wrong is now right, and what was right now seems-"
"Then you must decide." Enjolras interrupted quickly. "When our ranks begin to form, and the storm finally above us, will your place be here with us, or there with her?"
Marius closed his mouth. No one dared speak in the silence that followed.
Grace felt her body trembling with a mixture of rage and fear. She wanted to say something. Desperately searched around her scrambled mind for something to say back to Enjolras and undermine his pretty little speech. But she couldn't. Even cast out to the fringes of his control, Enjolras still had a way of making her feel like she was under his spell.
"Uhh…pardon the interruption, gents." piped up a small voice at the back of the room.
They all turned to face it as one and found little Gavroche standing just inside the door of the cafe. Grace hadn't heard him come in. Nobody had, judging by the array of surprised faces that greeted the boy.
"Gavroche…" Enjolras breathed, fighting down some of the fervour in his eyes. "Did you collect what I asked from the bank?"
Gavroche nodded enthusiastically.
"That bit of paper that you get every month…" the boy said, slapping an envelope down on the desk for him.
Grace eyed it up coldly. She knew it was most likely Julius and Jocelyn's allowance for their son. That money that they couldn't quite bring themselves to stop sending. And Enjolras wasn't even collecting it himself anymore…
"And there was somethin' else." Gavroche continued, pulling out another letter from his pocket. "The toff at the bank said that this also came for you a few weeks back. He didn't 'ave any idea where you were living, so he gave it to me t' give to you."
Enjolras took the letter as if he were accepting a live snake from the boy's hands. Grace knew that, judging by his disdainful reaction, that could only mean it was a letter from his parents. He disappeared into the back of the cafe, eyeing up the paper cautiously, turning it over in his hands. But Grace, for some reason she couldn't quite place, couldn't take her eyes off him.
"Oh, and I'm guessin' you've all heard the news." Gavroche said to the others.
"What news?" Feuilly asked.
But Grace wasn't listening to them. Her eyes were firmly fixed on Enjolras. Watching him from the other side of the cafe as he slowly sat down on a chair and opened up the letter.
"You mean you ain't heard? There were people cryin' in the streets outside his house." Gavroche said.
"Crying why, Gavroche?" Combeferre pressed.
Grace couldn't stop looking. Couldn't stop watching as Enjolras's eyes settled on the letter in his lap. His expression changed. His breathing changed. And Grace felt a tautness growing in her chest.
"The King's men came and took 'im away. Apparently there's gonna be some big to-do for 'im!" The young boy said.
But the words washed over Grace as she saw Enjolras release the letter. Allowing it to slide out of his hands, onto the cafe floor.
She couldn't stay still any longer. Grace rose up from out of her seat and began pushing her way through the cafe towards him.
"For who, Gavroche?!" Courfeyrac said forcefully. "For God's sake, spit it out, boy!"
"What is it? What's happened?" Grace said to Enjolras.
He looked up at her with a vacant expression. His dark brown eyes wide and his skin a shade paler than it had been before.
"He's finally bought it." Gavroche stated with a shrug of his little shoulders. "General Lamarque."
A reverent silence fell over the cafe. The boys bowed their heads as one.
Feuilly made the sign of the cross and muttered a prayer to the quiet air. "Eternal rest, grant unto him, O Lord. And let perpetual light shine upon him…"
Enjolras seemed to snap out of whatever enchantment had momentarily overtaken him. He jumped to his feet, almost knocking Grace over as he charged towards Gavroche.
"Lamarque is dead?" He asked the boy. "That's what you said?"
Gavroche nodded his head.
"Lamarque…The people's man... The last spokesman for the people…. Gentlemen, this is it!"
"What is?" Bahorel asked, folding his arms sceptically.
"And that tyrant, Louis-Philippe, took his body you say?" Enjolras scoffed. "Wants to bury him as a good little royalist?! How dare he. This is it, gentlemen. This is what we've been needing!"
"You mean..?" Feuilly asked breathily.
"Yes! This is it! This is the moment we have been awaiting! The final event that will forever change the tide in our favour!" Enjolras cried. His voice sounded almost manic. Almost wild. "With their candles of grief, we can kindle our flame! The tomb of Lamarque will be the foundation-stone for our barricades!"
"Use his funeral as our rallying cry…" Courfeyrac nodded, his face brightening up with the same revolutionary zeal that lit Enjolras's.
"This is not a moment of grief, gentlemen, this is a moment of joy!" Enjolras continued on. "We must welcome it gladly with courage and hope! And we must take to the streets at once! Tell people of the good news! If our allies are as they say they are, then they will answer our call! The time is here! The moment is now!"
Enjolras ran from the cafe, leading the charge as the others followed him in suit. A few of them started braying out an old revolutionary song. Grace had heard it being sung at a few of the demonstrations and gatherings that Enjolras had orchestrated. They clapped their hands and beat each other on the backs in time to the melody. It was meant to be a song of hope and zeal, but with its pounding and thumping and violent accompaniment, Grace couldn't help the shiver of fear that crept up her spine as it travelled over the roofs of Montmartre.
"Ah, ça ira, ça ira, ça ira!
Les aristocrates à la lanterne!
Ah, ça ira, ça ira, ça ira!
Les aristocrates, on les pendra!"
####
"Oh. It'll be okay, be okay, be okay!
Hang the aristocrats from on high!
Oh. It'll be okay, be okay, be okay!
The aristocrats, we'll hang 'em all!"
Their cries of jubilant, bloodthirsty hope rang out long after they had gone from Grace's sights.
She was left feeling winded and confused. It had all happened so quickly. So fast.
She turned back to Enjolras's letter, left abandoned on the floor of the cafe, and scooped it up into her hands. It was short. Only a few lines of scratched black ink. But the gut punch of those words, the stab to her heart that Grace felt when she read it, made her choke with a sudden agony.
'Marcelin,
Your mother died of The Blue Death two days ago.
She forbade me to write to you and inform you that she was ill. And I respected her wishes.
She did not suffer long. One of the maids caught it last week and it spread through the Chateau like wildfire. She was gone by the third day of her discomfort.
She made me promise in her last moments that I would continue to send you your monthly allowance. And God forgive me, I cannot refuse her anything.
Your father,
Julius
Grace sank down into the chair Enjolras had sat in. She wept bitterly. Crying for poor, kind Jocelyn. Crying for heartbroken Julius.
And Enjolras, now utterly untethered.
Nothing now to stop him from charging head-first into the front lines.
That storm, that she had senses so near, had finally cracked its first rumbles of thunder over her head.
Javert waited outside the Prèfet's office in that same little alcove that he had been in when he had first arrived in Paris.
He had been summoned. And since that first introductory meeting, the Prèfet had left him to his own activities, uninterrupted. So, whatever his commanding officer wanted, it had to be serious.
Eventually, the Prèfet's secretary appeared from out of the lion-head doors and fetched him inside. He removed his tophat and moved to stand before the Prèfet's desk, an uneasy feeling growing in his stomach.
The Prèfet was bent low over a cascade of papers and maps, muttering quietly to himself. Javert cleared his throat to remind him that he was standing there. He looked up at Javert, as if he were surprised to see him there, despite being the one to have summoned him.
"Javert… take a seat." he muttered, pointing to the chair opposite his desk.
Javert did so, taking a careful look at the maps and plans of the city the Prèfet had in front of him. He recognised the streets in an instant. It was Montmartre. His area of town.
"No doubt you've heard the news." the Prèfet said suddenly, pulling Javert sharply out of his perusing of the maps before him.
"About General Lamarque? Yes, sir."
"Hmm."
The Prèfet wandered over to a large mahogany cabinet on the other side of the office. He poured out two glasses of dark liquid from a crystal decanter and turned to Javert with one arm outstretched.
Javert felt like refusing the drink. But one did not say 'no' to the Prèfet and expect to be in his good graces thereafter. He took the glass from his hand and the Prèfet raised his in toast.
"To Jean Maximilene Lamarque. Hero of Capri."
"I knew a few men who had served with him in Italy." Javert nodded thoughtfully. "To a good soldier."
They clinked glasses and Javert took a hesitant sip of his brandy. The Prèfet drained his glass in a few thirsty gulps and waddled back over to the desk.
"The King has said he wants a full military cortege for him." he grumbled to Javert.
Javert's eyes widened in surprise. "For a staunch Republican and a Napoleonic hero? That is…brave, Sir."
"Hmm. My thoughts exactly. I think he is hoping to piggy-back off of Lamarque's popularity with the people. He is not a liked man at the moment, Inspector."
"No, Sir." Javert said quietly. Once upon a time, to admit such things would have been treason, but for Louis-Philippe, the writing was on the wall. "When is the funeral due to take place?"
"In three days. Gives us time to bring in the National Guard ."
"The National Guard?!" Javert repeated, his voice betraying the slightest ring of alarm. "Are we truly expecting that much trouble?"
The Prèfet nodded solemnly. "Which brings me on to why I have asked you here, Inspector."
Javert took a long moment to compose himself. He felt his heart hammering inside him as the Préfet settled down heavily into his desk chair.
"These insurgents that you have been monitoring in Montmartre…" he said leadingly.
"Malloirave and I have followed up on any confirmed sightings of these men." Javert stated. "But following their movements has been difficult. We've put out several rewards. The leader in particular is wanted for conspiracy to incite violence. He's got a pretty price on his head. But no one in the district is prepared to speak to the police."
Partly true, partly untrue. Most people in Montmartre did tend to stay well clear of the police, but Javert had men like Thenardier who'd been more than willing to tell him where the 'boys of the ABC gang' congregated. He was embarrassed to admit that the reason why he'd not acted upon this intel was because of Grace. He'd promised her, once upon a time, that he'd never come calling at the ABC cafe, and if he were ever to sweep in with the rest of his battalion on horseback, he could not guarantee that she'd come out of it unscathed.
Still, he felt the gentle prickle of shame on his brow. He hoped that the sweat of guilt on his forehead was unnoticeable to the Prèfet. If it ever came to light that he'd known all along where the amis d'ABC had been hiding, it wouldn't just cost him his honour, it would be a court-martial.
Is that why the Prèfet had asked him here?
Was it some sort of interrogation aimed at trying to make him crack?
The man who had first sat in this office would never have dreamed of lying to the Préfet. Now, he was willing to lay down his life to make sure they never got to Grace.
"Tell me, Inspector. Did you ever do any espionage during your service in the Grand Armeè?"
The question took Javert by surprise. It took him a few moments to find his voice, but he eventually cleared his throat of the nervous lump that had risen there.
"Uhh… a few of us pretended to be Austrians during the retreat from Moscow, Sir. It was the easiest way to avoid capture. But all I had to do was steal a uniform and keep my mouth shut."
"These men, the ones causing all the trouble down in Montmartre, do they know your face?"
"I…I don't believe so, Sir."
"Good. That's good..." The Préfet said thoughtfully.
There was a beat of silence. A whole swirl of thoughts coursed around Javert's mind.
"Inspector, I'd like you to go under-cover with these men." The Préfet said suddenly.
He let his shock show on his face. Javert stood before the Préfet with his mouth slightly open.
"I…I beg your pardon, Sir?"
"This uprising, revolution, demonstration, whatever it is, it needs to be nipped in the bud. You have proven yourself to be an efficient man in the past. With an officer like yourself on the inside, we may finally find out exactly how to bring down their little house of cards."
"Sir, I…"
He hesitated. Swallowing down the words he'd been about to say.
"What is it, Inspector?" The Préfet asked, more suspicion in his voice than concern.
"Who…Who would lead the battalion in my absence?" He said quickly. He didn't want the Préfet thinking he was shrinking away from his duties.
"What about that young gentleman, Malloirave? You've been extolling his skills and abilities for quite some time. I daresay we could make him a Colonel."
He nodded his head and bit his lip.
Could he refuse? He had never dared refuse orders from above, even if it meant peril or almost certain death. It was not his place to.
Should he refuse? Perhaps the best place for him in this nebula of chaos was to put himself in between Grace and the bedlam that was building.
"When do I begin, Sir?" He finally asked.
The Préfet looked him up and down, a pleased smile spreading across his face.
"As soon as you can find yourselves some civilian clothes, Inspector."
The question of who Monsieur Madeline was had kept him awake for weeks now.
His old master, Monsieur Froid, would visit him in his dreams to admonish him on his abysmal memory.
Froid would often beat him, when he was a child, if he failed one of his memory tests. He would give Javert a long list of seemingly unconnected objects - a porcelain vase, a chemise, a trowel, a white wig, seven lumps of coal - and if Javert got any of the details wrong, or failed to remember anything in the long list he'd been given, he'd have his knuckles rapped with a wooden ruler.
But as his time in Montreuil-sur-Mer dragged on, he simply could not put a name to his face.
So, he simply threw himself into his work and allowed his old mentor to torment his nights.
Despite the saintly Monsieur Madeline's efforts, the town was still infested with crime. He made a point of patrolling the docks in the late evening. That was when the whores tended to be at their most active. The smell down there was a pungent mix of burning oil lamps and cockles. The wooden palisades that the women would drape themselves over were slick with green rot. And Javert was not at all surprised to find some of the well-to-do men he'd introduced himself to in his first days in Montreuil-sur-Mer wandering about for that evening's 'company'.
It was foggy that evening. A thick sea mist had blown in off the waves. The weather had been bitterly cold recently, and pitiful clumps of sopping wet snow amassed on the ground. He moved like a spectre through the fog. A vengeful spirit. Sometimes when the whores got desperate for customers, they came up to Le Miny Park, leaving the dockyards behind. And it had been a good few weeks since a boatload of sailors had docked in Montreuil-sur-Mer. If he was lucky, he might arrest four, or even five of the temptresses tonight.
There was something about the combination of both snow and fog that penetrated a frigid cold deep into his bones. It set his teeth permanently chattering, the skin beneath his coat studded with goosebumps. But he took the cold in deep. Let it turn him into hard metal. Like a dagger plunged into ice water to harden it into a weapon.
He walked the park with his hands clasped behind his back, feet ticking along the pavement in a regimented rhythm. Some of the gentlemen perusing the gardens at this time of night gave him a sheepish nod of acknowledgement. He dipped his head to them only momentarily before going back to his own thoughts.
Perhaps Madeline had been one of Froid's associates?
Or maybe he had been present at one of the officers' balls over the years?
He tried to squeeze out information from his mind. Wringing out his memories in the hopes that a drop of recollection would come his way. But not a morsel would yield itself to him.
His mood became blacker and blacker. The scowl on his face would have made small children cry. So, when the shout for help went up somewhere else in the park, he answered it with almost a mood of annoyance.
When he had trudged through the snow and found the source of the commotion, he discovered a gentleman that he knew by the name of Bamatabois hunched over and clutching at his face.
"You little whore!" Bamatabois screamed at a woman, cowering in the snow at his feet. "You've marked me! I'll see you pay for this!"
"Monsieur Bamatabois." Javert said, eliciting a yelp of surprise from the gentleman as he turned around to face him. "What appears to be the problem?"
"This whore attacked me, Inspector!" he cried, taking his hand from his face to point at the pitiful creature on the ground. A series of three ugly scratches shone red on his cheek.
The woman whimpered in protest, too frightened to even muster words in front of the Inspector. She was skeletal thin, the bones of her back poking through the thinness of her dress. Her hair was gone, as were a few of her front teeth. She looked more like a creature of nightmares, rather than a woman. All painfully thin limbs and braying, harsh sobs.
"Make me a full report, Bamatabois." Javert said irritably. "Tell me quickly and plainly what happened."
"Well, I was merely crossing through the park, minding my own business, when this vile creature came at me with her nails!"
"That is not true!" the woman screeched, trying to drag herself to her feet. She wobbled on shaky legs, coughing like a deep, rumbling cloud of thunder, and eventually sank back down to the floor, her breaths short and sharp. "He… he tormented me. He threw snow at my back!"
"He threw snow at your back?" The Inspector repeated incredulously.
"He had been bothering me for quite some time!" she continued, her voice shaky with despair. "He called me names! Said I had no teeth and no hair! I know I don't have teeth or hair! He just wanted to be cruel to me. He called me a homely little wretch!"
"Lies! All of this is lies, Inspector!" Bamatabois interjected.
"But he still wanted to have me!" the whore sobbed on. "He still demanded that I service him! And when I refused him, he hurt me! Grabbed my wrist and twisted me on to him! I had to…I had to scratch him to let me go!"
"So you admit to attacking this gentleman?" Javert asked coldly.
The whore went silent. The only sound that filled the thick air was her gulping, shaky sobs.
"And not even an ounce of remorse, Inspector." Bamatabois said, tutting and shaking his head at her.
"I…I did wrong to become angry. Please, I beg your pardon…" she wheezed out.
Javert watched her chest rising and falling. She was taking in huge gulps of air, but still sounded breathless and weak. The whore most likely had consumption. It had been the same when Froid was dying. All the air and breath in the world couldn't seem to fill his lungs.
"It is not for me to offer pardon, Mademoiselle." he said coolly. "You will be brought to justice and forced to stand trial for your crimes. Most likely, it will be six to eight months for physical assault upon a gentleman of the ton-"
"Six months!" she shrieked. Her breaths grew faster and more panicked. "Oh no, Monsieur, please! Six months…! I have a daughter who needs me! What will become of her if I go to prison?! They tell me she's ill..! They need hundreds of francs for her medicine! What will happen to my daughter if I can't pay it?!"
"You must answer for your crimes, Mademoiselle." The Inspector said, his voice distant and cold. The woman reached for the hem of his coat but he stepped sharply away from her. She landed with a pitiful sob into the wet snow. "If you had stuck to honest work and just rewards, then you never need to have found yourself in this situation."
The woman's cries might have stirred something like pity inside him. But he was beyond pity now. Too cold, too scarred, too hurt and too damaged himself.
"Inspector Javert?" a curious voice suddenly asked at his back.
The Inspector wheeled around. His heartbeat doubled when he recognised the earnest face of Monsieur Madeline staring back at him.
"Monsieur le Maire…" he breathed, trying to compose himself.
"A moment of your time, Javert." he said, approaching the Inspector with a modest bow of the head. "I do believe this woman's tale. You see, this is not the first time Monsieur Bamatabois has been accused of not taking 'no' for an answer, is it Monsieur."
"Monsieur le Marie!" The gentleman exclaimed indignantly.
"What was her name? The lady you had sent to the pillories because you claimed she'd tried to steal your wallet? From the way she told it, it sounded more like you were displeased with her when she turned down your offer to do 'business'."
Monsieur Bamatabois huffed in disbelief and fixed Javert in his sights. "And you would choose to believe the word of a harlot over that of a gentleman?"
"I believe every soul on God's earth deserves to feel listened to." Monsieur Madeline said sagely.
Bamatabois huffed again and stormed off into the thick fog that covered the parks. Javert watched him leave, muttering curses under his breath, making a mental note of the height, weight and stature of the man for his written report later.
When he turned back, Madeline had bent low beside the sobbing whore, covering her bony shoulders with his coat.
"I know your face, don't I." He heard Madeline say to her.
"Forgotten me already?" She replied in a low and reproachful tone. "This world has taken my hair and my teeth and my pride from me, it might as well have my name too."
"I don't… I'm sorry…"
"I begged you for mercy, but you sent me away! I could make ends meet when I was in the factory, but my poor Cosette fell ill and I had to resort to this to save her… I had to become this!"
"F-fantine?" Madeline stuttered, his face going white.
Javert squinted through the dismal fog. He fixed his eyes on the whore's face and he suddenly was able to see through her sunken eyes and hollow cheeks. It had been about three months, perhaps a little longer, since he'd stood in the jet bead factory. And it looked like the woman before him had not eaten a decent meal since that day. She had looked so hollow, so different from the last time he'd seen her that he hadn't recognised her in the slightest. Javert wondered what tragedy had befallen that woman to turn her into such a miserable wretch as this. Again, that thought might have aroused a feeling of pity inside him, had he not been broken by that same face of deep hopelessness that he'd seen on every desperate and hungry person's face from here to Toulon.
"Is it true? I did this to you? An innocent soul?" Madeline uttered, a quiver of pain in his voice.
Javert had no idea why the woman had been dismissed from the factory. But in truth, he did not care. Hundreds of women were dismissed from their jobs every day because of some indiscretion or another.
"If there was a God above, he'd let me suffer! Me alone! Not my daughter! My poor Cosette…!"
The woman's voice descended into more gut-wrenching gasps. Javert had to hide his flinch every time she coughed.
"My dear, you need a doctor." Madeline said gravely. He bent low to pick her up into his arms, and the woman was so weak that she did not even summon a word of protest. "Come, I shall take you to the sisters."
"Impossible, I'm afraid, Monsieur le Maire." Javert said, stepping in front of him. "This woman has committed a crime and she must answer for it."
"Inspector…look at her!" Madeline breathed. "She should be resting in a hospital bed, not on the floor of the jail."
"But, Monsieur le Maire…!"
"But what, Inspector?" He snapped back.
"You do yourself a discredit, Sir. Sticking up for whores and vipers like this one." Javert stated icily. He cast his eyes down to the harlot in his arms. Her head was lolling back, rattling breaths hissing out of her mouth, barely conscious. "Good people are those who abide by the Law. The evil break it. Do you wish to sully your good name by hitching your wagon to the likes of them?"
"The likes of them?" Madeline repeated bitterly. "You speak as though the poor are animals, not beings of life and light and hope and pain! Did not the Lord Jesus Christ himself associate with sinners and tax-collectors? He told us, Inspector, that it is not the healthy that need a doctor, but the sick. We should desire mercy, not sacrifice!"
"If you remove her, Monsieur Madeline, then-"
"Then what?" He cut in shortly. "I am the Mayor of this town, after all! Surely my authority overrides yours."
"She is guilty of a crime, Monsieur!" Javert hissed out through his teeth, jaw clamped shut with frustration.
"If this is how the Law treats the most vulnerable amongst us, then you are the guilty ones, not them!"
A bolt of understanding struck Javert right between the eyes.
His mouth went slack as the words Madeline had just spoken finally poked awake the sleeping dragon in his mind.
Madeline carried the helpless woman off, through the fog and the snow. Javert was too struck dumb to try and stop him. The pieces fell into place suddenly, on top of his head, all at once. Like heavy, wet grave soil being poured over his coffin.
His strength, his face, his voice…
He knew that he'd know it from somewhere. And perhaps he hadn't wanted to believe. That some part of his mind had wanted to hope that a man like that couldn't possibly be in a position such as this.
But now, the smoke around Javert's memory had cleared and a queasy sort of sickness had grown in his stomach.
Because he had known a man, many years ago, who bore Monsieur Madeline's face.
A man who he had seen toil in the prison holks.
A man who he had personally freed on the last day of his sentence.
A man, who he had heard, had broken his parole.
A man whose name had felt spiced with fate when he had spoken it aloud, giving it to him.
Prisoner 24601.
Jean Valjean.