As with the previous installments, some content has been paraphrased & quoted from Hans Christian Andersen's "The Snow Queen." And Victor Hugo's Les Misérables. As well as:
- Victor Hugo (tr. Shakespeare)
- Alexandre Dumas (tr. The Snow Queen)
- Louis Moland (tr. The Snow Queen)
- Étienne Avenard (tr. The Snow Queen)
- Jean Lorrain (Neighilde)
- Jack London
- Édouard de Laboulaye (Perlino)
- Christina Rossetti (Goblin Market)
- E.A. Poe
- Pink Floyd
- Genesis
- C.S. Lewis (The Silver Chair)
- ...
So. This is it. The finale.
La Fée Verte
Une nouvelle en cinq chapitres
Ce qui s'y passa chez la Fée Verte et ce qui arriva ensuite
Nothing could have prepared Enjolras for the shock of how that reunion would be, for it would completely overthrow his (and everyone's) expectations concerning the aforementioned and much expected reunion.
The walls of the shrine, which Éponine had called the Morrigan's fortress, were made of black granite, and the windows were narrow slits, without any glass, through which the piercing cold air and bluish fog entered the structure. There were more than a hundred rooms in it, all of these over a hundred rooms laid out with perfect geometric precision, and all of them utterly empty of anything alive. The largest of them alone, the Green Faery's throne room, was three square French miles wide. All of those halls were so immensely vast and empty, so dark, so dreary, that it was deathly painful to look around. They were all lit, everything was lit up by the pale glow of fluorite chandeliers, yet the white, glowing crystal gave off no smoke or heat, such that the whole place was every bit as cold as the outside -- so vast, so empty, so icy cold and glittering. Every hall was lit by a flare of fluorite lights, and the halls were so immense and empty, but yet brilliant and glacial.
And where the halls of a normal palace would be full of laughter, music, dancing, and gossip, the halls of the Killer Queen’s palace were empty, vast and frigid. The fluorite lights themselves flared with such a regularity that it was easy to time exactly when they would be at their highest and lowest.
There were no amusements here, not even the precise, repetitive dancing of the little clockwork figures on a musical box, and not the least animation; there never was any gaiety in these regal domains; not a paltry little soirée with dances and feasting, nor even the slightest invitation to a spearmint tea or chicory coffee party, let alone an unthinkable main event for the korrigans to display their social graces, with the tempest for an orchestra, as these pixies might have shown off their grand manners and danced quadrilles whose decent gravity would be convenient for the solemn austerity of the halls; no musical reunions, not even for a single korrigan to give a harp or flute solo concert... never even the shortest and paltriest soirée de jeu for such games as colin-maillard, cheval fondu, trappe-trappe, or un-deux-trois-soleil... no, it was not even evermore allowed for the distinguished elven maidens, her ladies-in-waiting, to gather there for a chat; there was not even the slightest invitation for a little gossip about others over their spearmint tea or chicory coffee cups offered to them, like mortal girls of high rank at court and in society were and still are wont to do. Not even that was allowed to her ladies-in-waiting, ie to have a gathering for gossiping and whispering about the lives of others, as was the custom of so many royal courts amongst mortalkind. You'd never find any merry-making here, not even so much as a modest dance for her warriors with the storm blowing tunes and the korrigans showing off their airs and graces; never a little game of écarté or dominoes with licking of chops; never a little gossipy chicory-coffee morning for the white lady elves. No one had ever been invited in for a little game of cards, with something good to eat and a bit of not too malicious gossip; nor had there ever been a tea party for young lady elves, nor even a little afternoon chicory-coffee over which they could gossip. There were no games of cards, or evenings spent in reading, and all that was provided by way of art or decoration were sparse mosses and maidenhair ferns, pale and wan, and even dying, due to the lack of light within those dark halls of granite.They were, everything was, lit up by the vivid, cold light of the will o' the wisps, but those halls were were vast and cold and empty, icy and glittering and utterly forbidding. There were no amusements here, no music or warmth nor any living thing. The only illusion of warmth was the flickering flame of the faery lights and the two fluorite globes, which could be seen from every part of the castle; the light itself, not coming from any fire or star, was icy cold. Empty, vast, and frigid were the Killer Queen's halls. The lights outside flared with such regularity that you could time exactly when they would be at the highest and lowest.
Empty, immense, vast, tranquil, and cold were the halls of the Morrigan, for never having been human herself, she had no understanding of human emotions, least of all joy or cheer. The flickering dance of the light of the dreary, clouded northern sun or moon, or of flashing lightning, that could be seen through the narrow, sparse windows was the only thing that seemed to have any life or spirit at all. Everything was vast and empty within that austere keep, and that dreary light of the North, even on a sunny summer day, was icy cold itself. Still, the pale northern sun lit up those halls so well that one could tell when it was in its highest point and when it was rising or setting. It was an utterly empty space, eternally the same, where there was not a memory, nor a single story to tell. That place probably reflected the identity of its Lady herself; coldly beautiful, indifferent, bereft of feelings.
The floor of the fortress's empty, endless throne hall was a great runestone of black granite, its surface covered in engraved straight lines and curves, and scrawled all over with those strange, angular characters which most French people could not read, following the trace of the lines, which formed a perfect piece of art, so that it looked like a twinkling star. And in the middle of this star there was a cold stone throne. Two golden globes, to left and right, hung from the ceiling, which was covered in reflective quartz crystal stalactites for mirrors, which made it look like a work of wonderful craftsmanship. In the middle of the vast empty hall, a cold stone throne of black granite rose up in the centre of the floor; it was there that the Green Faery sat when she was at home, admiring her own reflection and dwelling upon the first signs of her fading youth. She called the floor the Writing of Wrongs, and she believed that she sat upon a throne that rose above the greatest writing, and indeed the only one of its kind and the best thing in all the wide world; the greatest and most fortunate piece of art that had ever existed. The Snow Queen herself would sit in the exact centre of it whenever she was home, and she referred to it as sitting on her Writing of Wrongs. She had said that this particular writing was the only one of its kind, and the best thing in all of the world.
In the centre of this hall she often stood between two mirrors, watching herself reflected all the way to infinity. There were so many reflections, in fact, that it was only with extreme difficulty that you could tell where the mirrors ended and the real person began.
There were so many reflections, in fact, that it was only with extreme difficulty that you could tell where the mirrors ended and the real person began.
Her name was Lady Lilith, although she had answered, and still answered, to many others in the course of a long and eventful life. And that was something you learned to do early on, she’d found. If you wanted to get anywhere in this world – and she’d decided, right at the start, that she wanted to get as far as it was possible to go – you wore names lightly, and you took power anywhere you found it. She had buried at least three husbands, and at least two of them had been already dead.
And you moved around a lot. Because most people didn’t move around much. Change countries and your name and, if you had the right manner, the world was your mollusc. For example, she’d had to go a mere hundred miles to become a Lady.
She’d go to any lengths now...
The two main mirrors were set almost, but not quite, facing one another, so that Lilith could see over her shoulder and watch her images curve away around the universe inside the mirror.
She could feel herself pouring into herself, multiplying itself via the endless reflections.
You can use two mirrors like this, if you know the way of it: you set them so that they reflect each other. For if images can steal a bit of you, then images of images can amplify you, feeding you back on yourself, giving you power...
And your image extends forever, in reflections of reflections of reflections, and every image is the same, all the way around the curve of light.
Except that it isn't.
Mirrors contain infinity.
Infinity contains more things than you think.
Everything, for a start.
Including hunger.
Because there's a million billion images and only one soul to go around.
Mirrors give plenty, but they take away lots.
When Lilith sighed and strode out from the Space Between the Mirrors the effect was startling. Images of Lilith hung in the air behind her for a moment, like three-dimensional shadows, before fading.
Nothing stood in the way of what Lilith liked more than anything else.
A happy ending.
And Grantaire would sit at her feet, as he did right then, clad in thick-furred catskins and crowned with an ivy wreath, holding in his left hand, for a bâton of command, a thyrsus made out of a bare pine branch crowned with the pine-cone that had been at the end of the branch when it was alive, and wound with ever-green ivy entwined all around; he was quite pale with cold, so that he looked almost lifeless, and bloodless, his skin so pale with poisoning that it seemed to be marble, even translucent with green veins (for his blood ran green with the intoxicating draught) beneath that skin rough as sackcloth; but he did not feel it, not even noticing it the least, for the fey blood he had drunk, and her kisses, had burned away the icy shiverings; she had wrested from him, through her kisses, the fear, the cold, every notion of what could be hurtful stimuli, depriving him of negative sensations by kissing all of his feelings away, so that he did not feel any of them... and hadn't her blood already sunken into his heart, wasn't his heart already turned into nothing but a crazy diamond? But he did not feel it, he didn't notice it because the Queen had kissed away his icy tremblings, kissed the cold shivers away from him, not to mention the rest of his feelings, and his heart itself was no better than a crazy diamond that had almost turned to ice. Of the attire he had left behind, his sleeves were torn but little else. His lovely face was pale and pinched with unhappiness. Nothing he eyed and of nought he suspected, merely reaching out his left hand, as if in his sleep; a hand of which no one would be able to feel either the pressure or the pulse. And from a crystal chalice he nipped, as soon as his memories awakened life around those clenched lips, that tightly-shut mouth. His eyes were wide, yet bereft of tears; was that young person dead or alive? The look in his eyes was lightless, and his brow was pale, clammy, bloodless; his mouth a single hard-drawn straight line, thin and bitter. He would have been dead of the cold and of the poison already, except every now and again, his queen would warm him with the heat of her gaze, and her hot cold lips would graze his face, enough to keep him barely alive.
His hair had been scraped back from his high forehead into a semblance of a topknot and there were dark circles in the pale skin beneath his eyes. He didn't look as though he'd been sleeping and the gauntness of his face told he probably wasn't eating either. His head drooped beneath the weight of the golden flame set in his dark hair, or maybe it was simply under the weight of being in this place.
He wasn't looking at anything.
"Her kindness to me alone, who can in no way reward her, would make an admirable history. She is of divine race, and knows neither old age nor death. Her bloodline earned her the power to do as she wished, but she was never counted amongst the line of man and woman. I am the more thankful to her for all her infinite bounty to such a poor mortal wretch as I. For you must know, I am a man, if I can be called one in the first place under most strange afflictions, and none but the Queen's grace would have had patience with me. Patience, said I? But it goes far beyond that. She has promised me a great kingdom, and, when I am king, she will be queen; for she has promised me her own most gracious hand in marriage. My lady... my lady is most generous when the nightmares come. If I cry out, which I often do, she will come to me at once and bring me a cup of her warm green blood. She sits with me until my shaking abates. She will surely lead me right, towards great achievements... I wish I did not feel so drowsy and dull-witted."
Here, his hand fell, slack, upon an R-shaped rune on the floor.
From the very first his waking hours had been one long, frightful dream; and he could only banish it by night by taking the heart-freezing draught. Every night, when he slept under the draught, he smiled, and his face looked so very happy, and he would have whispered one surname again and again, though to him that surname and the face attached to it were too hazy to recall.
The charm was losing its spell, and the dark warrior was recovering himself. Like every other time whenever the effect wore off, he spent his life like that: lost within his own frozen heart, he went about tracing the runes on the floor in all sorts of patterns, with his fingertips and the tip of his thyrsus pinecone, trying to make something out of them; he spent the hours placing them together in all kinds of positions, as if he wished to make something out of them, just as one might play with a puzzle. He sat arranging and rearranging the runes into patterns. Grantaire's hands were quite skilled; it was the icy game of irony at which he played, and in his eyes the figures were very remarkable, and absolutely of the highest importance; so important, in fact, that for that reason he had forgotten both Marseille and the Musain, both the oversized sailor shirt of his childhood and the nasturtium in the planter crate full of herbs on the windowsill. That was exactly the fey blood's fault! All the patterns he traced were the most ingenious, even though they were all meaningless strings of sounds, that did not resemble anything real. In his eyes, they were first rate, very remarkable, and of the highest importance, extraordinarily beautiful and valuable; this opinion was owing to the fey blood that lingered within his system. He composed many complete figures, forming different words, the runes on the floor suggesting thousands of words, but there was one word he never could manage to form, the only one he wanted, although he wished it very much. He made many patterns, altogether very intricate ones, the most bizarre and the most incoherent ones, forming different syllables and sometimes even non-existent words, but he never could find out the right way to place them for one particular password, which he was most anxious to make. He wanted to put them together in such a way that they formed that certain word, but he could not remember exactly what that word was, laying out complete patterns to form words, but he could never manage to set down the word that he wanted. He had spent a long time, always whenever he was sober, trying to face the answer to the riddle. And now he was presently seeking to spell out this word he did not know. Thoughts of power and freedom did not fuel his actions, merely a desire to prove his cleverness to his Queen.
The Green Faery had said to him that, if he could find out this password, should he form it out of all those runes, which where all of them arranged in different ways, he should once more be his very own lord and master of himself, and feel free to leave her service. But his mind was so clouded he couldn't remember what word he had to spell; he could not accomplish it, he found it impossible to discover it, and the Morrigan, as she cajoled him into forgetting the puzzle altogether, and as she never told him, not even the slightest clue to the answer, rejoiced at the irony and the paradox in this challenge.
He was shifting around some of these strange characters that few French people would ever hope to understand. Shifting them to and fro, trying to fit them into every possible pattern because he wanted to make something with them. It was like a puzzle game, and our savateur was cleverly arranging the pieces together. To him, the patterns were highly remarkable and extremely important, for the poisoned look in his eyes made him see them that way.
So he arranged the pieces to spell out many words, but he could never find the way to make the one word he was eager to make, for she had not told him the password. She had simply told him that if he could puzzle it out, then he would be his own lord and master, and would be free to go wherever he pleased.
Still Grantaire could not puzzle it out, because he could not remember that password. But the keyword held his generalship and a chance at something more; he knew that much.
He was engaged in completing a long string of engraved runes around the throne, the figures spiralling outward in a series of great concentric circles. He was shifting those strange characters that were written to and fro, trying to fit them into every possible pattern, for he wanted to make something with them. It was like the puzzle game that we play at home, juggling little flat pieces of wood or cardboard about into special designs. The engravings were perfectly executed, each etched rune a thing of beauty and superb craftsmanship, but he could not see that, for his dead, frozen heart could no longer feel joy or pride in anything he did. Grantaire was cleverly arranging his pieces in the game of ice-cold irony. To him the patterns were highly remarkable and of the utmost importance, for the haze of liquor in his eyes made him see them that way. He arranged his pieces to spell out many words; but he could never find the way to make the one word he was so eager to form. The sequences he was engraving into the floor were try after try to calculate the password in question, for the Lady in Green had promised him that when he had calculated this password down to the last rune, he should be his own master, and she should give him the whole world for a present, and a brand new thyrsus for a bâton of command. But he could not accomplish it; he could not puzzle it out.He looked down at the runes and thought, "Everything has its end. How can there be something that always is? Everything can be justified. How can you find something that has no reason at all?"
He composed many complete figures, forming different words, but there was one word he never could manage to form, although he wished it very much. But he could not accomplish it; however much he tried, he couldn't do it. No matter in how many different ways he had tried, he had not even come slightly close to success, to spelling out the word he sought, and the one he did not know what word it was. Anyway, he came up with the most bizarre and the most incoherent patterns, which all looked magnificent to him and made time pass for Grantaire, without him even realising that time passed in the first place.
For a while, he spent the empty hours imagining, combining, thinking of how he could put those runes together to reach his purpose, creating the most bizarre patterns he had ever found so far... or were they? He had recognised a password try from before, a sense of déjà-vu. Flicking the left wrist with his thyrsus in hand, as if twirling a bâton, listlessly, when he had grown weary of trying to seek out the password; even weary of life itself. And, after an hour or so twirling the thyrsus, he began to play rock-paper-scissors against his own shadow, which ensured that he would always win the game. For as long as he had lived in this retreat, he had begun to reason whenever he came to and recovered the mastery of himself. Nothing makes one as wicked as growing weary in company; nothing makes one as wise as growing weary on one's own.
It stopped. Noise, air, the flora stopped its growth, water didn’t move. It was over. Just her dark green eyes lost the confident shine and she looked suddenly forlorn.
“No. The one you wish for... He’s not real. None of this is real.”
He shook his head and started to walk backwards. The Lady in Green stood there, bound to the ground by momentary paralysis."I’m so sorry.”
“Those are not my parents. This is not my home.”
The Lady made a hesitant move towards Grantaire and spoke urgently.
“They could have been, in another time! I just wanted to give them to you again. Stay! My lord, you were so sad and lonely. I wanted to give you a home, endless pleasures. Stay! You’ll be warm forever.”
Relief washed over him, it made so much sense now. Never ending pleasures, never changing seasons. His amiss birthday. His parents. Not his parents. Ones he always dreamed of. Warmth. It was a beautiful dream, bittersweet, but not meant to be fulfilled.
The Lady was a kind person, she cared for him and crafted all this, just to keep him safe. Unhurt. But Grantaire couldn’t do it. Not when Enjolras was out there, far away in cold.
“These won’t keep me warm. This is not my family, my real family is out there. The Musain. And my sun-god! How could you trick me like this? I have to leave immediately!”
She attempted another step, but he took a few back. It was painful to talk to her like this. But no matter how well she meant, this was not his place to be.
“My lord, if you go out there, nothing but pain and hardship await you on the journey. There is not warmth or love waiting at your destination. He might be lost forever in her grasp. Stay! Consider!”
The savateur made his choice, he would not let this place be his prison here, of his own device.
“I’m sorry, Milady. I can’t. In another life, maybe. Something tells me I wouldn’t have stayed anyway. Thank you for everything. I have to go now.”
He twisted and got on a run, trying to ignore the tears gathering in her eyes.
"P-le-ease!!!"
Her desperate calls ripped at his heart, but the further he was, his mind was clearer. Suddenly he could see the walls covered by curtains of ivy and hops. The grasslike moss caressed his legs pleasingly, the stones rolled after him and it seemed like everything living and inanimate tried to hold him back even just a little.
"I don't know. It isn't I who do these things - it's someone else who comes into me - who takes possession of me - who turns me from a man into a raving monster who wants blood and who can't drink water..."Suddenly he buried his face in his hands.
"Physically I'm strong - like ever before. I might live for years - years - shut up between four walls! That I can't face! It would be better to go out altogether... There are ways, you know. I'd rather take my own way out!"
He looked defiantly at his own reflection on the quartz mirrors that lined the ceiling, and through which rays of light played, creating prisms and artificial rainbows.
A whispered voice sidled up to him and whispered: "Let your drink go untouched tonight, sire; you won't regret it."
"When this hour has passed, I shall be witless again - the exciting sword, nay, more likely the exciting plaything, nay, more likely the most exciting pawn, of the most scheming sorceress that ever planned any woe... All right. Don't drink anything she gives you. It'll be worse this time." He steeled himself. "Meaning that it'll make you act... a little..." How to put it in a delicate way, like one Enjolras would say? "Just a tad... like a... um... a heartless tyrant?" Then he cringed, looking very distressed. "She won't leave my chamber until I drink whatever she gives me." "Correction," he said to himself calmly. "She won't leave the room until she thinks you drank whatever she gives you." A slow smile started to spread across that stubbled face. "That's a really good idea."
I couldn't so much as twitch without agony, and my throat was as raw as though I'd drunk broken glass, but of course that had nothing to do with anything truly being wrong. I suppose leaving me festooned with scars, and the sensation of lingering damage, would fit.
Yet his thirst would, like ever before, prove far stronger than reason.
Before he could marshal his wits, la Belle Dame Sans Merci had grown weary of musing before her own reflection and was standing before him in all her terrifying glory, green eyes flashing against the white perfection of her skin, a deadly chill emanating from her that he knew might kill him in an instant if it touched him.
And thus she found him, as she opened the door, speaking softly, "My dear, I forgot, if you wake I must give you this potion--I mean, this tea of mild herbs to ease your pain a little-"
"This is... this is my...," the Marseillais said, the words choking his throat.
"You can go home. You know it’s not a defeat. I go arrange for your departure.” The Green Faery spoke collected as an actress in a play; a thespian playing Lady Macbeth or someone else like that. Alluring, pleasant, just like a host should be, like a true lady. She did everything like a pampered cat, seemingly disinterested. He watched her bony fingers set her crownlike wreath of ivy in its proper place and connected her eyes with his once more. That one thing didn’t get hidden ever. They were honest in their greedy gleam, all to satisfied to see him shaken.
But in truth her features grew more sharp, her crown and hair and eyes glimmered more; the greenery which seemed to be symbiotic with her system seemed to get stronger from the emotional turmoil he showcased. She feasted upon him. He really got caught off-guard by her welcome, even if he doubted her, he still got overwhelmed.
Anger flashed through him and he had a hard time keeping it inside. He was like as a doll, mute and didn’t manage to say anything when she made her offer. A pale haggard man who looked like a beggar, that’s probably what Her Ladyship saw. So it was no surprise when the Green Faery broke the awkward silence and enticed him into a conversation about her recent outing, that he quickly lost interest in the password.
"Well, well, well," she said with a sneer of haughty amusement. "What have we here? Well done, my solstice child." Grantaire basked in the praise, but his smile was so empty and cold and so unlike his own warm expression that any of his Friends at the Musain wouldn't bear to look at him.
At that, the Killer Queen reached out and brushed the very tips of her fingers along the nape of his neck. She barely touched him, but it was enough to penetrate his whole body with ice, the cold so intense it took his breath. "You don't remember me, do you, my lord?" she said softly, her eyes sparkling with satisfaction at his fear. "No, I can see that you don't, for that was another place and time, and your conscious mind remembers only this world. But I remember you, of that you can be sure."
At that, a chill shuddered through the young lush, and old, dark memories stirred under the surface of his mind like a deadly, primordial beast stirring beneath dark waves. His breath came short, and a thick fog seemed to close down around the perimeter of his vision, so that he could no longer see the great hall or the frozen runes, but only the Queen, her beautiful, deadly gaze filling his perceptions. Then she looked down, and he had no choice but to follow her gaze.
In the palm of her other hand she held a quartz prism, as small and fragile as a snowflake. Against another woman's hand such a delicate, intricate thing would have melted away, but in hers it only glittered with beautiful, cold perfection. "Look closer," she said, her breath icy against his ear. He did, compelled by her Voice.The crystalline structure seemed to grow larger as he looked at it, until he realized that each tiny facet held an image, and then not just an image, but a whole new world, as if the tiny prism were made up of miniature windowpanes, each offering a glimpse into some other place and time, a vast, intricate design of worlds upon worlds, each one different from his own. And in each of them it seemed that he saw himself, and Enjolras, and the Lady in Green—and not just the three of them, but all those he had met on his journey, in the docks of Marseille and at the University of Paris, the dockworkers and the lecturers, Combeferre and Courfeyrac, Joly and Lesgle..., all shimmering there in infinitely varying patterns in the palm of the Morrigan's hand.
Dizzy with sudden vertigo, he managed to tear his gaze away from the hypnotic images just in time, for he had been very close to losing himself in the infinite pattern. "What are you?" he whispered.
"Your fate, your destiny," the regal lady said, as if kindly, though there was no mercy in her. "In this world, as in all the others, I am the reckoning you must face for the pain you have caused."
She doesn’t smile, just stares as she passes, walking on nothing, her feet making no sound. “I am the Queen of many realms, many worlds. This is one of them. I was born here. Not the villainess as so many have guessed. Just the daughter of another world. But I did not choose to stay.”
"I only wanted to be with him," Grantaire whispered. "That's all."
"And so you shall," quoth la Belle Dame sans Merci, and kissed him on the forehead.
The coldness of her kiss sank through him like the dark, bitter cold of the Beresina ice, as it would have cracked beneath the feet of weary men in uniform. And Grantaire felt as though he were breathing water, but it was a curiously calming sensation, for the water was very cold indeed, numbing him almost instantly. A part of him grieved bitterly, fighting to keep hold of his memories, but his fear began to bleed away, and after a while, he forgot why he had been afraid.
"Loneliness has always had its charms, 'tis true," the Green Faery told him, as stern as a governess. "Yet you do not seem to amuse yourself in playing all alone. Why not play at least one game against me?" she asked, and she laughed a laugh that was like the ringing of seed-capsule bells. "I have turned his heart to a crazy diamond, and now that he is mine, I will keep him forever." She turned to the savateur, a cold smile on her silver lips, and asked him, in a cooing voice, "Do you want to leave me, my darling boy?"
"Ah..." Grantaire sighed wearily in response, looking at the wrists of his liege lady. "You do have finer fingers than me... such lovely wrists... and I'm dying of thirst... j'ai une soif..."
"If I have lovely wrists, Sir, at least spare me the scars for a while... That would be better than having so much esprit and sleeping like a log, or poring over those old runes time and again... If good luck ever knocks on your door, you should at least be wide awake to let it in. Right?"
"Something strange is happening to me, milady... strange, passing strange, ever since I came here. My head feels heavy and my heart is confused, and the few dreams I have are gruesome or dreary. I myself know nothing of it, for when my hour is past I awake forgetful of all that vile fit and in my proper shape and sound mind - saving that I am somewhat wearied. There's someone in my head, but it's not me. I don't know. It isn't I who do these things - it's someone else who comes into me - who takes possession of me - who turns me from a man into a raving monster who wants blood and who can't drink water... Where can all that have come from...?" he asked her.
"You keep falling asleep," she reminded him.
His eyes darkened. "Don't worry about that," he said, though his tone was angry and chilled. "Please. Say you'll be there."
"I promise you disasters, débâcles, catastrophes... I offer you the whole world on a platter, and a brand new bâton with a peridot hilt," the Morrigan had told him time and again, and he wondered whenever that would be, but hoped that it was the best of rewards for every wish of hers he made come true. He could only hope, and neither rejoice nor grieve, so listless he had become from intoxication.
"We shall ride forth in arms, fall suddenly on our enemies, slay their leaders, cast down their strong places... We shall tie up all the innocents, we shall burn the cathedrals, we shall set fire to the skies," he replied, with that fixed expression in his glazed, lifeless eyes and that sneer upon his lips. "The world? I will tell you, milady, what the world is made of. Of everything that can be taken. The rest does not exist at all. If you will so, if your will is that, I shall pillage the whole world and cast all its treasures at your feet. And you, you shall rest by my side, still upon your throne, uttering wishes that will be my commands. 'Tis the way I love you."
"Is it wishes you are waiting for, my fierce warrior?" she asked, wistfully approaching Grantaire and stroking his stubbled chin, combing his whiskers with fine fingertips. "Then, I wish you to declare war. Declare war. Burn all the gardens. Burn all the books. Accuse all the foreigners and send them all to die. 'Tis an empire that we wish for. 'Tis a name in history that we want." The disappointment appeared to be genuine when she spoke. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand. A commoner like you… how could you even grasp it?"
“Then tell me. Make me understand. What do I need to grasp?” Grantaire dropped his hands like a loose doll and frowned.
“Oh, how simple you are! I’ll humour you...” she chuckled in an unkind way. “The eternity. The never-fading luster of success. Didn’t you hear?” she motioned towards the empty throne room.
"Hear what? My lady, there's no one..." the savateur shook his head slightly, trying to talk kind.
It seemed to agitate the Lady in Green, because with one stroke she towered over Grantaire, insisting on making him see and grasp her reality. "It’s everyone at the same time, it’s the world, the forever. The time itself, above what humans can understand! Above all - the ultimate Beauty, with no pain, no flaw! Endless till the end of time!”
In response, he stood there before her, pensive and quiet, with that same fixed expression, casting doubt on all she had to say. The effect was beginning to wear off. And thus, as the Green Faery breathed her vein and filled a rock crystal cup with her poison-green blood, she handed the draught over to Grantaire with an ice-cold sneer and the following rant:"Or would you rather wish to be a free man, your very own lord and master of yourself? With unachieved desires, trifling comforts for reassurance, derisory love... anonymity, sense of guilt, ennui...?"
"Reach me... Reach to me, my lady, the ice-cold draught; mix me your strong drops... I only ask you to make them strong. Drown my sorrows for each and every loss; let your green blood suffocate me... Take me like that! I will, thus, be worthy of your bed, as I am of your command!"
He couldn’t feel the grasp on his knee as the queen clawed at it on reflex, the pain in his eyes stung so badly, he had to cover his face with both hands. His heart hurt, it became warmer. His fingers ached, as if they were melting. Burning and freezing at the same time.
"Good, you seem in better spirits this evening. I know ever since the first time we met that you were meant for greater things," she was somewhere between suspicious and pleased. She took his hand and placed the crystal phial, into which she had poured more of her blood, in it. "Here, drink it up."
He raised his phial again before bringing it to his mouth—but waited until she sipped before taking a draught himself. She watched him, the bright green liquid pouring over his lips and into his mouth... and he swallowed...
The dark student took off the cork of the precious stream which he coveted and put it to his lips. As he downed the bright green poison of a liquor, once he had drained it to the last drop, his lips curled upwards and he rose wearily into a stance that quickly turned to one full of resolve:
"Rather a dead warrior than a living man! You ask me for greater things, and... what else would anyone else want from me? And you will never die, nevermore. In ruling that land, I shall do all by the counsel of my Lady, who will then be my Queen too. Her word shall be my law, even as my word will be law to the people we have conquered. I am well content to live by her word, who has already saved me from a thousand dangers. No mother has taken pains more tenderly for her child, than the Queen's grace has for me. Is not that a lady worthy of a warrior's whole worship? Everything she commands feels easy, soft, merry, lackadaisy, tranquil." And then he licked his lips and incisors to taste the few drops that lingered upon them. "Witness... as I drink my fill... from the fountains... of liberty... and sup from... the streams and rivulets... of free will. Watch me... greedily guzzle... the eternal wellsprings of creativity, and empty every last drop... from the cup... of freedom itself! Already I can taste... the sweet nectar of life... that is set before me! A freshly-brewed beverage... of heady human hopes... and toothsome mortal dreams... upon which to gorge myself! Let me drink my fill... from the wellsprings... of eternal life itself!"As he drank it, he had realised that by its taste it was the draught, but by its effect it was not. No pleasant sensations came to him, and once more he had become so inured to his favourite poison that he felt betrayed.
And thus, each and every evening, ever since the one when Grantaire had first acquired the taste of decadence, the Lady had given him to drink the narcotic prepared with blood from her veins; the young man was always eager to quaff it, in order to give a truce, a respite to the struggle of raging passions that tore at him from within.
And she was gradually wasting away, little by little; life ebbed forth through the wounds she had open on her wrists, no sooner freshly scarred till slashed again into bloody fountains where Grantaire drank his fill of respite and of euphoria. Till that fateful evening, feeling herself waste away, her strength dwindling every now and then (this was too perfect a commander for her warriors; too loathe to accept reality, too eager to quaff her blood -- only now she had realised it), and realising that there was scarcely left in her arteries what little blood she needed in order to stay alive, she fell or rather collapsed at the young man's feet, imploring as if she were suddenly turned the maid and he the master:
"So, if I get the picture right... With us everyone will be happy, and they will no longer rebel or destroy each other, as in freedom, everywhere. Oh, we shall convince them that they will only become free when they resign their freedom to us, and submit to us... Will we be right, do you think, or will we be lying?" Grantaire, subsequently brought to his senses, cocked an eyebrow, wavering for a single instant, that was suddenly cut short by her riposte:
"They themselves will be convinced that we are right, glad to be freed from the thralldom of Liberty, for they will remember to what horrors of confusion their freedom led them. Of course both of us have seen such consequences: we have seen wars and uprisings, we have seen intrigue and betrayal, we have seen the cruelty of the powerful and despair of the weak; such things that make it worthwhile to look away and drown one's sorrows. We shall bring true peace, completely unlike the one the Living World gives. That 'peace' of humanity is but a reflection on liquid water, rife with betrayal, and the source of many wars. Our war will be the last one ever. When I return, I shall give you frequent draughts; that will help you ease your pain, and blur your memories as well..."
And thus, leaving through the door to the left, without even waving goodbye, away she flew, gradually soaring up to the skies, leaving her dark warrior quite, quite alone to retrace his runes, in the great hall which was so empty and icy, so bereft of life and so many miles in length; thus, since he dreaded being left alone, he spent a while reaching out into the air as if beckoning to her, but in vain.
He turned to look upon her; struck by her sorrow, and perhaps by the pity for himself which trembled in her voice. It was a quick and rapid action; and for the moment some flash of his old bearing kindled in his form. In the next she went as she had come, and he was left alone in the endless hall. Nor, as the sickness had tightened down on his whole self, sinking into his nervous system, as it continued to go about its work of destroying his established patterns of thought and behaviour, did this glimmer of a quenched fire seem to light him to a quicker sense of his debasement. He had not succeeded yet; his head felt like it would burst, and still he remained without having attained it. Convinced of his own uselessness, for want of ideas, he decided to sit down, convinced of that he was a good-for-nothing. He sat pondering his patterns, thinking and thinking; he sat so still one might have believed that he was frozen to death.
Then, suddenly, something gave way and shattered within him; he turned pale once more, and begain to tremble from crown to toe like a leaf on the branch, his knees buckled and gave way underneath, and he fell on all fours, his lilywhite lips uttering confused sounds, his pupils disappearing in the increasing whites of his eyes; then he knelt and stared at the floor, and was thinking so deeply, and sat so still, and remained there, at the foot of the throne, so stiff and so lifeless, without even breathing, that anyone might have supposed that he was a statue of a young satyr, or even of the God of Revelry himself, hewn out of Carrara marble.
Any brusque movement could make him reel and fall heavily upon the runes, or so it seemed. One would have thought, or even believed, that he had frozen to death.
Just at this moment it happened that Enjolras, entering the circle of stones and having watered the rosebush with his own life-blood, reached the great, tall, imposing doors of the castle. They were so cold that it burned to the touch like metal heated until it glowed, and it seemed at first that just getting into the fortress would prove impossible. If there were hinges, they were carefully hidden. The elaborate icy panels, fashioned from silvery, interlocking crystal, in an intricate pattern that left no room to slide through, not even an arm up to an elbow, butted up against the start of the high frozen wall that circled the fortress, closing it off from the outside world. Enjolras pushed on them, though he knew they would hardly swing open at just one touch. Indeed, so cold were the doors that his gloves stuck to them, and after he had opened them, which was surprisingly easy in spite of what it seemed, he had to rip his hands free, leaving the mittens glued to the entrance doors. Those thick Russian winter gloves, lined with rabbitskin on the inside, had saved his hands and most surely his life.
The fair young man staggered in through the great doors, leaving them open behind him, for he could not bring himself to touch them again. The floor of the hallway beyond them was cold as well, and damp, his feet sticking a little, or slipping on the slippery grounds, with every step; and the blood on his feet froze to it, sticking a little with every step.
After he had stared up at the forbidding gate and threshold for a while, shivering in the gusting winds and the clammy fog, he noticed what looked like a steep, treacherous staircase cut into the icy rock beside the threshold. When he approached the foot of this staircase, he realized that the steps had been cut into a narrow chimney that was protected from the Arctic winds and mists. Determined, he started up.
At the top, a narrow door awaited, but, when he tried the door, it was locked tight without any padlocks. This was no ordinary keyhole. Inspiration struck; he tried to reach his right hand towards the keyhole, remembering old fairytales where blood and tears could do anything and even unlocked a padlock or a collar, and sure enough, a crimson drop of venous blood fell into the keyhole, and sure enough, it turned like a key in the lock, and the door opened into the great entrance hall, whose ceilings towered a hundred feet above his head, tall as a cathedral.
The gates, frozen by ice and the dictation of the Queen it served, began to tremble and shiver
behind Enjolras, for the wards that guarded the fortress were no match for the clear and open beauty of a pure voice. It was their one weakness, the one sound, which would overrule the voice of their mistress. And like the students that stopped to listen to his speeches, here the locks and wards cowered and acquiesced to his voice.
The staircase, wide at its feet, systematically grew thinner into a large gate decorated with trencadís mosaic. Pillars guarded its sides, sprinkled with carvings; carvings, all carrying a pattern of crystals and shimmering secretly in a twilight. Right then he understood here was no day, no night, and everything was made of quartz. The complete castle was made of it. Through this hall and into another, and another, each more bleak and forbidding than the one before, past small spires and crenelation, he made his way deeper into the palace of the Lady in the Green Kirtle. This was a difficult journey indeed, for the palace was no place for any warm-blooded, living thing; every surface, including the floor, was made of razor sharp pieces of icy granite or quartz, and it was impossible to go a dozen steps without cutting oneself on these shards. But the fair leader, shivering in spite of his crimson peacoat, felt that he must be very close now, and would not be discouraged.
Enjolras walked wearily down the long hallway and through the castle, his long golden hair fluttering loosely in his wake as entered each one of the great halls, empty and cold; studying the wide halls that spread out in front of his eyes, the gleaming staircases and glittering chandeliers of quartz that hung from ceilings fifty feet high. The floor sparkled like diamonds beneath weary feet, but it did not matter, because its icy beauty was lost on his regards. There was nothing in this place that filled Enjolras with wonder, for he had never encountered
such a place so cold, unforgiving, and lifeless. Every room he passed was empty and austere, and in the whole fortress, nothing moved except his own reflection in the quartz crystal stalactites above his head and the pools upon the floors, where a ray of light peered in through the foreboding, forbidden dark walls, and shattered into the brightest colours as it pierced through the quartz prisms. Little motes of dust and heather pollen travelled over the lit space and landed on the mirrors on both the ceiling and the floor. There was no natural light. It surprised Enjolras that what from the outside seemed to be a simple Celtic shrine... though he could see a structure bristled with small spires and crenelation, it turned out to be a foggy, dark, cold, lifeless Cretan labyrinth of black granite full of twists and turns and dead ends. His own ribs were like lead, constricting his lungs, lying heavy on his heart, poisoning his blood. His skin was burning. "It feels like I'm suffocating..." gasped the fair leader to himself. He felt as if he breached a sacred forbidden ground. A crystal cathedral, where everything looked beautiful, but was void of warmth. He wasn’t sure how to feel, since this was his goal.
This realm of deadly beauty, however exquisite, sublime, and pristinely pure... could only lead to destructive solitude and solipsism. Only thanks to the warmth of his heart, of his blood, was he able to keep himself alive.
At last, he reached the largest, emptiest hall, the one most bereft of life, the one where the throne was, and caught sight of, then stared down at Grantaire. There was someone in the room, a long way off from where he was. In fact, the room was so large, it was hard to tell exactly if one was looking at a boy or a girl. The person was kneeling on the floor, sliding their hands on the rune-inlaid floor as if looking for something. But what would they be looking for?
The person made a frustrated scratch at the back of their head and Enjolras had to hold back a gasp like he'd never had to before. Grantaire used to do that. When he was concentrating deeply or was frustrated beyond words, he'd resorted to scratching the back of his head in this way that only he could do. To Enjolras it was as unique a trait as his artistic talent or rapier wit.
For all of the changes within him, Enjolras still recognised Grantaire.
Already from the threshold of the throne room, he recognised him where he lay staring blankly; his brow was furrowed, as if some complexity weighed on his mind, but his lips were parted like a child's, in stark contrast to the black stubble and whiskers around, and something about his face was vulnerable and sweet as he slept. Unconscious. Not even moving a muscle. Illuminated by this sinister twilight, he appeared even more lonely and foreign. He wasn't a man. Not even a boy. He was a helpless little thing, senseless and bereft of life. There was something about that face that didn't seem quite right.
At first, the fair leader was at a loss how to begin the conversation the closer he approached him. Would he say bonjour or bonsoir; did it make a difference? They had no concept of time here and, a stranger in the throne room, the blond was an intruder not belonging in here.
“'Allo.” He settled upon in the end. It didn’t sound eager or too loud, but also not too quiet. The savateur didn’t turn to him right away, making the blond think he didn’t hear him.
Enjolras' heart seemed to stop beating for a moment when he saw him, kneeling on the floor so very still, and for a terrible moment, the fair leader thought that he had come all this way, walked so very far, and given up so much, through fire and ice, only to find his friend dead, the terrible cold within the lightless and lifeless throne room having frozen him solid where he sat.
At last he had come to the great throne room, at the center of which was the vast frozen runestone floor. And the fair leader came on into the vast, cold, empty hall. There he saw a pale figure dressed all in green, armed with a thyrsus, sitting as still as a statue at the center of the hall, at the foot of the throne, and his heart started to hammer fiercely against his left-hand ribs. Only by the raven's wing of his dark hair was Grantaire recognisable, but Enjolras knew him at once, even from that great distance. Right from the threshold, he recognised the one he had sought for so long. There was someone in the room, a long way off from where he was. In fact, the room was so large, it was hard to tell exactly if one was looking at a boy or a girl. The person was kneeling on the floor, sliding their hands on the rune-inlaid floor as if looking for something. But what would they be looking for?
The person made a frustrated scratch at the back of their head and Enjolras had to hold back a gasp like he'd never had to before. Grantaire used to do that. When he was concentrating deeply or was frustrated beyond words, he'd resorted to scratching the back of his head in this way that only he could do. To Enjolras it was as unique a trait as his artistic talent or rapier wit.
As soon as he saw the dark warrior up close, he knew that something terrible had happened to him, but he couldn't help himself; so relieved was he to see the savateur alive that he threw his slender arms around Grantaire's strong neck, feeling the strength of the fine, corded muscles, and seized him close, and shook him, burying his face against his friend's chest and holding on tightly while exclaiming jubilantly: "Grand... R! Oh, my friend, I've found you at last, je t’ai donc enfin retrouvé! I finally found you! I came all this way and you’re here!"
A young man, with high cheekbones and a long face to match his equally long limbs. His overgrown, rumpled hair was dark, though his skin was lighter — the exact colour hard to see in the otherworldly light of the throne room. The expanse of chest left bare by the catskins was muscular and toned, his shoulders and forearms flecked with thin weapon practice scars.
He was a real person, spread out there, lips parted slightly. His chest rose and fell. The lashes of his eyes fluttered but didn’t part.
The face was familiar, the same dark hazel eyes that had always held so much emotion, the long dark hair, the slightly crooked nose that had been a result of falling from a tree when he was younger, the small pink lips that had always smirked or teased or laughed at Enjolras for all those years. But now, the half-shut eyes held contempt instead of joy, the long dark hair had grown haphazardly in all directions, as if chopped instead of cut properly, and the mouth was twisted into a grim line.
Grantaire remained sitting there quite still, stiff and cold, his skin like marble; his skin frozen and an absent look in his eyes. He was like as a doll, mute and didn’t manage to say anything when the leader made his offer; he just dropped his hands like a loose doll and frowned; and sat there quite still, stiff and cold, as if he did not even know that the fair leader was there. He just remained silent. He didn't move. The leader called his surname, but he did not answer. His eyes were closed, his pale lips did not respond. It was like embracing a marble satyr encased in an iceberg. He was perishingly cold. Colder even than the throne room itself, if that were possible; still dressed and unmoving.
He didn't move. Just sat there very still, without looking up; senseless, lifeless, nor did he display any emotion.
Countenance fixed in the insensibility of drunkenness; it appeared to be withered by intemperance.
In the embrace he was pulled into, his head rattled on his neck, but still he didn't move. The fair leader checked his pulse. Slow, but steady.
He didn't answer, of course, just rolled over and flopped on hand onto Enjolras' thighs. He looked so calm and innocent in sleep, a man just out of boyhood, his human features still unfamiliar and alien. There was something about him that looked as though his body wasn't used to being human either, an oddness to the way he curled his arms and tilted his head as though he was used to being larger.
Only grumbled and his forehead wrinkled.
Then Enjolras did flinch and pull away from him, shivering with both cold and fear, almost burning skin as he hugged the savateur, for this was a pain he had not expected. The one for whom he had walked halfway across France, for whom he had given up his post as leader and a year of his degree, for whose sake he had left behind all the other friends he had made along the way… Grantaire did not know him anymore. He knew nothing but his heart-changing elixir and the Green Faery's runes. As the blond buried his head in the dark-haired one's chest, he listened and recoiled in shock: his skin was ice cold beneath the touch, and a chill went up the fair leader's spine... as he tried to listen in vain and was shocked that that heart, suddenly, did not beat the least. Yet he felt Grantaire's lips tremble against his own skin, and, though he could not call him back, Enjolras knew that he was not dead. Doubtless, Grantaire was somehow enchanted; he still wouldn't wake. He had moved around in the night in the normal way of a sleeper, but he hadn't woken...
The silence that ensued was only broken by the heavy breathing of the two of them, standing before one another.
He still didn't move.
That was when Enjolras decided this absolutely wasn’t natural.
"Oh, 'Ponine was right." Gasp. "She drugged his drink."
Enjolras let him go and looked into his eyes, looking for some sign of life or of recognition, but those hazel eyes were no longer sad, nor warm with affection, nor bright with irony, but as cold and hard as chips of dirty ice. "Don't you know me? You remember me, right?" Enjolras asked in a small voice, a sinking dread beginning to take hold in his stomach; and he even slapped Grantaire across the face, leaving a handprint that was dark green (instead of rosy) across those stubbled features, but the lush did not even turn to look at him.
"You’re an idiot! I’ve been trying to wake you up each night and you’ve made it really hard for me by drinking that stuff and you’re getting married to that woman, if she can be called one in the first place, tomorrow!”
The dark-haired man chuckled and caught Enjolras' hand in his larger calloused hand, at first limp as a doll's (the fair leader was shocked not to feel its pulse or pressure) before squeezing it gently.
“What is it? What do you want from me?”
At that, Grantaire seemed at last to notice him there, and he blinked as if waking from a deep trance. Upon seeing the fair leader's reflection on the chandeliers of crystal mirrors, he felt a sense of déjà-vu, and he looked at that reflection (and at his own, as well) with a fixed expression, casting doubt on all he had to say. There was almost no recognition in his eyes as they glared at the intruder. "Should I?" he said, but it had been so long since he had spoken to another mortal that his voice sounded like icicles cracking. "I can't believe you followed me here," he continued. "I don't know who you are, but you look vaguely familiar..." There was not the slightest trace of Marseillais accent, or of any other regional patois; he spoke perfect standard French.
"No," the fair leader told himself, as he climbed to his feet, his chest aching from both the thorns and the cold, and his hands and feet so frozen that they had gone quite numb, and no longer even hurt anymore... "He is not anyone else's. He is mine by right, and I have come to claim him." And as he said it, he realized that it was true, and that the reverse was true also: that he belonged to Grantaire.
"Who are you? What do you want?” he hissed, face and eyes blank of recognition. "And what," said the entranced warrior, "makes you think I will give my heart to you?" And, as he spoke, though the blond did not see his eyes change, those orbs were like black holes in the sky, glazed and filled with empty green darkness. The look in his eyes was lightless, and his brow was pale, clammy, bloodless; his mouth a single hard-drawn straight line, thin and bitter.
Enjolras wanted to say something that would reach him, wanted to tell him the things he'd been afraid to tell him that perfect springtime so long ago, but his beloved friend now wore the face of a stranger, and his courage deserted him. "Surely you must remember," the fair leader said, fighting despair. To have come so far only to find that he'd lost Grantaire after all was a cruel blow indeed. "Did you exchange your walk-on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?"
A suspicious look came into the stubbled face then, and he backed away from the blond. It was no use; Grantaire only curled his lip in scorn, staring at him uncomprehending. "I don't know you," the dark warrior said in that awful, splintered-ice voice; and he laughed, a hollow, echoing laugh, and before Enjolras could answer, Grantaire's response proved as violent as it proved unexpected. As if from the sudden halt of a galloping coach, the sleeper awoke. Grantaire stood up with a start, stretched his arms, rubbed his eyes, looked, yawned, and understood. He shook his head, as if collecting his wits, and turned back to stare at his own reflection. Then he stirred from his oblivion. “What is it?” he asked, struggling to sit upright, with his gaze still shiftily averted. “What do you see?”
The dark-haired man didn’t turn to him right away, making Enjolras think he didn’t hear him. He was about to call to him once more, but he was left with a gaping mouth when Grantaire suddenly rose up, bloodshot hazel eyes wide open and flashing like lightning in the night. The dark-haired one moved, ever so slightly, leaving his thyrsus on the floor and gradually crouching into a catlike stance, like that of a jaguar about to lunge at its prey, the first movement he had made as threatening as it was graceful, that Enjolras knew all too well.
The stance of a savateur about to strike his opponent.
And Enjolras shivered when Grantaire's head flew up, icy eyes locking to his own... his grin was something feral and bare; eyes, dark with something almost like madness, narrowed.
"Was he drugged, that he couldn't hear my heart calling to his? Hope he still is intoxicated, weakened by what he has drunk..." the fair leader braced himself. There was nothing he could do but skip and dodge his opponent's kicks, delivered with the same strength he should have used to protect his beloved leader.
All Enjolras could do was lithely run, and feint, and skip... he had always been a leader, never a fighter... everything but an expert when it came to hand-to-hand combat, not to mention hand-to-foot combat; only able to defend himself under pressure, when his very integrity was being threatened without his consent... if he had only asked Grantaire, or at least Courfeyrac, to teach him some savate and/or some more bâton moves... but maybe he could turn the dark savateur's power against himself, with the right responses? Enjolras saw no other way to counter the dark force that had stolen the savateur from him, and from himself; and he began to run, so quickly that his bloody footprints did not begin to freeze until he was already two steps ahead of his opponent.
After all, cold steel could slash and hot lead could pierce... but well-trained limbs could not only bruise, but even disfigure, even kill by crushing. "He does not know me anymore. A hideous way to die," the blond thought as he gulped, bracing himself. "Though against a worthy opponent indeed..." At the same time, he was pleased to see the one he loved for one last time more, before his days could be done.
This train of thought was instantly cut short by the fight-or-flight response: Grantaire, pivoting quickly, aimed a fine kick of his left escarpin, powered by rippling leg muscles, at Enjolras' face and throat. "Le coup de figure!", the blond instantly realised as he took, unconsciously, a quick step to the right. The heel of his opponent's foot barely grazed Enjolras' left shoulder. And then he (Grantaire) jumped up as if nothing happened and fixed the state of his coat. And subsequently picked up the thyrsus from the rune-inlaid floor, holding it in both hands: he would use it to parry whatever blows his opponent would strike, using his mastery of savate for offensive and of the bâton for defensive purposes. A gasp, the fair-haired stripling reeling backwards with his heart up in his throat, and looking right at his opponent, who was as lithe and strong as if he were sober; the latter was leaning forwards to the right, as if concentrating all of his body weight on that side, but stretching out his left leg. As counterweight? Maybe, being lighter, Enjolras could just vault or leap over that left leg, as if playing cheval fondu... but it could be a ruse, a decoy... still, there was no other way than just standing still there and waiting to die.
The perspiration ran down his forehead in streams, making the golden fringe of his hair stick to the drenched brow beneath. Of course his strength had begun to dwindle ever since those three laps withershins around the fort, but the fair leader had never felt sapped of it all until that disastrous attempt. His youthful agility was his sole support in this otherwise unequal combat, but he felt that his power of motion diminished every minute from loss of blood. Lithely racing towards his dark opponent, with his heart pounding and his head already beginning to swim, Enjolras missed the chance to use that outstretched leg of his opponent's as a vaulting horse. Instead, it had rather the effect of a rope stretched out at his feet in that headlong collission course. The shifting position and loss of balance startled the fair leader to action.
A reeling Enjolras staggered forwards six or seven steps before crashing into the wall, his bruised head leaning on the cold stone wall before he slumped down on the pavement runes, everything darkening before his eyes as he lost consciousness.
"For having lived in too much sorrow, or too much joy, the light of your soul and reason has been quenched. Drinking and revelling until you became insane... The place in your heart where I once dwelt is cold and dead. You stand there with your fixed expression, casting doubt on all I have to say..." Enjolras sighed. He wanted so much to go to sleep, even if it were never to awaken... This was worse than not remembering him, worse than not caring at all. The savateur found him a target, an enemy to crush underfoot. And that thyrsus looked far thicker and more resistant than the average bâton, ensuring that the fair leader would never break through that defense. Perhaps there was no hope anymore and Grantaire had turned to something beyond his reach, but still... there was still breathing in his lungs, and strength in his limbs, and resolve to spare:
"I can wish for no greater power than I have already... Don’t you see how strong that is? How many obstacles you have overcome, Enjolras, and how well you have got through the wide world, walking five hundred miles through bitter experience, through fire and ice, alone as you are? You cannot receive any power greater than you now have, it comes to you from yourself, and consists in your own courage and inner strength and the nobility of your heart. Still, I was never alone: Éponine's out there, alone against the korrigans... she saved me from a cut throat in the forest, and freed me from captivity in the brigands' den... Marius and Cosette, and her guardian, remember giving me provisions and a fine carriage, and their best wishes... Combeferre is still standing in for me as leader of our friends at the Café... long story short, I have felt so terribly alone since Grantaire's departure, and felt alone, in truth, even before he disappeared, from the day that he began to drink that bright green liquor that pierced his heart and turned him cold and unfeeling; but at every stage along this journey, there has always been someone to offer aid and friendship. Though all these people, of high rank and low, have been obliged to serve me... But still... as they all wished... only me... I am the only one who can set him free... Maybe I am more of a leader than a fighter, but still... maybe there is greater power in me than in the Green Faery. I have such a power... a weapon within this heart, within this hot blood in my pulse. Otherwise, she will retain her power over him, and he will never be himself again. The thorns within my lover's heart can be removed by me and me alone. I have made it this far, and why give up already? If I cannot free Grantaire, then nobody will."
With this resolve, the fair leader wearily climbed up to his feet, his hands and feet so frozen that they had gone quite numb, and no longer even hurt anymore. The fight-or-flight response had also made every physical urge that weighed him down (pain, thirst, and fatigue) fade away within Enjolras, just like the light of the sun dispels the stars in the night sky.
"So, what d'you think of this li'l trick?" Grantaire asked and held his chin high, waiting for feedback, with such a self-satisfied, superior smile. His breathing wasn’t laboured, no sweat adorned his forehead, and no scarlet coloured his cheeks. It was as if he didn’t exert any effort at all. As if he wasn’t human.
He was more fluid, controlled and jumped so high it wasn’t even possible. He seemed to hover in the air like a feather, his landings having no wavering to them and it felt like… like nothing. Though that liquor dethroned reason, it did not subtract any strength or stamina whatsoever. Enjolras regarded him carefully, his feelings worn clear on his face as he thought on what to say. The savate was perfect, more than that. But how do you appreciate that, when it doesn’t touch anything inside? “It was indeed beautiful...”
The fight-or-flight response drowned everything else within the fair leader, as he pivoted 180 degrees to confront his opponent eye to eye, face to face. Not even Grantaire himself could have been that treacherous in combat... That was Enjolras' last thought before a surge of noradrenaline made his limbs tense and his concentration focus, locking eyes with the glazed, fiery hazel orbs of the savateur. The cold air brushing around Enjolras didn’t bother him, since he felt his blood pump through his vessels and steadfast calm guarded his limbs. He always enjoyed the beginning of a confrontation. The gradual accustoming to the environment. It filled him with anticipation of what’s to come. The unknown surprise. Will he succeed? Will he fail? Will he overcome himself? The win or loss didn’t interest him as much usually. Now this was a deathmatch in which he had all the odds against him, and could only hope to wear out his opponent, in a pointless rage, at the end of the day...
"So, what d'you think of this li'l trick?" Grantaire asked and held his chin high, waiting for feedback, with such a self-satisfied, superior smile. He put his hands behind his back, still tightly clasping the thyrsus, and ran for a while around Enjolras, as if to race for speed. His breathing wasn’t laboured, no sweat adorned his forehead, and no scarlet coloured his cheeks. It was as if he didn’t exert any effort at all. As if he wasn’t human.
He was more fluid, controlled and jumped so high it wasn’t even possible. He seemed to hover in the air like a feather, his landings having no wavering to them and it felt like… like nothing. Though that liquor dethroned reason, it did not subtract any strength or stamina whatsoever.
“Did you think I wanted you to come and rescue me in this foolish way? I was glad to escape you all, escape that dreary backroom and your horrid company. To return here, to the Queen who alone truly cares for me. You are worthless. Wretched. Ugly. I cannot stand to look at you.”
Once more he crouched, right leg pinned to the ground, left leg thrust backwards to gather momentum; once more he leaned forwards, with breath caught in his throat. His sight fixed upon that torso clad in scarlet laced with gold.
Worn-out from all the blows that had seriously pummelled him, Enjolras was by no means able to dodge the last strike. For a single instant, in his desperation, he could almost see a glimmer of the old Grantaire, that ironic smirk and that willpower. The eagerness and earnestness reminded him of that fateful evening before the macaronnerie, when the Marseillais saved his life and their paths had crossed for the first time in forever. It hurt to listen, it didn’t make sense... and above everything else, that train of thought was cut short by a powerful strike of Grantaire's heel scored against his own solar plexus, forcing all of the air out and throwing him off-kilter. With a loud crash, Enjolras felt that he lost his footing, fell backwards keeling over, and landed on the cold, damp pavement, falling upon his own left side; as he was struck down by the impact of his own left side against the floor, on the fifth and sixth true ribs, a sharp pain clung to his left arm and shoulder, neck and upper back, and everything turned hazy before his eyes... he could hear something that broke, with a curious crack that sounded like a wicker basket being crushed, inside his chest, crushing through cloth and skin and flesh and bone; and the dull, fleshy sound of a sharp blade slicing through organs.
Enjolras fell as in slow motion.
Then, as he keeled over and crash-landed, his left side crashing against the hard floor, letting out a whimper, he felt the shock and that sharp pain in his side; as if he had been stabbed with a sword or a bayonet in the left side. Only that what had stabbed the fair leader were the sharp edges of his own broken ribs. The situation had gotten worse and Enjolras wasn’t sure he could handle any more of the daggers plunged into his heart. The pain from that last fall made him choke on his own bleeding heart. If the young man could utter a scream of pain, it would nevertheless not reach the feelings of the one he loved.
Clutching his injured left side, the aftermath of that loud cracking sound still ringing in his ears, Enjolras scrambled wearily up on his feet. The damage had been done. From somewhere inside him, blood was gushing from a wound. A stabbing pain racked his crushed side and some liquid welled up inside his chest, and then tickled his throat as it bubbled up his trachea, making him cough; when he looked at his bloodstained open palms, which he had covered his mouth with, at the end of the coughing spell, and felt the taste of that frothy liquid like salted steel... the fair rebel leader's suspicions were confirmed. The gasp he uttered wrought even sharper pain to his side (it was already hurting like hell every time he breathed). Enjolras tried to yell, but only blood came out. Three broken ribs, one of which had pierced the lung... the only thing to hope for was that the sharp edge of the bone had not severed the artery. That he would not drown in his own blood, right there on the spot.
Enjolras was horrified. He knew he was dying. He had come so close! Two loving fiancés, a conspicuous carriage, the most charming robber girl ever. Now... no one would ever know his story. They would believe whatever lies the ancien régime said. And, since he was most likely not to return with Grantaire, the lieutenants he had left to their own devices would be destroyed by the National Guard.
"I have walked half the length of this country for him, down roads and across ice and stones, until my strength has worn away and my limbs are faltering and my head is lulled to rest and my feet are sore and my chest is bleeding. Because I have followed him through fields and forests, through the palaces of privilege, and into and out of the dens of iniquity. Because I have given away my reputation in high society and my childhood loneliness that were all that I had left of my past, all for his sake, and have left behind a cause which I could kill or die for, and friends who asked me to stay with them. Then I found his traces on the paths of regret and suffering, and in those traces red roses grew; each and every drop of blood that had dripped from my wounds had turned to a crimson rose. Yet still, how... How do we learn to give up in the face of all-powerful, very good-looking physical strength? This is suicide!" Enjolras wheezed in the silence, his broken ribs stinging with each breath; his head was beginning to swim due to blood loss; he staggered like a sleepy child, but a shred of consciousness still remained, like a bright star of hope in the night sky of sorrows. "What would 'Ponine say? What would 'Ferre, and Courf', and Marius and Cosette, and all the others...? For they rely not only on me. They rely on both of us. Though we are on our own, face to face... As long as we breathe... Never give up. Never give in. Come on, you boy-child, you winner and loser, and shine! You must keep struggling. The two of us must keep struggling, even if we find ourselves in terrible circumstances. Look at Death in the eye and say to yourself: NOT TODAY!"
The pain was like nothing he'd ever known.
Every breath he took seared his lungs. Blood poured from his torn flesh, over his shattered ribs. Everything danced in circles before his swimming eyes. Through the red haze of agony, he could hear something. It was pounding, low and laboured. It was the sound of his own heart, struggling to beat.
Gathering all the strength he had left, he gathered himself onto his knees and wiped himself on his sleeve. The blood dripped on the icy granite and soaked into the white shirt. Tears flooded his eyes from the pain. He fell, he fell… it can’t be over? He can’t hear anything. He saw Grantaire shouting at him, but doesn't hear what he said. A breath away he heard his own strained breathing and heartbeat, loud like when one would hide under a blanket and hear just that.
For a rather obvious reason, people with punctured lungs have always been advised by healthcare practitioners to speak as little as possible (as well as to remain prostrate). Given his state of health prior to the injury, it would matter thrice or four times as much to someone in Enjolras' situation.
"If you are aware that you have lungs, you are already in trouble," Enjolras recalled Joly say, aside from another favourite adage of his; "upon realising that life is leaving you, you're already dead." The leader's fingers clung like talons to the clothes he wore, to the runes carved by his side, trying with all their strength to cling to life until he had to inexorably let go when his strength wavered. The final leave-taking from this life can take some time, though; one's agony can be rather long in that moment in which each and every second of searing pain, of anxiety, of powerlessness, and of dread is as long as a whole life.
And now that he was standing upright, his knees buckling with fatigue and his head beginning to swim... Enjolras wheezed in the silence, his lungs stinging with each breath, his head drooping like the calyx of a lily whose stem is broken; and yet, raising his voice, no matter how weak and how distorted by injury, was the worst thing Enjolras could possibly do.
Still, he saw no other choice, though his strength was failing fast on account of the many wounds he had received. He could no longer fight in that state, but... Even humming or whispering a little Marseillaise would ease the pain and maybe catch the conscience of his advantaged opponent, and break the spell of the dark force that had stolen the savateur from him, and from himself; he looked up at Grantaire, startled, uncertain, despair making him reckless. What would he think when he woke and saw his golden hair, heard his sweet, amused voice telling him that he had been the opponent he had fought, and that at the battle's end, he had awakened in his arms?
And so. And therefore. And of course what all this must mean was, beyond doubt, their destiny: the marriage of the leader and the fighter. Or at least their symbolic marriage, not very unlike the climactic scene where Othello and Iago swore their solemn oath. And if
they were very lucky--wouldn't it be splendid--their friends, both those from the Musain and those Enjolras had made along the quest, even the Green Faery herself, might come to see them 'married.' "Destiny or no, they will 'marry' in three days, and never was there a more splendid couple than our leader and his savateur." And thus, the dice were cast in favour. He used all of his strength to slump over on the ground, and then called on whatever reserves he didn't know he had... He would go as far as he could, ere he finally died. He would stay a fighter, to the very end.
At first, it was only a faint humming of the tune, but soon, no matter the pain stabbing at his sides, no matter the fact that he was barely able to speak, or that he was very close to tears with rage and frustration, lyrics were sung, at first softly and gently, to the tune that both of them had once sung, in the backroom of a café with frosted windowpanes, not far from their old home in the faubourg:
"Allons, enfants de la Patrie,
le jour de gloire est..."
Here, his voice was broken by a coughing spell; ruby-red foam shot from his lips and rained down, leaving stains of blood that slowly began to freeze, upon several of the delicately engraved runes upon the cold, polished floor. It may have been by chance, or maybe not, that the runes highlighted by these drops of red foam spelled out the lyrics to the song Enjolras was singing at the cost of his life, as he staggered towards Grantaire, ignoring the clenching of his jaw, the darkening of his eyes, the way his hands dropped to his sides, tightly fisted.
"Contre nous de la tyrannie
l'étendard sanglant est levé..."
Every word he breathed, every note he breathed, was a dagger to his left side, but still he kept on singing, raising his voice the loudest he could muster (though it was a faint tone, broken by bloody coughing fits), even though everything was turning dark before his weary eyes, and his knees finally gave way, the pale young man, feeling as cold as ice, collapsing on all fours:
"Marchons, marchons,
qu'un sang impur..."
Blood filled his chest and came up through his throat, leaking through his mouth; his broken voice forming the pain-torn words. Time slowed. The images before his eyes blurred. Urgent words, spoken and shouted, stretched out forever. He couldn't understand them. Keep on singing, he thought, even if prostrate on the cold stone floor, surrounded by bloodstained runes that spelled out the lyrics to that brand new tune, as he lost consciousness. Not even realizing that Grantaire was swiftly and stealthily approaching his lovely, senseless, lifeless form. That his opponent was now straight by his side, coldly, indifferently watching the unconscious leader. Left leg firmly poised upon the ground, right leg raised up about one meter above Enjolras' lilywhite, gaunt face. Right foot steady, ready to crash land on the dying blond's throat, where life could be quenched the quickest, and silence that broken chant that had begun to fill Grantaire with an unlikely sense of déjà-vu. He did not speak yet, but was already staring at the fair-haired stranger with hazel eyes that gradually widened and lightened up with more and more life:
"Amour sacré de la Patrie,
conduis, soutiens nos... bras vengeurs..."
More of that red foam, as scarlet as his coat and waistcoat, gushed through Enjolras' parted lips. He felt like being stabbed by a dozen bayonets on both sides of his ribcage, as the coughing spell took hold and he quivered feverishly, consciousness slipping away. The blood, which continued to surge out, did not foretell anything good for the injured leader. The opinion was suddenly entertained, from the great flow of blood, that he had cut an artery, which foreboded little good. All his hopes were wearing off and fading away, like a rope gradually breaks, thread by thread, until only the thin filament at the core remained.
"Liberté, Liberté chérie,
combats avec tes défenseurs..."
And Grantaire stood there transfixed, frozen in place, as if doubting or toying with the idea of putting the senseless fair stranger out of his misery, his hazel eyes widening and little by little coming to shine with life.
Enjolras tried to struggle back to his feet, trying to stand up with a scream that was a sharp stab to his side, but he was so exhausted that he found he could not do it. He was able to reach his knees, but could go no farther, and threw himself against the savateur once again, despite the coldness of his body. There he stood, clutching the dark-haired Grantaire's right leg as he scrambled up and, nearly despairing, kept on singing the song that both of them had sung together by the windowsill, or in the Café Musain, as the Revolution was about to come:
"Combats avec tes défenseurs..."
The savateur was not listening. Instead, even though he remained cold and still, he reached up to touch the bloody person who clung to his thigh, as if he were wondering what it might be.
The fair leader stared at him, frozen, his eyes filling with hot tears that he blinked back, for he would not let himself do anything so weak as crying in front of anyone. He reached out one hand towards Grantaire, while covering his own lips with the other. Losing too much blood. Consciousness slipping away. Drifting like in a dream. Rising. Falling. Too weak to walk, too heavy to crawl.
One might be able to take the two of them, at first sight, for a sculptural group.
Ruby droplets shot out through Enjolras' cold lips and struck Grantaire on the thighs, on the midsection, on the chest... and it felt warm, so warm... When this happened, their heat reached straight through to his friend's frozen heart, thawing the lump of ice as nothing else could have. As Enjolras sang, the ice in Grantaire's heart sang in response. The warmth of that freshly-shed blood seeped through his dark, hairy skin; it coursed through his veins and penetrated to his heart, and the lump of ice that gripped his heart melted away in an instant, as Enjolras collapsed once more, senseless, before his feet; for his limbs seemed to refuse their functions, and the oxygen could not reach his lungs. His glazed eyes shut once more, and his whole self went limp as he fell slack to the ground. The fair leader writhed like a trampled snake, and a red foam bubbled from his lips; only his strained breathing broke the silence.
Right then, under the warmth of that blood, consciousness and sensitivity came back, instantly, to the young warrior who had wrought that painful injury in the first place. The blue colour of cyanosis left his most vulnerable features and the blood pulsed again through his veins and arteries. Though he was well and strong, his conscience screamed at him, as he hesitated until the last. Hesitated - until he did it.
He dropped his thyrsus, which fell with a crash on the floor.
A warmth spread through him. A tingling, a strangeness. They rolled through the stitches in between the catskins, inside his green paisley waistcoat and his worn shirt, those crimson drops, and they reached his chest. And the warmth of that blood melted that layer of ice that had been lodged in his heart since so long ago... dissolving into the bloodstream once more. The salt and the warmth of that blood soaked through his shirt, through skin and flesh and breastbone, all the way into his heart. It began to thaw immediately, beating surer and louder. As blood coursed, warm, through his arteries and then his veins, Grantaire flushed, and, without thinking, looked down at the pavement.
And so it was that one day as he sat arranging and rearranging the runes, he, or rather the one he loved, happened to spell out FRIHET.
For a long time he stared at the bloodstained runes and at the wounded young man who lay so close. And though he could not remember why this song or this word or this person was important, his heart remembered. The pain of it, much like the return of feeling to limbs that have been frozen, brought memory flooding back, and he looked and saw Enjolras a little distance away, busy with his own puzzle of life and death. It struck him as the bitterest thing in the world, that he should have had his heart's desire right beside him all this time and been unable to recognise it. Then he thought that the Queen would soon return, and he might never again have the chance to say the things he should have said so long ago.
Then Grantaire drew a deep breath, as if it were the first he'd drawn in a long time. He looked down, and recognition sparked. He stood there unmoving, resisting the thirst in his throat and mesmerised by something.
"But then... how... who...?" His words trailed away as his eyes came to rest on a motionless figure stretched out on the floor, quickly bleeding out; not swimming, but rather drowning in his own blood.
It was a wisp of a boy, with long fair hair like beaten gold, thick blond locks so golden that they seemed coquette, underneath which his brow was high, fair and shapely; he was dressed in a crimson peacoat, with a scarlet waistcoat braided like a hussar's pelisse underneath. His skin was clear and his cheekbones high, his eyes shut, though Grantaire somehow imagined them icy blue and lit from within like an ember you thought you had put out. Thick, curly hair attacked the air around his head, barely contained in a riotous ponytail. He was at least in his twenties, though he looked like an adolescent of seventeen or eighteen; he offered that lovely harmony, and also that stark contrast, of a spirit made for passion and a body made for love. He was blond, fresh, quite slender and quite supple, with the cheekbones of a young maiden and delicate hands; he had a vivid and delicate, though repressed, allure. Everything in him was charm, elegance, and nearly voluptuousness; there it was, all the gentleness of the "long-haired page in crimson clad." The beauty of the look in his shut eyes would doubtless compensate for that excess of grace, with deep gravity in the look in those azure eyes, resulting evidently from his spirit and not at all from his outward looks; and his smile would doubtless show childish teeth, a sincere and pensive smile. Upon looking at him, Grantaire felt that this was one of those well-meaning beings, innocent and pure, who progress in a sense inverse to that of the madding crowd, who swim against the mainstream; one of those whom delusion make wise and experience make enthusiastic.
The dark student took off the cork of the precious stream which he coveted and put it to his lips. As he downed the bright green poison of a liquor, once he had drained it to the last drop, his lips curled upwards and he rose wearily into a stance that quickly turned to one full of resolve:
"Rather a dead warrior than a living man! You ask me for greater things, and... what else would anyone else want from me? And you will never die, nevermore. In ruling that land, I shall do all by the counsel of my Lady, who will then be my Queen too. Her word shall be my law, even as my word will be law to the people we have conquered. I am well content to live by her word, who has already saved me from a thousand dangers. No mother has taken pains more tenderly for her child, than the Queen's grace has for me. Is not that a lady worthy of a warrior's whole worship? Everything she commands feels easy, soft, merry, lackadaisy, tranquil." And then he licked his lips and incisors to taste the few drops that lingered upon them. "Witness... as I drink my fill... from the fountains... of liberty... and sup from... the streams and rivulets... of free will. Watch me... greedily guzzle... the eternal wellsprings of creativity, and empty every last drop... from the cup... of freedom itself! Already I can taste... the sweet nectar of life... that is set before me! A freshly-brewed beverage... of heady human hopes... and toothsome mortal dreams... upon which to gorge myself! Let me drink my fill... from the wellsprings... of eternal life itself!"As he drank it, he had realised that by its taste it was the draught, but by its effect it was not. No pleasant sensations came to him, and once more he had become so inured to his favourite poison that he felt betrayed.
And thus, each and every evening, ever since the one when Grantaire had first acquired the taste of decadence, the Lady had given him to drink the narcotic prepared with blood from her veins; the young man was always eager to quaff it, in order to give a truce, a respite to the struggle of raging passions that tore at him from within.
And she was gradually wasting away, little by little; life ebbed forth through the wounds she had open on her wrists, no sooner freshly scarred till slashed again into bloody fountains where Grantaire drank his fill of respite and of euphoria. Till that fateful evening, feeling herself waste away, her strength dwindling every now and then (this was too perfect a commander for her warriors; too loathe to accept reality, too eager to quaff her blood -- only now she had realised it), and realising that there was scarcely left in her arteries what little blood she needed in order to stay alive, she fell or rather collapsed at the young man's feet, imploring as if she were suddenly turned the maid and he the master:
"Please... do not make your queen die...! The dreams I give you are the strength of my own existence, that already flickers away... Please not covet the life that I have left; please not seek that respite and those seductive visions in the draught that I served you... Leave me this little spark of life I have left, for me to see you and adore you, to reach out these arms and receive you, to make everything easy with endearing caresses... Entwined we shall await the morrow, and in the intoxication of our love you shall find that respite..."
Yet Grantaire would rather break than yield to the pleas of his unfortunate paramour. Thirsty and burning with desire, enticed by his only pleasure (like the lush he had once been), he was on fire, more eager than ever to taste the precious draught, even if it cost him the life of the one who offered it to him.
"Oh, I will slake my thirst, I will drink so deep... I... I want to dream on!!" so eager was he that he trembled like a leaf, sparkles in those bloodshot hazel eyes. "I want to get ravished by the delight of drowning my sorrows, and of seeing my delusions become reality... The ambition that is crowned during this lethargy of mine is as lovely and as sweet as if I ever saw it in reality, in the flesh and blood!"
The Lady turned away from the young man, and still he pursued her like a psychotic criminal pursues his victim, deaf to all her pleas, stubborn, burning with thirst for that precious green blood.
"Mercy!!" pleaded the wretched queen, feeling herself captured and shackled by the young man's convulsive hands, trampled underfoot by his powerful leg muscles, at any given instance. Never before had she felt threatened, and this awoke within the Lady in Green a lust for flying away once more, once more towards southern lands.
"Now I must hasten away to other countries," she suddenly replied in a syrupy sweet voice, as her warrior clasped her waist, dazzled by rage, full of anxiety. "Now I am going to make a flying trip to the warm countries," she told him. "The Habsburg Heartlands are looking a little dry... They are sorely in need of upheaval. I want to have a look at what is going on there, to take a look where the hearts of freedom fighters are ablaze with the fire of youth, for I want to spit in their fire! I will go southward, then eastward, into the heart of Europe, and look into the cafés of Budapest and Debrecen, where young men and some young women are singing the Szózat and loading their firearms, and I will whisper the truth in their ears, just softly enough that they cannot hear it. So that they will be left for dead upon the streets and upon the fields, mowed down by Austrian fire; and they will have to drink my blood to live and follow our commands. It will do them good to be refreshed; ice is pleasant as a dessert after a fiery battle, isn't it? They need it, and it will be such a relief after all those scarlet flags and crimson blood. It will be good for them, for it will make them work all the harder, and that will certainly add more warriors to your ranks; for what general has ever had no men, or women for that matter, at all at his command? Upon their leader's orders, every one of them shall bear the sign I engrave upon, and trudge helplessly to the tune I pound upon, their hollowed souls!"
Lilith sat on her throne once more, using a mirror, sending her own image out to scan the world. She was searching.
Wherever there was a sparkle on a wave crest, wherever there was a sheet of ice, wherever there was a mirror or a reflection then Lilith knew she could see out. You didn’t need a magic mirror. Any mirror would do, if you knew how to use it. And Lilith, crackling with the power of a million images, knew that very well.
Lilith wanted to be sure. She hadn’t got where she was today without being sure.
In puddles and windows all over the Pas-de-Calais, the face of Lilith appeared momentarily and then moved on...
"So, if I get the picture right... With us everyone will be happy, and they will no longer rebel or destroy each other, as in freedom, everywhere. Oh, we shall convince them that they will only become free when they resign their freedom to us, and submit to us... Will we be right, do you think, or will we be lying?" Grantaire, subsequently brought to his senses, cocked an eyebrow, wavering for a single instant, that was suddenly cut short by her riposte:
"They themselves will be convinced that we are right, glad to be freed from the thralldom of Liberty, for they will remember to what horrors of confusion their freedom led them. Of course both of us have seen such consequences: we have seen wars and uprisings, we have seen intrigue and betrayal, we have seen the cruelty of the powerful and despair of the weak; such things that make it worthwhile to look away and drown one's sorrows. We shall bring true peace, completely unlike the one the Living World gives. That 'peace' of humanity is but a reflection on liquid water, rife with betrayal, and the source of many wars. Our war will be the last one ever. When I return, I shall give you frequent draughts; that will help you ease your pain, and blur your memories as well..."
And thus, leaving through the door to the left, without even waving goodbye, away she flew, gradually soaring up to the skies, leaving her dark warrior quite, quite alone to retrace his runes, in the great hall which was so empty and icy, so bereft of life and so many miles in length; thus, since he dreaded being left alone, he spent a while reaching out into the air as if beckoning to her, but in vain.
And with that she flew, leaving him alone in the endless empty hall.
He continued to puzzle over the pieces, unable to form the keyword he needed to. It was like the Snow Queen was playing some cruel trick on him, for he had spelled out tonnes of nouns and yet had been unable to form the one he needed.
He sat so stiff on the ice that it was easy for a person to assume that he was frozen to death, despite being very much alive.
And away she flew, leaving him on his own; Grantaire sat all alone in that endless, empty, frigid hall, looking at his runes, and puzzled over the strange characters until he almost cracked his skull, thinking so that he crackled inside. He sat so stiff and still that one might have thought he was frozen to death himself.He turned to look upon her; struck by her sorrow, and perhaps by the pity for himself which trembled in her voice. It was a quick and rapid action; and for the moment some flash of his old bearing kindled in his form. In the next she went as she had come, and he was left alone in the endless hall. Nor, as the sickness had tightened down on his whole self, sinking into his nervous system, as it continued to go about its work of destroying his established patterns of thought and behaviour, did this glimmer of a quenched fire seem to light him to a quicker sense of his debasement. He had not succeeded yet; his head felt like it would burst, and still he remained without having attained it. Convinced of his own uselessness, for want of ideas, he decided to sit down, convinced of that he was a good-for-nothing. He sat pondering his patterns, thinking and thinking; he sat so still one might have believed that he was frozen to death.
Then, suddenly, something gave way and shattered within him; he turned pale once more, and begain to tremble from crown to toe like a leaf on the branch, his knees buckled and gave way underneath, and he fell on all fours, his lilywhite lips uttering confused sounds, his pupils disappearing in the increasing whites of his eyes; then he knelt and stared at the floor, and was thinking so deeply, and sat so still, and remained there, at the foot of the throne, so stiff and so lifeless, without even breathing, that anyone might have supposed that he was a statue of a young satyr, or even of the God of Revelry himself, hewn out of Carrara marble.
Any brusque movement could make him reel and fall heavily upon the runes, or so it seemed. One would have thought, or even believed, that he had frozen to death.
Just at this moment it happened that Enjolras, entering the circle of stones and having watered the rosebush with his own life-blood, reached the great, tall, imposing doors of the castle. They were so cold that it burned to the touch like metal heated until it glowed, and it seemed at first that just getting into the fortress would prove impossible. If there were hinges, they were carefully hidden. The elaborate icy panels, fashioned from silvery, interlocking crystal, in an intricate pattern that left no room to slide through, not even an arm up to an elbow, butted up against the start of the high frozen wall that circled the fortress, closing it off from the outside world. Enjolras pushed on them, though he knew they would hardly swing open at just one touch. Indeed, so cold were the doors that his gloves stuck to them, and after he had opened them, which was surprisingly easy in spite of what it seemed, he had to rip his hands free, leaving the mittens glued to the entrance doors. Those thick Russian winter gloves, lined with rabbitskin on the inside, had saved his hands and most surely his life.
The fair young man staggered in through the great doors, leaving them open behind him, for he could not bring himself to touch them again. The floor of the hallway beyond them was cold as well, and damp, his feet sticking a little, or slipping on the slippery grounds, with every step; and the blood on his feet froze to it, sticking a little with every step.
After he had stared up at the forbidding gate and threshold for a while, shivering in the gusting winds and the clammy fog, he noticed what looked like a steep, treacherous staircase cut into the icy rock beside the threshold. When he approached the foot of this staircase, he realized that the steps had been cut into a narrow chimney that was protected from the Arctic winds and mists. Determined, he started up.
At the top, a narrow door awaited, but, when he tried the door, it was locked tight without any padlocks. This was no ordinary keyhole. Inspiration struck; he tried to reach his right hand towards the keyhole, remembering old fairytales where blood and tears could do anything and even unlocked a padlock or a collar, and sure enough, a crimson drop of venous blood fell into the keyhole, and sure enough, it turned like a key in the lock, and the door opened into the great entrance hall, whose ceilings towered a hundred feet above his head, tall as a cathedral.
The gates, frozen by ice and the dictation of the Queen it served, began to tremble and shiver
behind Enjolras, for the wards that guarded the fortress were no match for the clear and open beauty of a pure voice. It was their one weakness, the one sound, which would overrule the voice of their mistress. And like the students that stopped to listen to his speeches, here the locks and wards cowered and acquiesced to his voice.
The staircase, wide at its feet, systematically grew thinner into a large gate decorated with trencadís mosaic. Pillars guarded its sides, sprinkled with carvings; carvings, all carrying a pattern of crystals and shimmering secretly in a twilight. Right then he understood here was no day, no night, and everything was made of quartz. The complete castle was made of it. Through this hall and into another, and another, each more bleak and forbidding than the one before, past small spires and crenelation, he made his way deeper into the palace of the Lady in the Green Kirtle. This was a difficult journey indeed, for the palace was no place for any warm-blooded, living thing; every surface, including the floor, was made of razor sharp pieces of icy granite or quartz, and it was impossible to go a dozen steps without cutting oneself on these shards. But the fair leader, shivering in spite of his crimson peacoat, felt that he must be very close now, and would not be discouraged.
Enjolras walked wearily down the long hallway and through the castle, his long golden hair fluttering loosely in his wake as entered each one of the great halls, empty and cold; studying the wide halls that spread out in front of his eyes, the gleaming staircases and glittering chandeliers of quartz that hung from ceilings fifty feet high. The floor sparkled like diamonds beneath weary feet, but it did not matter, because its icy beauty was lost on his regards. There was nothing in this place that filled Enjolras with wonder, for he had never encountered
such a place so cold, unforgiving, and lifeless. Every room he passed was empty and austere, and in the whole fortress, nothing moved except his own reflection in the quartz crystal stalactites above his head and the pools upon the floors, where a ray of light peered in through the foreboding, forbidden dark walls, and shattered into the brightest colours as it pierced through the quartz prisms. Little motes of dust and heather pollen travelled over the lit space and landed on the mirrors on both the ceiling and the floor. There was no natural light. It surprised Enjolras that what from the outside seemed to be a simple Celtic shrine... though he could see a structure bristled with small spires and crenelation, it turned out to be a foggy, dark, cold, lifeless Cretan labyrinth of black granite full of twists and turns and dead ends. His own ribs were like lead, constricting his lungs, lying heavy on his heart, poisoning his blood. His skin was burning. "It feels like I'm suffocating..." gasped the fair leader to himself. He felt as if he breached a sacred forbidden ground. A crystal cathedral, where everything looked beautiful, but was void of warmth. He wasn’t sure how to feel, since this was his goal.
This realm of deadly beauty, however exquisite, sublime, and pristinely pure... could only lead to destructive solitude and solipsism. Only thanks to the warmth of his heart, of his blood, was he able to keep himself alive.
At last, he reached the largest, emptiest hall, the one most bereft of life, the one where the throne was, and caught sight of, then stared down at Grantaire. There was someone in the room, a long way off from where he was. In fact, the room was so large, it was hard to tell exactly if one was looking at a boy or a girl. The person was kneeling on the floor, sliding their hands on the rune-inlaid floor as if looking for something. But what would they be looking for?
The person made a frustrated scratch at the back of their head and Enjolras had to hold back a gasp like he'd never had to before. Grantaire used to do that. When he was concentrating deeply or was frustrated beyond words, he'd resorted to scratching the back of his head in this way that only he could do. To Enjolras it was as unique a trait as his artistic talent or rapier wit.
For all of the changes within him, Enjolras still recognised Grantaire.
Already from the threshold of the throne room, he recognised him where he lay staring blankly; his brow was furrowed, as if some complexity weighed on his mind, but his lips were parted like a child's, in stark contrast to the black stubble and whiskers around, and something about his face was vulnerable and sweet as he slept. Unconscious. Not even moving a muscle. Illuminated by this sinister twilight, he appeared even more lonely and foreign. He wasn't a man. Not even a boy. He was a helpless little thing, senseless and bereft of life. There was something about that face that didn't seem quite right.
At first, the fair leader was at a loss how to begin the conversation the closer he approached him. Would he say bonjour or bonsoir; did it make a difference? They had no concept of time here and, a stranger in the throne room, the blond was an intruder not belonging in here.
“'Allo.” He settled upon in the end. It didn’t sound eager or too loud, but also not too quiet. The savateur didn’t turn to him right away, making the blond think he didn’t hear him.
Enjolras' heart seemed to stop beating for a moment when he saw him, kneeling on the floor so very still, and for a terrible moment, the fair leader thought that he had come all this way, walked so very far, and given up so much, through fire and ice, only to find his friend dead, the terrible cold within the lightless and lifeless throne room having frozen him solid where he sat.
At last he had come to the great throne room, at the center of which was the vast frozen runestone floor. And the fair leader came on into the vast, cold, empty hall. There he saw a pale figure dressed all in green, armed with a thyrsus, sitting as still as a statue at the center of the hall, at the foot of the throne, and his heart started to hammer fiercely against his left-hand ribs. Only by the raven's wing of his dark hair was Grantaire recognisable, but Enjolras knew him at once, even from that great distance. Right from the threshold, he recognised the one he had sought for so long. There was someone in the room, a long way off from where he was. In fact, the room was so large, it was hard to tell exactly if one was looking at a boy or a girl. The person was kneeling on the floor, sliding their hands on the rune-inlaid floor as if looking for something. But what would they be looking for?
The person made a frustrated scratch at the back of their head and Enjolras had to hold back a gasp like he'd never had to before. Grantaire used to do that. When he was concentrating deeply or was frustrated beyond words, he'd resorted to scratching the back of his head in this way that only he could do. To Enjolras it was as unique a trait as his artistic talent or rapier wit.
Then he recognised Grantaire at once, right away, and ran up to him. Before he knew it, he had stepped out onto the runestone floor of the throne room. He took two long strides toward his friend, and then broke into a run; he ran across the room, which took considerable effort and time as it was the biggest room Enjolras had ever seen – and that included both his own native estate and the Fauchelevents' palace – also, he was still faint with blood loss and exhaustion. The vast, empty, cold throne room was devoid of life and covered in hoarfrost, but it still was the most human friendly place in the whole castle. The chandeliers on the ceiling were too many with huge abundance of crystals, and the air was iridescent with tiny rainbows as light streamed through those countless prisms. Another man might have been frightened by now, but the fair leader was strong and brave and had survived many battles and trials; the only thing in the hall that made him afraid at all was Grantaire, and how still and silent and pale and cold he sat. If he saw the blond, if he heard Enjolras, he didn’t turn, didn’t acknowledge his presence – he just kept staring at his own blank crystal reflection in front of him.
As soon as he saw the dark warrior up close, he knew that something terrible had happened to him, but he couldn't help himself; so relieved was he to see the savateur alive that he threw his slender arms around Grantaire's strong neck, feeling the strength of the fine, corded muscles, and seized him close, and shook him, burying his face against his friend's chest and holding on tightly while exclaiming jubilantly: "Grand... R! Oh, my friend, I've found you at last, je t’ai donc enfin retrouvé! I finally found you! I came all this way and you’re here!"
A young man, with high cheekbones and a long face to match his equally long limbs. His overgrown, rumpled hair was dark, though his skin was lighter — the exact colour hard to see in the otherworldly light of the throne room. The expanse of chest left bare by the catskins was muscular and toned, his shoulders and forearms flecked with thin weapon practice scars.
He was a real person, spread out there, lips parted slightly. His chest rose and fell. The lashes of his eyes fluttered but didn’t part.
The face was familiar, the same dark hazel eyes that had always held so much emotion, the long dark hair, the slightly crooked nose that had been a result of falling from a tree when he was younger, the small pink lips that had always smirked or teased or laughed at Enjolras for all those years. But now, the half-shut eyes held contempt instead of joy, the long dark hair had grown haphazardly in all directions, as if chopped instead of cut properly, and the mouth was twisted into a grim line.
Grantaire remained sitting there quite still, stiff and cold, his skin like marble; his skin frozen and an absent look in his eyes. He was like as a doll, mute and didn’t manage to say anything when the leader made his offer; he just dropped his hands like a loose doll and frowned; and sat there quite still, stiff and cold, as if he did not even know that the fair leader was there. He just remained silent. He didn't move. The leader called his surname, but he did not answer. His eyes were closed, his pale lips did not respond. It was like embracing a marble satyr encased in an iceberg. He was perishingly cold. Colder even than the throne room itself, if that were possible; still dressed and unmoving.
He didn't move. Just sat there very still, without looking up; senseless, lifeless, nor did he display any emotion.
Countenance fixed in the insensibility of drunkenness; it appeared to be withered by intemperance.
In the embrace he was pulled into, his head rattled on his neck, but still he didn't move. The fair leader checked his pulse. Slow, but steady.
He didn't answer, of course, just rolled over and flopped on hand onto Enjolras' thighs. He looked so calm and innocent in sleep, a man just out of boyhood, his human features still unfamiliar and alien. There was something about him that looked as though his body wasn't used to being human either, an oddness to the way he curled his arms and tilted his head as though he was used to being larger.
Only grumbled and his forehead wrinkled.
Then Enjolras did flinch and pull away from him, shivering with both cold and fear, almost burning skin as he hugged the savateur, for this was a pain he had not expected. The one for whom he had walked halfway across France, for whom he had given up his post as leader and a year of his degree, for whose sake he had left behind all the other friends he had made along the way… Grantaire did not know him anymore. He knew nothing but his heart-changing elixir and the Green Faery's runes. As the blond buried his head in the dark-haired one's chest, he listened and recoiled in shock: his skin was ice cold beneath the touch, and a chill went up the fair leader's spine... as he tried to listen in vain and was shocked that that heart, suddenly, did not beat the least. Yet he felt Grantaire's lips tremble against his own skin, and, though he could not call him back, Enjolras knew that he was not dead. Doubtless, Grantaire was somehow enchanted; he still wouldn't wake. He had moved around in the night in the normal way of a sleeper, but he hadn't woken...
The silence that ensued was only broken by the heavy breathing of the two of them, standing before one another.
He still didn't move.
That was when Enjolras decided this absolutely wasn’t natural.
"Oh, 'Ponine was right." Gasp. "She drugged his drink."
Enjolras let him go and looked into his eyes, looking for some sign of life or of recognition, but those hazel eyes were no longer sad, nor warm with affection, nor bright with irony, but as cold and hard as chips of dirty ice. "Don't you know me? You remember me, right?" Enjolras asked in a small voice, a sinking dread beginning to take hold in his stomach; and he even slapped Grantaire across the face, leaving a handprint that was dark green (instead of rosy) across those stubbled features, but the lush did not even turn to look at him.
"You’re an idiot! I’ve been trying to wake you up each night and you’ve made it really hard for me by drinking that stuff and you’re getting married to that woman, if she can be called one in the first place, tomorrow!”
The dark-haired man chuckled and caught Enjolras' hand in his larger calloused hand, at first limp as a doll's (the fair leader was shocked not to feel its pulse or pressure) before squeezing it gently.
“What is it? What do you want from me?”
At that, Grantaire seemed at last to notice him there, and he blinked as if waking from a deep trance. Upon seeing the fair leader's reflection on the chandeliers of crystal mirrors, he felt a sense of déjà-vu, and he looked at that reflection (and at his own, as well) with a fixed expression, casting doubt on all he had to say. There was almost no recognition in his eyes as they glared at the intruder. "Should I?" he said, but it had been so long since he had spoken to another mortal that his voice sounded like icicles cracking. "I can't believe you followed me here," he continued. "I don't know who you are, but you look vaguely familiar..." There was not the slightest trace of Marseillais accent, or of any other regional patois; he spoke perfect standard French.
"No," the fair leader told himself, as he climbed to his feet, his chest aching from both the thorns and the cold, and his hands and feet so frozen that they had gone quite numb, and no longer even hurt anymore... "He is not anyone else's. He is mine by right, and I have come to claim him." And as he said it, he realized that it was true, and that the reverse was true also: that he belonged to Grantaire.
"Who are you? What do you want?” he hissed, face and eyes blank of recognition. "And what," said the entranced warrior, "makes you think I will give my heart to you?" And, as he spoke, though the blond did not see his eyes change, those orbs were like black holes in the sky, glazed and filled with empty green darkness. The look in his eyes was lightless, and his brow was pale, clammy, bloodless; his mouth a single hard-drawn straight line, thin and bitter.
Enjolras wanted to say something that would reach him, wanted to tell him the things he'd been afraid to tell him that perfect springtime so long ago, but his beloved friend now wore the face of a stranger, and his courage deserted him. "Surely you must remember," the fair leader said, fighting despair. To have come so far only to find that he'd lost Grantaire after all was a cruel blow indeed. "Did you exchange your walk-on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?"
A suspicious look came into the stubbled face then, and he backed away from the blond. It was no use; Grantaire only curled his lip in scorn, staring at him uncomprehending. "I don't know you," the dark warrior said in that awful, splintered-ice voice; and he laughed, a hollow, echoing laugh, and before Enjolras could answer, Grantaire's response proved as violent as it proved unexpected. As if from the sudden halt of a galloping coach, the sleeper awoke. Grantaire stood up with a start, stretched his arms, rubbed his eyes, looked, yawned, and understood. He shook his head, as if collecting his wits, and turned back to stare at his own reflection. Then he stirred from his oblivion. “What is it?” he asked, struggling to sit upright, with his gaze still shiftily averted. “What do you see?”
The dark-haired man didn’t turn to him right away, making Enjolras think he didn’t hear him. He was about to call to him once more, but he was left with a gaping mouth when Grantaire suddenly rose up, bloodshot hazel eyes wide open and flashing like lightning in the night. The dark-haired one moved, ever so slightly, leaving his thyrsus on the floor and gradually crouching into a catlike stance, like that of a jaguar about to lunge at its prey, the first movement he had made as threatening as it was graceful, that Enjolras knew all too well.
The stance of a savateur about to strike his opponent.
And Enjolras shivered when Grantaire's head flew up, icy eyes locking to his own... his grin was something feral and bare; eyes, dark with something almost like madness, narrowed.
"Was he drugged, that he couldn't hear my heart calling to his? Hope he still is intoxicated, weakened by what he has drunk..." the fair leader braced himself. There was nothing he could do but skip and dodge his opponent's kicks, delivered with the same strength he should have used to protect his beloved leader.
All Enjolras could do was lithely run, and feint, and skip... he had always been a leader, never a fighter... everything but an expert when it came to hand-to-hand combat, not to mention hand-to-foot combat; only able to defend himself under pressure, when his very integrity was being threatened without his consent... if he had only asked Grantaire, or at least Courfeyrac, to teach him some savate and/or some more bâton moves... but maybe he could turn the dark savateur's power against himself, with the right responses? Enjolras saw no other way to counter the dark force that had stolen the savateur from him, and from himself; and he began to run, so quickly that his bloody footprints did not begin to freeze until he was already two steps ahead of his opponent.
After all, cold steel could slash and hot lead could pierce... but well-trained limbs could not only bruise, but even disfigure, even kill by crushing. "He does not know me anymore. A hideous way to die," the blond thought as he gulped, bracing himself. "Though against a worthy opponent indeed..." At the same time, he was pleased to see the one he loved for one last time more, before his days could be done.
This train of thought was instantly cut short by the fight-or-flight response: Grantaire, pivoting quickly, aimed a fine kick of his left escarpin, powered by rippling leg muscles, at Enjolras' face and throat. "Le coup de figure!", the blond instantly realised as he took, unconsciously, a quick step to the right. The heel of his opponent's foot barely grazed Enjolras' left shoulder. And then he (Grantaire) jumped up as if nothing happened and fixed the state of his coat. And subsequently picked up the thyrsus from the rune-inlaid floor, holding it in both hands: he would use it to parry whatever blows his opponent would strike, using his mastery of savate for offensive and of the bâton for defensive purposes. A gasp, the fair-haired stripling reeling backwards with his heart up in his throat, and looking right at his opponent, who was as lithe and strong as if he were sober; the latter was leaning forwards to the right, as if concentrating all of his body weight on that side, but stretching out his left leg. As counterweight? Maybe, being lighter, Enjolras could just vault or leap over that left leg, as if playing cheval fondu... but it could be a ruse, a decoy... still, there was no other way than just standing still there and waiting to die.
The perspiration ran down his forehead in streams, making the golden fringe of his hair stick to the drenched brow beneath. Of course his strength had begun to dwindle ever since those three laps withershins around the fort, but the fair leader had never felt sapped of it all until that disastrous attempt. His youthful agility was his sole support in this otherwise unequal combat, but he felt that his power of motion diminished every minute from loss of blood. Lithely racing towards his dark opponent, with his heart pounding and his head already beginning to swim, Enjolras missed the chance to use that outstretched leg of his opponent's as a vaulting horse. Instead, it had rather the effect of a rope stretched out at his feet in that headlong collission course. The shifting position and loss of balance startled the fair leader to action.
A reeling Enjolras staggered forwards six or seven steps before crashing into the wall, his bruised head leaning on the cold stone wall before he slumped down on the pavement runes, everything darkening before his eyes as he lost consciousness.
"For having lived in too much sorrow, or too much joy, the light of your soul and reason has been quenched. Drinking and revelling until you became insane... The place in your heart where I once dwelt is cold and dead. You stand there with your fixed expression, casting doubt on all I have to say..." Enjolras sighed. He wanted so much to go to sleep, even if it were never to awaken... This was worse than not remembering him, worse than not caring at all. The savateur found him a target, an enemy to crush underfoot. And that thyrsus looked far thicker and more resistant than the average bâton, ensuring that the fair leader would never break through that defense. Perhaps there was no hope anymore and Grantaire had turned to something beyond his reach, but still... there was still breathing in his lungs, and strength in his limbs, and resolve to spare:
"I can wish for no greater power than I have already... Don’t you see how strong that is? How many obstacles you have overcome, Enjolras, and how well you have got through the wide world, walking five hundred miles through bitter experience, through fire and ice, alone as you are? You cannot receive any power greater than you now have, it comes to you from yourself, and consists in your own courage and inner strength and the nobility of your heart. Still, I was never alone: Éponine's out there, alone against the korrigans... she saved me from a cut throat in the forest, and freed me from captivity in the brigands' den... Marius and Cosette, and her guardian, remember giving me provisions and a fine carriage, and their best wishes... Combeferre is still standing in for me as leader of our friends at the Café... long story short, I have felt so terribly alone since Grantaire's departure, and felt alone, in truth, even before he disappeared, from the day that he began to drink that bright green liquor that pierced his heart and turned him cold and unfeeling; but at every stage along this journey, there has always been someone to offer aid and friendship. Though all these people, of high rank and low, have been obliged to serve me... But still... as they all wished... only me... I am the only one who can set him free... Maybe I am more of a leader than a fighter, but still... maybe there is greater power in me than in the Green Faery. I have such a power... a weapon within this heart, within this hot blood in my pulse. Otherwise, she will retain her power over him, and he will never be himself again. The thorns within my lover's heart can be removed by me and me alone. I have made it this far, and why give up already? If I cannot free Grantaire, then nobody will."
With this resolve, the fair leader wearily climbed up to his feet, his hands and feet so frozen that they had gone quite numb, and no longer even hurt anymore. The fight-or-flight response had also made every physical urge that weighed him down (pain, thirst, and fatigue) fade away within Enjolras, just like the light of the sun dispels the stars in the night sky.
"So, what d'you think of this li'l trick?" Grantaire asked and held his chin high, waiting for feedback, with such a self-satisfied, superior smile. His breathing wasn’t laboured, no sweat adorned his forehead, and no scarlet coloured his cheeks. It was as if he didn’t exert any effort at all. As if he wasn’t human.
He was more fluid, controlled and jumped so high it wasn’t even possible. He seemed to hover in the air like a feather, his landings having no wavering to them and it felt like… like nothing. Though that liquor dethroned reason, it did not subtract any strength or stamina whatsoever. Enjolras regarded him carefully, his feelings worn clear on his face as he thought on what to say. The savate was perfect, more than that. But how do you appreciate that, when it doesn’t touch anything inside? “It was indeed beautiful...”
“Beautiful he says... ” Grantaire dropped his hands like a loose doll, still holding the thyrsus, and frowned. The disappointment appeared to be genuine when he spoke. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand. A stripling like you… how could you even grasp it?” He put his hands behind his back, still tightly clasping the thyrsus, and stormed around Enjolras, as if to race for speed.
“Then tell me. Make me understand. What do I need to grasp?”
“Oh, how simple you are!" Grantaire chuckled in an unkind way. The strange echoes from within his chest - these were not sounds a human could make. His voice rattled in his ribcage as he spoke. “The eternity. The never fading luster of success. Didn’t you hear?” He motioned toward the empty throne room.
"Hear what? There's no one... Grand... R?" The remark added to the growing confusion in his mind, and he wondered what Grantaire could have meant. Then, quite unexpectedly, without the slightest warning, the savateur had disappeared from view, and an equally sudden crushing blow to the shoulder-blades knocked Enjolras off-balance, pinning him to the rune-inlaid floor. Enjolras, falling upon his face and biting his own tongue, was momentarily stunned and it took him a moment to react, but he sat down in haste and high-strung. He gathered himself onto his knees and wiped himself on his sleeve. The blood dripped on the runes and soaked into the white shirt. Tears flooded his eyes from the pain. He fell, he fell… it can’t be over? He can’t hear anything. A breath away he heard his own breathing loud like when one would hide under a blanket and hear just that.
Once more he tried to rise again, but his bloody hands and feet slipped on the slick, polished floor, and he fell once more. As he did, his hand brushed across the delicate engraved lines of the runes on the floor, leaving a smear of blood across them that slowly began to freeze.
While he was still on all fours, scrambling to get up, he cast a wistful glance up and saw a leaping Grantaire in mid-air; as the leader dried up his own tears and scrambled up on his knees, the savateur was descending fast as lightning, kicking his right leg backwards to provide momentum as his left foot, thrust forwards, scored a glancing blow against the blond's lower back, and sent him flying a long way across the hall. With one stroke he towered over the leader, insisting on making him see and grasp his reality. Fortunately, there had not been enough momentum, and thus Enjolras made it through that kick unscathed, stopping a short distance from the wall. Once more he tried to rise again, but his bloody hands and feet slipped on the slick, polished floor, and he fell once more. As he did, his hand brushed across the delicate engraved lines of the runes on the floor, leaving a smear of blood across them that slowly began to freeze.
The fight-or-flight response drowned everything else within the fair leader, as he pivoted 180 degrees to confront his opponent eye to eye, face to face. Not even Grantaire himself could have been that treacherous in combat... That was Enjolras' last thought before a surge of noradrenaline made his limbs tense and his concentration focus, locking eyes with the glazed, fiery hazel orbs of the savateur. The cold air brushing around Enjolras didn’t bother him, since he felt his blood pump through his vessels and steadfast calm guarded his limbs. He always enjoyed the beginning of a confrontation. The gradual accustoming to the environment. It filled him with anticipation of what’s to come. The unknown surprise. Will he succeed? Will he fail? Will he overcome himself? The win or loss didn’t interest him as much usually. Now this was a deathmatch in which he had all the odds against him, and could only hope to wear out his opponent, in a pointless rage, at the end of the day...
"So, what d'you think of this li'l trick?" Grantaire asked and held his chin high, waiting for feedback, with such a self-satisfied, superior smile. He put his hands behind his back, still tightly clasping the thyrsus, and ran for a while around Enjolras, as if to race for speed. His breathing wasn’t laboured, no sweat adorned his forehead, and no scarlet coloured his cheeks. It was as if he didn’t exert any effort at all. As if he wasn’t human.
He was more fluid, controlled and jumped so high it wasn’t even possible. He seemed to hover in the air like a feather, his landings having no wavering to them and it felt like… like nothing. Though that liquor dethroned reason, it did not subtract any strength or stamina whatsoever.
“Did you think I wanted you to come and rescue me in this foolish way? I was glad to escape you all, escape that dreary backroom and your horrid company. To return here, to the Queen who alone truly cares for me. You are worthless. Wretched. Ugly. I cannot stand to look at you.”
Once more he crouched, right leg pinned to the ground, left leg thrust backwards to gather momentum; once more he leaned forwards, with breath caught in his throat. His sight fixed upon that torso clad in scarlet laced with gold.
Worn-out from all the blows that had seriously pummelled him, Enjolras was by no means able to dodge the last strike. For a single instant, in his desperation, he could almost see a glimmer of the old Grantaire, that ironic smirk and that willpower. The eagerness and earnestness reminded him of that fateful evening before the macaronnerie, when the Marseillais saved his life and their paths had crossed for the first time in forever. It hurt to listen, it didn’t make sense... and above everything else, that train of thought was cut short by a powerful strike of Grantaire's heel scored against his own solar plexus, forcing all of the air out and throwing him off-kilter. With a loud crash, Enjolras felt that he lost his footing, fell backwards keeling over, and landed on the cold, damp pavement, falling upon his own left side; as he was struck down by the impact of his own left side against the floor, on the fifth and sixth true ribs, a sharp pain clung to his left arm and shoulder, neck and upper back, and everything turned hazy before his eyes... he could hear something that broke, with a curious crack that sounded like a wicker basket being crushed, inside his chest, crushing through cloth and skin and flesh and bone; and the dull, fleshy sound of a sharp blade slicing through organs.
Enjolras fell as in slow motion.
Then, as he keeled over and crash-landed, his left side crashing against the hard floor, letting out a whimper, he felt the shock and that sharp pain in his side; as if he had been stabbed with a sword or a bayonet in the left side. Only that what had stabbed the fair leader were the sharp edges of his own broken ribs. The situation had gotten worse and Enjolras wasn’t sure he could handle any more of the daggers plunged into his heart. The pain from that last fall made him choke on his own bleeding heart. If the young man could utter a scream of pain, it would nevertheless not reach the feelings of the one he loved.
Clutching his injured left side, the aftermath of that loud cracking sound still ringing in his ears, Enjolras scrambled wearily up on his feet. The damage had been done. From somewhere inside him, blood was gushing from a wound. A stabbing pain racked his crushed side and some liquid welled up inside his chest, and then tickled his throat as it bubbled up his trachea, making him cough; when he looked at his bloodstained open palms, which he had covered his mouth with, at the end of the coughing spell, and felt the taste of that frothy liquid like salted steel... the fair rebel leader's suspicions were confirmed. The gasp he uttered wrought even sharper pain to his side (it was already hurting like hell every time he breathed). Enjolras tried to yell, but only blood came out. Three broken ribs, one of which had pierced the lung... the only thing to hope for was that the sharp edge of the bone had not severed the artery. That he would not drown in his own blood, right there on the spot.
“I’m the best there is in the world. I made sure of it.” Enjolras shrugged. Born into aristocracy as he was, he’d been allowed to study under the greatest tutors both in the arts of the mind and the arts of the blade. Swordplay and liberty were his two great loves and always had been, and he would always be willing to use the former to ensure the latter. Enjolras' youthful agility was his sole support in this otherwise unequal combat, but he felt that his power of motion diminished every minute from loss of blood.
Why hadn't he brought a sword-cane like Courfeyrac's, or learned savate himself? Why hadn't he asked Éponine for an officer's sword from the Thénardiers' hoard ere they left that den of iniquity, or, for that matter... why hadn't he asked Éponine to tag along, but left her outside to deal with the korrigans? Why hadn't he snatched that thyrsus from the floor of the throne room when he had had the chance? Enjolras was as helpless as the damsels he resembled, and he had thought that Grantaire would be in a weaker condition than usual due to intoxication. How wrong! He was more fluid, controlled and jumped so high it wasn’t even possible. He seemed to hover in the air like a feather, his landings having no wavering to them and it felt like… like nothing. His breathing wasn’t laboured, no sweat adorned his forehead, and no scarlet coloured his cheeks. It was as if he didn’t exert any effort at all. As if he wasn’t human. Moreover, the chandeliers on the ceiling were too many with huge abundance of crystals, and the air was iridescent with countless little rainbows of light shining through all those prisms. Each step the martial artist took, each sound he made - it echoed and created a strange kind of resonance. Almost like a murmur or approaching earthquake. Rhythmic pounding of strong feet against the floor, as his opponent closed in.Enjolras was horrified. He knew he was dying. He had come so close! Two loving fiancés, a conspicuous carriage, the most charming robber girl ever. Now... no one would ever know his story. They would believe whatever lies the ancien régime said. And, since he was most likely not to return with Grantaire, the lieutenants he had left to their own devices would be destroyed by the National Guard.
"I have walked half the length of this country for him, down roads and across ice and stones, until my strength has worn away and my limbs are faltering and my head is lulled to rest and my feet are sore and my chest is bleeding. Because I have followed him through fields and forests, through the palaces of privilege, and into and out of the dens of iniquity. Because I have given away my reputation in high society and my childhood loneliness that were all that I had left of my past, all for his sake, and have left behind a cause which I could kill or die for, and friends who asked me to stay with them. Then I found his traces on the paths of regret and suffering, and in those traces red roses grew; each and every drop of blood that had dripped from my wounds had turned to a crimson rose. Yet still, how... How do we learn to give up in the face of all-powerful, very good-looking physical strength? This is suicide!" Enjolras wheezed in the silence, his broken ribs stinging with each breath; his head was beginning to swim due to blood loss; he staggered like a sleepy child, but a shred of consciousness still remained, like a bright star of hope in the night sky of sorrows. "What would 'Ponine say? What would 'Ferre, and Courf', and Marius and Cosette, and all the others...? For they rely not only on me. They rely on both of us. Though we are on our own, face to face... As long as we breathe... Never give up. Never give in. Come on, you boy-child, you winner and loser, and shine! You must keep struggling. The two of us must keep struggling, even if we find ourselves in terrible circumstances. Look at Death in the eye and say to yourself: NOT TODAY!"
The pain was like nothing he'd ever known.
Every breath he took seared his lungs. Blood poured from his torn flesh, over his shattered ribs. Everything danced in circles before his swimming eyes. Through the red haze of agony, he could hear something. It was pounding, low and laboured. It was the sound of his own heart, struggling to beat.
Gathering all the strength he had left, he gathered himself onto his knees and wiped himself on his sleeve. The blood dripped on the icy granite and soaked into the white shirt. Tears flooded his eyes from the pain. He fell, he fell… it can’t be over? He can’t hear anything. He saw Grantaire shouting at him, but doesn't hear what he said. A breath away he heard his own strained breathing and heartbeat, loud like when one would hide under a blanket and hear just that.
For a rather obvious reason, people with punctured lungs have always been advised by healthcare practitioners to speak as little as possible (as well as to remain prostrate). Given his state of health prior to the injury, it would matter thrice or four times as much to someone in Enjolras' situation.
"If you are aware that you have lungs, you are already in trouble," Enjolras recalled Joly say, aside from another favourite adage of his; "upon realising that life is leaving you, you're already dead." The leader's fingers clung like talons to the clothes he wore, to the runes carved by his side, trying with all their strength to cling to life until he had to inexorably let go when his strength wavered. The final leave-taking from this life can take some time, though; one's agony can be rather long in that moment in which each and every second of searing pain, of anxiety, of powerlessness, and of dread is as long as a whole life.
And now that he was standing upright, his knees buckling with fatigue and his head beginning to swim... Enjolras wheezed in the silence, his lungs stinging with each breath, his head drooping like the calyx of a lily whose stem is broken; and yet, raising his voice, no matter how weak and how distorted by injury, was the worst thing Enjolras could possibly do.
Still, he saw no other choice, though his strength was failing fast on account of the many wounds he had received. He could no longer fight in that state, but... Even humming or whispering a little Marseillaise would ease the pain and maybe catch the conscience of his advantaged opponent, and break the spell of the dark force that had stolen the savateur from him, and from himself; he looked up at Grantaire, startled, uncertain, despair making him reckless. What would he think when he woke and saw his golden hair, heard his sweet, amused voice telling him that he had been the opponent he had fought, and that at the battle's end, he had awakened in his arms?
And so. And therefore. And of course what all this must mean was, beyond doubt, their destiny: the marriage of the leader and the fighter. Or at least their symbolic marriage, not very unlike the climactic scene where Othello and Iago swore their solemn oath. And if
they were very lucky--wouldn't it be splendid--their friends, both those from the Musain and those Enjolras had made along the quest, even the Green Faery herself, might come to see them 'married.' "Destiny or no, they will 'marry' in three days, and never was there a more splendid couple than our leader and his savateur." And thus, the dice were cast in favour. He used all of his strength to slump over on the ground, and then called on whatever reserves he didn't know he had... He would go as far as he could, ere he finally died. He would stay a fighter, to the very end.
At first, it was only a faint humming of the tune, but soon, no matter the pain stabbing at his sides, no matter the fact that he was barely able to speak, or that he was very close to tears with rage and frustration, lyrics were sung, at first softly and gently, to the tune that both of them had once sung, in the backroom of a café with frosted windowpanes, not far from their old home in the faubourg:
"Allons, enfants de la Patrie,
le jour de gloire est..."
Here, his voice was broken by a coughing spell; ruby-red foam shot from his lips and rained down, leaving stains of blood that slowly began to freeze, upon several of the delicately engraved runes upon the cold, polished floor. It may have been by chance, or maybe not, that the runes highlighted by these drops of red foam spelled out the lyrics to the song Enjolras was singing at the cost of his life, as he staggered towards Grantaire, ignoring the clenching of his jaw, the darkening of his eyes, the way his hands dropped to his sides, tightly fisted.
"Contre nous de la tyrannie
l'étendard sanglant est levé..."
Every word he breathed, every note he breathed, was a dagger to his left side, but still he kept on singing, raising his voice the loudest he could muster (though it was a faint tone, broken by bloody coughing fits), even though everything was turning dark before his weary eyes, and his knees finally gave way, the pale young man, feeling as cold as ice, collapsing on all fours:
"Marchons, marchons,
qu'un sang impur..."
Blood filled his chest and came up through his throat, leaking through his mouth; his broken voice forming the pain-torn words. Time slowed. The images before his eyes blurred. Urgent words, spoken and shouted, stretched out forever. He couldn't understand them. Keep on singing, he thought, even if prostrate on the cold stone floor, surrounded by bloodstained runes that spelled out the lyrics to that brand new tune, as he lost consciousness. Not even realizing that Grantaire was swiftly and stealthily approaching his lovely, senseless, lifeless form. That his opponent was now straight by his side, coldly, indifferently watching the unconscious leader. Left leg firmly poised upon the ground, right leg raised up about one meter above Enjolras' lilywhite, gaunt face. Right foot steady, ready to crash land on the dying blond's throat, where life could be quenched the quickest, and silence that broken chant that had begun to fill Grantaire with an unlikely sense of déjà-vu. He did not speak yet, but was already staring at the fair-haired stranger with hazel eyes that gradually widened and lightened up with more and more life:
"Amour sacré de la Patrie,
conduis, soutiens nos... bras vengeurs..."
More of that red foam, as scarlet as his coat and waistcoat, gushed through Enjolras' parted lips. He felt like being stabbed by a dozen bayonets on both sides of his ribcage, as the coughing spell took hold and he quivered feverishly, consciousness slipping away. The blood, which continued to surge out, did not foretell anything good for the injured leader. The opinion was suddenly entertained, from the great flow of blood, that he had cut an artery, which foreboded little good. All his hopes were wearing off and fading away, like a rope gradually breaks, thread by thread, until only the thin filament at the core remained.
"Liberté, Liberté chérie,
combats avec tes défenseurs..."
And Grantaire stood there transfixed, frozen in place, as if doubting or toying with the idea of putting the senseless fair stranger out of his misery, his hazel eyes widening and little by little coming to shine with life.
Enjolras tried to struggle back to his feet, trying to stand up with a scream that was a sharp stab to his side, but he was so exhausted that he found he could not do it. He was able to reach his knees, but could go no farther, and threw himself against the savateur once again, despite the coldness of his body. There he stood, clutching the dark-haired Grantaire's right leg as he scrambled up and, nearly despairing, kept on singing the song that both of them had sung together by the windowsill, or in the Café Musain, as the Revolution was about to come:
"Combats avec tes défenseurs..."
The savateur was not listening. Instead, even though he remained cold and still, he reached up to touch the bloody person who clung to his thigh, as if he were wondering what it might be.
The fair leader stared at him, frozen, his eyes filling with hot tears that he blinked back, for he would not let himself do anything so weak as crying in front of anyone. He reached out one hand towards Grantaire, while covering his own lips with the other. Losing too much blood. Consciousness slipping away. Drifting like in a dream. Rising. Falling. Too weak to walk, too heavy to crawl.
One might be able to take the two of them, at first sight, for a sculptural group.
Ruby droplets shot out through Enjolras' cold lips and struck Grantaire on the thighs, on the midsection, on the chest... and it felt warm, so warm... When this happened, their heat reached straight through to his friend's frozen heart, thawing the lump of ice as nothing else could have. As Enjolras sang, the ice in Grantaire's heart sang in response. The warmth of that freshly-shed blood seeped through his dark, hairy skin; it coursed through his veins and penetrated to his heart, and the lump of ice that gripped his heart melted away in an instant, as Enjolras collapsed once more, senseless, before his feet; for his limbs seemed to refuse their functions, and the oxygen could not reach his lungs. His glazed eyes shut once more, and his whole self went limp as he fell slack to the ground. The fair leader writhed like a trampled snake, and a red foam bubbled from his lips; only his strained breathing broke the silence.
Right then, under the warmth of that blood, consciousness and sensitivity came back, instantly, to the young warrior who had wrought that painful injury in the first place. The blue colour of cyanosis left his most vulnerable features and the blood pulsed again through his veins and arteries. Though he was well and strong, his conscience screamed at him, as he hesitated until the last. Hesitated - until he did it.
He dropped his thyrsus, which fell with a crash on the floor.
A warmth spread through him. A tingling, a strangeness. They rolled through the stitches in between the catskins, inside his green paisley waistcoat and his worn shirt, those crimson drops, and they reached his chest. And the warmth of that blood melted that layer of ice that had been lodged in his heart since so long ago... dissolving into the bloodstream once more. The salt and the warmth of that blood soaked through his shirt, through skin and flesh and breastbone, all the way into his heart. It began to thaw immediately, beating surer and louder. As blood coursed, warm, through his arteries and then his veins, Grantaire flushed, and, without thinking, looked down at the pavement.
And so it was that one day as he sat arranging and rearranging the runes, he, or rather the one he loved, happened to spell out FRIHET.
For a long time he stared at the bloodstained runes and at the wounded young man who lay so close. And though he could not remember why this song or this word or this person was important, his heart remembered. The pain of it, much like the return of feeling to limbs that have been frozen, brought memory flooding back, and he looked and saw Enjolras a little distance away, busy with his own puzzle of life and death. It struck him as the bitterest thing in the world, that he should have had his heart's desire right beside him all this time and been unable to recognise it. Then he thought that the Queen would soon return, and he might never again have the chance to say the things he should have said so long ago.
Then Grantaire drew a deep breath, as if it were the first he'd drawn in a long time. He looked down, and recognition sparked. He stood there unmoving, resisting the thirst in his throat and mesmerised by something.
"But then... how... who...?" His words trailed away as his eyes came to rest on a motionless figure stretched out on the floor, quickly bleeding out; not swimming, but rather drowning in his own blood.
It was a wisp of a boy, with long fair hair like beaten gold, thick blond locks so golden that they seemed coquette, underneath which his brow was high, fair and shapely; he was dressed in a crimson peacoat, with a scarlet waistcoat braided like a hussar's pelisse underneath. His skin was clear and his cheekbones high, his eyes shut, though Grantaire somehow imagined them icy blue and lit from within like an ember you thought you had put out. Thick, curly hair attacked the air around his head, barely contained in a riotous ponytail. He was at least in his twenties, though he looked like an adolescent of seventeen or eighteen; he offered that lovely harmony, and also that stark contrast, of a spirit made for passion and a body made for love. He was blond, fresh, quite slender and quite supple, with the cheekbones of a young maiden and delicate hands; he had a vivid and delicate, though repressed, allure. Everything in him was charm, elegance, and nearly voluptuousness; there it was, all the gentleness of the "long-haired page in crimson clad." The beauty of the look in his shut eyes would doubtless compensate for that excess of grace, with deep gravity in the look in those azure eyes, resulting evidently from his spirit and not at all from his outward looks; and his smile would doubtless show childish teeth, a sincere and pensive smile. Upon looking at him, Grantaire felt that this was one of those well-meaning beings, innocent and pure, who progress in a sense inverse to that of the madding crowd, who swim against the mainstream; one of those whom delusion make wise and experience make enthusiastic.
He’s tall, perhaps two or three inches taller than most other men. His hair is the colour of the sun and is always a little curly and all over the place—even when he tries to comb it. He can’t really grow much of a moustache or beard without looking too silly. His lips are so soft; not really like a girl’s but close enough. His eyes… blue. They are a whole different sort of blue. Oh what should I say about... ? He looks a bit, no better than those angels one sees in paintings. I don’t think I’ve seen an angel smile the way he does!
The blond boy's outward youth let one see through, into the maturity within; and yet it all was dwindling, nipped in the bud, leaving him as pale and cold as if he were a marble Apollo or an ice sculpture... An equally bright red foam, as scarlet as his waistcoat, bubbled from his lips.
The savateur's hazel eyes widened. A curious expression crossed his face. He licked his lips nervously as his eyes seemed to focus, unfocus, refocus, and unfocus again. And then he blinked several times, as if trying to get a mild irritation out of them.
He licked his lips again, a thoughtful frown creasing between his brows. He was looking at this boy. The red on the runes. Suddenly, it all made sickening sense. The crushing of bones. The weight. The blood.
The sight had a more shocking effect upon him than a glass of crushed ice upon the face would have had. Emotion returned, and one that belonged on his face. It started with confusion, transitioning into bewilderment before shattering into desperation. His eyes widened as he took in the boy lying before him. He let out a gasp... His heart was breaking. He was a statue struck too hard by a chisel, splintering all over. His eyes grew hot and damp.
It was as though a door had closed in his mind; he did not want to go there any longer.
"No!" he screamed in despair, shaking his head wildly. "No, no, no!!" The last word came out in a long, tearing roar. The shock of reality dazzled his glazed eyes.
A large indentation came to view on the stripling's back. On the left side. Where his heart was. His face was turned away from Grantaire now, hidden in a halo of golden thread, but still he knew him.
Instantly, he recognised Enjolras, and gasped in a rapture of elation, but also in a rapture of anxiety, that since a long time ago had been unknown to him:
"Enj... mon chéri... Enjolras... où as-tu donc été si longtemps?"
He forgot that he himself was the one who had gone forth, who had been far away in the first place, and not the dying ephebe at his feet.
"Enj... -jolras... où as-tu donc été si longtemps, où suis-je moi-même? Where have you been all this time so long? And where have I been myself?"
And he looked left and right, all around him in all directions, with astonishment.
"Ah! qu’il fait froid ici! Comme il fait froid ici, comme c’est vaste et vide! How cold it is here! How enormous and empty and vast! How did I come here in the first place? I know not... and what should I be doing here? Enj... that's right. Getting you out of here, my dear."
And so he got up and went to his friend, kneeling before him. And thus, reeling, in a state of shock, he scrambled to his feet and ran forwards, and went to his friend, falling to his knees beside the fair form that lay prostrate on the ground, the lifeless stripling whose ribs he had crushed himself, and cradled the feather-light form of the blond in strong hairy arms, as silken strands spilled across rough hands. "Why did you...?" he reproached the senseless leader, packing him by the pulseless wrists. "Enj... listen to me," he said softly, trying once more to reach him, though he knew it was futile. And though the blond's eyes were as cold and shut as ever, and he tried to pull away, this time Grantaire held his face between his cupped hands and would not let him go. His roommate, his other half, his soulmate was back, and he was never evermore going to let Enjolras go again! "I never needed anyone before I met you. But I need you now, Enj... I need you to come back to me. Nothing means anything without you, do you understand?" But it was no use; the lilywhite leader only curled his bloodstained lip wordlessly, either in smirk or scorn, staring at him uncomprehending. And so, at last, Grantaire could not help himself; hot tears welled up, and there in the coldest hall of the Belle Dame's palace, he bowed his head, enfolded the fair leader in his arms and buried his face in Enjolras' shoulder, sobbing into the crook of his throat, his tears wetting the leader's neck. "Where have you been all this time?" he cried, "And where have I been?" He lifted his face from the wounded boy's neck and looked around the hall, empty but for themselves... "How cold it is," he said wonderingly, "and how large... how huge and empty it all looks."
“Grand... R, I-I’m d-d-dying,” the blond stripling said, and he knew it was true. He felt the creeping specter of death as surely as he had known before that he was alive and that he loved Grantaire dreadfully. And just as surely, he knew now that he had been a fool. There was only one thing certain in life and that was death. What was more foolish than letting fear stop you from loving a person who loved you back, even if everyone said your love was wrong? Now he saw how small he was in the scope of the world; how little it would have mattered in the grand scheme of things if he had only told the savateur that he loved him, if he had only kissed him once. No, not once, a thousand times. A hundred thousand times. But now it was too late- he felt life leaving him already. Drops of his blood froze as they left his lips and became little icicles on his cheeks.
The boy's weary face, upturned to the sky above Grantaire's shoulder, was also bloodstained; his free hand lifted weakly, fell again across the savateur's back. His hair was as gold as the sun's little box; his face as pale and perfect as the moon's face. The boy drew a deep breath. His eyes flickered open; they were as blue as the day sky.
"Oh, why did I drink of...! Must I perish...? I, to whom such a glorious reward was offered... must I now lose all, disgrace the name that I.... and furnish a cause to our enemies... Enj... Must your young life... like mine... be wasted? Undone in my undoing... thirsty... cankered... febrile...? Oh, Enj! Would that I had listened to you, that I had never tasted of that fatal spring!!" he said, his voice as dry and weightless as leaves flying in the wind.
He felt a tiny jolt, the stab of a needle, somewhere in the region where his heart once resided. Oh, he thought. No. Not this. He remembered, so many centuries before, the same stab. It had been love then and it was love now. Not this, he thought once more, before his lilywhite skin began to collapse into glitter dust. Desperately he fought to regain his power, but like an ancient skeleton brought from its coffin to the breathing air, the material that gave him strength dissolved in the light of love. His face cracked open as he spoke, unhinged as if with insanity.
And the martial artist's response to this quip, "On ne coupe pas les ailes d'un ange", followed by his usual innocent laugh, felt like, after a powerful serve, having the tennis ball struck back by an equal, worthy opponent, and being caught off-kilter. Then both of them smiled, and even laughed... The savateur had never heard the leader utter this sound, and it turned out to be a wistful, lilting laugh that was sudden and wild; how hard it was to fathom how pleased both of them were! He was again collected, princely and charming. The cold allure wrapped him once more in his cape.
The fair leader encouraged him quietly, brushing away his fringe.
“Comfort me!”
Enjolras' whiny voice broke the serious mood between them. Grantaire's hand stopped in the middle of the caress. He spoke taken aback.
“I am comforting you.”
The blond raised his head, the most childish pout on his face, adding to his lover's confusion.
“Not enough. Comfort me more!”
Grantaire poked him in the middle of the forehead and mocked him quietly.
“I didn’t know you still could be such a child. Such a big forehead would suggest your brain grown and you’re mature...”
“I am mature. C'mon, pet me more!”
He took Enjolras' hand and pressed his face into that silky palm, just like a affectionate pet would seek out peting from its master.
“You’re not a kitty! But needy still...”
“Oh, I am needy! But you like it!”
Grantaire just bit playfully into Enjolras' wrist just on the tender skin and they broke into laughter again. Soon they drifted off to sleep, the savateur playing the bigger spoon with Enjolras safely tucked into his arms.
Once they had had enough, still clinging to each other, they looked around properly. Light bathing everything in sight. The sun was shining warm and bright. Grass and flowers spread as far as their eyes could see. It looked like spring came after a long exhausting winter.
“Vive la république!”
The words were out of Grantaire’s mouth before he could stop himself. He stood, feeling more awake than he had in a long time.
“Vive la république,” he repeated, louder, with more emphasis. Could there be another way, a better way than that which was now presented to him? For a brief, blinding moment, the future showed itself to Grantaire, when it had always been clouded and obscure to him before. The future he saw, with shockingly stunning clarity, was without Enjolras, without his light, his ideals, his convictions, his beauty.
“Vive la république. I belong to it.” His voice was firm, his resolve unwavering, his eyes clear, his posture steady. There was no questioning this decision. There was no changing his mind -- not that he wanted to. This was the only right way. He had not felt this clear-headed in many years.
Softly, almost gently, Grantaire turned to face Enjolras. “If you’ll allow it?”
Enjolras said nothing, only smiled, that dazzling smile that had haunted Grantaire’s conscious and subconscious mind for so long, and clasped Grantaire’s hand in his own in a gesture of brotherly solidarity. That sincere smile, that showed childish ivory teeth, was pensive yet full of dazzling light.
In this moment, this brief moment, Grantaire slowly smiled too -- a real, genuine smile, without doubt, scepticism, cynicism, or disbelief, but a real smile, for here was finally something to believe in. Everything else, all of the past, all of the future, gone, obscured by the brilliant light of this single shining moment, a moment in which Grantaire almost felt time come to a stop around him. It was an intoxication that was far sweeter than any he had achieved with the Green Faery or the wine, an intoxication that he did not want to come to an end, an intoxication from which he never wanted to awaken. His whole world right now was enveloped in this moment: the press of Enjolras’ hand to his own, the beauty and warmth of that smile... And through it all like a beacon of light through the fog, was Enjolras. From that day on, the fair leader's recovery went on twice as quickly. The shards of bone remained in place, but the internal injuries were nearly completely healed, and he received permission to behold, through the window and bed-curtains, contemplate the trees and lawns that thrived, fresh and green, in the springtime sun. It felt like partaking of a healing draught, and a change seemed to pass over his whole frame. He no longer felt the excitement of fever, nor the painful weakness which succeeds it.
But Enjolras wasn't out of the woods yet. He still had a long way ahead of him. His recovery had been slow and full of setbacks, but now, nine months later, he was up and about most of the day, though his doctors insisted that he rest after lunch. He would return to the Right Bank to study and lead his people soon, when he was stronger. How tall and thin he had become, but he had the same eyes and the same angelic mouth. He looked up at the savateur, but didn't say a word.
"He is now out of danger. The fever has abated, and there only remains a debility quite natural after so severe an illness. Great care, however, is still necessary, with strict attention to all I have prescribed; for his central nervous system is much shaken, and any relapse might be serious."
One day, months later, the surgeon finally set the convalescent free; when a marvellous change came over the prostrate figure, the face took its usual colour, the rigid limbs relaxed, and suddenly he sat up, and then sprang to his feet, standing tall and slender and vigourous once more in his crimson peacoat and scarlet waistcoat. When Enjolras was perfectly restored to health, finally able to stand upright, though still pale with blood loss, he and Grantaire went forth hand-in-hand towards home, and as they advanced, as they went along, springtime appeared more lovely and blossomed about them with its green leaves and its beautiful flowers. The blood rushed back to Enjolras' cheeks, and his strength seemed to return, and he was ready to ride forth to victory. He was again collected, princely and charming. The cold allure wrapped him once more in his cape. He turned as if he were going to leave, and "That is enough," he said, and left the room. Before Grantaire's surprised eyes, the young blond reached a hand out and packed him by the wrist, pulling him out of the room and out into the estate gardens.
That morning, they had only taken enough time to break their fast and don their new ensembles, with the red soutached waistcoat and the green paisley one, as well as Enjolras tying his hair back into the usual queue and Grantaire shaving himself so that only the muttonchop whiskers were left; and they went forth thanking Cosette and Marius for their goodness with all of their hearts.
Until then, no one had been able to look Grantaire in the eye without feeling themselves recoil; for their fear, the twilight, and his addiction enhanced the savateur's air of ugliness. But, upon walking into the light of the sun at last, the man was stripped of his beastly skin.
Maybe that was, after all, a little broken spell, reserved only for those who learned to look without seeing, with the eyes of the heart.
He laughed with a mouth like a mask of tragicomedy; the fair one he loved waltzed with him all along the chestnut promenade, before the mansion that no longer kept any secret.
The sun was the only one who saw them leave, together, holding one another's hands, defying all the happy ever afters that had been written until that moment.
Together, Enjolras and Grantaire resumed their route, made their way back home, taking one another hand in hand. The countryside was a riot of colour, already green with the barley of March, already lilac-blue with the periwinkles of April, already pink and red with the roses of May, and everywhere along the route, the belltowers in every village were pealing their refrain, calling the congregation to Easter mass; and the sunshine and the birdsong and the frog-croak lifted their hearts. In the ditches the little wildflowers bloomed. As they neared their home, the sound of the church bells mingled in with the blue-tits and finches and frogs, and soon the breeze carried other sounds and smells of town life to them. Very soon, after crossing landscapes covered in greenery and flowers, which made them forget those dreary wintry northlands, they finally recognised on the horizon the town where they lived and studied, the pointed zinc and slatestone rooftops of an ocean of townhouses and the tall verdigrised steeples of the churches, rising like masts above, in which the bells were ringing loud, joyous peals. Now they recognized the towers; they were approaching the home they had left behind. It was springtime in truth, and this was the first time the church bells had been sounded in forty days; therefore they were making the best of the occasion, for even church bells grown sad and lonely when they have no occasion to speak.
They ran past the Tuileries, down snaking streets paved with silver, past houses edged with fuchsia trim. They ducked behind green hedges shaped like diamonds, flattened themselves against lime-green walls at the sound of pounding feet. They ran, and ran, through the Left Bank arrondissements until the streets became a little wider and the townhouses larger. Until Grantaire cut abruptly across the Seine at the Charenton Bridge; they were approaching the home they had left behind.
Once more, they still recognised the route through which they had left Paris, the rues through which they had once passed, and they were on the Right Bank where they had lived and studied, walking through the twisting cobbled streets through which they had passed when they left, winding their way through Pigalle and up towards Montmartre, the white dome of Sacré Coeur rising at the top of it; that was where they used to live. Hand in hand, they ran through the streets that both of them so well knew and loved. They wove through cobblestone streets on slanted hills, past little shops selling chocolate truffles and thick loaves of bread, cafés filled with people as they watched the rest of the world stroll by the scene encompassing the flower boxes, bicycles, hum of conversations at cafés with striped awnings… They ducked into a little bookshop with sagging shelves that smelled of paper and leather and dust (one of those places that Combeferre always frequented), and soon, in the end, they found themselves upon the threshold of a familiar café, which stood on a street corner in Montmartre.
They entered the place, passed by the tables and behind the counter, greeting the two young barmaids (who waved sighing wistfully at Enjolras and sneered coldly at Grantaire, as usual), and down the long dark corridor into the backroom of the Musain, where everything was just the same as before. Everything was exactly in the same place, just as it had been when they had left. The same map and tricolore flag remained nailed upon the walls, the same quinquet lamp filled the sunset interior with warmth, the same daylight was streaming in through those two rickety windows... The clock behind the counter still ticked and told the time with hands that turned round, the pendulum always swinging gently to and fro, while Madame Hucheloup was sitting down in her rocking chair against the clear sun and napping, the old landlady's cat was sunning herself on her owner's lap, and around the tables still remained, where they had once stood, their old regular chairs of every evening. Up across the rue in their garret, as seen through the window of the Musain, their edible flowers, which Combeferre had been lovingly tending to in their absence, were still in full bloom in the planter boxes, and were flowering into the garret through the open window; nasturtium flames and catlike pansies brightening the windowsill. They bloomed spectacularly this year, and had formed an archway of beauty across the street; in each and every calyx, the honeybees were collecting golden pollen. Long story short, everything and everyone remained exactly in the same familiar place, with everything still waiting for them, like ever before.
And furthermore, soon there would be familiar-sounding peals from a nearby tower, and their friends would stream into their secret hideout...
But for now they were en tête-à-tête, so what better than to enjoy it? Upon entering the backroom, both of them realised that they had always harboured those feelings for one another. Enjolras and Grantaire sat down in their respective chairs. They had both forgotten the past as one who forgets an unquiet, heavy dream upon awakening, and it seemed to both of them that it was as if they had never left the Café Musain in the first place.
As they sat in the clear, golden sunshine of twilight, the dreary grandeur... the wonders of the cold austere splendours and magnificence of the Green Faery's fortress and the deep, deep cold of her terrible kiss seemed a lifetime away; her cold, empty majesty was forgotten like a dark dream. To the pair it was as if her icy thrall had never been exerted, and one thing became clear to the two of them.
Holding one another's hands, lilywhite soft fingers clasping palms rough as sackcloth, earnest sapphire orbs looking at last warmly into ironic hazel eyes, and vice versa, they saw that each other had changed, and finally understood the meaning of that anthem they had so frequently sung:
"Liberté, Liberté chérie,
combats avec tes défenseurs..."
And, furthermore and what was the most relevant, they finally understood, at the same time, those words, said by some British Lordship with a pointed brown moustache and goatee in a low, musical voice and with a characteristic graceful wave of the hand, at a soirée in the Manoir Enjolras, right before the young heir left for the capital to pursue those university studies, as wise words of advice to the aloof stripling about to reach maturity, to let his spirit soar free:
"Yes, that is one of the great secrets of life - to cure the soul by means of the senses, and the senses by means of the soul."
As well as what Madame Grantaire had told the little lad she had taken in when the time came at last for him to spread his wings and attain that higher education that he was worthy of:
"There is nothing upon this Earth that a good, kind heart cannot overcome!"
They remained like this for hours, locking eyes and entwining hands, having finally understood, both of them at the same time, that life was the second-finest gift they had ever been given, but that its worth would always grow pale if compared to freedom and liberty. Enjolras and Grantaire were in their twenties now and they were no longer children or adolescents. They had gone out out into the world as adolescents, and they had come back as adults. They knew that they were no longer little children; they noticed that they had become adults to the core. After their quest through the seasons and across the North, they were no longer the Enjolras and Grantaire of yore, both having suffered a profound transformation and gained the inner strength they needed in order to confront any peril, any challenge, the wiser for travel to regions that belong not to dream but to reality. But they knew that they must always keep a corner of their hearts open for the purity of heart and the warm, wonderful dreams of youth - and that it was their destiny, as heroes, to fall in the prime of life, generously pouring out all their blood to write the crowning lines in the epic of a higher cause.
Right then, those foretold bell-peals rang in the air and the regular crowd shuffled in. Combeferre came in first, holding his notebook in hand, followed by Courfeyrac, who was humming the latest Liszt tune in vogue; and then came all the others... At first, Enjolras' lieutenants did not recognise the two strangers who sat in the hitherto empty chairs, and asked at least for their surnames.
Upon hearing them sing those verses from La Marseillaise, however, a general scream of elation ran through the backroom, startling the landlady and the barmaids, and of course the cat that leapt off the landlady's lap, as those earnest freedom-fighting young men had recognised their fair leader and the odd one out of their secret society.
And each evening, at the backroom of the Café Musain, they all dined together, and watched the sunset together, and there they talked of many things, both of the pain and the hardships they had endured, and of the future they hoped to have now that they had survived them, and of the glorious death that would crown them ere they reached midlife, giving it all before the end of youth, shedding their hearts' blood for Freedom and Country.
And after they had talked and most of them had left, the leader and the cynic simply sat there en tête-à-tête, in one another's company, and each thought that he had never before been so happy as this, and that the crowner for such elation would definitely be to fall together by enemy fire, holding one another's hands, one rough as sackcloth and the other soft as silk, yet both tightened together in a final clasp for evermore.
Soon they were walking up the worn steps of the staircase to their old apartment, into the room, where everything was just the same as before. Nothing inside it had changed. The clock said "tick-tock" as its hands went round, and the cogwheels moved. Of course the timepiece had wound down, but it took only a few minutes to set all those cogs all to rights again, until they were once more surrounded by the "tick-tock" of the clock pendulums and the faint whirring of gears. The paint on the Marianne sign had faded and peeled, but Grantaire painted a new one, brighter than ever, with an unabashed Enjolras wrapped in the bedsheets posing for hours before him; and by the end of the week, both men had as good a business as they had ever had.
Thus, they opened the windows to let the breeze in, cleaned their shared bedroom as thoroughly as they could, and recovered little by little, though full of energy, the course of what little life they had left to live.
As the short time they had left to live passed, the two of them spent many warm and glorious sunny days together, sharing their tale of the Green Faery with all who would listen.
And each evening, after Grantaire had laid down his paintbrushes and Enjolras had put aside his flag of freedom, they dined together on the roof with their flower box, where there was a little balcony, and watched the sunset together, and there they talked of many things, both of the pain and the hardships they had endured, and of the future they hoped to have now that they had survived them. And after they had talked, they simply sat there, in one another's company, and each thought that he had never before been so happy as this, and all around them was warm, beautiful midsummer, the warm and well-doing midsummer of youth, no matter how often the seasons changed. Each had found in the other perfect sympathy and perfect love: what could the outside world matter to them now? Each was to the other the perfect fulfilment of a scarcely preconceived ideal. The fair lad sat on his knees with his arms closely pressed round his neck and his golden curls laid against his newest lieutenant's close-cut raven hair; completely absorbed in each other, intoxicated with the sweetly poisonous draught that is the gift of love, they sat in silence. There they sat, the two of them together, hand in hand under their beloved trellis, perhaps wiser, grown up; and yet in their hearts adolescents, and it was always spring within their spirits: a warm glorious springtime day for evermore, even as the next winter came and they were put once more to the test.
It was the truth – the middle-aged couple who owned the building were willing to rent to a student, or even to an artist or other figure of similar bohemian habits and debatable respectability, but would absolutely not tolerate a prostitute of either sex under their roof – and Grantaire had been mistaken when he’d thought, in the ruelle, that he couldn’t possibly hate himself.
Grantaire remembered Enjolras’s open contempt as he accused Grantaire of looking no further than his next bottle and smiled bitterly. He’d accepted long ago that he’d never see any expression in those level blue eyes but disappointment and disgust – not for his face and form, because Enjolras cared not for those things, but for the man who lay beneath them.
Grantaire pressed on, unable to stop himself. There was something almost exhilarating in saying the words, despite the lingering dizziness in his head. Perhaps he was still drunk from the previous night after all.
It was a mistake. Light sparked behind his eyes at the impact, his head surged with sickening pain... hard enough to set Grantaire’s head ringing again.
His eyes were hot with tears of anger, and the harder he struggled, the weaker and more exhausted he felt. His head hurt, his limbs were heavy and clumsy, and everything he knew about fighting scientifically seemed to have gone out of his head entirely.
Until Grantaire ceased kicking and struggling. Spots were swarming in front of his eyes again, and his lungs cried out for air.
He couldn’t hear it over the ringing in his ears. Then there was tearing, stretching pain...
Grantaire lay there limply, eyes focused on a fold of blankets inches away from his face. His throat burned, his face throbbed, and his arse hurt nearly as much as the both of them put together. His shoulder stung from the mark, and his head ached as if it were being gripped in a vice.
Grantaire found himself staring blankly at Combeferre’s door, not entirely certain how he had ended up allowing Jehan to drag him here. Jehan had been immovable in his conviction that Grantaire needed to be seen to by a representative of the medical profession, and had simply ignored Grantaire’s insistence that it was unnecessary as if he had not spoken.
“That’s a five, not a six.”
The bruises on Grantaire’s face had darkened and begun to swell, and if anything, he looked even worse than he had when he’d been carried half-frozen into the Musain. But his skin had lost its colourless pallor, and his sleep was natural and not the dangerous swoon of earlier. At least, Combeferre had said as much, and Enjolras was obliged to believe him.
As the sun dipped below the eaves, setting the sky on fire before it plunged into darkness, they bridged the gap between their bedsteads. And kissed.
The savateur's mouth was firm and warm and at first clumsy and then assured, and he had one hand on that soft white chin, and his eyes were still wide open, Enjolras realised, as his own closed. And Grantaire seemed to have a hand in that cascade of golden hair, gently pulling the leader closer. As for Enjolras... His knees were no longer weak but buckling. The temperature had, inexplicably, risen by at least ten degrees. "Oh," Enjolras said, when he had a chance, and then Grantaire tilted his head and they were kissing again, and why had Enjolras not thought of this before? It was the best of ideas, it was amazing, it was like breathing champagne instead of air. He made an wordless noise to try and indicate his approval of the whole situation.
For both of them, it seemed like all the air in their lungs was escaping out.
Silence ensued; a silence during which they did not break eye contact the slightest; looking one another straight in the eyes, blue on mossy green, ocean on hazel. Not even when Enjolras smiled. Not even when he gradually began to step forwards. He had had no idea his neck was that sensitive. There were stars behind his eyes.
He only lost sight of the savateur's eyes when he shut his own as their lips touched. Quite slowly, quite slowly, without tearing himself from his grasp, his hand touched the dark one's, resting light as a feather, lily fingers entwining with knotty ones.
Seizing the leader's blond queue, Grantaire dragged Enjolras' head up and kissed him again, harder. After that first kiss, there came a second.
Then a third.
Then a fourth one.
They gave one another so many kisses that, if all of them were poured together into the same flagon, it would be impossible to know how many kisses they exchanged throughout that evening and night.
All this takes place without a single sunset, without a single bell ringing and without a single blossom falling from the sky. Yet it fills everything with its mysterious intoxicating presence. It's over to you.
And as to what happened next?
The important part, reader, is that, together or separately, they lived.
COMMENTARIES:
The Amis are, uh, trying their best? (Sensitivity is, alas, not Enjolras's strong suit)
- I think we've included references to Tarquinnus and Lucretia already, but if not: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Rape_of_Lucrece (After Lucretia commits suicide following her rape at the hands of Roman prince Sextus Tarquinnus, her kinsmen swear a melodramatic oath on her blood to overthrow the corrupt kings of Rome)
- Dominoes can be played a number of different ways. Grantaire and his drinking companions are playing a blocking game, which involves laying the tiles out end-to-end with like numbers touching.
- “Asphyxia from cold” - the term “hypothermia” hadn’t been coined yet in the 1830s. They knew perfectly well that it possible for people to freeze to death - there are early and mid-19th century medical journals and writings with detailed lists of the symptoms and progression of hypothermia –but they were a little shaky on the actual physiological reasons for those symptoms. Doctors at the time called the condition “general asphyxia from cold.” (For period descriptions, see: “A treatise on the effects and properties of cold, with a sketch, historical and medical, of the Russian campaign, by Pierre Jean Moricheau-Beaupré” and This 1831 article from the Lancet, both courtesy of google books).
About one quote is referencing to the song by Eagles - Hotel California.
The paradis of the Otherworld holds beauty and sorrow, ... whereas the beauty of the fairy castle is static and its visual beauty does not restore the dead.
The Reflection Cave of Kalos, in the Pokémon series, is based upon the Northern French lore of miroirs aux fées (fairies mirrors). Fairy mirrors are usually caves with bright quartz veins or lakes where there are said to live fairies and like to see themselves in them like a mirror. Also, this links to the mirror motif in the original Snow Queen tale, right?
As for the Enj vs. R confrontation in hand-to-foot combat, and that rib fracture and blood-coughing as the catalyst for the warmed heart, I could simply not picture myself Enj sobbing over R (like I could not picture myself Brienne gushing over a frozenhearted Jaime either!). I watched and re-watched all of Sanji's kickfights in One Piece (kuroashi being Oda-sensei's take on savate), and perused Benedict's fight against a Prussian artisan in La terreur prussienne on this very blog, for inspiration on the moves that our savateur would use.
Cheval fondu is the French name for leapfrog. It sounds a lot like cavall fort, the Catalan name of the same game.
Also, Enj realising that he has feelings for R the more the quest unfurls... it feels cathartic. Like, why the heck would you embark on your own, on such a foolish quest? We see our kuudere of a fair leader defrost as he comes across Courf', Mariusette, 'Ponine... and learns about their stories. Unravelling this has been as exciting as in The Queen Beyond the Wall, right?
And here we get to some juicy Goblin Market references: the bloodstained awakening kiss. Rossetti's poem, the third that inspired me for this AU, is another of the great Victorian fairytales concerning drug addiction, starring a queer couple (Laura and Lizzie, said to be "sisters" and living under the same roof; but, just like the "sibling" bond of Gerda and Kai, or Enj and R, this may rather refer to moirallegiance).
The effect of the draught, including the withdrawal symptoms, is that of rauha. I just adore this take on the fairytale sleeping-draught and thought of absinthe with rauha...
I have also been influenced by the temperance tale genre of Biedermeier-Victorian fiction, which, discussing the importance of free will, tells the familiar narrative of a decent and hopeful young person (most frequently male) rendered utterly helpless by their first drink, leaping off the slippery slope into an abyss of despair and depravity, but (in the happiest endings) redeemed at the eleventh hour by a loved one, at the cost of a great sacrifice. In other words, Grantaire was not the only one, but one out of the many similar antiheroes (compare, for instance, Laura in "Goblin Market") in the various versions of one of the nineteenth century's most frequently told narratives, which (coincidentally?) came to prominence in the 1830s!
There is a Lord Henry Wotton quote and indirect cameo at the end, standing in for the Gospel of Matthew quote in the Andersenian Snow Queen, and it fits Enjoltaire like a glove, right? I was inspired by the song "Sense" by In The Nursery, a British band whose lyrics, like those of Genesis, are full of allusions to classical literature, especially from the Victorian UK.
(PS. You may be free to picture yourself the Thénardiers in Toulon or in Louisiana, as convicts or as cotton barons. Or still fighting the establishment as brigands in those northern woods. I left that loose end open because the innkeepers themselves are so elusive that they rightfully deserve an open ending!)
One of my favourite fairy tales combined with one of my favourite pairings. And with my usual Lemony style. I had so much fun writing this one. Just like when it came to its Westerosi counterpart.
"You are wounded," he cried. "You have hurt yourself for me. You should not have, for I do not deserve it. I have never had the right to injure, let alone to kill you... I went away and left you, and forgot all about you, and let the Green Faery's promises turn my heart to a cold crazy diamond, colder than ice... and then it were my feet that crushed your side, and I was so close to seeing you die by my own strength, but now no strength is left in my feeble frame, the poisons have done their work... I just hope... Enjolras... I shall nevermore... You will nevermore..."
More teardrops fell upon the dark bags under the fair leader's eyes, and upon his lilywhite lips, which curled upwards in a faint smile, and his eyelids flickered to reveal glazed sapphire orbs as he wearily shook his head and said, fiercely: "You can never leave me, for there is nowhere you can go that I will not follow. I have found you now, and I will never be parted from you again. Nevermore... Until... the bitter..." And as they knelt there, clinging to one another, he broke into a blood-coughing fit and collapsed once more on Grantaire's lap.
THIS.
Almost made me cry. I guess all I'm saying is, thank you for writing such a wonderful story! :D
Simply wonderful ending. This is truly one of my favorite adaptions of the Snow Queen.
Loved it! Especially the image of Grantaire, thyrsus in hand, kneeling on the large floor which he has almost covered with those runes. And Enj's blood waking R from the enchantment. And of course the wedding of Marius and Cosette, and Éponine getting back into a life of her own!
But mostly I'm going to remember this as the awesome retelling of my favorite fairy tale by a favorite author in which Grantaire crushes Enjolras' ribcage ;-)
I was JUST thinking about this today! I was afraid it'd been abandoned with only one chapter left. That was a very, very satisfying and warming ending, after all the cold and misery of the battle. I love, love, love the visual of them together on the roof, happily ever after~ I actually sighed happily at Right then, those foretold bell-peals rang in the air and the regular crowd shuffled in. Combeferre came in first, holding his notebook in hand, followed by Courfeyrac, who was humming the latest Liszt tune in vogue; and then came all the others... At first, Enjolras' lieutenants did not recognise the two strangers who sat in the hitherto empty chairs, and asked at least for their surnames.
Upon hearing them sing those verses from La Marseillaise, however, a general scream of elation ran through the backroom, startling the landlady and the barmaids, and of course the cat that leapt off the landlady's lap, as those earnest freedom-fighting young men had recognised their fair leader and the odd one out of their secret society. I'm gonna be thinking about this all day at work and it's gonna make it so much better x))
I was JUST thinking about this today! I was afraid it'd been abandoned with only one chapter left.
Yeah, sorry about that. I write veeerrry slowly without senpai to poke me into doing the other half. The whole section was written in, like, 100 word segments over the course of weeks.
That was a very, very satisfying and warming ending, after all the cold and misery of the battle. I love, love, love the visual of them together on the roof, happily ever after~
Thanks so much! The two of them on the roof, surrounded by springtime or midsummer, is another bit that's straight out of Hans Christian Andersen's original, but the Lord Henry part is all mine *grins*
ILU SO MUCH OMG.
Seriously, this is just as good as I thought it would be, or better. You rock. And it's an utterly appropriate fairy-tale ending, too. So perfect.
Thanks so much! The ending isn't 100% the Snow Queen ending - there's some Goblin Market and a couple of other fairytales mixed in there, too.
Oh, lovely. As all along, I love the fairy tale nature of this, the epithets and the profusion of recognizable characters put into fairy tale mode. The leader and the savateur are wonderful. I love that the journey brought others together as well. I have greatly enjoyed reading this for the past few months, and am as sad to see it over as I am happy to have read the end.
As all along, I love the fairy tale nature of this, the epithets and the profusion of recognizable characters put into fairy tale mode. The leader and the savateur are wonderful.
Thanks so much! This whole thing was really fun to write, and not just because it let me do Victorian/Fairytale Narrator Voice for thirty-something pages (I'd forgotten how much fun pastiche can be - I think my last Three Musketeers fic was, like, two years ago). It was really fun trying to find places to fit everyone on, and to work little references and allusions to comics canon in while still keeping it all fairytale-style.
I love that the journey brought others together as well.
It's funny - that part wasn't necessarily something I originally intended to do. This started out as just an Enjoltaire story, but it turned into a Mizzie fairytale somewhere along the way, as I had more and more fun sticking cameos in. Once I had Cosette tell Enj and R what had happened to everyone at the end, I didn't want Éponine to have to be all alone, so I had her and her good thoughts, per literary quote, go off together (Courf, alas, was doomed to a single life by the original story's ending).
You finally finished it! I love the ending and of course I love that the password was FRIHET. I also like the final line since no one lives completely happily ever after; that would be boring.
*grins* Honestly, I didn't even think of the "no one lives completely happily ever after" bit until you just pointed it out. The last line was pretty much pure "@#*% you, Hugo!" ("...and in my story, Enj and R and all the others don't die, at least because this all takes place before the barricades, take that!").
Things that I especially loved: Cosette's idea of courtship. 'Ponine being creepy and awesome. Courf' bouncing in and out of people's lives. The icy floor of runes (and R finding out that the password was FRIHET!). All the bits I didn't just mention, especially the ending.
That may be the greatest thing ever. I loved the image of the vast frozen floor carved with spiralling runes - that would make such a fantastic splash page. And I loved that what freed him was the mess and horror of spilled blood interrupting the perfection - it's kind of Enjoltaire in a nutshell, there.
Thanks so much! I was actually picturing a sort of splash page/two-page spread with the rune-covered floor and R kneeling in the middle when I wrote that scene.
And I loved that what freed him was the mess and horror of spilled blood interrupting the perfection - it's kind of Enjoltaire in a nutshell, there.
*nods* That's one of the things Enj needs R for (or Combeferre, or Courfeyrac, or Éponine, or someone but of course I like R best in the role) - to keep him from getting so caught up in his plans and calculations and discourses that he forgets about people, or about the collateral damage his plans and decisions can cause.
Gorgeous, satisfying fic, and I enjoyed every chapter of it. Thank you. :D
The boys are reunited! *hugs*"
No," the fair leader told himself, as he climbed to his feet, his chest aching from both the thorns and the cold, and his hands and feet so frozen that they had gone quite numb, and no longer even hurt anymore... "He is not anyone else's. He is mine by right, and I have come to claim him." And as he said it, he realized that it was true, and that the reverse was true also: that he belonged to Grantaire.
<3 <3 <3
And Grand'R, tortured with these runes. :-O I love that he defeated it with symbolism. :-D
But I was so sad that Valjean had to leave, or that Courfeyrac's maid sweetheart left him :-(
*hugs the boys*
*grins* Writing the slightly-over-the-top formal dialogue was one of the best parts of this. No one says things like "I have walked half the length of this country for him, down roads and across ice and stones, until until my strength has worn away and my limbs are faltering and my head is lulled to rest and my feet are sore and my chest is bleeding. Because I have followed him through fields and forests, through the palaces of privilege, and into and out of the dens of iniquity..." outside of fairytales or Tolkien or GoT or retraux fiction these days.
Courfeyrac and my maidservant OC were actually given the parts they got not only because how savvy Courf' is in society, but also *because* the crow sweetheart dies, which is why they were the only two who didn't get a happy ending (maybe a certain bespectacled scholar will come along and live happily every after with our Courf-senpai, so that he can be paired off in classic fairytale fashion, too).
*applauds* It's beautiful! The last two paragraphs are utterly, utterly charming.
Thanks so much! The Green Faery was kind of a conglomerate/symbolic villain, though I stole Kylie Minogue in Moulin Rouge! for her physical form, which is why i had her pouting like that at the end.
Ahh, how romantic. Thank you.
This is SO CUTE. And the style is spot-on. But the end: SO CUTE!
Thanks so much! ^_^ I can't take credit for the style, though -- I borrowed pretty heavily from the original, which is why it *sounds* so much like the original in some places.
So, "Ooh, an Enjoltaire fic I haven't read," thought. And "It'll only take me a little bit to read," I thought. And, "I can just read the first couple chapters and save the rest for tomorrow," I thought.
Well, it's two in the morning now, and I still haven't finished everything I need to do before sleeping, but I regret nothing. Non, je ne regrette rien... This story was fantastic. I loved that you kept the Andersen writing style, and I loved how you assembled your Les Mis characters as the supporting cast. I'll have to admit, I have a huge soft spot for Snow Queen-inspired fic, but even that aside this was just such an excellent read. Just the right amount of whimsy and adventure, and Grand'R being silly and smitten, and every other character at their absolute best. (Not gonna lie - the Courfeyrac and Éponine scenes were my favourite cameos, and quite possibly the best bits of the story. :D) And then the end! And happy endings for almost everyone!Take that, canon!
All-in-all, an amazing read, and the most fun I've had in ages. :D
This was so sweet and so unique! I loved it so much! And those shout-outs... I like that as well. This is really well-written and well thought out. It's like no other Mizzie fic I've read, and I loved seeing the incorporation of all the characters and all of the interesting things that happen here. :)
Very well done!
AAAAHHHHH THIS IS WONDERFUL. OH GODS MY POOR HEART.
Yay, you finished it! I was just thinking about this story over the weekend and hoping you'd finish it. Loved the final confrontation, and Enj defeating R with blood, and the reappearances of all the supporting characters, and everyone living (one way or another) ever after.
Yay, review! Honestly, I was stuck on the ending for this for a while, until the Goblin Market inspiration came to me.The little "here's what happened to everyone" tie up at the end happens in the original, too, so it just seemed like the proper way to end things *grins* And since this is my story, as opposed to Hugo's (this all takes place before the barricades), everyone was at least surviving at the end whether they got to live happily every after or not (except for the Green Faery, because the original story left her character arc open).
Yay, you finished it! I was just thinking about this story over the weekend and hoping you'd finish it. Loved the final confrontation, and the reappearances of all the supporting characters, and everyone living (one way or another) ever after.
the Snow Queen has always been one of my favorite fairytales, along with all the other things based off it (besides Frozen. Frozen can die) and I knew I would love this too. the way you incorporated all the characters fits really well (we love our girl 'Pony) and your words really flowed like how a fairytale would - I just want to say that I adore it!
Ahhh, thank you so much for this comment! The Snow Queen is my favourite fairytale ever (frozen? never heard of 'er ;) ) and I knew I just HAD to do it so I whipped out the books (I have a whole corpus of Snow Queen retellings, gleaning a bit from this fic and a tad from this translation) and got to work on rewriting it to fit the cast of Les Mis! I'm glad you enjoyed it as much as you did! :)
Loveeeddd this. you did such a great job of working all the cast into it!!!
Thank you, thank you! *big grin* This is, hands down, the most awesome Christmas present I've received this season (actually, scratch that; it's the best I've received *ever*, because it was made). I love your choice of subjects - Grantaire's past, particularly as an artist, has always particularly appealed to me - and your depiction of Grantaire's gradual fall (and ultimate redemption) from aspiring, if less than serious, artist who didn't want to go home to social drinker to degenerate substance abuser; the crowd he hung out with, and how it changed with his habits - or rather, how his habits changed with the different groups of people (love Courfeyrac's cameo!); how his rambling thoughts (laced with a dash of the classics) became, through the inhibition-lifting influence of alcohol, rambling speech; and how his relationship with Enjolras evolved over the years - specifically, I love how you've explained why book!Enjolras still gave him chances - because he'd known R from back when he was still more or less sober and had his head on straight. The story is not only believable, it is almost poetically tragic in its rendering of R's journey. The OF/PD epilogue (after the finale), in this context, not only pulls everything together but also makes it all the more poignantly beautiful (I had a knot in my throat by the end). It makes me want to pick up my pencil and illustrate it to kingdom come.
Once again, thank you so much. :D
Oh yay, I am so glad and relieved that you actually liked it! There were plenty of times I was worried and thinking, "oh god this is so weird and bizarre and I hope the readers like it at all--"
Subconsciously, I have always wanted to explore what was going through Grantaire's mind during Orestes Fasting... because you knew there had to be some mental shift. But this scene appeared to me while I was on lunch at work, so I scribbled it down as best I could, and took it home and transcribed it into the fic, which was still maybe halfway done in the middle at that point! I guess you could say I wrote the end before I finished the beginning! :) I never did write in a straight line though. Anyway I hoped it didn't come across as desperately off-key or overdone or caricatured, so I am very very very pleased that the epilogue worked so well for you! :D
and YES PLZ if you want to illustrate it to kingdom come I will cheer you on every step of the way (even if, uh, it has to be slapped with all the mature tags and hidden behind protected links! ;) )
Absolutely gorgeous! So much here that I love...from little touches like Enj's favourite stories or R's street address (Hyacinth! Grin!) to the final moments from his POV (in his epilogue). Your Grantaire is certainly living the life that Hugo hints at, a life of which the Amis are only a part, but which come to dominate the whole. I like your Courfeyrac (always bouncing and out of people's lives, connecting them) and your Enjolras with his stillness and reserve, pulling R up with just a word when he rants.
And poor Grantaire. There's a wonderful line in one of the Brontë bios about Branwell, and how people had tried to tug his reputation in all directions. This biographs treats him sympathetically, within the context of his squandered talent, his addictions, his depression. I wish I had the book in front of me, but the line ran something about him being a man lost in a mist.
Grantaire here is a man lost in a mist, some of it his own making, some of it probably from inherent psychological makeup, and some of it from circumstances beyond his control. He's neither the useless wastrel or the unfortunate victim on Enjolras' indifference that we see so often in fanon, but rather a complex figure who ultimately rises above just pathos. This isn't suicide by National Guard either - he dies with dignity, and an affirmation that some things are worth believing in, even if what he dies for is perhaps not entirely what Enjolras dies for.
:D I'm glad you enjoy it too! I've come to like the fic more and more as I read it and see how other people view it as well.
It's a story I fully intend to revisit as part of a larger story arc, so this is probably not the last we'll see of Grantaire, in this context. :)
I have a hard time believing that Grantaire was not ever at any point interesting or useful or a worthwhile friend to Enjolras, just from their interactions in "Enjolras and his Lieutenants". Enjolras would have scorned his suggestions and rejected his offer to help completely out of hand if that were the case. Because Enjolras takes him seriously, there's therefore got to be something between them other than the believer disdaining the sceptic, despite what Hugo says in "A Group Which Almost Became Historic". Enjolras and Grantaire have this interesting underlying story which was just dying to be teased out, so here (some of) it is.
I admit the chance to write about drunken, drug-filled orgies and Grantaire being the man about town was especially appealing as well. :)
The chance to illustrate such drunken, drug-filled orgies, even more so. I'm doing research now; I hope *nobody* ever finds my research folder!!
Oh FABULOUS! :) I absolutely cannot wait to see the, er, fruits of your research.
Found the quote - it was actually from Francis Grundy, who knew Branwell, and was used by the biographer I mentioned:
"Patrick Branwell Brontë was no domestic demon - he was just a man in a mist - who lost his way."
Like Branwell, Grantaire died standing up.
About ace!Enjolras…
I get why so many fans are invested in the idea of Enjolras being asexual/aromantic. While I somewhat doubt that Hugo intended that “his mistress is ‘patria’” line to be an indicator of asexuality/aromanticism in the way that some of the Classical allusions Hugo makes in reference to Grantaire are most likely meant indicate homosexuality, simply because the Victorians didn’t have a concept of aromantic aces in the same way that they did “Greek Love,” I also somewhat doubt that Tolkien actually intended Legolas and Gimli to get gay-married at the end of LotR, but will nevertheless argue until my dying breath that they totally, totally do and that said marriage is 100% supported-by-text canon whether Tolkien did it on purpose or not, so, you know, each to his own.
The thing I do wonder, however, is this: Why is Enjolras the only character fannish consensus has chosen to make asexual/aromantic? Yes, he’s an easier sell for aromanticism than Cosette-obsessed!Marius or Marius-obsessed!Eponine or HappilyShackedUpInAThreesome!Joly&Bossuet, since Hugo makes a point about the fact that his dedication to his political cause comes before everything else and he has no girlfriend, but Enjolras is still in his early 20s when he dies, at an age when some people still haven’t completely figured out their sexuality. (I can’t be the only one here who didn't develop a sex drive or have any kind of romantic relationship until I was halfway through college, right? Right?)
Meanwhile, Jean Valjean lives into his late 60s without ever appearing to have a significant sexual or romantic relationship of any kind. (I mean, yes, I totally ship him with Fantine, but the fact remains that this is not actually consummated in any way in the book). Yes, he spends a 19-year chunk of that time in prison, where women are not present and most m/m relationships were presumably non-consensual (Hugo doesn't go into rape in the French prison system, but there are other French authors of the period who do - it definitely happened), but during his time in Montreuil-sur-Mer and his time in Paris as M. Fauchelevent he pursues no romantic relationships with women, and while you could put that down to the fact that he’s in hiding, we also never see him pining after a woman whom he’s decided he can’t risk having a relationship with, or regretting that his secrets and fugitive status prevent him from wooing and marrying a wife. This could of course simply mean that he’s gay, just as Enjolras’s lack of interest in women might, but we also don’t see him either having any close relationships with other men (not even platonic ones) or angsting extensively about his own sinful desires, which someone as devoutly religious as post-candlesticks Valjean would presumably do (he certainly angsts and has internal conflicts over plenty of other things).
Personally, I’m all aboard the good ship Valjean/Fantine (as well as the good ship Javert/gay crush on M. Madelaine & Javert/obsessive homoerotic fixation on Valjean), but an asexual and/or aromantic Valjean seems like a very plausible interpretation to me. As does, for that matter, asexual and/or aromantic Javert (another man who lives well into middle age without appearing to seek out any sexual or romantic partners).
How come it’s always Enjolras, guys? Why don’t the middle-aged French virgins get some of the (lack of) love?
As for those Syd Barrett references... there are some Crazy Diamond and Wish You Were Here lines, and I have always seen that Grand'R is to the Friends as Syd is to Pink Floyd. The addicted, wayward outsider whom the leader still gives a second chance. I will never forget the day I heard Crazy Diamond on the radio in the Swedish woods, played as a dirge because Syd had died...
BTW, this is a spiritual successor to The Queen Beyond the Wall. Only that now the gay OTP are cast as Gerda and Kai, while the straight OTP are cast as the prince and princess. And the robber maiden is far less of a helper at first sight and far more of an outright tsundere, like in the original tale. And it takes place in a more industrialised real world, instead of Westeros. And, much like The Queen Beyond the Wall owes much to Heart by Coraleeveritas, I had seen the other already existing Enjoltaire Snow Queen fusion, the sadly unfinished Albedo by Lil-Old-Cricket-Bug. It still remains unfinished after but one Story -opening in medias res, with the others mourning R-, Enj is Gerda and R is Kai just like in my rendition, but what convinces me the least is the fact that all the Friends have been Rule 63:d in Albedo. Mademoiselle Enjolras questing for Mademoiselle Grantaire. The sole thought made me wince, and (just like two years ago, when I read Coraleeveritas' take on a Westerosi Snow Queen, where Jaime was Kai and Brienne was Gerda, that also miscast Renly in the part of the garden witch, while I saw him as the "princess" to Loras's prince, aside from pulling out of Coralee's sleeve an estranged Targaryen to play the villainess instead of casting the Night's Queen!) I said to myself, gritting my teeth, "I can do better!" For I had also found who would play the prince and princess, and the robber maiden, in a Les Mis Snow Queen retelling (it was comparing the latter to Éponine in a FutureLearn course on Andersen that revived the plot bunny and set the ball rolling!)... Then I pruned away all the big-lipped alligator moments in the Andersenian tale, et voilà! A Shakespearean five-act structure to use with a Lemony narration style!
I hope you have got all the literary, historical, and lyrics references sprinkled throughout here. I hope as well that you are rooting as much for Enj as you rooted for Brienne in "The Queen Beyond the Wall" (which you may see as the straight counterpart to this one).
To give you a few clues, there is inspiration from Shakespeare, from symphonic rock tunes and lyrics (Genesis: mainly Lilywhite Lilith, The Musical Box, and The Fountain of Salmacis - Pink Floyd: Crazy Diamond, Lunatic, Wish You Were Here, any song dedicated by Roger Waters to Syd Barrett [might as well be an Enjoltaire song, sent from the leader to the drugged prodigal without whom, at the end of the day, makes the group what it is]- Yes: that Roundabout that became the ending tune to JoJo's Bizarre Adventure sagas 1 and 2), from Celtic lore, from Mylène Farmer videoclips (where the French popstar has always got something of Éponine in her), from One Piece (kuroashi fighting style, which was inspired by savate), from the anime adaptations of CLAMP manga series, and many other sources; aside from my own Mediterranean upbringing and first brushes with the Scandinavian climate...
The blond boy's outward youth let one see through, into the maturity within; and yet it all was dwindling, nipped in the bud, leaving him as pale and cold as if he were a marble Apollo or an ice sculpture... An equally bright red foam, as scarlet as his waistcoat, bubbled from his lips.
The savateur's hazel eyes widened. A curious expression crossed his face. He licked his lips nervously as his eyes seemed to focus, unfocus, refocus, and unfocus again. And then he blinked several times, as if trying to get a mild irritation out of them.
He licked his lips again, a thoughtful frown creasing between his brows. He was looking at this boy. The red on the runes. Suddenly, it all made sickening sense. The crushing of bones. The weight. The blood.
The sight had a more shocking effect upon him than a glass of crushed ice upon the face would have had. Emotion returned, and one that belonged on his face. It started with confusion, transitioning into bewilderment before shattering into desperation. His eyes widened as he took in the boy lying before him. He let out a gasp... His heart was breaking. He was a statue struck too hard by a chisel, splintering all over. His eyes grew hot and damp.
It was as though a door had closed in his mind; he did not want to go there any longer.
"No!" he screamed in despair, shaking his head wildly. "No, no, no!!" The last word came out in a long, tearing roar. The shock of reality dazzled his glazed eyes.
A large indentation came to view on the stripling's back. On the left side. Where his heart was. His face was turned away from Grantaire now, hidden in a halo of golden thread, but still he knew him.
Instantly, he recognised Enjolras, and gasped in a rapture of elation, but also in a rapture of anxiety, that since a long time ago had been unknown to him:
"Enj... mon chéri... Enjolras... où as-tu donc été si longtemps?"
He forgot that he himself was the one who had gone forth, who had been far away in the first place, and not the dying ephebe at his feet.
"Enj... -jolras... où as-tu donc été si longtemps, où suis-je moi-même? Where have you been all this time so long? And where have I been myself?"
And he looked left and right, all around him in all directions, with astonishment.
"Ah! qu’il fait froid ici! Comme il fait froid ici, comme c’est vaste et vide! How cold it is here! How enormous and empty and vast! How did I come here in the first place? I know not... and what should I be doing here? Enj... that's right. Getting you out of here, my dear."
And so he got up and went to his friend, kneeling before him. And thus, reeling, in a state of shock, he scrambled to his feet and ran forwards, and went to his friend, falling to his knees beside the fair form that lay prostrate on the ground, the lifeless stripling whose ribs he had crushed himself, and cradled the feather-light form of the blond in strong hairy arms, as silken strands spilled across rough hands. "Why did you...?" he reproached the senseless leader, packing him by the pulseless wrists. "Enj... listen to me," he said softly, trying once more to reach him, though he knew it was futile. And though the blond's eyes were as cold and shut as ever, and he tried to pull away, this time Grantaire held his face between his cupped hands and would not let him go. His roommate, his other half, his soulmate was back, and he was never evermore going to let Enjolras go again! "I never needed anyone before I met you. But I need you now, Enj... I need you to come back to me. Nothing means anything without you, do you understand?" But it was no use; the lilywhite leader only curled his bloodstained lip wordlessly, either in smirk or scorn, staring at him uncomprehending. And so, at last, Grantaire could not help himself; hot tears welled up, and there in the coldest hall of the Belle Dame's palace, he bowed his head, enfolded the fair leader in his arms and buried his face in Enjolras' shoulder, sobbing into the crook of his throat, his tears wetting the leader's neck. "Where have you been all this time?" he cried, "And where have I been?" He lifted his face from the wounded boy's neck and looked around the hall, empty but for themselves... "How cold it is," he said wonderingly, "and how large... how huge and empty it all looks."
“Grand... R, I-I’m d-d-dying,” the blond stripling said, and he knew it was true. He felt the creeping specter of death as surely as he had known before that he was alive and that he loved Grantaire dreadfully. And just as surely, he knew now that he had been a fool. There was only one thing certain in life and that was death. What was more foolish than letting fear stop you from loving a person who loved you back, even if everyone said your love was wrong? Now he saw how small he was in the scope of the world; how little it would have mattered in the grand scheme of things if he had only told the savateur that he loved him, if he had only kissed him once. No, not once, a thousand times. A hundred thousand times. But now it was too late- he felt life leaving him already. Drops of his blood froze as they left his lips and became little icicles on his cheeks.
“You’re not dying, you’re not,” Grantaire said fiercely, and he knelt there in the runes, cradling Enjolras, as silken strands spilled across rough hands. He took the blond’s gloves off to rub warmth into his hands, for lack of anything else to do, but those lily-fingers were frozen and likely to snap right off.
“I-I-I am…d-d-dying…” Enjolras wheezed.
Of course Grantaire began to cry then, as he held his love in his arms. “No. No, no, don’t…Please… Enj, what do I do? I don’t know what to do. I love you, I love you, please…”
“I-I’m…s-s-sorry…” came a broken reply. The Marseillais sobbed and held him tight. Now the fair leader’s breathing was shallow and ragged and his lover knew that he was going to die.
“What do I do!” yelled the savateur, and the leader’s body had become as hard as stone so that Grantaire couldn’t hold him properly. “Please, love, please! What do I do!”
“K-k-kiss m-m-me,” the fair leader said. Then his lips fine were still because they had become as icy as his heart. So Grantaire pressed his mouth to his beloved's, and felt no warmth or give at all. He bowed his head to that frozen body and kissed as he had never kissed in his life.
The blond felt his last breath leaving him and thought of all the times he had seen the Marseillais smiling at him across the hall table and thought, I love him, and all the times he had caught Grantaire’s eye while serving dinner and thought, I love him, and all the card games and shared jokes and smiles and cigarettes that meant: I love him, I love him, I love him. He thought of how he had shoved it down, down, down into a bit of coal at the bottom of his heart; hidden away and shut up in shadows.
But the fire of his love was burning hotter than it had ever burned before.
The lad lay on his back, with Grantaire on top of him, gently pressing him onto his own chest at heart height. Grantaire's eyes were closed, his face bloody, and his whole self was already getting cold, the numbness having spread through all four of his limbs and now reaching up from pelvis to waist; he drew deep, ragged breaths, one strong hand clutching the boy's shoulder, his open mouth against the swan-white neck. The boy's weary face, upturned to the sky above Grantaire's shoulder, was also bloodstained; his free hand lifted weakly, fell again across the savateur's back. His hair was as gold as the sun's little box; his face as pale and perfect as the moon's face. The boy drew a deep breath. His eyes flickered open; they were as blue as the day sky.
He turned his head, looked up at Grantaire. He lifted a fragile, icy hand from his back, touched those azure eyes delicately, the stripling's brows rising in silent question.
Then Enj looked again at the blood on the dark young man's face.
He took a tattered piece of his waistcoat, wiped a corner of Grantaire's lips, then, in after-thought, his own. His eyes were very wide, very blue; he was not listening to the savateur.
"Enj..., listen to me," he said softly, trying once more to reach him, though he knew it was futile. And though those glazed eyes of blue shut beneath pale lids as cold and dead as ever, and he writhed in pain trying to pull away, this time Grantaire held his lilywhite, lilysoft face between his cupped hands and would not let him go. "I never needed anyone before I met you. But I need you now... Enj... I need you to come back to me. Nothing means anything without you, do you understand?" But it was no use; the fair leader's bloodstained lips did not even curl in scorn. There he lay, hardly breathing, eyes shut, senseless, uncomprehending. And so, at last, Grantaire could not help himself; hot tears welled up, and there in the coldest hall of the Green Faery's palace, he bowed his head and sobbed into the broken chest of his beloved. The tears splashed down onto the frozen runes, but some of them fell upon Enjolras' left side, as the dark savateur cradled his lovely and beloved victim:Then Enj looked again at the blood on the dark young man's face.
He took a tattered piece of his waistcoat, wiped a corner of Grantaire's lips, then, in after-thought, his own. His eyes were very wide, very blue; he was not listening to the savateur.
"Oh, why did I drink of...! Must I perish...? I, to whom such a glorious reward was offered... must I now lose all, disgrace the name that I.... and furnish a cause to our enemies... Enj... Must your young life... like mine... be wasted? Undone in my undoing... thirsty... cankered... febrile...? Oh, Enj! Would that I had listened to you, that I had never tasted of that fatal spring!!" he said, his voice as dry and weightless as leaves flying in the wind.
He felt a tiny jolt, the stab of a needle, somewhere in the region where his heart once resided. Oh, he thought. No. Not this. He remembered, so many centuries before, the same stab. It had been love then and it was love now. Not this, he thought once more, before his lilywhite skin began to collapse into glitter dust. Desperately he fought to regain his power, but like an ancient skeleton brought from its coffin to the breathing air, the material that gave him strength dissolved in the light of love. His face cracked open as he spoke, unhinged as if with insanity.
Shaking with aguish fear and pain, like one poisoned with mercury, Grantaire knelt down beside the beautiful form, clung about the fair leader with all his strength, gently clasping him tight and close to his heart, and, through a mist of swimming teardrops, stroked the tangled wheat-golden curls in which he lay entwined, stroked back the stray locks away from his bloodstained face, then kissed that lovely high brow, that fair young brow, now pale and clammy... and, head still bent and chest still heaving, he urgently kissed and kissed and kissed those pale, cold, bloodstained lips with an eager mouth, touching with his lips the red foamy blood. To both their surprise, he ducked his head and captured the leader's surprised lips with his own. His longing to hold the one he loved finally quenched after four years -- the desire to kiss him had been too much. He had no thought to expect anything; all that he wanted was to mar their perfect bow, to leave a mark. He did not expect, certainly, for Enjolras to return the kiss, savage, gasping, straining till the savateur released his own wrists; for, as they kissed, his lips began to scorch, and then his throat, and his chest, and his vitals... Long before half a kiss, the little warden that dwells somewhere betwixt mouth and maw began to send offensive messages to his brain, and even with a crimson drop between his teeth there set in strong a fearful devastating revulsion, a climax of disgust, a maw-revolt, an absolute loathing. That warm red mortal blood was bitter wormwood to the tongue, and he loathed the feast; writhing as one possessed, he curled up into a ball, racked with a shudder, a fit, a seizure, like dying a death by a thousand cuts. His face was convulsed with scarlet pains, his mouth was foaming and dripping with its natural juice, something (a blood-clot) gripped his throat, the last morsel was there and seemed to stick. He tightly closed his wide glazed eyes, violently shook his head, through which pains shot. The choking lump was shaken out. Limbs and lungs were cramped. He jerked his head from side to side with violent insistence. His stomach yielded most of the lethal draught at once. But the poison had entered into his body, already was coursing in his veins. As he beat his hairy chest in despair, swift fire spread through his veins, knocked at his heart, met the ice that gripped around it, and overbore its lesser flame. When this happened, the heat of that crimson blood reached straight through to Grantaire's frozen heart, thawing the lump of ice as nothing else could have. That kiss unfurled into a heartquake. Yet still he quaffed that bitterness without a name, that stabbing pain seized his sides and limbs even more violently, until, at last, sense failed in the mortal strife, everything suddenly fading to black in his field of vision. Writhing with agony, overwhelmed with loathing, he lay almost as dead, and the smallest enemy he ever had might now and easily have wreaked the limit of revenge.
Images of sorrow, pictures of delight, endless days of summer, longer nights of gloom, waiting for the morning light, scenes of unimportance, pictures in their frames; things that go to make up a life...
Quite unexpectedly... it seemed to Grantaire that he had been torn away from a dream, or that a curtain was rising, or that a haze was fading before his eyes. In an instant, all the knowledge came flooding back into his clearing mind. In an instant all the past rushed back to him: a waif leaving his native enclave of a whitewashed Catalan village by the Mediterranean, learning to kick his way out of trouble on the docks of Marseille; a series of odd jobs as an errand boy, then as a stevedore, taken in under one middling Madame Grantaire's wing, constantly forced to battle with hardships and saving for an artistic apprenticeship or a University degree; a weary months-long journey on foot up to the capital, followed by the hardships of bohemian life; a street-corner café full of southerners, including some of his classmates, who longed for a brighter tomorrow; their leader, a dashing golden-haired stripling he had saved from some thugs outside the café; the experience of making friends... All of the things that he’d seen or even done himself, things he’d never have done while sober (or even while drinking too much). All of the things that he’d been so easily cajoled and coaxed into doing, things which the drug had convinced him he really wanted after all, when his sober and thinking mind would have recoiled from even the thought of it, let alone going through with the act at all. The whole affair left a very bad taste in his mouth -- Grantaire loved discovering new hobbies, new parties, new friends, new anything in Paris, but not at the expense of his will. He drew the line at activities that prevented him from making decisions of his own free will; and this certainly was the worst of them. While the sensations and the hallucinations brought on by the draught he had quaffed were, admittedly, not unpleasant, the after effects when the feeling wore off and the things he was coaxed into doing while he had no real way to refuse were too much to be worth the fleeting euphoria that the drug brought on initially... and then, he only saw the fair, soft face of the one he had followed, worshipped, and defended long ago. Enjolras was as fair as the sun, as bright as the day, as stern and firm as white cliffs; the fair lashes, the fine high bones of his cheeks, the cove where the wings of his collarbone met, his hair golden, glowing bright as a bonfire, or like the Jardins du Luxembourg in September on the first day of the academic year; his voice as blithe as a reveille call... He was tall and lean, and if the mingling of fire and moonlight did not lie, his face was neither foolish nor cruel. He was unlike other young men of his age and rank; there was a certain sadness in his voice, laced with a resolve and élan that made one want to hear him speak. He did not touch Grantaire again when he drew closer, but the Marseillais heard the pleased smile in his voice. His face was quite easy to look at. In this kind of twilight, he had tawny hair and azure eyes, and girlish yet strong, graceful features that were young in expression and happier than their experience.
He was gentle and courteous to his servants, had an ear for his musicians' playing, and had lean, strong hands that moved as easily among the jewelled goblets and gold-rimmed plates as they did as among steel tankards and bowls of faïence (or so it seemed, for the savateur knew little to nothing about his lover's past life, except of his lack of siblings and higher standing)...
A boy with a curling-up mouth and a voice soft as fresh-fallen snow. With those words came the wanting. And all was changed. Irrevocably.
And now upon the floor at his feet, blood pooling from his mouth, lay that same stripling, like a beautiful marble figure, his splendid features rigid and pale, his long, slim body wasted away, his hands inert and still, his golden locks spread over the rune-engraved floor, like liquid light, and his long lashes made great dark lines beneath his eyes. Oh, how beautiful he was! How beautiful, beautiful! Thus Grantaire felt all his great love mount like a wave within his chest, overcoming every other feeling. Feeling as if he must fall down and kiss that marble face; that he must lay he dark head upon that still heart; and then for one horrible moment he thought he was already dead.
"No, no," whispered the savateur; "he still lives, but the flame of life within him flickers, as if at any moment the smallest breath would blow it out! Has he, then, found that which will bring him back to me?
That face he saw was bruised and scratched; there was a long tear down one bare shoulder, the right one. He looked older, weathered, his pale skin burned by the sun, which had scarcely touched it in years... and he was dying, dying of the injury that Grantaire had wrought himself! Reality was all too clear, all too vivid, all too shocking.
His eyes widened, and he spoke a familiar name in a voice filled with sorrow:
"Ennjolras..." he sobbed; he reached out impulsively, restraining manly tears, getting down on his knees and cradling his strangely pale, shallowly breathing beloved leader. His voice was hoarse and harsh, as if he had not spoken in a long, long time; and he stared in shock at his lifeless beloved.
He stiffened, began pushing at him and talking at the same time finally with that familiar Marseillais patois, his accent now sounding even warmer. "I remember. I remember now. You were that... that one I shunned, the one at whose coattails I kept nipping..." His voice was low and sweet, amused as he tugged at Enjolras. "You must get up. What if someone should see us? Oh, dear. You must be hurt." The savateur shifted out from under him, made a hasty adjustment to his ensemble, and caught sight of his beloved once more; still amazed at the leader's beauty, and at the sight of him, whom he had not seen in ages, and never in this light, lying golden-haired and slack against his own chest. Grantaire bent over Enjolras, turned him on his back, sobbing upon his shoulder. "Why did you...?" he reproached the senseless leader, packing him by the pulseless wrists.
He burst into tears as the memories came back, and the colour slowly returned to him as his heart began to pump his blood freely once more. No longer was it a crazy diamond. Enjolras had thawed it out. Enj had come all this way to -
The fair leader twitched at the touch of tears upon lilywhite skin. Time slowed. The images before his eyes blurred. Urgent words, spoken and shouted, stretched out forever. Hands lifted him, bringing fresh pain. Shouts echoed around the him. Lights blazed from the ceiling above.
And then a face came into view, blurry at first, then clear.
The face of the one whom Enjolras had sought for so long.
Relief washed over him like a gentle wave, lapping his pain away. He'd saved Grantaire; that was all that mattered. The fair leader stared at him, frozen, his eyes filling with hot tears that he blinked back, for he would not let himself do anything so weak as crying, even in that wretched state. He reached one hand out toward the savateur, and then he felt a large, rough, reassuring clasp, just like a clamp of flesh and blood warming his soft palm.
"Grand... R... not a dream... really you, R, all along... mais... ce n'est qu'une... petite blessure... c'est... rien... it’s all... right! I’ll take the pain away. Hush!” The man uncoiled reluctantly, following his pull, breathing out confused. “I wanted to… with... you..."
There was not much time left for the fair leader: his crushed side kept on pouring out his life into the inside of his chest, and he felt that what little strength he had left was beginning to fail.
Thus, there was nothing more Enjolras could say in a voice choked by lungs full of blood, and a red foam bubbled from his parted lips. A convulsive shudder shook his powerless limbs, he turned dreadfully pale, and fell backwards, hands and feet sliding down onto the floor, in the strong arms of the one who loved him.
And thus, Grantaire enfolded the wounded, senseless leader in his arms, and buried his face in Enjolras' left shoulder, his tears wetting the loose golden locks that veiled the lilywhite neck. He could see sparse golden hairs on the back of that lilywhite hand, and the curved fingers seemed vulnerable. "Where have you been all this time?" Grantaire cried. "And where have I been?" He lifted his face from Enjolras' neck and looked around the hall, empty but for themselves en tête-à-tête, turning his head in all directions, full of astonishment. "How cold it is," he said wonderingly, "and how dreadfully large and empty it all looks!"
Then, his eyes fell back upon the haggard features, the bloody torn waistcoat, and the crushed left side of his beloved leader, and he gave a cry of dismay. "You are wounded," he cried. "You have hurt yourself for me. You should not have, for I do not deserve it. I have never had the right to injure, let alone to kill you... I went away and left you, and forgot all about you, and let the Green Faery's promises turn my heart to a cold crazy diamond, colder than ice... and then it were my feet that crushed your side, and I was so close to seeing you die by my own strength, but now no strength is left in my feeble frame, the poisons have done their work... I just hope... Enjolras... I shall nevermore... You will nevermore..."
Enjolras’ face and body were covered in grime, powder, dirt, blood -- whether his own or others’ Grantaire could not tell -- and none of this detracted from his beauty or his presence; indeed, only added to the power that the other man’s blue-eyed gaze seemed to have as it fell upon Grantaire, in this moment which seemed to last forever and which Grantaire never wanted to end.
“Those few weeks before I… left, something was wrong with me. Something had taken
over my body, my heart, my mind, just everything about me. And when I saw her, I was
tempted. I couldn’t think of anything but going with her. And then… it was like none of you existed. I forgot about all of you. I forgot everything. I even forgot how awful I was to you that day.”
Though unconscious, Enjolras nodded, as if to say: “I know. I knew something was wrong. I knew you’d never hurt me like that... But don’t apologise. It wasn’t you. Whatever it was, it’s gone now. I'm sorry... that everything turned out... the way that it did. But... hng! you taught me... how to handle... a sword in one-to-one-combat. So I put out... a pretty good fight. You'd have to be proud of me... Sorry... that things... turned out this way... But... you... trained me well in sword fighting. So... it was a pretty good... match, you know...”
"That's enough... Don't... don't try to talk... That's enough. Don't... don't talk anymore."
More teardrops fell upon the dark bags under the fair leader's eyes, and upon his lilywhite lips, which curled upwards in a faint smile, and his eyelids flickered to reveal glazed sapphire orbs as he wearily shook his head and said, fiercely, "You idiot... you still think you can...? Are you... in any position...to give me orders? You can never leave me, for there is nowhere you can go that I will not follow. I have found you now, and I will never be parted from you again. Nevermore... Until... the bitter..." And as they knelt there, clinging to one another, he broke into a blood-coughing fit and collapsed once more on Grantaire's lap.
"Please, hang on!!"
He felt the savateur take his hand in Enjolras' snow-white own, and squeeze it. He squeezed back, silk against sackcloth, ice against fire. For once, Grantaire was crying, in earnest, but trying to smile. Knowing himself forgiven, he kissed the leader's torn, bloody chest, and his bloodstained lips, and bandaged his outward wounds with strips of fabric torn from his own coat. And, as they knelt there, clinging to one another, he stroked once more the bloodstained face, and the shining gold curls of liquid light in which he lay entwined. "Hang on... Ennj... Please,... hang... on...", he sobbed.
There was so much Enjolras wanted to say, but he couldn't make the words come. He wanted to tell Grantaire that he would be all right. That he was brave and strong. He wanted the lush to know how much he loved him...
The pounding in his ears grew softer. His vision blurred again.
"No!" Grantaire screamed, then looked down at the bloodstained runes. A flash to Combeferre translating runes came to his mind. FRIHET. He'd heard some sailors from the North, from even further up north than Calais, Scandinavians if he remembered right, say that word in Marseille, but could not remember exactly what it meant. Then he turned back to his beloved, terror in his eyes. "Enj... no..." he begged frantically. "Don't go. Please, p-lease don't go..."
The pounding slowed. His azure, steel-coloured eyes fluttered closed.
"Until... the bitter..." he whispered. "Always..."
The beat of Enjolras' brave heart faltered, and then finally, it stopped.
As Enjolras lost consciousness, Grantaire kissed his stained lips and shed one single teardrop.
It was a feeling as if the Lady in Green set before him an empty cup, and said 'Drink,' in a harsh voice of command, and flung him not into the dungeon, but out of the circle of stones.
And, as his fair beloved sank down in his embrace, Enjolras clutching him as tighly as he could lest, as he feared, Grantaire should really leave him on his own to die within the Green Faery's keep, and the dark-haired one sobbed all the harder, knowing himself forgiven, and kissed that torn, bloody chest; and those cold, bloody, strangely smiling lips... and carefully cradled the fragile, lifeless form of Enjolras, listening constantly to the rattling and wheezing from within the ribcage he had unwittingly crushed; and bandaged his outward wounds with strips of fabric torn from his own coat. And, as they knelt there, clinging to one another, he stroked once more the shining gold curls of liquid light in which he lay entwined.
As the dark-haired student lifted up and cradled his friend, Grantaire's eyes finally shone with the pure light of life once more, his lilywhite complexion changed back from how pale it was into healthy olive with a slight rosy tinge, the warmth and colour coming back to his skin, that became blooming, and the invisible chains of immobility that seemed to shackle his wrists and ankles disappeared, he became strong and well; as the warmth began to spread through his body, his colour started to return to his skin, he felt how his own heart throbbed stronger and stronger, and how his cheeks felt warm, then hot, as the memories of his days with the Belle Dame faded away within his head, and he was once more the self-same Grantaire who had lightened up so many evenings at the Musain, and changed Enjolras' view of life and of pleasure. He was once more a young man full of health and good cheer, whole and alive, though racked with concern at the state of his beloved, cradled in strong yet gentle arms.
"At last I am free... Enjolras... Not even the Green Faery can hold me anymore..." He carefully hoisted Enjolras up, brushing quartz-dust off his shoulders, his chest, his thighs, while drying up his tears on the blond's sleeves and encouraging him to cling to dear life, sobbing as he smiled, so much he feared that life should leave Enjolras, leaving his form cold and dead, and Grantaire alone with his despair, within that strange dark throne room. "There's no one else can warm my heart as much as you... be not gone..."
The dark savateur pulled away as the fair leader stilled in his embrace, wide open eyes locking onto shut ones, and he studied the red rims, the blue that seemed to warm in front of his very eyes. Tears streamed down his cheeks, fell onto his collar, dripped to the surface of the runestone below. He could feel the way Enjolras' heart thudded against his chest – realised it hadn’t been beating, not properly, when he’d first pulled the blond to his side – the way his limp fingers had moved around to clutch desperately at the back of his coat.
"Ennj...?" he whispered, his voice breaking and cracking, yet once more with that familiar Marseillais accent. "Ennj... when we're like this...it's warm, isn't it? It's nice and warm out here. Isn't it? Ennj?"
In that stance they went forth from the great fortress, the fair stripling gently held, cradled, by the stronger dark young man, who, as he left the keep, muttered to himself about the Café Musain, and their long-abandoned chairs, and legalese, and of Merlot and barmaids and barricades, and of the sunsets they had watched together, and about the blood-red dawn that would hopefully find them having given it all for Liberty, their fingers entwining in a final gesture... and as they walked the winds were at rest and the thick fog lifted and the sun burst forth from behind the clouds, a pale sun still half-veiled in the Northern morning sky.
In the meantime, the Green Faery could return, and enter her throne room once more, if she pleased, and it made no difference if she returned home; it did not matter, for upon the dark pavement lingered not only the thyrsus, but also the glow, in warm red firelight, of six runes that spelled out the word FRIHET: "Liberty" or "Freedom" in Norse languages, the password that Grantaire had had to find out if he was to become his own master. The two students did not even wait for her return to claim what she had promised. They left behind the ivy-entwined pinewood bâton of command and the warm, glowing blood-stained runes that proved that the Green Faery's latest general had won back the right to his freedom, and become once more his very own lord and master of himself, and free to leave the place and go wherever he wished; she owed him that she would have to make him leave her service, or rather her servitude, come hell or highwater. The Killer Queen might come home now whenever she pleased; there stood his discharge, the order for Grantaire's release, his right to his own freedom written in shining bloodstained runes.
(When she returned to her keep a fortnight later, she would find the throne-hall utterly empty, for the umpteenth time in forever, and the answer to the paradoxical riddle, her latest general's charter of freedom, his right to his own freedom, stood there written on the brilliant pavement, in dried-up blood. The thyrsus lay on the floor as well, at a certain distance from those six runes. All right, they won fair and square. She knew that she would never be able to vanquish the courage and earnest feelings of those two. Of course, she had lost, and wished that Enjolras and Grantaire would love one another till the bitter end; never mind, she would find another general to take his place... She tapped her foot furiously for a moment, and then said, slowly, her face clearing a little, as if addressing the absent Grantaire and his saviour: "That's why you were there to rescue us! Now I understand. And I snatched him away from you without even thinking--and after you had searched for him so long, I made you search--oh, my dear." She clasped her hands tightly, then rubbed her sore wrists. Her lonely chant, in the quiet of that twilit room, was mournful, wistful, monotone yet heart-rending in its lyrics: "Still in my arms he suffered and tossed. That was why he came to me, that is why he runs from me. Not pleased with rest, he needed delirium. That last day, I saw my lover's face was flustered, the look in his eyes all fire and blood... and he, in that state, would doubtless have pierced my heart with the blade he had stabbed into his own chest... Still, I feel as though from my heart all the blood has gushed, and my lover has drunk it till he has become intoxicated. Ah! From then onward, I will nevermore be able give him any tranquillity, any respite or repose. Yet there will always be others... other mortals, as young and yet as disenchanted, who will wrest from me my blood, to them precious liquor, that gives the intoxication of visions and delusions, perturbating both the heart and the head. No sooner has one put that draught to their lips, that their soul takes wing, takes flight, and leaves its mortal coil. Flashing back to the past and launching off to explore the future, or frequenting alternate realities; memory and hope being the two lodestones that keep the wayward spirit alive in the ether of illusion. What ever became of that time when I ruled the hours between light and darkness, and, suspended in the air, let my kindly seeds of glitter-dust upon the brows of humans? From that seed always sprung a sweet and pleasant lullaby, a repair for worn-out spirits, a kindly companion for exhausted bodies. The images I summoned were always pleasant and reassuring; to the empty-nester mother I showed her children fresh and smiling, lisping her name from the cradle, and to the orphan I showed their unknown parents, their mother perched upon their brow to give a good-night kiss. Thus sped my life quickly and merrily, like the springtime that it was. In those days when my secret was not know, I was merely the beloved darling of the decent folk; now I am requested and pursued even by miscreants, who oblige me to conspire for sinister aims. So why... why did I ever sadly reveal the existence of the draught concealed within my own insides, the poisonous draught that has been the death of many of my warrior-lovers? This wretch that is me sees herself in those artists, whom others owe their purest and sweetest enjoyments, their most beautiful illusions of which the artist's own self, however and ironically, is the very first victim. Thus... here is to those; may they live, may they fight, may they drink, may they sleep dreaming of pleasures and of honours! My blood has them intoxicated! May they all dream on, while I, wide awake, mourn for my lost tranquillity and my stolen happiness!")
"This place is cold as a witch's tit," he said after a while, grinning that crooked grin Enjolras had almost forgotten, and which, his eyes shut and veiled in darkness, he (Enjolras) could not even picture himself. "Let's go someplace warmer."
He uncovered a familiar door in the wall, it had dead leaves scattered around it though. It was clear, the realm ended behind it.
"Hold on, Ennj. This way."
The door opened on its own and the savateur stepped out dressed for the autumn towards the yellow covered ground, leaves making a soft carpet for him to walk on.
Though his breathing rattled and he writhed a little, the fair leader he cradled kept a serene expression in his blood-loss sleep.
The sun was low when Grantaire came to himself, his much-enfeebled self. His head was throbbing, his body was cramped with pain, his mouth was dry and burning; he took a deep breath, his eyes wild, and he glanced away from his lover's face, over at the fortress that seemed to shimmer in front of them. Down-hill he trudged slowly to the cauldron of cold stone and drank. It revived him a little, enough so he could cradle the fair beloved for more time and walk at a brisk pace while carrying Enjolras safe in strong, loving arms, and pouring clear water down his weak, parched throat.
"He is hurt. Is there water?" he glanced around vaguely, as if he expected a frog to emerge in cravat and coattails, with water on a tray. But soon he had already fetched it in cupped hands, from a little rill of fresh water that sprang from the granite cauldron, now cracked in one side. He moistened Enjolras' face with it, let the blond's lips wander over his own hands, searching for more.
Since both of them had broken the enchantment that had led them thither, the clear draught had no more sinister effects upon either one of them. On Grantaire trudged out of the circle of stones, with Enjolras in his arms; on they trudged south, until they reached the edge of the plains and the point where the forest began. And wherever they walked the fog faded away to nothing and the sun shone out.
Already half-bled to death by the trial of the hedge of thorns, and exhausted by the three laps he had run withershins around the circle of stones, the fair leader had not come to his senses. Pale as wax, eyes firmly shut, he gave no sign or token of life; his skin an ashy grey, as if the life had been already sucked out of him.
Kissing his icy forehead for a long time, the darker and stronger student, equally pale, muttered:
"Pas de crainnte-a, Ennjolras. 'Tis too early for both of us to die... Stay still... so hang in there!"
When they arrived at the rendezvous point, as they got nearer the gnarled holly bush with the red berries, there stood someone waiting for them, since as soon as they reached the holly. Little by little, the heather and rhododendrons were replaced on the southward journey by thornbushes, the thornbushes by little gnarled pines, then by larger and better-looking pines, then by green oaks, and at last they saw a great forest of beeches and chestnut; they had made it to the limits of the North country, where the first green buds were to be seen.
Out of the treeline of beeches and chestnut there suddenly cantered a fine, graceful horse, with hide like dark chocolate, which Enjolras, had he been conscious, would have recognised quite well, for it was one of the horses that had once been harnessed to and drawn the carriage he had been given by Marius and Cosette. A young person of indeterminate sex was riding astride upon it, with bright black Wellington boots and bright red spats on their feet and red gloves on their hands, a bonnet rouge resplendissant on her head and a musket slung across their back. Through the woods came riding towards them a young androgynous person on a magnificent, splendid horse that Enjolras would have recognised, for it had belonged to the Fauchelevent estate, and once been harnessed to the Fauchelevents' carriage. At first, Grantaire did not know the rider, and took for granted that a young man was riding astride that magnificent steed; but it turned out to be a dark young girl in tattered boy's clothing, hatted or coiffed with a bright scarlet sans-culotte bonnet, and wearing two pistols in front of her at the sides of her waist, strapped to her belt. Her raven hair was matted and rumpled like a troll's, her queue cut off into a more boyish bob haircut, dark hair cut to her jaw; she had a bruised left eye, and there were tears all over her sleeves and trousers, through which burn scars could be seen upon her olive skin. Her head was covered with a shining scarlet scarf below the bonnet rouge (one just like Marianne's), but the curly raven hair flowing from beneath the scarf and the flashing dark eyes gave her away. The girl wore a bright red cap on her head, and a pair of pistols in front of her at her sides. There were those two pistols stuck in her belt, a Bowie in her left hand, and she held the reins in the right.
She was the little robber maiden, who had tired of staying at home with the robber band and now was on her way out into the wide world, setting out on a journey from the North country, and who was making first for the capital; weary of the Patron-Minette band, she had actually had enough of calling home that ruin in the woods with her wild companions, and decided to leave on horseback, riding out of there, having gone forth on her own to seek her fortune as a writer or a revolutionary, and to demonstrate for women's rights to vote and to a higher education, for 'twas so she thought she would do if she ever grew weary of writing. If she didn't like it there in Paris, if that didn't suit her, why, she thought she would make later for any other part whenever she grew weary of that; the world was wide, and there were many other places where she could go whenever she pleased.
Éponine now sported an array of pistols and blades upon her person, and had grown tired of living with the robbers, so she was setting out on a journey away from the North. As we have said before, fierce arrogant Éponine had grown weary of the life she led in the ruins in the forest. She had realised soon after she agreed to help Enjolras that she really couldn't take the life of a robber anymore and that while she truly loved her parents it was perhaps time to move on and make new friends and meet new people. She was nervous but determined and intended to try seeking companionship in another part of the world. Thus, right before she left her parents' den in the company of Enjolras, she had taken a great sum in franc banknotes from their coffers, stuffed her pockets full, and cut the tethers of one of the horses that Cosette had given Enjolras (and the Thénardiers had claimed after the ambush), right before they leapt up on horseback and set forth.
She knew both young men directly, she recognised both of them straight away, immediately, at once, but, instead of being drunk with joy, delighted to meet each other, she was astonished upon beholding her hero senseless, so deeply unconscious that he could die at any given moment. Her expectations of Enjolras striding forth towards her safe and sound, holding hands with his dark friend, and remembering her, had been brutally subverted; and thus, she stormed, in a state of shock, towards them; it was everything but a joyful or happy meeting.
She had been ready to take out a pistol and fire a gunshot into the air to salute her friends, but her trigger finger loosened, and her left arm dropped slack along her side, in shock at seeing each other again; when she saw how things had turned out. It was an anxious meeting, but, upon hearing the fair leader breathe, though shallowly and racked with pain, and upon seeing his shattered ribcage rise and fall time and again to that rhythm, she was at least slightly encouraged and reassured.
"And who can this dark young man be... but the companion whom Enj sought so anxiously, when we took him prisoner?" she quietly asked herself.
"You're a fine fellow to go gadding about in this way, a fine one to go rambling about in this way, gallivanting off disappearing on the winter winds and putting dear Enj to all that trouble, aren't you?" she turned towards Grantaire and prodded him in the side with a sharp elbow, taking care not even to graze the wounded leader, regarding the savateur with a wicked smile on her face. "A scoundrel like there are few to be seen! I should like to know whether you really deserve that anyone should go to... I wonder if you're worth to have someone running across the wide world to the ends of the Earth, or at least to the ends of France, to search for you and find you. I'd like to know if you deserve to have people running off to such far off-distances just for you! I do hope you are worth going to the ends of the Earth for! Even that anyone should be worthy of dying for your sake...! Honestly, Enjolras deserves someone way better!" she smirked, slapping the senseless young man gently in the face (for the sake of auld lang syne).
In response, Enjolras was so deeply unconscious that he did not even flinch, while the sceptic gauchely looked away. Even though he knew himself forgiven, this girl, who seemed to know Enjolras, was at least slightly unsensitive to remind him of what he had wrought, as she looked him up and down and shook her head.
"Mind you, you're handsome enough! I can see why he followed you to the ends of the Earth! I just knew. Maman would beat me black and blue, and sneer, and say Enj and I would both die in the fog... but I knew you were strong, Enj. I always knew. If we get him to a safe place, like the Château Fauchelevent, as soon as possible, he may survive. He's a strong young fellow, so there's one chance out of twenty... And, furthermore, I know every shortcut through these woods, and you will surely need a pathfinder to get there in time... Trust me. But now tell me how he managed to get you back. Please tell me everything that has transpired, how he got on himself, and how he has found his fugitive! But now tell me how this lad managed to get his savateur back. Why don’t you tell me what happened since we last saw each other, right?” Éponine was on tenterhooks, for all that had transpired in her absence, as well as for saving the life of her wounded hero.
Though it had been both an instant and an eternity in that hall as the Lady's trusted general, though his recollections were rather hazy and the last, most vivid of them were the most shocking experience in his short life, he told the robber maiden all about it, with a wistful look in his eyes the colour of hazelnuts. Or at least, all that he could recall: how he showed for all who wanted to hear him a flask full of the green elixir that he kept on quaffing every now and then, how he had let himself be seduced and spirited away, as Enjolras had stormed off in his pursuit, suffering concerns and encountering misfortunes that no single person could ever wish for. And, as he related his version of the story, he felt that he could trust this boyish stranger, and that an oppressive weight was being taken from his chest, for the robber maiden understood it all. It felt like partaking of a healing draught, and a change seemed to pass over his whole frame. He no longer felt the excitement of fever, nor the painful weakness which succeeds it.
The powers of evil have their own rules; they can play with us and within us. And he had not stopped wondering about it since. What had happened? Had the apparition been something he imagined because he had a high fever? He had never known fever or any illness before. But he had new insight into himself since the night he had stormed out of the Musain, so harshly. He remembered how wildly his heart had been made to beat by jealousy, by loathing; those burning feelings had swept through him. If only he could tell Enjolras his thoughts! If only he could confess his temptation and how it had become a deed.
Dark forces play their games, they have power and carry out their purposes around us and within us. Evil forces play their tricks, both outside and within us. Grantaire had finally realised that, and he had been pondering about it. What had happened around him and in him. What had happened to him, on the inside and on the outside; what was it that had gone on about him and inside him? Had he had a vision, or was it all a fever dream wrought by intoxication? Had he seen visions, or was it a feverish dream? He had never known having a high fever, and not any other serious illness either, hangovers notwithstanding. Yet he had gained an insight into himself. He searched his own heart, remembering the way he had treated Enjolras. He thought of the fierce pulse of his own heart, and remembered that hot sirocco like over Marseille, awakening once more, that had broken loose in there. Could he confess everything to the one he loved, each and every one of the thoughts he had had at the moment of falling into temptation? Could he confess everything - every thought which in that hour of temptation almost brought about his action? It was precisely that loss that had made him return to Enjolras; because of that loss the blond had regained him. The leader had rightfully won him once more. Would Grantaire be able to tell him the truth? And would his beloved make any confession to him? It felt like the savateur's own heart was shattering with these thoughts, and so many memories awakened... He felt like his heart would break to pieces when he thought about that. There were so many memories. He saw Enjolras living, reading, pouring his heart and soul out into song. Many blithe words that the leader had uttered flashed before his ears. When his thoughts turned to his sweetheart, so many memories crowded his mind that he felt that his heart was breaking. Every time that Grantaire thought of Enjolras lying sick unto death, he feared that his heart was about to break.
“Well, your beau is in quite the serious condition, with that tear in the left lung and all that! Who knows if he shall live? 'Twould have been better with a sword thrust or a bayonet! Well, then, I suppose it's all right at last,” said the robber maiden. "Allons! All's well that ends well, like the Bard once said! Once Enj has recovered, return to Paris, you two; and, should I ever pass by, I will drop by and pay you a little visit..."
And, having greeted the two of them without even setting foot upon the ground, she carefully helped Enjolras on horseback and spurred her horse into a steady trot, a right pace to carry the wounded blond safely, as Grantaire followed them on foot, trudging forth at the same pace. She smiled brightly, but very wearily at both of them, the entire time. "I feel I will never be able to thank you enough." She had pushed the upright Enjolras against the horseback, praising him for his bravery of storming into the Killer Queen's palace, and he had toppled face down between the maiden's strong shoulder-blades.
The great forest of beeches and chestnut seemed to take a much shorter time to traverse this time than it had on the outward journey, and yet it seemed that the spaces under the trees were less dark, yet nevertheless slightly gloomy, now that a life, that of a seriously injured yet healthy young person, hung in the balance. Though he lay gasping with the fire of the fever, there was not yet the time for anyone near to raise the cup to his burning lips.
"Actually, you and I," Éponine told Grantaire with an unusual look of concern, that day at dusk, "have not only been prisoners there of our own device, like all our predecessors as her captives; both of us are a rare case. Survivors. We two may have lived through the Green Faery's toils, but most others died because of the draught... —or, I should say, of withdrawal from that green blood of hers. Like honey to the throat, but poison in the blood. Those who had been at her keep for years and had been fed a daily diet of it were not able to adjust to life without the Green Faery. The withdrawal was a terrible thing, causing a violent trembling of the entire body, vomiting, and eventually an abrupt halt of breathing. Then, heart failure..."
Éponine and Grantaire locked eyes with one another and shuddered. Both of them had been lucky to be loved, for, otherwise, their destiny would have been far different, and they would most surely have never met. If neither of them had been rescued and redeemed by their loved ones, Éponine and Grantaire would have never come alive. And yet there had been a great price to be paid... thus, all that was left was to hope, even though there was only one chance for the wounded boy to live out of twenty, and to quench the thirst of the senseless, febrile leader, for, as the robber maiden herself had explained:
"As for our dear little Enj, there is hope as well; I know my shortcuts through the woods of this region, or I'm not a Thénardier! That injury of his is not lethal, but nevertheless quite serious. In fact, I've heard, or so Papa and Maman told, of surgeons during wartime who healed worse injuries, and the wounded nearly all survived in those cases, even living their whole lives with hot lead inside their chests. Though, as we have discussed before, this injury is dead serious, and will not heal easily... Surely he'll be all right within two weeks at least!"
And thus, they at once resolved to restore the leader to life and health. And with such a good pathfinder, they were far from losing all hope. Comfortably lying in an improvised stretcher on horseback, Enjolras tossed feverishly, coughing up blood and asking for a drink. The nearest spring or pond was far closer than the Château Fauchelevent, quoth the robber maiden; by the crystal-clear freshwater, all three of them could have a rest and a drink until the next morning; the forest itself was full of new, green leaves, and the twittering of finches.
By the time they encamped by said spring, a tranquil lily-pond, and gently lowered him from horseback, Enjolras was deeply lethargic and as pale as death, a clammy cold sweat beaded his brow, and two dark purple crescent circles or eye bags shaded his shut eyelids. They called his surname, but he did not answer. His eyes were closed, his pale lips did not respond to their kisses. His breathing was wheezy and whistling; deep within his chest, a muffled bubbling or gurgling sound could be heard. As Éponine was lighting a campfire, they saw his breath curl into the cold air.
There, as all three of them warmed themselves as soon as possible, he lay upon the spearmint around the spring, with only his half-open shirt on, to ease his breathing. The other two could see his clean lines, all sharp curves and angles; the fair lashes, the fine high bones of his cheeks, the cove where the wings of his collarbone met, the marks of his ribs, faint shadows like the strings of a harp. "A broken harp," Grantaire mused with a heavy sigh, wandering and wondering at that perfect set of harp-string ribs-- how could he have dared to shatter them?
What began to trouble them the most was his temperature—every few hours, his skin glowed with fever; the leader was burning up from inside. Seeing him struggle against the heat, hearing him grunt with pain and mumble deliriously—they were punches to that broken heart.
As if Éponine could read the dark student's thoughts, she cupped his stubbled face and reassured the broken lover's anxieties:
"No, there is no fear... there is no fear for now at least..."
Only twice before had she felt so helpless: when Cosette and her guardian failed to come to her own parents' aid, and when she and Enjolras had parted before the host of korrigans. Desperation to save him had swelled in her chest, just as it did now. Desperation, then determination. But, on the first and the second time, the way to save them had been clear: first she'd gone forth to the nearest large town to seek her fortune, and then, on the second time, she'd braced herself for confronting the host of otherworldly swordsmen. With this scenario—what could she do other than ease his sufering?
I’ll think of something, she thought as she kicked at a clump of furze. She trudged onward. The wounded leader's mumbling faded, and worriedly, Éponine searched for his pulse, fingers pressed to the left and right of his trachea.
The heartbeats were faint and erratic. Arrhytmia.
She brushed her hand against his lilywhite forehead. As Enjolras slept, the sweat on his skin dried into flakes of ice.
“He looks way better. More colour in his cheeks.” To demonstrate his point, the lush cupped Enjolras' skin. But, though he put on the bravest of his brave faces, that façade of irony was crumbling at the seams.
The fair leader did not look better. His face stayed deathly pale. His lips were blue from the cold, and his hair was thick with frost. “Mmm...” he mumbled in his sleep.
Éponine gritted her teeth. She didn’t add that his wound hadn’t ceased to bleed. It’d slowed, but every time she checked his bandages, the blood was still warm, still fresh. There was nothing she could do to stop it. Trying to hide her despair, she urged Grantaire and the horse to walk faster.
Stupid, stupid, stupid! the lush berated himself. If he'd been a better lover, they'd be marching towards the Place de la Bastille now while shouting to all about their victory. Instead, he’d gotten their leader gravely injured.
"Hold on!" Grantaire slapped his beloved gently in the face and clasped his lilywhite, cold, pulseless wrists. "Hold on, Enjolras!"
In response, the fair leader's eyelids parted ever so slightly, a ray of elation shining in his glossy ice-blue irises. He let out another ragged breath, and his features contorted with agony.
"Ah... 'Ponine... Grand'R...! Ah... Left... side... crushed..."
Éponine touched his forearm. “I’m here,” she said, even though she knew her words wouldn’t help him with the pain. She couldn’t bear seeing him suffer like this.
I’ll never forgive myself if he dies, she thought miserably. Hope we can save Enjolras' life. He’s a good man. He doesn’t deserve to die.
Of course, she got no reply. She hadn’t expected to.
For a while, the two other young people lifted him up and, touching him on the back, realised that the back of the ribcage, and the spinal cord, were intact.
"Could you try to explain what you feel like?" the dark student softly asked his fair leader.
"I feel..." Enjolras tried to put it into as few words and as clear words as possible, considering his own state and his friends' concerns, "like a flow of blood... rising... at every respiration... Je respire... difficilement..."
His voice was barely a whisper, broken with coughs and red foam from his lips every now and then, like that of a consumptive; the bleeding in his lungs and the pain from the crushed side rendered his breathing that difficult and made every word he uttered a bayonet stab to the left side.
"Je me sens trop mal... Depuis quelques jours... ce coup de... m'empêche de respirer..." Enjolras swallowed, feeling his throat dry and moistened his dry lips to speak. His voice was so raspy he didn’t even recognize it at first.
"Hush!" the Thénardier girl commanded, putting an index finger to the cold bloodstained lips.
"I hope we can save him in time..." Grantaire sighed, filling a tankard Éponine kept in her knapsack with clear spring water to quench the thirst of his beloved. "This young man cannot die. This young man will not die... And the way we suddenly became ourselves
again. I am--we are most grateful to you."
The cold lips curled upwards into a pale smile. Enjolras bit his lips to stifle a groan of pain and stop the blood-flow welling within his chest. Still Éponine stepped up front and kept on chiding, and Grantaire now chimed in on her side:
"Quiet, Enjolras... or you will kill yourself! Please do not speak; your healing, your life itself, is at stake!"
"I will n... I will not..." Enjolras muttered softly. "There's no one else... can warm my heart... be not gone! Love me... or die... now you... just like that evening... Café Musain...!"
Those last words were interrupted by a violent blood-coughing fit, and Éponine, in response, pushing the scarlet kerchief she wore over her bonnet over the wounded leader's mouth, for a handkerchief:
"No speaking! Hold on, Enj! Lay still and quiet..." Then she helped the fair leader to drink a little, asking him gently if he had enough and should he need something. He managed to nod or shake his head only, focusing on handling the storm of thought rushing in his mind.
It was Grantaire's stance, and the look in his eyes, which reassured and persuaded Enjolras to finally submit to his convalescence; no matter the burning thirst that parched his throat or the stabbing pain in his left side. He suffered, nevertheless, due to that burning thirst, and often asked for a drink, and asked to be fanned with an open palm or Éponine's scarlet bonnet. A tankard held to those lips by his kind-hearted lover or by the Thénardier girl merely lasted for an instant ere it was emptied.
"Je sens quelque chose... qui se soulève... dans ma poitrine. Je vivrai... je vivrai du moins... embrassez-moi... Grand... R..."
And, in response, he felt the dark stubble on an ill-shaven face brushing against his right cheek, then the split ends of whiskers brushing against his forehead... but what were those cool droplets falling upon his pale features? It was a clear night, so it was not drizzle; and it was too early for morning dew. Grantaire was shedding tears upon the fair leader's face, and furthermore sobbing, as he gave those warm, soothing kisses. Yet at first Enjolras did not recognise the one who reassured him with those tokens of endearment.
"Qui m'embrasse?" Those blue eyes were drowning in darkness, and his thoughts were once more confused.
"C'est moi, Grantaire-a", he heard a deeper voice piercing through the haze, not entirely, but enough for the doubt to be cleared.
"Merci... mon ami..." said Enjolras in his now usual weak voice; an interrupted voice which indicated a reduplication of his suffering. His thirst was now increasing; tossing feverishly in his cool spearmint bed, he motioned towards the open palm of Grantaire's left hand to tell wordlessly that he needed fanning, and wearily put the empty tankard back into the dark student's grasp, pointing at the lily-pond. Soon Grantaire returned with the refilled cup, which he put to Enjolras' lips right-handed, as the dark young man himself, to procure some solace for the fair leader, stroked and gently rubbed the middle of Enjolras' chest with a large, knotty, warm left palm.
There was still a pulse within, fluttering and somethimes dashing against the sternum, like a butterfly held in the clasp of a child's shut hands. Though a wavering heart, it was young and strong, and struggling at its utmost: there was still hope, in spite of that rattling breathing and erratic heartbeat, Grantaire thought with a sigh of relief. Remembering the pains he had endured for endless nights, when the coolest draught changed, within his seared mouth, into molten lead. A transient shudder ran down his spine. On the other hand, Enjolras drank deeply to quench his inward heat, proving that there was far more hope than sorrow. Whenever he was brought a refreshing drink, he drank it all up, without leaving a single drop.
And, all night long, they watched the fair leader, counted his pulse's flagging stir, felt for his shallow breath, held water from that spring to his lips, which he quaffed most eagerly, and cooled his face with damp cloth and fanning leaves, until the mists that clouded his bright intelligence condensed and lulled him into deep sleep.
"How cool I feel..." Enjolras muttered, soothed by these refreshing gestures, "I must be getting better;" and he sank into a delicious slumber.
All the blood he had lost, and all that struggle for life, awakened within the wounded leader a powerful urge to rest; and thus, gradually surrendering all his strength, he sank down exhausted on the soft, fresh spearmint, laying his weary golden head in Grantaire's lap.
"Goodnight, sweet prince-a..." the lush whispered in his ear, as he gave those ice-cold lips a goodnight kiss.
All night long Enjolras tossed about until his strength failed, and awoke the next morning in a high fever. His weakness hardly allowed him to speak, the words welling up as nothing more than low groans from a choked throat, and the friends who accompanied him lived in a state of perpetual anxiety about his state of health.
During the journey to the Fauchelevents' estate grounds, Éponine and Grantaire got to know one another better, and both of them were reassured by the fact that they had found kindred spirits. She told him of Cosette and of her uncertainty on how the new heiress would receive a garçon manqué in such worn clothing, and if she would remember, and display kindness towards, her childhood acquaintance; and, in response, he told her of why he was so concerned with Enjolras' state of health, and wished for his fair leader to return alive:
"I met this boy: I loved him as I had never loved anyone or anything before: I had no need to labour to win his affection - he was mine by right: he loved me, even as I loved him, from the first: he was the necessary complement to my soul. How dare the world presume to judge us? What is convention to us? Nevertheless, although I really knew that such a love was beautiful and blameless, although from the bottom of my heart I despised the narrow judgement of the world, yet for his sake, I tried at first to resist. I struggled against the fascination he possessed for me. I would never have gone to him and asked his love; I would have struggled on till the end: but what could I do? It was he that came to me, and offered me the wealth of love his beautiful soul possessed. How could I tell to such a nature as his the hideous picture the world would paint? And thus, if I should die, and if he should die, let me die by his side, and let him die by my side, most surely with his hand in mine and my hand in his, while we are still young, facing the barrels of the Crown's firearms. Only then can our purposes be fulfilled..."
Now Éponine understood that she was feeling more or less the same towards Cosette, and replied with an ironic smirk. They still carried the wounded Enjolras as carefully and as quickly as they could, though he was still pale and unconscious and sleeping as deeply as any critically injured person would be sleeping.
Still the hurt to his side made him suffer a lot, and still he often found his own mouth full of blood."Je me sens trop mal... Depuis quelques jours... ce coup de... m'empêche de respirer... There is no water here... my throat is dry and burning! there is fire and ice within me, and the air is so heavy! Ah!" Those were the thoughts he was unable to put into words, given his state of health, tossing feverishly and gasping for breath, writhing in pain like a trampled snake, but could only express with a violent blood-coughing fit, low groans from a choked throat, or a pat on the back of one of the two riders who gently transported him on horseback. And always Grantaire was there, softly pouring through those parted lips, overcome by the agony of thirst, a deep draught from a flask refilled at the closest clear rill or spring to refresh his beloved, reassured by the swallowing reflex which proved that life still nestled, and resisted, within the wounded young man; or fanning his pale forehead with a flick of the wrist and an open palm. As usual, whenever he was brought a refreshing drink, he drank it all up, without leaving a single drop.
"How cool I feel..." Enjolras muttered, whenever he was gently fanned, "I must be getting better;" and he sank into a delicious slumber.
When they left the woods, and reached the green fields and the river on the other side of them. That was when they caught their first glimpse of the Château Fauchelevent in the distance. Though the fair leader was too worn-out, sleeping in a dreamless darkness, his breathing still rattling within the throat and chest, to realise how close the hope of saving his life was.
At best, it was two days’ journey. But for Enjolras, each hour was a battle to live. The others could hear the pain in his breath; they could see it whenever his chest rose and fell.
"This is all my fault," Éponine said wretchedly.
"Don't listen to your regrets," the lush replied. “Chin up. You’re strong, and you’re smart. Heck, you defeated an army of korrigans. You’ll get Enj through this, won't ya?”
“I hope so.”
“Keep talking to him,” the Marseillais suggested. “Make your voice soothing, like a good cuppa tea.”
She rolled her eyes, but she desperately wanted to believe in those words.
“You can make it, Enj,” she said to the wounded leader. She touched his arm, then clasped his hand, warming his cold fingers with her own. “Whatever battle you’re fighting in there, I’m going to help you.”
As they thought of how his heart had stopped, and how close they'd come to losing him, their own hearts faltered. Especially Grantaire's.
He'd screamed at Éponine to help him, to do something. And she had pressed bandages made from his torn shirt against the wound in his chest, and then she had put the heels of her hands over his heart and started pushing. One, two, three, stop. One, two, three, stop. Over and over again, and, with every push, the bandages had become redder. For endless, agonizing seconds, nothing had happened, and then Enjolras had groaned and started breathing again. The fair leader had lived — barely. The broken ribs had missed his heart by an inch, but had badly damaged his left lung. Though the artery remained unscathed, he'd lost a great deal of blood and had been deprived of oxygen. Would he recover? Could he fully come back from such terrible injuries? Neither Grantaire nor Éponine did know. No one did. Enjolras himself couldn't tell them. He was still unconscious.
"Stay still! The doctors will... gonna be here soon...! So hang in there! just hang in there... for a little while..." Their banners were hung down, their steps were muffled, and each one's head dropped upon their chest as they marched along; for they grieved for the young blond their leader, who had been wounded in the strife; and they feared his days were numbered.
As the sad news was spread abroad, the locals streamed from their thresholds and followed the few troops, sorrowing for the young warrior, whose valour when he had left the shire they almost worshipped. And, as they marched silently after the trio, each one cursed within themselves the ghastly trade of war.
When the mournful tidings reached the estate owners' ears, Cosette ran to meet the dying boy, and took his carotid pulse, while Grantaire was saying to himself: "And must the hope of the nation be blighted in the bud, when the harvest-time was near?"
"I hasten to really send a carriage and a physician;" with these words, Marius turned his back upon the convalescent and his friends, and sallied forth towards the nearest doctor's office, all the while humming a favourite melody from a Shakespearean play or the operatic adaptation thereof. Enjolras was, shortly thereafter, carried in a stretcher into a well-airy spare room at the château, a bedroom which was neither too hot nor too cold, where Captain Delacroix, a retired military surgeon, a friend of the family, examined his injuries and realised that the ends of the broken ribs must have torn into the left lung, nearly very close to the heart. The bleeding was profuse, and nearly impossible to stop.
"'E's got three broken ribs, one of which has punctured the lung. Lost a pair of litres o' blood. 'E must 'ave several internal lesions because, surely, de savateur 'as kicked 'im and trodden on 'im more than once. A snowball's chance in purgatory would maybe prove too optimistic a result... Dat's not something Yours Truly can't repa-air, so that it sticks together once more, or odderwise he'll bleed out to death at noon," Captain Delacroix pensively shook his head as he approached the wounded, still senseless young lad. "Three fractured ribs; he has lost a great amount o' blood, and I'm sure there are also internal injuries... Will you let me fix 'im?" Without waiting for an answer, he shoved all the others aside.
"I think I know this man from my parents' tales..." mused Éponine. "He repaired soldiers and other folk with all the dignity of a whole Faculty of Medicine, of those who write down certificates for a soap factory..."
"Aye aye," the surgeon replied. "This sense of déjà-vu... ain't ya the Thénardiers' girl? Anyway... Messieurs, Mesd'moiselles, you might as well return 'ome and look around there within an hour; surely, Yours Truly is responsible for keeping 'im alive... Don't be a milksop! A decent surgeon will take out the shards. He'll only have a little scar for a keepsake..."
Yet, in spite of this upbraiding, all the other guests at the Fauchelevents', always on tenterhooks about the fair leader's state of health, declined the offer and preferred to keep him company.
"Naturellment, this Enjolras lad deserves everything. We must do for him everything we should do for a sick little boy's sake. And don't forget to take his temperature regularly, as Delacroix just said."
Two weeks had passed since he'd almost died, and he was still in a coma; the high amount of blood he had lost brought a powerful urge for lots of rest. Éponine and Grantaire, the latter now having cast aside his catskins, dressed in a far more socially acceptable ensemble of waistcoat on shirt and trousers, went to visit him morning and night, twice a day, always hoping for a sign —a twitch of his hand, a flutter of his eyelashes—, but they never got one. Though the sleeping blond had contrived to seize that snowball's chance in purgatory wich the surgeon had so pessimistically calculated.
The doctors had told that they'd done all they could. That the Fauchelevents and their guests must prepare themselves for the worst —that Enjolras might remain in a coma for the rest of his life. It would be better to put him out of his misery, indeed, but, for all the sorrow, there still was hope.
The only reasons they all knew he was still alive was the slight rise and fall of his chest, the occasional flinch of his brow, and the faint tinge of colour that had returned to his cheeks. Compared to Enjolras, most ordinary humans were fragile and weak, and clung to existence with uncertainty, without strength. An iron health and a yearning to live unknown to others had the fair leader clinging to life with all of his strength, with all his heart and soul, with a stubbornness that, in ancient times, all the equally tenacious life on Earth had shared.
Cocooned under the covers lay Enjolras, like a beautiful marble figure, his splendid features rigid and pale, his long, slim body wasted away, his hands inert and still, his golden locks spread over the white pillow, like liquid light, and his long lashes made great dark lines beneath his eyes. Oh, how beautiful he was! How beautiful, beautiful! Thus Grantaire felt all his great love mount like a wave within his chest, overcoming every other feeling. Feeling as if he must fall down and kiss that marble face; that he must lay he dark head upon that still heart; and then for one horrible moment he thought he was already dead.
"No, no," whispered the savateur; "he still lives, but the flame of life within him flickers, as if at any moment the smallest breath would blow it out! Has he, then, found that which will bring him back to me?"
And the sick man seemed to smile at his healer, and then for a short, wonderful moment the latter pressed his lips to his burning ones.
Éponine and Grantaire talked to him, sang to him, told him about their days, and the new challenges they brought, as if he could answer. He was still there; they knew he was. And they all refused to give up hope. He had broken three ribs, they had wounded one of his lungs, and he breathed with great pain and difficulty, which increased daily. It was a consequence of his hurt, that he spoke so low as to be scarcely audible; therefore, he spoke very little. But he was ever ready to listen, and it became the first duty of Grantaire's life to say to him, and read to him, what his lover knew he ought to hear. Even though the bedridden blond was too deeply unconscious, and it hurt too much to speak, to put into words, the thoughts that crossed his fevered mind:
"Wherefore all this trifling? Do you wish to see me pine and pant, and die by inches? I am wasting away; without hope, and tormented by this tragedy. And you see clearly the proof, for the fever is double-stitched to my veins. Let me behold you, and take in payment all my love; for nothing else can cure the troubles I endure."
But when he had thought, again and again, this and a great deal more, and still saw that all his words were thrown away, for they could not be uttered, he took to his bed, and had such a desperate fit that the doctors prognosticated badly of his case. Day and night he lay tossing on his bed in great pain, half-conscious of all around him, and only finding peace whenever Grantaire laid the palm of a hand upon his burning forehead. But as the days passed he grew weaker and weaker. Then his lover, who had no other joy in the world, sat down by his bedside, and said to him, "My love, whence comes all this grief? What melancholy humour has seized you? You are young, you are loved, you are great, you are rich—what then is it you want, my love? Do you not see that your illness is an illness to me? Your pulse beats with fever in your veins, and my heart beats with illness in my brain, for I have no other support of my sorrows than you. So be cheerful now, and cheer up my heart, and do not see the whole kingdom thrown into mourning, this house into lamentation, and your lover forlorn and heart-broken."
For a moment, Grantaire was glad that Enj was unconscious and probably hadn’t heard his confession. He squeezed his lilywhite, cold hand again. "Sleep, Enj. We’ll catch up with the others soon.”
Then—
The wounded one's hand grew warmer, and his breath steadier. In seconds, he gasped, and then began coughing.
And the savateur jolted, relief swelling in his heart. “Enj?”
Suddenly the blond raised himself on one arm and opened his eyes wide, wide – oh, such beautiful eyes! – but they saw nothing clearly, for fever was raging within his weakened body.
“Is it morning already?” he rasped, coughing, as he looked left and right, and wheezed, clutching his chest and fighting the pain in his lungs.
“You’re awake.” Grantaire instantly dropped his hand, remembering that the blond was his commanding officer. He fumbled for his own canteen. “Here, have some water.”
The leader tried to sit up.
“Easy,” the dark young man said. “Your side is still crushed.”
Enjolras winced, then laid his head back down on the lacy pillows and let out a groan. “Where are we?”
“At the Fauchelevent estate. In a spare bedchamber meant for guests.”
"Where are the others?"
Trust Enjolras to get straight to business, even when he was critically wounded. "'Ponine, and the masters? In the parlour. Not far."
And he paused, already dreading the answer before he asked, “Is the pain better?”
A shadow passed over the leader's wan face. Suddenly, he looked vacant and lost; the sick man's eyes were wide open with the terrible fever which had his body in its grasp.
When Enjolras heard these words, he softly said, "Nothing can console me but the... cough! but the fact that we... cough! will both live through this ordeal... cough! Therefore, if you wish to see me well again, let Grand'R... be brought into this chamber; I will have... no one else to attend... me, and... make my bed, and... cook for me, but Grand'R... himself; and you may be sure that this pleasure will make me well in a trice."
"Ennj?" The savateur put a knotty palm against the leader’s cheek. His skin burned with fever, much hotter than before. “Ennj, wake up.”
“I don’t want my father to see me like this,” Enjolras mumbled. He blinked drowsily. "Not Combeferre, or Courfeyrac, either..."
The other student looked down at his febrile leader. “Um, his eyes are looking glassy, and his skin’s red. He’s not looking too hot. Well, if you want to be totally accurate, he is looking hot—”
“Yes, I know,” the Thénardier girl interrupted from behind the curtain, a note of panic in her voice.
Thereupon Grantaire, realising that his fair beloved was far too unconscious to recognise him, and although he thought it ridiculous enough for himself to act as cook and chambermaid, and feared that Enjolras was not in his right mind, yet, in order to gratify him, he came up to his bed, and felt the patient's pulse (which made Éponine laugh outright as she peeped behind the curtain). Then the leader said in a faint voice, "My dear... Grand'R... if it is really... will you not... wait... upon me?" and Grantaire nodded his rumpled dark head, with a friendly smile.
His brows rose; he glanced around hastily to see if anyone were listening, then he took Enjolras' other hand. "We must observe a few proprieties," he said softly, smiling. "Not even I have had a whole night in my Ennj's bed--he had been too ill. But I know I mean no harm. Assume I wish to tend to him during the night with my little arts so that he can heal faster."
"If you can do that, you will. But--"
"Then I may."
At first the Marseillais had no success at all getting him to drink the soup. Every time he’d tipped the bowl to his parted lips, the soup just dribbled out of his mouth. Once or twice his teeth clenched, as if he were in terrible pain. So he watched him, waiting for any sign that he might awaken. But he didn’t.
Then the physicians had some foxglove syrup brought, on a silver platter and with a silver spoon, and the dark student put a spoonful of the syrup to the lover's cold lips, watching his throat work as he swallowed it down; it felt so delicious that Enjolras, who could not relish even sugar, licked his fingers at the taste. And when he had done with the syrup, Grantaire handed him a drink of laudanum with such grace that Enjolras, if he had not sunken back into sleep on the fluffy lacy pillows, overcome by the narcotic drug after eagerly quaffing it, was ready to kiss the dark lover on the forehead. For every draught of water, or of laudanum, or of arnica tincture, he would have gladly expressed thanks.
Lying in bed only allowed as much, he’d knew each corner of the room by heart. While at first the sight was wondrous, it quickly lost its luster. It was a pretty and rich chamber, but it served as a time capsule, preserving the sleeper in its comfortable bed, keeping him tucked and sweating in the thick covers.
As the weeks went by, he didn’t dream since the fevers and pain let him fall asleep in a deep dark unconsciousness, from which he resurfaced just to be tended by others. Grantaire washed his tired body with wet towels, Sara, the pretty dark-haired maid with violet eyes, brought him food and sometimes they both came together to hang around and chat with him, when he wasn’t sleepy.
Of course Cosette and Marius had been heartily glad to finally be able to repay at least part of their gratitude when, on a lovely springtime day, brought to their estate a seriously wounded stripling, surnamed Enjolras. In the quester's absence, the heiress had just married the boy with the boots that squeaked on the marble floor.
Thus, turned an authentic prisoner of kindness, unable to move the slightest because of his bandages, the fair leader was bedridden for weeks, months, seasons, all autumn and winter long. The young guest had at first given them a lot of concerns, since the surgeon had given all hope for lost, for the bone-shards lodged in his lungs could not be taken out. But luckily, there was also at least one more tender and bolder person, who utterly refused to convince herself that one, at the age of nineteen (for he guessed him far younger than he was), could die from such a trifle as a few broken ribs, which had barely pierced a lobe of the left lung and left shards remaining right beside the spinal cord. It was Grantaire who now began to care for the wounded stripling, and who now, since the surgeon had courteously taken his leave, with a decent compensation for his concern and his lack of words, took upon himself and himself alone the responsibility and the care for the young man's recovery.
Though there was much sorrowing for Enjolras, none sorrowed more than the one who had suffered the most from him; Grantaire, now that the leader's life was in peril, felt all that love for him return, and, forgetting the wrong he had done, thought of him only as the high-minded boy who had won his broken heart. And the lush besought the others that he might tend to him in the hour of danger; so that, with a gentle hand, he might strive to hold back the life that struggled to be gone.
Soon, the other young people realised, to their pleasure, that the patient could not have wound up in better hands. The savateur was not an initiate in this set of skills, though he nursed the fair leader to the best of his limited ability and interest. No practising surgeon, military or civilian, could be more skilful than he in setting up a bandage or soothing a septic fever; and utterly no disciple in the healing art could be second to him when it came to indefatigable attention and catering to the wounded one's slightest wishes. So he waked for the first week, sitting by day and by night beside the bed of the leader, thinking that, in the delirium of his fever, he knew not the hand that dressed his wounds and bathed his burning brow, and held a cooling draught to his lips. If even then Enjolras could not rest, there was, ever in the depth of that odd-even hour of the night, a kindly hand near to bathe his burning brow, or moisten those parched lips with cooling drink. Then, as those skilled in medicine came, the savateur would listen breathlessly to each word they spoke, and beg of them, ere they went, to tell him or the hosts that all hope was not yet fled, and that by care his life might yet be saved.
And, when they turned away and answered not, Grantaire would return to Enjolras' couch, to tend him with redoubled and even retripled tenderness, so that his love might compass what their art would fail in.
But still the savateur tended him in vain; for, despite his care, the wounds grew worse, and the fair leader, with the torment of it, knew no rest. Each day the doctors would answer that the youth would surely perish.
As Grantaire heard the sick Enjolras moan and writhe with his pangs day after day, and night after night knowing neither rest nor sleep, he thought of the one he loved, thinking to himself about how blessed sleep was sent from within to give new life and ease one of one's pains... could that same urge not teach the way to give slumber to the suffering, and rob Nature of its bitterest agony?
It was not until after the ninth day, when the worst threats were overcome and the injury was quickly on its way to healing, that he allowed himself a few hours of rest, slumped down upon the covers by the fair leader's side. Enjolras himself was on the way to recovery. Then his eyelids drooped, while his groans died away, and the one whose torments had let him know no rest for weeks lay wrapped in the happy ears of slumber. And, as he slept, the shattered side was stroked by a callous left palm that had been both an artist's and a dockworker's.
There were soft cushions, perhaps a full dozen, here in the corner. The vividness of their colour, their designs and texture, stood out to Grantaire, in a mind far less hazy than it had been in weeks, months even. This corner, this spot, these cushions suddenly felt familiar; and here sprang to his mind a few smatterings of memories, memories of fleeting but lovely moments shared with this dear beautiful person.
Still in that state of half-consciousness, Enjolras had, without the slightest idea of who his caregiver was, received the foxglove or arnica syrups and laudanum from a rough, trembling hand and, with a feeling of gratitude, he had been a witness to the stranger's constant cares. He felt an unexplainable thankfulness towards this unknown male presence, who, at his wordless questions, did not have any reply himself but a silent, well-intentioned nod of courtesy. But one day, when he sat by his bedside, believing the patient asleep, Grantaire had, exhausted by his efforts and sleepless nights, leaned his weary head againt the covers; his eyelids had, against his will, fallen together, and he had fallen asleep, without knowing it himself. Enjolras himself woke from out his trance and did not sleep; he had for a while considered the dark stranger, in silent awe. Thereafter, he slowly tucked away the black fringe of hair from the sleeper's forehead, to see for once who this stranger full of secrets was, the one that he had to thank for his life -- and, the longer he contemplated those pale, homely yet charming features, and those shut eyelids with their black silky lashes, the higher there rose like a warm wave around his heart; his tears began, like a spring filled to the brim, to surge out of their concealed depths; and he flung both his slender arms around the corded neck of the once unknown, now recognised sleeper. Then, he had awakened; then, those two hazel eyes, which Enjolras had once so frequently shunned, but which now, having learned who and how had tended him in his anguish, in his own humble opinion, knew no equal in the whole wide world -- those two shining suns had, at once, come out of the pall of clouds and beheld him with unexplainable love -- and there they lay, both of them, after long ages of pain and estrangement, once more in one another's arms. Such instants are unforgettable: they become eternal and can nevermore be erased from our memories, neither in this life nor in future ones.
But then Grantaire, with gentle violence, had once more pushed his beloved away, and covered his brow with tickling stubble-kisses, whisker-kisses, and obliged him to seek rest and tranquillity; and Enjolras had once more fallen asleep, with the most positive feeling he had ever experienced. What did it mean now, his short, transient bodily pain! Now, everything was once more all right, now he had Grantaire again, now the fair leader was no longer alone, and neither was the savateur alone on his own, now they would nevermore be parted, now they could devote their whole lives to one another, to make each other happy. And Enjolras thought of that final kick, of those ribs which had plunged in so close to his heart, but only to prepare it for such a great elation; oui, he even felt thankful towards Grantaire's change of heart and towards the Lady in the Green Kirtle, without whose loveless way of acting he would have never enjoyed the exhilaration of such a reunion.
The next day, both of them had regained enough serenity to open up their hearts to one another and tell each other of everything that had transpired during their separation. Enjolras' tale was straightforward, open, heart-upon-sleeve; while Grantaire could not be equally honest. In his story, he had to come to grips with his own weakness and heartlessness -- and so he did, with such fine diplomacy that, at the end of the day, the blame for his sorrows finally fell on the decade's powerful prejudices and social differences, which the individuals still tried in vain to defy and overthrow:
"For we all are, after all, but helpless little things," he sighed. "Why should we seek fulfillment at the end of the day?"
"There will come a time, mon chéri Grand'R, when no one is born better or worse than the others, when there will be no other nobility than a person's own human value and worth. But this realisation carries within itself a completely new, brave new era... Why should we complain that the mighty pine rises in all its splendour, when we see the cone take root into the ground before our very feet? There are not many tears left to be shed, not many sighs left to be breathed, ere all these prejudices melt like snowdrifts in the springtime sun! You are a young man, and I am a young man; let us do our best, faithfully give our all for the rights of humanity; then, even though we may never live to see it, future will belong to you and me and everyone!"
"Oui... why not, Ennj? I have already thought of that. When I came to Paris, I made the acquaintance of some young students, whose surnames I recall by heart. If you know how often I had mocked them when we all spoke of the same subject, of how all human beings would one day be free and equal...! But you have not told me anything of your feelings during the quest."
"Let us shift the conversation to something happier," Enjolras replied with a shrug of his shoulders, thinking of an evasive maneuver.
In response, Grantaire turned his back upon him. It was something that he could not put into words yet. He merely gave this curt reply:
"Don't talk so much, mon Ennj; it forces you to make an effort, right? When you have regained your health, we shall have another talk about our future and everyone's..."
"Bonsoir," said the nurse as the dark student went into Enjolras' room, which was always well-airy, neither too hot nor too cold either.
"Has there been any improvement?" Grantaire asked hopefully, as he did every single time he came to visit Enjolras.
"I'm afraid not," the nurse said.
"We've changed the flower arrangement beside his bed, though, so he has something fresh to look at."
"Thank you," she replied, glancing at the glass vase on the nightstand table, where a new pattern of orange blossoms, purple lavender, and pink roses had been laid out. Enjolras' blank eyes stared at it.
Is he seeing them? Grantaire wondered. Can he hear me? Does he even know I'm here?
The moon was casting bluish stripes on the floor, the wind’s howling could be heard as it escaped through the cracks in the window frame. With the winter gone, it was still a bit chilly. Their larger bodies had usually trouble to fit onto the one-person bed, but seeking warmth made from the other made it all the easier.
Grantaire sat down on the edge of Enjolras' bed and smoothed a lock of golden hair off his forehead. "We're ready, Ennj," he said, sharing his day with him, as he did every evening. He smoothed the fair leader's negligée and fastened an open button. He was sitting quite calmly, with half his nightshirt on. One could see his clean lines, all sharp curves and angles; the fair lashes, the fine high bones of his cheeks, the cove where the wings of his collarbone met, the marks of his ribs, faint shadows like the strings of a harp. He gently lifted Enjolras' head and fluffed the pillow underneath it, tucking the blond right into bed and pushing the pillow behind his back to keep him from falling and from getting cold. Then, he took that ice-cold, lilywhite hand in his callous own:
"They're so brave, all of them, so tough, so smart. But this —this National Guard—... How are we supposed to destroy what the first Revolution has made? We were given this task; they believe we can carry it out... but how? Will you be leading like one thousand students into battle, or straight to their destruction?" Here he smiled sadly. "I wish you could tell me."
There they sat for quite some time, saying nothing, Grantaire just holding Enjolras' hand and gazing at his face. "I have to go," he finally said. "Before I go, I have to tell you something. I — I don't know if you'll be here for the moment of truth. All I know is that I love you, Ennj, with all my heart. You were ready to give your life for mine. Maybe you already have. But you are my life. Remember when you set me free? Well, Jehan Prouvaire said something I remember, right before my change of heart." He leaned over and kissed the fair leader's lips. "I disbelieved him then. But now I do believe. Love is the strongest magic."
And the sick man seemed to smile at his healer, and then for a short, wonderful moment the latter pressed his lips to his burning ones. He touched Enjolras' forehead to his own, then quickly left.
Without even looking back. It was easier that way.
If he had looked back, he would have seen it.
A single silver-crystal tear rolling down Enjolras' cheek.
That night as they slept wrapped in each other’s arms again, the savateur caressed golden hair urgently and tried to ignore the anxious feeling dwelling inside his chest. While the fair leader slept deeply and didn’t notice his struggles at all.
Sometimes, secrets have a power over us that we can only dispel by saying them out loud, even if no one's listening.
Marius and Cosette were greatly alarmed and concerned for Enjolras' sake, indeed. For many days his critical condition did not appear to improve, for many days he remained in the same state. But now he found himself better, a favourable change was noticed; the fever left him, sleep returned, and with it, although slowly, strength as well. Little by little, he recovered strength. The wounded leader showed absolutely no disposition or desire for conversation, and therefore all refrained from addressing him. With visual signs mostly, seldom with words, did he make known his wishes, which were at once gratified; expressing his will with a wink of an eye, a flick of the wrist, or as much as a few short words. Thus, they avoided at first to speak to him during this stage of his recovery.
"He's still unconscious. He woke up a couple hours ago, but he’s been out since then. He is sleeping now; he is still weak from his wounds. He was very agitated, though, and I had to give him double the portion of laudanum, and soothe his brow with a cool, wet cloth upon his forehead," Grantaire told their most generous hosts. "He's stopped bleeding. And I don't think the wound is infected, so it's good news. It was very peaceful, holding him in my arms as he settled down to sleep, his golden head resting on my shoulder. It's my duty and my honour to take care of him."
Then, as he asked for water, he saw by the dim light of his chamber a tall and robust figure standing, cup in hand, beside him, in instant answer to his wants. On the face of the one whose worst enemy he had been, there shone so sweet a smile, and, in the cup and canteen he bore, Enjolras read so loving a reproach...
The dark savateur peeled off the cocoon of covers and blankets that his fair beloved had wrapped over his own body, then gently lifted his head and carefully dribbled the water from their canteen through his parted lips.
“Enj... it’s R. As in Grand'R. I’m here. Wake up. Talk to me.” Finally, he mustered all his courage to speak once more in the standard French he had learned upon living in Paris for a while.
The fair leader's head bobbed to the side. “Grand...R?" He sighed and rested his head on the dark man's chest.
"Yesss... I'm here." When he sighed again, the savateur carded his long hair, gently brushing away the strands behind his ear and tracing his eyebrow with an index finger.
“What’s troubling you? I’m here to listen.”
“You know,” he murmured, “I was so frustrated with you at first.”
In response, Grantaire tilted his head.
“You were the worst revolutionary I had ever seen, R. Do you remember? Always last in entering the lecture hall. You couldn’t concentrate, you couldn’t dream of a better tomorrow, but you could light up the mood, you could run, you could fight. I was so certain that you were completely unsuitable for our war—I sent you away.” The fair leader let out a dry chuckle, and for a moment, his eyes opened. “And yet, you surprised me.”
"Surprised you... how?"
“You gave your all,” he continued. He sounded far away, almost delirious. “You got better, and you got smart.” Enjolras closed his eyes. “No, you were always smart. I didn’t see that at first. But I did see that when you got better, everyone else wanted to improve, too. You inspired them to give their all, R.” His voice drifted. “You had faith in them. But I . . . I didn’t have faith in you. “A face that looks as if it’s been punched in, a pug nose, skin always marked by paint and ink, a smile that’s only halfway of a smile….really not a pretty picture but so much a man.”
His eyes opened again, surprisingly clear this time. The Marseillais could see his own face refected in his pupils, framed by pools of deep, deep icy blue.
“I’m sorry.”
“Enj, there’s nothing to be sorry about.”
The fair leader reached for the canteen. He held it himself, hands shaky, and took a long sip. Then he exhaled. “Grand... R, I know I’m dying.”
“You’re not.”
“I can feel it.” Enjolras set down the canteen, and his hand fell to his side on the covers. “You should leave me here.”
“I’m not leaving you,” the savateur said firmly.
The leader coughed, and the corners of his lips lifted into a wry but tired smile. “Still can’t follow orders, can you, soldier?” He coughed again, and Grantaire reached for the pillow, and he carefully arranged it under his head. Sweat beaded his temples, and the dark young man patted his skin dry before it froze. When he blinked again, this time his eyes were bloodshot.
"Enj... Enj, are you all right?"
He let his head sink into the pillow.
“I thought I saw my father earlier.”
“I know,” the other one replied quietly. “You called out for him. And for Combeferre, and Courfeyrac... You must have been dreaming.”
The fair leader turned his head, his azure gaze meeting a hazel one. "In my dream... they were all there." His voice was tight, and Grantaire could tell that he hadn't yet left the thought of losing his life instantly to enemy fire, instead of wasting away bedridden. "He managed a weak laugh. “But here I am, perchance about to die after my first battle in command.”
“You aren’t going to d—”
“I wanted to become a catalyst of revolution," the blond interrupted. “I wanted to win battles and bring freedom and a new bright tomorrow to everyone. Is it selfsh—to wish I could keep living? Is it dishonourable of me, Grand'R? I want to continue protecting our country, our liberty..."
"No," the savateur replied. “It isn’t selfish or dishonourable at all.”
A weary Enjolras lay back, letting his head settle into the pillows.
"The Green Faery won't be the last of our problems. Marianne will always face new threats, new oppressors, new invaders. She needs to have strong, brave men at her side. Men like you, R.”
"Enj," he said, trying again, “stop talking like this.”
“Now that it’s all over, now that my time on this earth may be done, do you know what comforts me the most?”
He waited, so his dark saviour gave in. “What?” he asked quietly.
Enjolras lowered his voice. “That I’ve made a friend like you, R. Someone I can trust completely.”
Tears pricked the edges of those hazel eyes. This time, he didn’t try to hold them back. For he knew he couldn’t. He swallowed, choking on the words. “Stop talking like this. It’s my fault you’re wounded.”
“I went after you to get you back, but you—you saved us. It was an honour to seek you, and to protect you,” the fair leader confessed.
How strange, then, that the savateur's tongue grew heavy. Heavier than with any hangover he had awakened to. There was so much he wanted to tell him. That it was Grantaire's own fault he was hurt; that if only he’d been more alert, he would have anticipated his own imprisonment and that life-or-death confrontation. And he wanted to tell him he was the best leader their troops could have hoped for; a lesser man would have left him to die at the mercy of that sickly green poison, but Enjolras was not only courageous—he believed in his lieutenants and followers, and treated them as part of his team. Grantaire remembered how proud he’d been during their first encounters, when he’d defeated those thugs in one-on-one combat. The satisfied smile that’d lit up his face as he wiped his jaw after his last kick—he would never forget it. Grantaire wanted to tell him that he admired him and had always wanted his friendship.
Oh, how he wanted to tell him the truth! But not now. Not like this.
The silence dragged on. And the savateur knew he should say something, but what? Enj’s words had been so honest, so sincere. He thought of the Marseillais as a true friend, someone he trusted.
Yet not a word could crawl out of his mouth. Only a choke, and a guttural sound which he barely recognized as his own, except that it burned in his throat. So he turned away and fumbled with the canteen so his leader wouldn’t see the tears sliding down stubbled cheeks.
You think he’s a great leader, he reminded himself. That was never a lie, and now... now you think of him as more than a friend, and he thinks of you as one, too.
“I’m glad to be your... 'friend,'” he said quietly.
Enjolras smiled again. A smaller smile than last time— one could tell he was struggling not to show his pain.
"Enj..." His name clung to the martial artist's throat. It hurt to speak. “You can’t give up. You have to fight on. You have to live.”
The bleakness in Enjolras' face, the uncertainty in his words that he was going to die. It couldn’t be!
He took the leader's hand—his cold, limp hand—and entwined his own knotty fingers in his. Then he squeezed gently.
“Yes,” he whispered. “I promise. But you—”
"You... too... R..." Enjolras interrupted. “Don’t blame yourself.” That small smile again. It pained to see it more than it comforted.
The savateur clenched his fists till his nails bit into those rough palms. A silent sob escaped his throat; his lungs burned. “You have to keep fighting. We’ll be in Paris in a few days. Just hang on, Enj. Please.”
“At least now I know...” He stopped to gather his breath, then closed his eyes again. “Now... I know... that our cause... will be in good hands."
So Grantaire lay down by Enjolras' side, propping himself on an elbow, and gently swept a long wisp of fair hair off his face. His jaw was still tight, but his forehead was smooth, and his breathing was quiet. He looked more peaceful than earlier.
Then the savateur rested his head on his own rough palms, and wondered if his beloved leader was dreaming—of his home, his family, their friends back at the Musain. Grantaire hoped so, and hoped he was fighting to live.
He realised how little he knew about Enjolras. He knew nothing about his family other than that his parents had no other child, and that they were wealthy southerners. He didn’t know anything about his life growing up, either; what he liked to eat or read, even where he was from.
As their leader, Enjolras had avoided socializing with the troops. He’d never joined in drinking games or jokes. After meals, he had always retreated to his tent to study battle plans and maps.
Then again, no one had ever sought him out. Now Grantaire, his polar opposite, wished he’d gotten to know him better. He hadn’t realized until now how dedicated Enj had been to ensuring the Amis de l'ABC became a team. Most other revolutionary leaders probably wouldn't even have known his name. But Enj... Enjolras would run alongside him and the other recruits to make sure no man was left behind, he sculpted each follower’s individual weaknesses into strengths, and he had even risked his life—for Grantaire's sake.
Stop thinking like that, he thought miserably. You sound like he’s going to die.
And he watched his chest rise and fall, the movement so imperceptible that he wondered if he imagined it. The savateur couldn’t even hear him breathe. Reaching for his wrist, he kept his own rough hand over his, feeling for his pulse.
Still there. Still faint. Spreading over from the carotid to the arteries of the wrists, and steady though a sickly flutter.
"Enj is not going to die," he whispered aloud. Then choked back a sob. "He's not. There has to be a way to save him..."
He sat up, and cast a glance at the leader, who lay senseless as before, but he was still breathing. "One day he will hear the people sing the anthem of the cause, La Marseillaise, like a confession of supreme love; his followers will expect an example, that their leader will give; in a delirium of exalted courage, he will surrender his body to bullets and his soul to liberty... that brave... Such a noble spirit, such a leader of the quality that I picture myself, will not return from the war... unless a glorious death bestows favours upon him; as he comes across the absolute, duty, conviction; that liberal who, for the blood of his wounds, will deserve knowing me and being loved; who, for his blood, will lose the attainment of his love... because he will die like a hero... but then, I will be there. For his sake. If we can't be together in life, let us be together in death... for evermore. Side by side and shoulder to shoulder with the one I love, I will leave everything else in exchange for a death that is glorious!" There was an excitement in his voice, similar to the one felt upon watching, for the first time in one's life, a sunset or a rainbow.
Then suddenly it seemed that as if a vision passed before his eyes; he saw Enjolras as he had been that first day of their meeting by the macaronnerie, in his golden, gleaming waistcoat, young and healthy; and then he saw him fever-stricken on his bed of suffering, and he knew that he would face enemy fire shoulder to shoulder with the one he loved.
Sometimes, secrets have a power over us that we can only dispel by saying them out loud, even if no one's listening.
When Enjolras finally came to full consciousness in that lavender-scented canopy bed, he opened icy blue eyes that were flicking left and right, and instantly recognised those uneven features perched above his own, still pale, he laughed and sobbed for joy, and kissed that drawn, stubbled face, and his long, clever fingers, so pale and cold. He kissed his dark saviour's eyelids, which were red and haggard-looking from staring so long, unsleeping, under the influence of that green draught, and he buried his face in that curly, matted dark hair and felt as perfectly content as he ever had back home at the Musain, before Grantaire's change of heart, before the sceptic had gone away and his own long, lonely journey had begun.
The more time he spent by the savateur's side, the less monstrous did he look in Enjolras' imagination. He would listen to Grantaire speak in that Marseillais accent and hear him laugh heartily.
Sniff at some flowers that he had brought from a corner of the hedge maze in the gardens, and which the dark one was describing in lavish utmost detail (while not even thinking of Combeferre or the scientific name).
Reach out lilywhite hands, already growing stronger, and embrace a thick corded neck, equally corded strong shoulders, a broad back with a maybe slightly twisted spine.
Feel those open palms rest against something softer and warmer than rock, sinking at least slightly into the skin of the savateur.
And thus, little by little, he began to fall for the least person he ever expected to fall in love with.
The savateur's breath caught. He dared to look down. And saw Enj, his Enj, looking back at him in confusion. His fair face was bruised and scratched; there was a long weal from a savate kick down one bare shoulder. How tall and thin he had become, but he had the same eyes and the same angelic mouth. He looked up at the savateur, but didn't say a word. He looked older, weathered, his pale skin burned by the sun, which had scarcely touched it in years. Grantaire reached down impulsively, touched the gold of his hair. The fierce knot of his heart unclenched, and he felt like laughing and crying at the same time. He did both, not caring that he looked a fool. "Yes, it's me."
The same brightness shimmered in Enjolras's eyes. A little spilled over, and Grantaire traced the shape of the leader's face with his hands and his gaze, as if seeing him for the first time. A small frown gathered between his dark brows. "But where have you been all this time, and where have I been?"
Only a deep sigh came as a riposte.
"I've changed," the fair leader said, seeing the colour return to Grantaire's face, seeing the fieriness return...
"Yes," the dark fighter replied. "You have been enchanted, too."
"And so have you, once again."
He shook his head. "You have set me free, mon Enj."
"And I will set you free again," Enjolras said softly, "to marry whom you choose."
He moved again, too abruptly, and winced. His hold tightened on Grantaire's hand.
"Have I lost all enchantment?" the savateur asked sadly. "Did you love the spellbound man more than you can love the ordinary mortal? Is that why you left me?"
The fair leader stared at him. "I never left you--"
"You disappeared," he said wearily. "I thought you could not bear to stay with me through yet another enchantment. I didn't blame you. But it grieved me badly..."
"I was glad when you attacked me, because I thought it might kill me. Then I woke up in my own body, in a strange bed, with a martial artist beside me explaining that we were destined to be one."
The savateur sighed. "I thought it was just another way of being enchanted. Intoxication, a broken heart, marriage to a beautiful lady I don't love--what difference did anything make? You were gone. I didn't care any longer what happened to me." He swallowed, but could not speak.
"Are you about to leave me again?" Enjolras asked painfully. "Is that why you'll come no closer?"
"No," Grantaire whispered. "I thought--I didn't think you still remembered me." He closed his eyes. "For ages I left you my heart's blood to follow..."
"And for all those ages I was too blinded to follow. And then on the last day of the last winter you disappeared. I couldn't find you anywhere. I asked the sun, the moon, the Seine, nobles, brigands. I followed the North Star to find you. It told me how to break the spell over you. So I did-"
His eyes opened again. "You. Enj... You rescued both of us. And then-"
"She took you away from me before I could tell her -I tried-"
His face was growing peaceful in the candlelight. "She doesn't listen very well. But why did you think I had forgotten you?"
"I thought--she was so beautiful, I thought--and I have grown so worn, so strange-"
For the first time in ages, he saw Grantaire smile. That familiar, earnest, heart-upon-sleeve smile, yet laced with a hint of irony. "You have walked the world, or at least the north of France, and spoken to the sun and stream... I have only been enchanted. You have become the one for whom I will die." He pulled Enjolras closer, kissed his hand, and then his wrist, making the pulse throb in the artery underneath. He added, as the blond began to smile:
"You raise the blade, you make the change, you rearrange me till I'm sane... What a poor opinion you must have of my human shape to think that after all these years I would prefer Lilith to Apollo!" He pulled the leader even closer, kissed the crook of his elbow, and then the cove where the wings of his collarbone met. The dark young man sighed and rested his head on the blond's chest. Nuzzled into Enjolras' shirt and rested his chin on the leader's collarbone. And then the blond caught the fighter's lips and kissed him, one hand in his hair, the other in his hand. He spoke lightly, but he always did, even about the heaviest subjects. He tried to appear happy as usual, but Grantaire knew how to read him since long ago.
"She's been drugging me," he said, running a hand through golden hair. "Sleeping herbs in my tea, or whatever draught she poured out, every night before you got there. I'd sit down, have a cup, and pass out before you got past her." He glanced over his shoulder. "I'm sorry she's been bargaining with us like that. I didn't know."
The same brightness shimmered in Enjolras' eyes. When the blond, still pale from his wound, and softened by the sickness, saw all those pretty offices which had been done during his convalescence, they only added fuel to the fire; andhe said finally in that blithe voice of command, that clear and loud voice which his injury had hushed for months. So the savateur waited patiently until the leader broke the silence in a whisper:
"If I do not give this lad a kiss, the breath will leave my body. Kiss me, kiss me, my beautiful beast! Let me not see my poor soul die of longing!"
And thus Grantaire, finally with that cheerfully ironic smile that looked a little like a smirk, cupped Enjolras by the cheeks, and kissed him again and again.
The fair leader himself was taken by surprise.
He felt odd, burning with a strange kind of fever, not one he suffered from the pneumonia. The hazy mind didn’t feel any shame or busy itself with social propriety, somehow here with these young people around, he was sucked in the sensual world and asked himself the simplest of questions.
“Love, what’s it like?”
Again the fever let him speak without a filter and the two young men detached from each other with no shame and after contemplating a while in each other’s embrace, they joined on the bed, just like the newlyweds. Yet they did things very differently than them and yet the same as them at the same time. The kisses could be observed up close and exchanged among the two Amis in silent agreement, permissions were given to wordless questions and nothing felt off.
It was then that Enjolras truly saw him now. Properly and for what he was. Warts and all.
His vision swam and pretty soon it all was blurred in front of him. He could hardly see for his own tears. He heard the trembling voice and worried instantly. And Grantaire himself worried in exchange:
"Enj... you're here! You came for me. I..., I did such bad things to you and… what about all the others, I just… I’m so sorry! How can you ever forgive me?”
"Who else could-would hurt me in order to heal me? I was glad when you attacked me, because I thought it might kill me. Then I woke up in my own body, in a strange bed, with a dark-haired fighter beside me explaining that we were destined to be one..." They cupped one another's face and felt one another shaking from the sobbing.
So the fair leader awoke that one day and realized that for the first time, he knew what it was to be happy, and what it was to belong, and for long days afterward he held this new awareness close and thought about the day when he would at last find the courage to tell the secrets that he kept in his heart, the dark memories that he scarcely admitted even to himself, and the fragile, inescapable certainty he felt every time Grantaire looked at him. And on good days, he thought maybe he could see an answering certainty in those hazel eyes, just waiting for him to speak. As for Grantaire... He still loved him but discovering so much about himself on the travels and now seeing him all grown up - he had to admit the leader was incredibly handsome. Just like a prince in a storybook they read as kids. Somehow unreal and unbelievable.
“What do you believe in, then?” Enjolras asked him, burning.
“Honestly?” Grantaire asked, the cat playing in his eyes as he paused the bottle of laudanum at his lips—
“If you are so capable of belief,” Enjolras interjected snidely—
“Nothing,” Grantaire continued; “Nothing but you—“
And they remained in one another's arms, and the ungainly, awkward Marseillais remained in the arms of the most beautiful creature in the world; and pressing the fair leader the tightest he could to his heart, he said:
"I have caught you, my little rogue! You shall not escape from me again without a good reason."
At these words, Enjolras, adding the colour of modesty to the picture of his own natural beauty, said to him:
"I am indeed in your hands—only guard me safely, and stand by my side before every volley of enemy fire, until the bitter end!" And with a cry of joy, he had thrown his arms round his saviour, and a dark head was upon his chest, and his warm, living kisses covered dark hair, a stubbly face, rough lips...
The fair leader had awakened as if from a dream, and light danced in his azure eyes, though he was still pale from his injury. Enjolras drank the moment in, like a drowning man drawing water into his lungs. And, in response, Grantaire laughed in his innocent old way:
"Let him follow me through fire and ice and over a lake of glass, and wear out three swords in my defense. But at my truest, lying awake trying to count the stars, I doubted my prince would not follow..."
There was something so pure, something so innocent in his expression that Enjolras couldn't help the sob that ripped up his throat. He was back, he was really back.
Then Marius and Cosette entered the sickroom (for, indeed, they had married), to check out Enjolras' progress, and, praising Grantaire as a good and virtuous fellow, told the now fully-conscious leader that they were content that the dark realist should be his saviour; all elated because of his healing, they let their happiness burst forth freely. With a sigh of relief, the lilywhite leader explained how Grantaire, who desired nothing else in life, had forthwith pledged him his faith; whereupon the latter, his right hand upon his heart, gave spoken proof of that solemn oath.
But Enjolras ruffled Grantaire's dark, curly hair and then, to change the matter of conversation, asked Cosette for news and the latest information about them, asking her in particular if she knew what had happened to her guardian who had been so kind, and of whom neither of the students had even seen as much as a glimpse, neither hide nor hair, during this sojourn at the Fauchelevents'.
"Oh, he is gone to foreign countries, gone travelling in foreign lands, though I do not know for what reason," said the heiress, lowering her gaze. "On a great voyage of exploration, across Northern Europe, to seek out new business partners, I guess... he left for abroad shortly after our wedding; and he did not want to take me, the one he loves the most, with him, having perchance seen that he was no longer the first of my closest friends; nor Marius either, for the same reasons. Not many days after we sent you away up north, he took the carriage to Calais, and from thence the London ferry; it was about a month ago. Ever since, he has not returned, and no one knows, not even we, when he shall return, for he has not sent any news from abroad yet; maybe he is thinking of me right now in Gothenburg, or Stockholm, or Saint Petersburg, or Königsberg, or Stralsund, or Lübeck..." And, as she spoke in a voice laden with concern, her newlywedded husband laid a warm palm of a hand upon her shoulder to reassure her.
"And Courfeyrac?" asked the students.
"Oh, Courfeyrac," Marius replied; "he was the best man at our wedding... but shortly thereafterwards, his ladylove or sweetheart at our staff has left him for another man, and he is now a revolutionary once more, and wears the same black suit very fiercely; he even has taken such great pride on himself that he has whetted his canne-épée to razor sharpness once more. Do you seriously think that Courf' is the kind to mourn very bitterly and pitifully, to complain most sadly, to take great pity on himself, to be dreadfully sorry for himself, to lament horriblement? No sirrah, it's all talk. Entre nous, he is still his carefree old self; he says it's all pretence, that it's all much ado about nothing, and always takes these inconveniences in stride. Ce ne sont que des manières! He's returning to Paris, to University, and he has also recommended me to a publishing company in the capital, for which I am currenty translating the Lake District poets and Sturm und Drang, while I enjoy the company of my beloved Cosette; so he's just sent my Rose des Bruyères to the publisher with the recommendation: 'Here, Monsieur, I deliver to you a fine work of literary art, such as nothing superior has left its pen; it is the original invention and execution of one of our most promising young men, possessed with great genius, whom I recommend to Monsieur's special patronage and grace.' They will propose me in their next annual meeting of this Society for the Promotion of Fine Arts, when a name shall be given this hitherto invisible translator. Maintenant, now it is your turn to tell us what has happened to you two, how things have gone for both of you during your adventures, and how you managed to get hold of one another once more; how Enjolras once more found his fugitive, and got his chest crushed in exchange. But now tell me and Cosette how you managed to get your savateur back. Now tell me what has happened to you and how you caught up with one another. Tell us how things went with you two and how you got hold of each other."
Then Enjolras and Grantaire, giving each one his own account, told the newlyweds all about it. The fair leader supplied most of the tale, but, every now and then, the savateur interrupted to explain his own version of the events.
“Well, then, I suppose it's all right at last,” said Marius, and Cosette calmly added "All's well that ends well," while Grantaire agreed with his usual smirk. And then she told them all about how excited she had been in preparation for the great day. How her maids busied themselves hanging diamonds on Cosette, making her look like an unplundered Christmas tree, and swathing her in yards of lace. The orange-blossom veil crown, surmounted with a white lily, might as well have been the star on the top of her. Of course M. Fauchelevent wanted a more austere ceremony, and Colonel Pontmercy, had he been alive, would have shared his point of view -- but M. Gillenormand, Marius's maternal grandfather, who had recognised him once more as his ward and heir, was a royalist from the crown of his powdered wig to the diamond buckles on his high-heeled court shoes! Twelve odd-looking men in rococo dress preceded this eccentric personage. Each one of these gentlemen carried a present for the bride upon a velvet cushion of various colours. They had received orders to kneel in a semicircle, and at a given signal lifted the presents above their heads.
With measured pace and, as he fancied, majesty, strode this gentleman into her private room. Exactly half way between the door and Cosette, he stopped and bowed slightly; after which he stepped forwards, seized the maiden's right hand, kissed it, and pressed it to his heart with a groan, rolling his bloodshot eyes. After this performance he beckoned to one of the men to bring the coronet; an elaborate wave-shaped tiara with two outlines of dolphins, a seahorse's neck, and a bold relief of the head of a mermaid with a curl on her forehead. It was really the finest work that ever left goldsmith's hammer. This the valet placed upon the bride's head. Calling the second, he took from him a magnificent necklace, with a locket in which was his favourite daughter's portrait; he threw this upon Cosette's head in such a manner that the locket came right over her heart. He was delighted with the idea of his girl being near Cosette's heart, if only in a miniature. The third man brought that ring which had caused him to call upon the whole Île-de-France and Loire regions for more effectual exertions; this costly sapphire ring as tiny as it was glistening he placed upon her pinky finger. Dresses, shawls, shoes, and in short everything to complete the toilette of the most fastidious belle, was laid at her feet. This done, he motioned to the valets, and they left the room in a jumble. In a tender accent, he addressed the bride in the following words:
"Goddess of my heart, sovereign ruler of my soul, upon my bent knees I implore you to accept these gifts from the hand of your servant, and yield to his wishes."
Though there were offered gifts of such beauty as human eyes never looked upon, in spite of the costly things, the silk for the cream gown, and all the hand-made lace in the bridal veil, had been woven by local manufacturers picked by Cosette herself and her guardian, making this a win-win for both families of the bride and the groom, as well as the common folk.
The wedding was a sumptuous, decadent affair. The bride was dressed in cloth-of-gold, and she carried a huge languorous bouquet of calla lilies. So many lilies and white irises and white roses crowded the sides of the church that, in their windows and on their pedestals, the faces of the saints were hidden. Even the sun itself had trouble finding its way into the church. But the guests, holding fat candles of rose-scented beeswax, lit the church with stars instead. The bridegroom wore a suit of midnight blue; he wore buttons and cufflinks and studs and buckles inlaid with diamonds, and a crimson rose for a boutonnière. Marius looked very much tall and handsome, tweaking his whiskers straight, and dutifully assuming a serious expression as he listened to the blessing of the priest, while his eyes said: at last, at last, I have waited so long, the day is here, the night is coming... But his face was at once so vain and tender and foolish that Yours Truly warmed to him. He did not seem to realise that he had been so much more than just a three-letter solution in Mademoiselle Fauchelevent's crossword puzzle. The pair said their vows, and the nave erupted into overwhelming applause. At the end of the ceremony, when the bridegroom had searched through cascades of heavy lace to kiss his bride's face, the guests blew out their candles.
In the sudden darkness a single hair-fine thread of light shone between two rose petals.
And then the proud master of ceremonies, the grandfather of the bridegroom, gave a lengthy speech, thrice as long as the priest's sermon, about the history of his surname, and youth, and joy, and carpe diem, and best wishes for the newlyweds, and so forth (which, in Cosette's account, she merely glossed over, having dozed one-third through M. Gillenormand's tirade!). She turned a calla petal in her palm, and questions rose in her head: Can I truly stand more mysteries, the possibilities of more hardships, between us? Would it be better just to...? Then we would all fall down, in this moment when
our love is finally intact. He seems to live from spell to spell. Is it better to die now, before something worse can happen to him? How much can love stand?
Then Marius caught her eyes and smiled at her.
The wedding is beautiful, everyone agrees. Cosette is blinding in her dress, her smile all the sunlight Marius needs in the strangely darkened past that haunts them both.
"I will tell Éponine of why she surely was unable to reach you in the Thénardiers' hour of need. That will surely reassure her, and bridge the gap between the two of you."
And (speak of the wolf!) the Thénardier girl, who had been eavesdropping, popped up from behind a curtain and excused herself with a curtsy. She would gladly have bowed, but Cosette, who looked better in blue, had given her one of her own pink gowns for the day, while her own male attire was being washed, and she had no other choice. Her black eye, now nearly fully healed, had dwindled to an adorable little blue beauty mark on the corner of her left eye, which, together with her petticoats, gave Éponine an air of awkward, ungainly femininity, that, as it was clear from her flustered expression, did not completely suit her. The dress came to her knees, and she had not noticed for a while that her hairy legs showed below the skirt. "I'm a red cabbage," she muttered as she gave her best curtsy.
Their common past was too much. But she didn't want that. She wanted the child she'd known, back again, unchanged by experience.
"Why not put the kettle on, and discuss the matter of our past en tête-à-tête, 'Ponine and I, over some Earl Grey and buttered scones in the parlour?" the fair heiress asked all the others.
That seemed to settle the matter indeed, and soon the young husband and wife both left the spare bedchamber turned now far less of a sickroom, while Éponine stayed for a while with the two revolutionaries.
"What a jolly rambler you are, eh, Grantaire?" she asked as she regarded him, a wicked smile on her face. "I would like to ask you a little more whether you deserve that anyone should go to the ends of the Earth for, and even have their chest crushed, to find you! I wonder if you are worth going to the ends of the Earth for?"
But he only ruffled her matted dark hair in response, with a wistful look in his eyes the colour of hazelnuts, and she understood, and then Enjolras did the same with at last some warmth in those icy blue orbs, and she understood even more, before she deemed the savateur as deserving of having Enj travelling to the ends of the Earth to save him; and then she told them about her emancipation, her flight at the crack of dawn from the brigands' lair, and her decision to lead an honest life, no longer on the lam. "Maybe I should change my surname, whether as a nom de plume to publish my works or altogether as a physical person. 'Thénardier' has such a nasty ring to it, even in Paris where no one would know me, and see just another young hopeful from the provinces. I am thinking of... how about 'Jondrette'? Sounds good at least to me, 'Éponine Jondrette'. Like a plucky storybook girl of those that save the prince in distress..."
No words she received in reply, but reassuring smiles and eyes beaming with honesty, approving of all of her decisions, both months-old and recent, to become a free spirit. And that was enough for her to satisfy her esteem needs and spread her wings to their full extent!
Her sharp face was more suited to the shorter hair, Enjolras thought as he voiced his approval. Having it braided up, or at least in that loose ponytail of yore, made such a face, all angles and planes, look even more angular than it already was. "This business of being a lady gives me a pain," she announced. "It was fun to play at it, but it gives the men ideas. I don't want 'em thinking of me as something they can pounce on!"
That was when the robber maiden left them, to return to the parlour where Cosette was waiting for her with Earl Grey tea and scones at hand, and to seek her forgiveness. Both of the students thought it best not to go with Éponine and Cosette, for it seemed that their reunion ought to be a private thing, though Enjolras, still bedridden, and with the Thénardier girl (who would soon change her surname) for a go-between, asked the heiress to remember him to her guardian, and to give M. Fauchelevent his thanks for the trousseau, for the attelage and provisions that had sustained him for so long on his journey, and also to carry message from Éponine to him, saying that her time with the Thénardiers was now a thing of the past; that she had changed her surname and turned over a new leaf.
Then, after a few hours en tête-à-tête with her former foster sister, Éponine, now dressed once more in a man's costume, a brand new ensemble of dark coat and waistcoat and riding breeches, which her hosts had made expressly for her, yet coiffed with her brilliant scarlet bonnet and carrying her Bowie and two pistols strapped to her belt upon her waist at her sides, returned to the sickroom where the two young men were waiting, told them that she had made friends and amends with Cosette at last (though the robber girl still looked a little dreamy and wistful, even sighing; maybe because she had fallen head over heels for a certain young translator who was already married?), took both their hands, and promised that if ever she should pass through the arrondissement where they lived, she would certainly come up and pay them a visit, and surely join their ranks and fight and bleed for Liberty.
"Bon!" quoth she with her usual impatience, as restless as usual, "Allons! All's well that ends well," she shook hands with both students, "tout est pour le mieux; retournez au café Musain, et si j'y passe jamais, j'irai vous faire au moins une petite visite. Et bien sûr j'irai combattre sous votre drapeau, et être morte pour la Liberté!" she shouted that promise, as a leave-taking, that if she ever came through the arrondissement where they lived she would come and visit them. She would be always welcome.
And then, she mounted her chestnut horse, riding astride as usual; and, after being given the address of the Musain by the fair leader himself, she embraced both of the revolutionaries without even setting a foot on the ground, and then, laughing, she tossed her head and rode off away, on into the wide world, her Bowie in her left hand and the reins in her right, spurring her horse into gallop and disappearing into the horizon. She bid them goodbye and promised to meet them again sometime before she rode away.
She resumed thus her grand voyage, back on her horse and onwards into the wide world, on adventures of her own. Finally, she had become the generous, solitary adventurer whom everyone expected. And then off she rode away into the wide world. As they watched her go from the threshold of the Château Fauchelevent, as the robber-maiden spiralled down from the sky and landed on her own saddle, Enjolras recognised his old friend, whom he had met on the road and shared his reads, meals, and questing with, and he rejoiced that the robber-girl would not have to travel the world alone, as he had. "Those are never alone who are accompanied by good thoughts," or hadn't she said that during their quest up north?
From that day on, the fair leader's recovery went on twice as quickly; thanks to his stubborn will to live and staying power, he was saved. The shards of bone remained in place, but the internal injuries were nearly completely healed, and he received permission to behold, through the window and bed-curtains, contemplate the trees and lawns that thrived, fresh and green, in the springtime sun.
After a couple of months had elapsed, Enjolras felt himself sufficiently strong and tranquil to leave his bed, though not his chamber, on his own. This he did with the assistance of an overjoyed Grantaire for a crutch. They saw the blond, with a steady hand, hold and use the spoon, and able to take the strengthening soup for himself. Colour had returned to his once lilywite face, and hale and hearty he stood up from his sickbed, the strength of yore having already surged all the way down to his ankles.
During their absence, Cosette had had new ensembles made for both of them, as similar to those Marius had described his classmates as wearing, with a red gold-braided waistcoat and a green paisley one, to wear for the long journey south again. Both certainly needed their new sets of clothes, for their attire had barely not suffered less when it came to wear and tear than than Éponine's own, and now it was getting warm, and how dare they make their rentrée in those worn rags?
"Are you ready?"
Enjolras nodded, and then Grantaire smiled back at the fair leader, so handsome in his scarlet waistcoat braided with golden soutaches and with his golden locks tied back with a red ribbon into a queue down his back, and took his arm.
The dark student led the fair one through the Grand Hall. "Nervous?" Enjolras asked.
"About 'Ponine, no. Not about M. Fauchelevent either. About your breathing, yes."
Grantaire had heard a hitch in his chest. He was sure of it.
"I'm fine," Enjolras replied. "The doctors said I could do this. Don't worry so much, Grand'R..."
"How can I not?"
"Because I'm not in a coma anymore!" he replied, cheerfully exasperated, as the dark lover bit his lip. Enjolras tended to get frustrated. He was eager to be up and about. To resume his duties. He was getting stronger every day, but still —Grantaire was worried. He couldn't help it. They'd come so close to losing one another that everything scared either one of them now. He was worried if Enjolras was pale, or flushed. If he looked tired. If he didn't eat enough. If he cleared his throat or coughed.
Grantaire had come home from the village market to find him sitting up and conscious. It was the happiest day of both their lives. He'd hugged him and kissed him -- touched his brow, his eyes, his lips, his heart, his hands, and hardly had he done so -- and cried tears of joy.
Until then, no one had been able to look Grantaire in the eye without feeling themselves recoil; for their fear, the twilight, and his addiction enhanced the savateur's air of ugliness. But, upon walking into the light of the sun at last, the man was stripped of his beastly skin. His affection for the leader had returned with a twelvefold strength and truth; for his boyish passion now over, his manly true love began.
Maybe that was, after all, a little broken spell, reserved only for those who learned to look without seeing, with the eyes of the heart.
He bent down over the still form, and kissed Enjolras urgently on the mouth. To both their surprise, he ducked his head and captured the leader's surprised lips with his own. His longing to hold the one he loved finally quenched after four years -- the desire to kiss him had been too much. He had no thought to expect anything; all that he wanted was to mar its perfect bow, to leave a mark. He did not expect, certainly, for Enjolras to return the kiss, savage, gasping, straining till the savateur released his own wrists. For the fair leader understood. His freedom, his friendship, his life had returned to him. It was a lot to swallow.
The savateur's mouth was firm and warm and at first clumsy and then assured, and he had one hand on that soft white chin, and his eyes were still wide open, Enjolras realised, as his own closed. And Grantaire seemed to have a hand in that cascade of golden hair, gently pulling the leader closer. As for Enjolras... His knees were no longer weak but buckling. The temperature had, inexplicably, risen by at least ten degrees. "Oh," Enjolras said, when he had a chance, and then Grantaire tilted his head and they were kissing again, and why had Enjolras not thought of this before? It was the best of ideas, it was amazing, it was like breathing champagne instead of air. He made an wordless noise to try and indicate his approval of the whole situation.
And, as Grantaire wrapped his strong arms around Enjolras' waist, both pulling the leader closer to him and dipping his back slightly for better angle, both of them thought it can't get any better than this.
“Show me your paintings,” Enjolras says into the flesh of his lover’s shoulder, revelling in the taste of skin on skin. Grantaire smells like oils and like wine or liquor, like something transient and souring. He tipped his head to the side playfully and offered.
“Would you like to try?”
The fair leader laid beside him and let the Marseillais kiss his chest and trail an invisible path towards Enjolras' loin and soon he could see scarlet roses blooming on the young man’s face, chest. He sighed the most delicate gasps and his features were twisting in an agony and smoothed in bliss, all happening so fast, it felt like a weather which can’t make up his mind. He had had no idea his neck was that sensitive. There were stars behind his eyes.
All he could do was watch with quiet amazement...
The warmth of the room and a bit of light seeped through the tasselled curtains of the baldachin, where it was open and his slight nod set off a mesmerizing spell over the two of them.
Grantaire flinched when the pair of hands traced his chest and the leader's fingers found his nipples.
But when those lily-hands freed him swiftly and a wet kiss pressed against the most sensitive part of his self, he startled and held onto the other young man's shoulder watching below as Enjolras hesitantly licked him, waiting for last signs of doubt.
Still he was too distraught to see what his sorrow was doing to Enjolras, and he continued to cry and rocked his beloved back and forth, and said that he loved him, he loved him, he would always love him. Enjolras was still unmoving and Grantaire pressed one last kiss to his still cold lips, and his hot blood burned his cheeks as they fell to the savateur's mouth and made it warm and soft again. The fair leader's blood had bathed him; the hard little coal of love in his heart was burning red hot and catching fire within him, and he was able to move his arms so that they wrapped around Enjolras, and his lips were able to move against the blond's lips, and his tongue was able to feel the fair one's tongue.
As the warmth of the dying boy's lips melded to his own, as the heat of that wounded body seeped into his bones and went through into his veins, tears gathered in his eyes. And as the tears gathered, and fell, with it tumbled the speck of shimmering draught. His heart, which had begun to beat, hard and fast and strong, dislodged the remaining speck- it too fell with his tears.
An odd warmth spread through the savateur’s chest, and it was as though the simple action of kissing those lips had opened up a floodgate.
And he remembered.
And with that, all of a sudden, just like that, all of the holes in Grantaire’s memory filled in. Images of sorrow, pictures of delight, endless days of summer, longer nights of gloom, waiting for the morning light, scenes of unimportance, pictures in their frames; things that go to make up a life...
Quite unexpectedly... it seemed to Grantaire that he had been torn away from a dream, or that a curtain was rising, or that a haze was fading before his eyes. In an instant, all the knowledge came flooding back into his clearing mind. In an instant all the past rushed back to him: a waif leaving his native enclave of a whitewashed Catalan village by the Mediterranean, learning to kick his way out of trouble on the docks of Marseille; a series of odd jobs as an errand boy, then as a stevedore, taken in under one middling Madame Grantaire's wing, constantly forced to battle with hardships and saving for an artistic apprenticeship or a University degree; a weary months-long journey on foot up to the capital, followed by the hardships of bohemian life; a street-corner café full of southerners, including some of his classmates, who longed for a brighter tomorrow; their leader, a dashing golden-haired stripling he had saved from some thugs outside the café; the experience of making friends... All of the things that he’d seen or even done himself, things he’d never have done while sober (or even while drinking too much). All of the things that he’d been so easily cajoled and coaxed into doing, things which the drug had convinced him he really wanted after all, when his sober and thinking mind would have recoiled from even the thought of it, let alone going through with the act at all. The whole affair left a very bad taste in his mouth -- Grantaire loved discovering new hobbies, new parties, new friends, new anything in Paris, but not at the expense of his will. He drew the line at activities that prevented him from making decisions of his own free will; and this certainly was the worst of them. While the sensations and the hallucinations brought on by the draught he had quaffed were, admittedly, not unpleasant, the after effects when the feeling wore off and the things he was coaxed into doing while he had no real way to refuse were too much to be worth the fleeting euphoria that the drug brought on initially... and then, he only saw the fair, soft face of the one he had followed, worshipped, and defended long ago. Enjolras was as fair as the sun, as bright as the day, as stern and firm as white cliffs; the fair lashes, the fine high bones of his cheeks, the cove where the wings of his collarbone met, his hair golden, glowing bright as a bonfire, or like the Jardins du Luxembourg in September on the first day of the academic year; his voice as blithe as a reveille call... He was tall and lean, and if the mingling of fire and moonlight did not lie, his face was neither foolish nor cruel. He was unlike other young men of his age and rank; there was a certain sadness in his voice, laced with a resolve and élan that made one want to hear him speak. He did not touch Grantaire again when he drew closer, but the Marseillais heard the pleased smile in his voice. His face was quite easy to look at. In this kind of twilight, he had tawny hair and azure eyes, and girlish yet strong, graceful features that were young in expression and happier than their experience.
He was gentle and courteous to his servants, had an ear for his musicians' playing, and had lean, strong hands that moved as easily among the jewelled goblets and gold-rimmed plates as they did as among steel tankards and bowls of faïence (or so it seemed, for the savateur knew little to nothing about his lover's past life, except of his lack of siblings and higher standing)...
A boy with a curling-up mouth and a voice soft as fresh-fallen snow. With those words came the wanting. And all was changed. Irrevocably.
And now upon the floor at his feet, blood pooling from his mouth, lay that same stripling, like a beautiful marble figure, his splendid features rigid and pale, his long, slim body wasted away, his hands inert and still, his golden locks spread over the rune-engraved floor, like liquid light, and his long lashes made great dark lines beneath his eyes. Oh, how beautiful he was! How beautiful, beautiful! Thus Grantaire felt all his great love mount like a wave within his chest, overcoming every other feeling. Feeling as if he must fall down and kiss that marble face; that he must lay he dark head upon that still heart; and then for one horrible moment he thought he was already dead.
"No, no," whispered the savateur; "he still lives, but the flame of life within him flickers, as if at any moment the smallest breath would blow it out! Has he, then, found that which will bring him back to me?
That face he saw was bruised and scratched; there was a long tear down one bare shoulder, the right one. He looked older, weathered, his pale skin burned by the sun, which had scarcely touched it in years... and he was dying, dying of the injury that Grantaire had wrought himself! Reality was all too clear, all too vivid, all too shocking.
His eyes widened, and he spoke a familiar name in a voice filled with sorrow:
"Ennjolras..." he sobbed; he reached out impulsively, restraining manly tears, getting down on his knees and cradling his strangely pale, shallowly breathing beloved leader. His voice was hoarse and harsh, as if he had not spoken in a long, long time; and he stared in shock at his lifeless beloved.
He stiffened, began pushing at him and talking at the same time finally with that familiar Marseillais patois, his accent now sounding even warmer. "I remember. I remember now. You were that... that one I shunned, the one at whose coattails I kept nipping..." His voice was low and sweet, amused as he tugged at Enjolras. "You must get up. What if someone should see us? Oh, dear. You must be hurt." The savateur shifted out from under him, made a hasty adjustment to his ensemble, and caught sight of his beloved once more; still amazed at the leader's beauty, and at the sight of him, whom he had not seen in ages, and never in this light, lying golden-haired and slack against his own chest. Grantaire bent over Enjolras, turned him on his back, sobbing upon his shoulder. "Why did you...?" he reproached the senseless leader, packing him by the pulseless wrists.
He burst into tears as the memories came back, and the colour slowly returned to him as his heart began to pump his blood freely once more. No longer was it a crazy diamond. Enjolras had thawed it out. Enj had come all this way to -
And then a face came into view, blurry at first, then clear.
The face of the one whom Enjolras had sought for so long.
Relief washed over him like a gentle wave, lapping his pain away. He'd saved Grantaire; that was all that mattered. The fair leader stared at him, frozen, his eyes filling with hot tears that he blinked back, for he would not let himself do anything so weak as crying, even in that wretched state. He reached one hand out toward the savateur, and then he felt a large, rough, reassuring clasp, just like a clamp of flesh and blood warming his soft palm.
"Grand... R... not a dream... really you, R, all along... mais... ce n'est qu'une... petite blessure... c'est... rien... it’s all... right! I’ll take the pain away. Hush!” The man uncoiled reluctantly, following his pull, breathing out confused. “I wanted to… with... you..."
There was not much time left for the fair leader: his crushed side kept on pouring out his life into the inside of his chest, and he felt that what little strength he had left was beginning to fail.
Thus, there was nothing more Enjolras could say in a voice choked by lungs full of blood, and a red foam bubbled from his parted lips. A convulsive shudder shook his powerless limbs, he turned dreadfully pale, and fell backwards, hands and feet sliding down onto the floor, in the strong arms of the one who loved him.
And thus, Grantaire enfolded the wounded, senseless leader in his arms, and buried his face in Enjolras' left shoulder, his tears wetting the loose golden locks that veiled the lilywhite neck. He could see sparse golden hairs on the back of that lilywhite hand, and the curved fingers seemed vulnerable. "Where have you been all this time?" Grantaire cried. "And where have I been?" He lifted his face from Enjolras' neck and looked around the hall, empty but for themselves en tête-à-tête, turning his head in all directions, full of astonishment. "How cold it is," he said wonderingly, "and how dreadfully large and empty it all looks!"
Then, his eyes fell back upon the haggard features, the bloody torn waistcoat, and the crushed left side of his beloved leader, and he gave a cry of dismay. "You are wounded," he cried. "You have hurt yourself for me. You should not have, for I do not deserve it. I have never had the right to injure, let alone to kill you... I went away and left you, and forgot all about you, and let the Green Faery's promises turn my heart to a cold crazy diamond, colder than ice... and then it were my feet that crushed your side, and I was so close to seeing you die by my own strength, but now no strength is left in my feeble frame, the poisons have done their work... I just hope... Enjolras... I shall nevermore... You will nevermore..."
Enjolras’ face and body were covered in grime, powder, dirt, blood -- whether his own or others’ Grantaire could not tell -- and none of this detracted from his beauty or his presence; indeed, only added to the power that the other man’s blue-eyed gaze seemed to have as it fell upon Grantaire, in this moment which seemed to last forever and which Grantaire never wanted to end.
“Those few weeks before I… left, something was wrong with me. Something had taken
over my body, my heart, my mind, just everything about me. And when I saw her, I was
tempted. I couldn’t think of anything but going with her. And then… it was like none of you existed. I forgot about all of you. I forgot everything. I even forgot how awful I was to you that day.”
Though unconscious, Enjolras nodded, as if to say: “I know. I knew something was wrong. I knew you’d never hurt me like that... But don’t apologise. It wasn’t you. Whatever it was, it’s gone now. I'm sorry... that everything turned out... the way that it did. But... hng! you taught me... how to handle... a sword in one-to-one-combat. So I put out... a pretty good fight. You'd have to be proud of me... Sorry... that things... turned out this way... But... you... trained me well in sword fighting. So... it was a pretty good... match, you know...”
"That's enough... Don't... don't try to talk... That's enough. Don't... don't talk anymore."
More teardrops fell upon the dark bags under the fair leader's eyes, and upon his lilywhite lips, which curled upwards in a faint smile, and his eyelids flickered to reveal glazed sapphire orbs as he wearily shook his head and said, fiercely, "You idiot... you still think you can...? Are you... in any position...to give me orders? You can never leave me, for there is nowhere you can go that I will not follow. I have found you now, and I will never be parted from you again. Nevermore... Until... the bitter..." And as they knelt there, clinging to one another, he broke into a blood-coughing fit and collapsed once more on Grantaire's lap.
"Please, hang on!!"
He felt the savateur take his hand in Enjolras' snow-white own, and squeeze it. He squeezed back, silk against sackcloth, ice against fire. For once, Grantaire was crying, in earnest, but trying to smile. Knowing himself forgiven, he kissed the leader's torn, bloody chest, and his bloodstained lips, and bandaged his outward wounds with strips of fabric torn from his own coat. And, as they knelt there, clinging to one another, he stroked once more the bloodstained face, and the shining gold curls of liquid light in which he lay entwined. "Hang on... Ennj... Please,... hang... on...", he sobbed.
There was so much Enjolras wanted to say, but he couldn't make the words come. He wanted to tell Grantaire that he would be all right. That he was brave and strong. He wanted the lush to know how much he loved him...
The pounding in his ears grew softer. His vision blurred again.
"No!" Grantaire screamed, then looked down at the bloodstained runes. A flash to Combeferre translating runes came to his mind. FRIHET. He'd heard some sailors from the North, from even further up north than Calais, Scandinavians if he remembered right, say that word in Marseille, but could not remember exactly what it meant. Then he turned back to his beloved, terror in his eyes. "Enj... no..." he begged frantically. "Don't go. Please, p-lease don't go..."
The pounding slowed. His azure, steel-coloured eyes fluttered closed.
"Until... the bitter..." he whispered. "Always..."
The beat of Enjolras' brave heart faltered, and then finally, it stopped.
As Enjolras lost consciousness, Grantaire kissed his stained lips and shed one single teardrop.
It was a feeling as if the Lady in Green set before him an empty cup, and said 'Drink,' in a harsh voice of command, and flung him not into the dungeon, but out of the circle of stones.
And, as his fair beloved sank down in his embrace, Enjolras clutching him as tighly as he could lest, as he feared, Grantaire should really leave him on his own to die within the Green Faery's keep, and the dark-haired one sobbed all the harder, knowing himself forgiven, and kissed that torn, bloody chest; and those cold, bloody, strangely smiling lips... and carefully cradled the fragile, lifeless form of Enjolras, listening constantly to the rattling and wheezing from within the ribcage he had unwittingly crushed; and bandaged his outward wounds with strips of fabric torn from his own coat. And, as they knelt there, clinging to one another, he stroked once more the shining gold curls of liquid light in which he lay entwined.
As the dark-haired student lifted up and cradled his friend, Grantaire's eyes finally shone with the pure light of life once more, his lilywhite complexion changed back from how pale it was into healthy olive with a slight rosy tinge, the warmth and colour coming back to his skin, that became blooming, and the invisible chains of immobility that seemed to shackle his wrists and ankles disappeared, he became strong and well; as the warmth began to spread through his body, his colour started to return to his skin, he felt how his own heart throbbed stronger and stronger, and how his cheeks felt warm, then hot, as the memories of his days with the Belle Dame faded away within his head, and he was once more the self-same Grantaire who had lightened up so many evenings at the Musain, and changed Enjolras' view of life and of pleasure. He was once more a young man full of health and good cheer, whole and alive, though racked with concern at the state of his beloved, cradled in strong yet gentle arms.
"At last I am free... Enjolras... Not even the Green Faery can hold me anymore..." He carefully hoisted Enjolras up, brushing quartz-dust off his shoulders, his chest, his thighs, while drying up his tears on the blond's sleeves and encouraging him to cling to dear life, sobbing as he smiled, so much he feared that life should leave Enjolras, leaving his form cold and dead, and Grantaire alone with his despair, within that strange dark throne room. "There's no one else can warm my heart as much as you... be not gone..."
The dark savateur pulled away as the fair leader stilled in his embrace, wide open eyes locking onto shut ones, and he studied the red rims, the blue that seemed to warm in front of his very eyes. Tears streamed down his cheeks, fell onto his collar, dripped to the surface of the runestone below. He could feel the way Enjolras' heart thudded against his chest – realised it hadn’t been beating, not properly, when he’d first pulled the blond to his side – the way his limp fingers had moved around to clutch desperately at the back of his coat.
"Ennj...?" he whispered, his voice breaking and cracking, yet once more with that familiar Marseillais accent. "Ennj... when we're like this...it's warm, isn't it? It's nice and warm out here. Isn't it? Ennj?"
In that stance they went forth from the great fortress, the fair stripling gently held, cradled, by the stronger dark young man, who, as he left the keep, muttered to himself about the Café Musain, and their long-abandoned chairs, and legalese, and of Merlot and barmaids and barricades, and of the sunsets they had watched together, and about the blood-red dawn that would hopefully find them having given it all for Liberty, their fingers entwining in a final gesture... and as they walked the winds were at rest and the thick fog lifted and the sun burst forth from behind the clouds, a pale sun still half-veiled in the Northern morning sky.
In the meantime, the Green Faery could return, and enter her throne room once more, if she pleased, and it made no difference if she returned home; it did not matter, for upon the dark pavement lingered not only the thyrsus, but also the glow, in warm red firelight, of six runes that spelled out the word FRIHET: "Liberty" or "Freedom" in Norse languages, the password that Grantaire had had to find out if he was to become his own master. The two students did not even wait for her return to claim what she had promised. They left behind the ivy-entwined pinewood bâton of command and the warm, glowing blood-stained runes that proved that the Green Faery's latest general had won back the right to his freedom, and become once more his very own lord and master of himself, and free to leave the place and go wherever he wished; she owed him that she would have to make him leave her service, or rather her servitude, come hell or highwater. The Killer Queen might come home now whenever she pleased; there stood his discharge, the order for Grantaire's release, his right to his own freedom written in shining bloodstained runes.
(When she returned to her keep a fortnight later, she would find the throne-hall utterly empty, for the umpteenth time in forever, and the answer to the paradoxical riddle, her latest general's charter of freedom, his right to his own freedom, stood there written on the brilliant pavement, in dried-up blood. The thyrsus lay on the floor as well, at a certain distance from those six runes. All right, they won fair and square. She knew that she would never be able to vanquish the courage and earnest feelings of those two. Of course, she had lost, and wished that Enjolras and Grantaire would love one another till the bitter end; never mind, she would find another general to take his place... She tapped her foot furiously for a moment, and then said, slowly, her face clearing a little, as if addressing the absent Grantaire and his saviour: "That's why you were there to rescue us! Now I understand. And I snatched him away from you without even thinking--and after you had searched for him so long, I made you search--oh, my dear." She clasped her hands tightly, then rubbed her sore wrists. Her lonely chant, in the quiet of that twilit room, was mournful, wistful, monotone yet heart-rending in its lyrics: "Still in my arms he suffered and tossed. That was why he came to me, that is why he runs from me. Not pleased with rest, he needed delirium. That last day, I saw my lover's face was flustered, the look in his eyes all fire and blood... and he, in that state, would doubtless have pierced my heart with the blade he had stabbed into his own chest... Still, I feel as though from my heart all the blood has gushed, and my lover has drunk it till he has become intoxicated. Ah! From then onward, I will nevermore be able give him any tranquillity, any respite or repose. Yet there will always be others... other mortals, as young and yet as disenchanted, who will wrest from me my blood, to them precious liquor, that gives the intoxication of visions and delusions, perturbating both the heart and the head. No sooner has one put that draught to their lips, that their soul takes wing, takes flight, and leaves its mortal coil. Flashing back to the past and launching off to explore the future, or frequenting alternate realities; memory and hope being the two lodestones that keep the wayward spirit alive in the ether of illusion. What ever became of that time when I ruled the hours between light and darkness, and, suspended in the air, let my kindly seeds of glitter-dust upon the brows of humans? From that seed always sprung a sweet and pleasant lullaby, a repair for worn-out spirits, a kindly companion for exhausted bodies. The images I summoned were always pleasant and reassuring; to the empty-nester mother I showed her children fresh and smiling, lisping her name from the cradle, and to the orphan I showed their unknown parents, their mother perched upon their brow to give a good-night kiss. Thus sped my life quickly and merrily, like the springtime that it was. In those days when my secret was not know, I was merely the beloved darling of the decent folk; now I am requested and pursued even by miscreants, who oblige me to conspire for sinister aims. So why... why did I ever sadly reveal the existence of the draught concealed within my own insides, the poisonous draught that has been the death of many of my warrior-lovers? This wretch that is me sees herself in those artists, whom others owe their purest and sweetest enjoyments, their most beautiful illusions of which the artist's own self, however and ironically, is the very first victim. Thus... here is to those; may they live, may they fight, may they drink, may they sleep dreaming of pleasures and of honours! My blood has them intoxicated! May they all dream on, while I, wide awake, mourn for my lost tranquillity and my stolen happiness!")
"This place is cold as a witch's tit," he said after a while, grinning that crooked grin Enjolras had almost forgotten, and which, his eyes shut and veiled in darkness, he (Enjolras) could not even picture himself. "Let's go someplace warmer."
He uncovered a familiar door in the wall, it had dead leaves scattered around it though. It was clear, the realm ended behind it.
"Hold on, Ennj. This way."
The door opened on its own and the savateur stepped out dressed for the autumn towards the yellow covered ground, leaves making a soft carpet for him to walk on.
Though his breathing rattled and he writhed a little, the fair leader he cradled kept a serene expression in his blood-loss sleep.
The sun was low when Grantaire came to himself, his much-enfeebled self. His head was throbbing, his body was cramped with pain, his mouth was dry and burning; he took a deep breath, his eyes wild, and he glanced away from his lover's face, over at the fortress that seemed to shimmer in front of them. Down-hill he trudged slowly to the cauldron of cold stone and drank. It revived him a little, enough so he could cradle the fair beloved for more time and walk at a brisk pace while carrying Enjolras safe in strong, loving arms, and pouring clear water down his weak, parched throat.
"He is hurt. Is there water?" he glanced around vaguely, as if he expected a frog to emerge in cravat and coattails, with water on a tray. But soon he had already fetched it in cupped hands, from a little rill of fresh water that sprang from the granite cauldron, now cracked in one side. He moistened Enjolras' face with it, let the blond's lips wander over his own hands, searching for more.
Since both of them had broken the enchantment that had led them thither, the clear draught had no more sinister effects upon either one of them. On Grantaire trudged out of the circle of stones, with Enjolras in his arms; on they trudged south, until they reached the edge of the plains and the point where the forest began. And wherever they walked the fog faded away to nothing and the sun shone out.
Already half-bled to death by the trial of the hedge of thorns, and exhausted by the three laps he had run withershins around the circle of stones, the fair leader had not come to his senses. Pale as wax, eyes firmly shut, he gave no sign or token of life; his skin an ashy grey, as if the life had been already sucked out of him.
Kissing his icy forehead for a long time, the darker and stronger student, equally pale, muttered:
"Pas de crainnte-a, Ennjolras. 'Tis too early for both of us to die... Stay still... so hang in there!"
When they arrived at the rendezvous point, as they got nearer the gnarled holly bush with the red berries, there stood someone waiting for them, since as soon as they reached the holly. Little by little, the heather and rhododendrons were replaced on the southward journey by thornbushes, the thornbushes by little gnarled pines, then by larger and better-looking pines, then by green oaks, and at last they saw a great forest of beeches and chestnut; they had made it to the limits of the North country, where the first green buds were to be seen.
Out of the treeline of beeches and chestnut there suddenly cantered a fine, graceful horse, with hide like dark chocolate, which Enjolras, had he been conscious, would have recognised quite well, for it was one of the horses that had once been harnessed to and drawn the carriage he had been given by Marius and Cosette. A young person of indeterminate sex was riding astride upon it, with bright black Wellington boots and bright red spats on their feet and red gloves on their hands, a bonnet rouge resplendissant on her head and a musket slung across their back. Through the woods came riding towards them a young androgynous person on a magnificent, splendid horse that Enjolras would have recognised, for it had belonged to the Fauchelevent estate, and once been harnessed to the Fauchelevents' carriage. At first, Grantaire did not know the rider, and took for granted that a young man was riding astride that magnificent steed; but it turned out to be a dark young girl in tattered boy's clothing, hatted or coiffed with a bright scarlet sans-culotte bonnet, and wearing two pistols in front of her at the sides of her waist, strapped to her belt. Her raven hair was matted and rumpled like a troll's, her queue cut off into a more boyish bob haircut, dark hair cut to her jaw; she had a bruised left eye, and there were tears all over her sleeves and trousers, through which burn scars could be seen upon her olive skin. Her head was covered with a shining scarlet scarf below the bonnet rouge (one just like Marianne's), but the curly raven hair flowing from beneath the scarf and the flashing dark eyes gave her away. The girl wore a bright red cap on her head, and a pair of pistols in front of her at her sides. There were those two pistols stuck in her belt, a Bowie in her left hand, and she held the reins in the right.
She was the little robber maiden, who had tired of staying at home with the robber band and now was on her way out into the wide world, setting out on a journey from the North country, and who was making first for the capital; weary of the Patron-Minette band, she had actually had enough of calling home that ruin in the woods with her wild companions, and decided to leave on horseback, riding out of there, having gone forth on her own to seek her fortune as a writer or a revolutionary, and to demonstrate for women's rights to vote and to a higher education, for 'twas so she thought she would do if she ever grew weary of writing. If she didn't like it there in Paris, if that didn't suit her, why, she thought she would make later for any other part whenever she grew weary of that; the world was wide, and there were many other places where she could go whenever she pleased.
Éponine now sported an array of pistols and blades upon her person, and had grown tired of living with the robbers, so she was setting out on a journey away from the North. As we have said before, fierce arrogant Éponine had grown weary of the life she led in the ruins in the forest. She had realised soon after she agreed to help Enjolras that she really couldn't take the life of a robber anymore and that while she truly loved her parents it was perhaps time to move on and make new friends and meet new people. She was nervous but determined and intended to try seeking companionship in another part of the world. Thus, right before she left her parents' den in the company of Enjolras, she had taken a great sum in franc banknotes from their coffers, stuffed her pockets full, and cut the tethers of one of the horses that Cosette had given Enjolras (and the Thénardiers had claimed after the ambush), right before they leapt up on horseback and set forth.
She knew both young men directly, she recognised both of them straight away, immediately, at once, but, instead of being drunk with joy, delighted to meet each other, she was astonished upon beholding her hero senseless, so deeply unconscious that he could die at any given moment. Her expectations of Enjolras striding forth towards her safe and sound, holding hands with his dark friend, and remembering her, had been brutally subverted; and thus, she stormed, in a state of shock, towards them; it was everything but a joyful or happy meeting.
She had been ready to take out a pistol and fire a gunshot into the air to salute her friends, but her trigger finger loosened, and her left arm dropped slack along her side, in shock at seeing each other again; when she saw how things had turned out. It was an anxious meeting, but, upon hearing the fair leader breathe, though shallowly and racked with pain, and upon seeing his shattered ribcage rise and fall time and again to that rhythm, she was at least slightly encouraged and reassured.
"And who can this dark young man be... but the companion whom Enj sought so anxiously, when we took him prisoner?" she quietly asked herself.
"You're a fine fellow to go gadding about in this way, a fine one to go rambling about in this way, gallivanting off disappearing on the winter winds and putting dear Enj to all that trouble, aren't you?" she turned towards Grantaire and prodded him in the side with a sharp elbow, taking care not even to graze the wounded leader, regarding the savateur with a wicked smile on her face. "A scoundrel like there are few to be seen! I should like to know whether you really deserve that anyone should go to... I wonder if you're worth to have someone running across the wide world to the ends of the Earth, or at least to the ends of France, to search for you and find you. I'd like to know if you deserve to have people running off to such far off-distances just for you! I do hope you are worth going to the ends of the Earth for! Even that anyone should be worthy of dying for your sake...! Honestly, Enjolras deserves someone way better!" she smirked, slapping the senseless young man gently in the face (for the sake of auld lang syne).
In response, Enjolras was so deeply unconscious that he did not even flinch, while the sceptic gauchely looked away. Even though he knew himself forgiven, this girl, who seemed to know Enjolras, was at least slightly unsensitive to remind him of what he had wrought, as she looked him up and down and shook her head.
"Mind you, you're handsome enough! I can see why he followed you to the ends of the Earth! I just knew. Maman would beat me black and blue, and sneer, and say Enj and I would both die in the fog... but I knew you were strong, Enj. I always knew. If we get him to a safe place, like the Château Fauchelevent, as soon as possible, he may survive. He's a strong young fellow, so there's one chance out of twenty... And, furthermore, I know every shortcut through these woods, and you will surely need a pathfinder to get there in time... Trust me. But now tell me how he managed to get you back. Please tell me everything that has transpired, how he got on himself, and how he has found his fugitive! But now tell me how this lad managed to get his savateur back. Why don’t you tell me what happened since we last saw each other, right?” Éponine was on tenterhooks, for all that had transpired in her absence, as well as for saving the life of her wounded hero.
Though it had been both an instant and an eternity in that hall as the Lady's trusted general, though his recollections were rather hazy and the last, most vivid of them were the most shocking experience in his short life, he told the robber maiden all about it, with a wistful look in his eyes the colour of hazelnuts. Or at least, all that he could recall: how he showed for all who wanted to hear him a flask full of the green elixir that he kept on quaffing every now and then, how he had let himself be seduced and spirited away, as Enjolras had stormed off in his pursuit, suffering concerns and encountering misfortunes that no single person could ever wish for. And, as he related his version of the story, he felt that he could trust this boyish stranger, and that an oppressive weight was being taken from his chest, for the robber maiden understood it all. It felt like partaking of a healing draught, and a change seemed to pass over his whole frame. He no longer felt the excitement of fever, nor the painful weakness which succeeds it.
The powers of evil have their own rules; they can play with us and within us. And he had not stopped wondering about it since. What had happened? Had the apparition been something he imagined because he had a high fever? He had never known fever or any illness before. But he had new insight into himself since the night he had stormed out of the Musain, so harshly. He remembered how wildly his heart had been made to beat by jealousy, by loathing; those burning feelings had swept through him. If only he could tell Enjolras his thoughts! If only he could confess his temptation and how it had become a deed.
Dark forces play their games, they have power and carry out their purposes around us and within us. Evil forces play their tricks, both outside and within us. Grantaire had finally realised that, and he had been pondering about it. What had happened around him and in him. What had happened to him, on the inside and on the outside; what was it that had gone on about him and inside him? Had he had a vision, or was it all a fever dream wrought by intoxication? Had he seen visions, or was it a feverish dream? He had never known having a high fever, and not any other serious illness either, hangovers notwithstanding. Yet he had gained an insight into himself. He searched his own heart, remembering the way he had treated Enjolras. He thought of the fierce pulse of his own heart, and remembered that hot sirocco like over Marseille, awakening once more, that had broken loose in there. Could he confess everything to the one he loved, each and every one of the thoughts he had had at the moment of falling into temptation? Could he confess everything - every thought which in that hour of temptation almost brought about his action? It was precisely that loss that had made him return to Enjolras; because of that loss the blond had regained him. The leader had rightfully won him once more. Would Grantaire be able to tell him the truth? And would his beloved make any confession to him? It felt like the savateur's own heart was shattering with these thoughts, and so many memories awakened... He felt like his heart would break to pieces when he thought about that. There were so many memories. He saw Enjolras living, reading, pouring his heart and soul out into song. Many blithe words that the leader had uttered flashed before his ears. When his thoughts turned to his sweetheart, so many memories crowded his mind that he felt that his heart was breaking. Every time that Grantaire thought of Enjolras lying sick unto death, he feared that his heart was about to break.
“Well, your beau is in quite the serious condition, with that tear in the left lung and all that! Who knows if he shall live? 'Twould have been better with a sword thrust or a bayonet! Well, then, I suppose it's all right at last,” said the robber maiden. "Allons! All's well that ends well, like the Bard once said! Once Enj has recovered, return to Paris, you two; and, should I ever pass by, I will drop by and pay you a little visit..."
And, having greeted the two of them without even setting foot upon the ground, she carefully helped Enjolras on horseback and spurred her horse into a steady trot, a right pace to carry the wounded blond safely, as Grantaire followed them on foot, trudging forth at the same pace. She smiled brightly, but very wearily at both of them, the entire time. "I feel I will never be able to thank you enough." She had pushed the upright Enjolras against the horseback, praising him for his bravery of storming into the Killer Queen's palace, and he had toppled face down between the maiden's strong shoulder-blades.
The great forest of beeches and chestnut seemed to take a much shorter time to traverse this time than it had on the outward journey, and yet it seemed that the spaces under the trees were less dark, yet nevertheless slightly gloomy, now that a life, that of a seriously injured yet healthy young person, hung in the balance. Though he lay gasping with the fire of the fever, there was not yet the time for anyone near to raise the cup to his burning lips.
"Actually, you and I," Éponine told Grantaire with an unusual look of concern, that day at dusk, "have not only been prisoners there of our own device, like all our predecessors as her captives; both of us are a rare case. Survivors. We two may have lived through the Green Faery's toils, but most others died because of the draught... —or, I should say, of withdrawal from that green blood of hers. Like honey to the throat, but poison in the blood. Those who had been at her keep for years and had been fed a daily diet of it were not able to adjust to life without the Green Faery. The withdrawal was a terrible thing, causing a violent trembling of the entire body, vomiting, and eventually an abrupt halt of breathing. Then, heart failure..."
Éponine and Grantaire locked eyes with one another and shuddered. Both of them had been lucky to be loved, for, otherwise, their destiny would have been far different, and they would most surely have never met. If neither of them had been rescued and redeemed by their loved ones, Éponine and Grantaire would have never come alive. And yet there had been a great price to be paid... thus, all that was left was to hope, even though there was only one chance for the wounded boy to live out of twenty, and to quench the thirst of the senseless, febrile leader, for, as the robber maiden herself had explained:
"As for our dear little Enj, there is hope as well; I know my shortcuts through the woods of this region, or I'm not a Thénardier! That injury of his is not lethal, but nevertheless quite serious. In fact, I've heard, or so Papa and Maman told, of surgeons during wartime who healed worse injuries, and the wounded nearly all survived in those cases, even living their whole lives with hot lead inside their chests. Though, as we have discussed before, this injury is dead serious, and will not heal easily... Surely he'll be all right within two weeks at least!"
And thus, they at once resolved to restore the leader to life and health. And with such a good pathfinder, they were far from losing all hope. Comfortably lying in an improvised stretcher on horseback, Enjolras tossed feverishly, coughing up blood and asking for a drink. The nearest spring or pond was far closer than the Château Fauchelevent, quoth the robber maiden; by the crystal-clear freshwater, all three of them could have a rest and a drink until the next morning; the forest itself was full of new, green leaves, and the twittering of finches.
By the time they encamped by said spring, a tranquil lily-pond, and gently lowered him from horseback, Enjolras was deeply lethargic and as pale as death, a clammy cold sweat beaded his brow, and two dark purple crescent circles or eye bags shaded his shut eyelids. They called his surname, but he did not answer. His eyes were closed, his pale lips did not respond to their kisses. His breathing was wheezy and whistling; deep within his chest, a muffled bubbling or gurgling sound could be heard. As Éponine was lighting a campfire, they saw his breath curl into the cold air.
There, as all three of them warmed themselves as soon as possible, he lay upon the spearmint around the spring, with only his half-open shirt on, to ease his breathing. The other two could see his clean lines, all sharp curves and angles; the fair lashes, the fine high bones of his cheeks, the cove where the wings of his collarbone met, the marks of his ribs, faint shadows like the strings of a harp. "A broken harp," Grantaire mused with a heavy sigh, wandering and wondering at that perfect set of harp-string ribs-- how could he have dared to shatter them?
What began to trouble them the most was his temperature—every few hours, his skin glowed with fever; the leader was burning up from inside. Seeing him struggle against the heat, hearing him grunt with pain and mumble deliriously—they were punches to that broken heart.
As if Éponine could read the dark student's thoughts, she cupped his stubbled face and reassured the broken lover's anxieties:
"No, there is no fear... there is no fear for now at least..."
Only twice before had she felt so helpless: when Cosette and her guardian failed to come to her own parents' aid, and when she and Enjolras had parted before the host of korrigans. Desperation to save him had swelled in her chest, just as it did now. Desperation, then determination. But, on the first and the second time, the way to save them had been clear: first she'd gone forth to the nearest large town to seek her fortune, and then, on the second time, she'd braced herself for confronting the host of otherworldly swordsmen. With this scenario—what could she do other than ease his sufering?
I’ll think of something, she thought as she kicked at a clump of furze. She trudged onward. The wounded leader's mumbling faded, and worriedly, Éponine searched for his pulse, fingers pressed to the left and right of his trachea.
The heartbeats were faint and erratic. Arrhytmia.
She brushed her hand against his lilywhite forehead. As Enjolras slept, the sweat on his skin dried into flakes of ice.
“He looks way better. More colour in his cheeks.” To demonstrate his point, the lush cupped Enjolras' skin. But, though he put on the bravest of his brave faces, that façade of irony was crumbling at the seams.
The fair leader did not look better. His face stayed deathly pale. His lips were blue from the cold, and his hair was thick with frost. “Mmm...” he mumbled in his sleep.
Éponine gritted her teeth. She didn’t add that his wound hadn’t ceased to bleed. It’d slowed, but every time she checked his bandages, the blood was still warm, still fresh. There was nothing she could do to stop it. Trying to hide her despair, she urged Grantaire and the horse to walk faster.
Stupid, stupid, stupid! the lush berated himself. If he'd been a better lover, they'd be marching towards the Place de la Bastille now while shouting to all about their victory. Instead, he’d gotten their leader gravely injured.
"Hold on!" Grantaire slapped his beloved gently in the face and clasped his lilywhite, cold, pulseless wrists. "Hold on, Enjolras!"
In response, the fair leader's eyelids parted ever so slightly, a ray of elation shining in his glossy ice-blue irises. He let out another ragged breath, and his features contorted with agony.
"Ah... 'Ponine... Grand'R...! Ah... Left... side... crushed..."
Éponine touched his forearm. “I’m here,” she said, even though she knew her words wouldn’t help him with the pain. She couldn’t bear seeing him suffer like this.
I’ll never forgive myself if he dies, she thought miserably. Hope we can save Enjolras' life. He’s a good man. He doesn’t deserve to die.
Of course, she got no reply. She hadn’t expected to.
For a while, the two other young people lifted him up and, touching him on the back, realised that the back of the ribcage, and the spinal cord, were intact.
"Could you try to explain what you feel like?" the dark student softly asked his fair leader.
"I feel..." Enjolras tried to put it into as few words and as clear words as possible, considering his own state and his friends' concerns, "like a flow of blood... rising... at every respiration... Je respire... difficilement..."
His voice was barely a whisper, broken with coughs and red foam from his lips every now and then, like that of a consumptive; the bleeding in his lungs and the pain from the crushed side rendered his breathing that difficult and made every word he uttered a bayonet stab to the left side.
"Je me sens trop mal... Depuis quelques jours... ce coup de... m'empêche de respirer..." Enjolras swallowed, feeling his throat dry and moistened his dry lips to speak. His voice was so raspy he didn’t even recognize it at first.
"Hush!" the Thénardier girl commanded, putting an index finger to the cold bloodstained lips.
"I hope we can save him in time..." Grantaire sighed, filling a tankard Éponine kept in her knapsack with clear spring water to quench the thirst of his beloved. "This young man cannot die. This young man will not die... And the way we suddenly became ourselves
again. I am--we are most grateful to you."
The cold lips curled upwards into a pale smile. Enjolras bit his lips to stifle a groan of pain and stop the blood-flow welling within his chest. Still Éponine stepped up front and kept on chiding, and Grantaire now chimed in on her side:
"Quiet, Enjolras... or you will kill yourself! Please do not speak; your healing, your life itself, is at stake!"
"I will n... I will not..." Enjolras muttered softly. "There's no one else... can warm my heart... be not gone! Love me... or die... now you... just like that evening... Café Musain...!"
Those last words were interrupted by a violent blood-coughing fit, and Éponine, in response, pushing the scarlet kerchief she wore over her bonnet over the wounded leader's mouth, for a handkerchief:
"No speaking! Hold on, Enj! Lay still and quiet..." Then she helped the fair leader to drink a little, asking him gently if he had enough and should he need something. He managed to nod or shake his head only, focusing on handling the storm of thought rushing in his mind.
It was Grantaire's stance, and the look in his eyes, which reassured and persuaded Enjolras to finally submit to his convalescence; no matter the burning thirst that parched his throat or the stabbing pain in his left side. He suffered, nevertheless, due to that burning thirst, and often asked for a drink, and asked to be fanned with an open palm or Éponine's scarlet bonnet. A tankard held to those lips by his kind-hearted lover or by the Thénardier girl merely lasted for an instant ere it was emptied.
"Je sens quelque chose... qui se soulève... dans ma poitrine. Je vivrai... je vivrai du moins... embrassez-moi... Grand... R..."
And, in response, he felt the dark stubble on an ill-shaven face brushing against his right cheek, then the split ends of whiskers brushing against his forehead... but what were those cool droplets falling upon his pale features? It was a clear night, so it was not drizzle; and it was too early for morning dew. Grantaire was shedding tears upon the fair leader's face, and furthermore sobbing, as he gave those warm, soothing kisses. Yet at first Enjolras did not recognise the one who reassured him with those tokens of endearment.
"Qui m'embrasse?" Those blue eyes were drowning in darkness, and his thoughts were once more confused.
"C'est moi, Grantaire-a", he heard a deeper voice piercing through the haze, not entirely, but enough for the doubt to be cleared.
"Merci... mon ami..." said Enjolras in his now usual weak voice; an interrupted voice which indicated a reduplication of his suffering. His thirst was now increasing; tossing feverishly in his cool spearmint bed, he motioned towards the open palm of Grantaire's left hand to tell wordlessly that he needed fanning, and wearily put the empty tankard back into the dark student's grasp, pointing at the lily-pond. Soon Grantaire returned with the refilled cup, which he put to Enjolras' lips right-handed, as the dark young man himself, to procure some solace for the fair leader, stroked and gently rubbed the middle of Enjolras' chest with a large, knotty, warm left palm.
There was still a pulse within, fluttering and somethimes dashing against the sternum, like a butterfly held in the clasp of a child's shut hands. Though a wavering heart, it was young and strong, and struggling at its utmost: there was still hope, in spite of that rattling breathing and erratic heartbeat, Grantaire thought with a sigh of relief. Remembering the pains he had endured for endless nights, when the coolest draught changed, within his seared mouth, into molten lead. A transient shudder ran down his spine. On the other hand, Enjolras drank deeply to quench his inward heat, proving that there was far more hope than sorrow. Whenever he was brought a refreshing drink, he drank it all up, without leaving a single drop.
And, all night long, they watched the fair leader, counted his pulse's flagging stir, felt for his shallow breath, held water from that spring to his lips, which he quaffed most eagerly, and cooled his face with damp cloth and fanning leaves, until the mists that clouded his bright intelligence condensed and lulled him into deep sleep.
"How cool I feel..." Enjolras muttered, soothed by these refreshing gestures, "I must be getting better;" and he sank into a delicious slumber.
All the blood he had lost, and all that struggle for life, awakened within the wounded leader a powerful urge to rest; and thus, gradually surrendering all his strength, he sank down exhausted on the soft, fresh spearmint, laying his weary golden head in Grantaire's lap.
"Goodnight, sweet prince-a..." the lush whispered in his ear, as he gave those ice-cold lips a goodnight kiss.
All night long Enjolras tossed about until his strength failed, and awoke the next morning in a high fever. His weakness hardly allowed him to speak, the words welling up as nothing more than low groans from a choked throat, and the friends who accompanied him lived in a state of perpetual anxiety about his state of health.
During the journey to the Fauchelevents' estate grounds, Éponine and Grantaire got to know one another better, and both of them were reassured by the fact that they had found kindred spirits. She told him of Cosette and of her uncertainty on how the new heiress would receive a garçon manqué in such worn clothing, and if she would remember, and display kindness towards, her childhood acquaintance; and, in response, he told her of why he was so concerned with Enjolras' state of health, and wished for his fair leader to return alive:
"I met this boy: I loved him as I had never loved anyone or anything before: I had no need to labour to win his affection - he was mine by right: he loved me, even as I loved him, from the first: he was the necessary complement to my soul. How dare the world presume to judge us? What is convention to us? Nevertheless, although I really knew that such a love was beautiful and blameless, although from the bottom of my heart I despised the narrow judgement of the world, yet for his sake, I tried at first to resist. I struggled against the fascination he possessed for me. I would never have gone to him and asked his love; I would have struggled on till the end: but what could I do? It was he that came to me, and offered me the wealth of love his beautiful soul possessed. How could I tell to such a nature as his the hideous picture the world would paint? And thus, if I should die, and if he should die, let me die by his side, and let him die by my side, most surely with his hand in mine and my hand in his, while we are still young, facing the barrels of the Crown's firearms. Only then can our purposes be fulfilled..."
Now Éponine understood that she was feeling more or less the same towards Cosette, and replied with an ironic smirk. They still carried the wounded Enjolras as carefully and as quickly as they could, though he was still pale and unconscious and sleeping as deeply as any critically injured person would be sleeping.
Still the hurt to his side made him suffer a lot, and still he often found his own mouth full of blood."Je me sens trop mal... Depuis quelques jours... ce coup de... m'empêche de respirer... There is no water here... my throat is dry and burning! there is fire and ice within me, and the air is so heavy! Ah!" Those were the thoughts he was unable to put into words, given his state of health, tossing feverishly and gasping for breath, writhing in pain like a trampled snake, but could only express with a violent blood-coughing fit, low groans from a choked throat, or a pat on the back of one of the two riders who gently transported him on horseback. And always Grantaire was there, softly pouring through those parted lips, overcome by the agony of thirst, a deep draught from a flask refilled at the closest clear rill or spring to refresh his beloved, reassured by the swallowing reflex which proved that life still nestled, and resisted, within the wounded young man; or fanning his pale forehead with a flick of the wrist and an open palm. As usual, whenever he was brought a refreshing drink, he drank it all up, without leaving a single drop.
"How cool I feel..." Enjolras muttered, whenever he was gently fanned, "I must be getting better;" and he sank into a delicious slumber.
When they left the woods, and reached the green fields and the river on the other side of them. That was when they caught their first glimpse of the Château Fauchelevent in the distance. Though the fair leader was too worn-out, sleeping in a dreamless darkness, his breathing still rattling within the throat and chest, to realise how close the hope of saving his life was.
At best, it was two days’ journey. But for Enjolras, each hour was a battle to live. The others could hear the pain in his breath; they could see it whenever his chest rose and fell.
"This is all my fault," Éponine said wretchedly.
"Don't listen to your regrets," the lush replied. “Chin up. You’re strong, and you’re smart. Heck, you defeated an army of korrigans. You’ll get Enj through this, won't ya?”
“I hope so.”
“Keep talking to him,” the Marseillais suggested. “Make your voice soothing, like a good cuppa tea.”
She rolled her eyes, but she desperately wanted to believe in those words.
“You can make it, Enj,” she said to the wounded leader. She touched his arm, then clasped his hand, warming his cold fingers with her own. “Whatever battle you’re fighting in there, I’m going to help you.”
As they thought of how his heart had stopped, and how close they'd come to losing him, their own hearts faltered. Especially Grantaire's.
He'd screamed at Éponine to help him, to do something. And she had pressed bandages made from his torn shirt against the wound in his chest, and then she had put the heels of her hands over his heart and started pushing. One, two, three, stop. One, two, three, stop. Over and over again, and, with every push, the bandages had become redder. For endless, agonizing seconds, nothing had happened, and then Enjolras had groaned and started breathing again. The fair leader had lived — barely. The broken ribs had missed his heart by an inch, but had badly damaged his left lung. Though the artery remained unscathed, he'd lost a great deal of blood and had been deprived of oxygen. Would he recover? Could he fully come back from such terrible injuries? Neither Grantaire nor Éponine did know. No one did. Enjolras himself couldn't tell them. He was still unconscious.
"Stay still! The doctors will... gonna be here soon...! So hang in there! just hang in there... for a little while..." Their banners were hung down, their steps were muffled, and each one's head dropped upon their chest as they marched along; for they grieved for the young blond their leader, who had been wounded in the strife; and they feared his days were numbered.
As the sad news was spread abroad, the locals streamed from their thresholds and followed the few troops, sorrowing for the young warrior, whose valour when he had left the shire they almost worshipped. And, as they marched silently after the trio, each one cursed within themselves the ghastly trade of war.
When the mournful tidings reached the estate owners' ears, Cosette ran to meet the dying boy, and took his carotid pulse, while Grantaire was saying to himself: "And must the hope of the nation be blighted in the bud, when the harvest-time was near?"
"I hasten to really send a carriage and a physician;" with these words, Marius turned his back upon the convalescent and his friends, and sallied forth towards the nearest doctor's office, all the while humming a favourite melody from a Shakespearean play or the operatic adaptation thereof. Enjolras was, shortly thereafter, carried in a stretcher into a well-airy spare room at the château, a bedroom which was neither too hot nor too cold, where Captain Delacroix, a retired military surgeon, a friend of the family, examined his injuries and realised that the ends of the broken ribs must have torn into the left lung, nearly very close to the heart. The bleeding was profuse, and nearly impossible to stop.
"'E's got three broken ribs, one of which has punctured the lung. Lost a pair of litres o' blood. 'E must 'ave several internal lesions because, surely, de savateur 'as kicked 'im and trodden on 'im more than once. A snowball's chance in purgatory would maybe prove too optimistic a result... Dat's not something Yours Truly can't repa-air, so that it sticks together once more, or odderwise he'll bleed out to death at noon," Captain Delacroix pensively shook his head as he approached the wounded, still senseless young lad. "Three fractured ribs; he has lost a great amount o' blood, and I'm sure there are also internal injuries... Will you let me fix 'im?" Without waiting for an answer, he shoved all the others aside.
"I think I know this man from my parents' tales..." mused Éponine. "He repaired soldiers and other folk with all the dignity of a whole Faculty of Medicine, of those who write down certificates for a soap factory..."
"Aye aye," the surgeon replied. "This sense of déjà-vu... ain't ya the Thénardiers' girl? Anyway... Messieurs, Mesd'moiselles, you might as well return 'ome and look around there within an hour; surely, Yours Truly is responsible for keeping 'im alive... Don't be a milksop! A decent surgeon will take out the shards. He'll only have a little scar for a keepsake..."
Yet, in spite of this upbraiding, all the other guests at the Fauchelevents', always on tenterhooks about the fair leader's state of health, declined the offer and preferred to keep him company.
"Naturellment, this Enjolras lad deserves everything. We must do for him everything we should do for a sick little boy's sake. And don't forget to take his temperature regularly, as Delacroix just said."
Two weeks had passed since he'd almost died, and he was still in a coma; the high amount of blood he had lost brought a powerful urge for lots of rest. Éponine and Grantaire, the latter now having cast aside his catskins, dressed in a far more socially acceptable ensemble of waistcoat on shirt and trousers, went to visit him morning and night, twice a day, always hoping for a sign —a twitch of his hand, a flutter of his eyelashes—, but they never got one. Though the sleeping blond had contrived to seize that snowball's chance in purgatory wich the surgeon had so pessimistically calculated.
The doctors had told that they'd done all they could. That the Fauchelevents and their guests must prepare themselves for the worst —that Enjolras might remain in a coma for the rest of his life. It would be better to put him out of his misery, indeed, but, for all the sorrow, there still was hope.
The only reasons they all knew he was still alive was the slight rise and fall of his chest, the occasional flinch of his brow, and the faint tinge of colour that had returned to his cheeks. Compared to Enjolras, most ordinary humans were fragile and weak, and clung to existence with uncertainty, without strength. An iron health and a yearning to live unknown to others had the fair leader clinging to life with all of his strength, with all his heart and soul, with a stubbornness that, in ancient times, all the equally tenacious life on Earth had shared.
Cocooned under the covers lay Enjolras, like a beautiful marble figure, his splendid features rigid and pale, his long, slim body wasted away, his hands inert and still, his golden locks spread over the white pillow, like liquid light, and his long lashes made great dark lines beneath his eyes. Oh, how beautiful he was! How beautiful, beautiful! Thus Grantaire felt all his great love mount like a wave within his chest, overcoming every other feeling. Feeling as if he must fall down and kiss that marble face; that he must lay he dark head upon that still heart; and then for one horrible moment he thought he was already dead.
"No, no," whispered the savateur; "he still lives, but the flame of life within him flickers, as if at any moment the smallest breath would blow it out! Has he, then, found that which will bring him back to me?"
And the sick man seemed to smile at his healer, and then for a short, wonderful moment the latter pressed his lips to his burning ones.
Éponine and Grantaire talked to him, sang to him, told him about their days, and the new challenges they brought, as if he could answer. He was still there; they knew he was. And they all refused to give up hope. He had broken three ribs, they had wounded one of his lungs, and he breathed with great pain and difficulty, which increased daily. It was a consequence of his hurt, that he spoke so low as to be scarcely audible; therefore, he spoke very little. But he was ever ready to listen, and it became the first duty of Grantaire's life to say to him, and read to him, what his lover knew he ought to hear. Even though the bedridden blond was too deeply unconscious, and it hurt too much to speak, to put into words, the thoughts that crossed his fevered mind:
"Wherefore all this trifling? Do you wish to see me pine and pant, and die by inches? I am wasting away; without hope, and tormented by this tragedy. And you see clearly the proof, for the fever is double-stitched to my veins. Let me behold you, and take in payment all my love; for nothing else can cure the troubles I endure."
But when he had thought, again and again, this and a great deal more, and still saw that all his words were thrown away, for they could not be uttered, he took to his bed, and had such a desperate fit that the doctors prognosticated badly of his case. Day and night he lay tossing on his bed in great pain, half-conscious of all around him, and only finding peace whenever Grantaire laid the palm of a hand upon his burning forehead. But as the days passed he grew weaker and weaker. Then his lover, who had no other joy in the world, sat down by his bedside, and said to him, "My love, whence comes all this grief? What melancholy humour has seized you? You are young, you are loved, you are great, you are rich—what then is it you want, my love? Do you not see that your illness is an illness to me? Your pulse beats with fever in your veins, and my heart beats with illness in my brain, for I have no other support of my sorrows than you. So be cheerful now, and cheer up my heart, and do not see the whole kingdom thrown into mourning, this house into lamentation, and your lover forlorn and heart-broken."
For a moment, Grantaire was glad that Enj was unconscious and probably hadn’t heard his confession. He squeezed his lilywhite, cold hand again. "Sleep, Enj. We’ll catch up with the others soon.”
Then—
The wounded one's hand grew warmer, and his breath steadier. In seconds, he gasped, and then began coughing.
And the savateur jolted, relief swelling in his heart. “Enj?”
Suddenly the blond raised himself on one arm and opened his eyes wide, wide – oh, such beautiful eyes! – but they saw nothing clearly, for fever was raging within his weakened body.
“Is it morning already?” he rasped, coughing, as he looked left and right, and wheezed, clutching his chest and fighting the pain in his lungs.
“You’re awake.” Grantaire instantly dropped his hand, remembering that the blond was his commanding officer. He fumbled for his own canteen. “Here, have some water.”
The leader tried to sit up.
“Easy,” the dark young man said. “Your side is still crushed.”
Enjolras winced, then laid his head back down on the lacy pillows and let out a groan. “Where are we?”
“At the Fauchelevent estate. In a spare bedchamber meant for guests.”
"Where are the others?"
Trust Enjolras to get straight to business, even when he was critically wounded. "'Ponine, and the masters? In the parlour. Not far."
And he paused, already dreading the answer before he asked, “Is the pain better?”
A shadow passed over the leader's wan face. Suddenly, he looked vacant and lost; the sick man's eyes were wide open with the terrible fever which had his body in its grasp.
When Enjolras heard these words, he softly said, "Nothing can console me but the... cough! but the fact that we... cough! will both live through this ordeal... cough! Therefore, if you wish to see me well again, let Grand'R... be brought into this chamber; I will have... no one else to attend... me, and... make my bed, and... cook for me, but Grand'R... himself; and you may be sure that this pleasure will make me well in a trice."
"Ennj?" The savateur put a knotty palm against the leader’s cheek. His skin burned with fever, much hotter than before. “Ennj, wake up.”
“I don’t want my father to see me like this,” Enjolras mumbled. He blinked drowsily. "Not Combeferre, or Courfeyrac, either..."
The other student looked down at his febrile leader. “Um, his eyes are looking glassy, and his skin’s red. He’s not looking too hot. Well, if you want to be totally accurate, he is looking hot—”
“Yes, I know,” the Thénardier girl interrupted from behind the curtain, a note of panic in her voice.
Thereupon Grantaire, realising that his fair beloved was far too unconscious to recognise him, and although he thought it ridiculous enough for himself to act as cook and chambermaid, and feared that Enjolras was not in his right mind, yet, in order to gratify him, he came up to his bed, and felt the patient's pulse (which made Éponine laugh outright as she peeped behind the curtain). Then the leader said in a faint voice, "My dear... Grand'R... if it is really... will you not... wait... upon me?" and Grantaire nodded his rumpled dark head, with a friendly smile.
His brows rose; he glanced around hastily to see if anyone were listening, then he took Enjolras' other hand. "We must observe a few proprieties," he said softly, smiling. "Not even I have had a whole night in my Ennj's bed--he had been too ill. But I know I mean no harm. Assume I wish to tend to him during the night with my little arts so that he can heal faster."
"If you can do that, you will. But--"
"Then I may."
At first the Marseillais had no success at all getting him to drink the soup. Every time he’d tipped the bowl to his parted lips, the soup just dribbled out of his mouth. Once or twice his teeth clenched, as if he were in terrible pain. So he watched him, waiting for any sign that he might awaken. But he didn’t.
Then the physicians had some foxglove syrup brought, on a silver platter and with a silver spoon, and the dark student put a spoonful of the syrup to the lover's cold lips, watching his throat work as he swallowed it down; it felt so delicious that Enjolras, who could not relish even sugar, licked his fingers at the taste. And when he had done with the syrup, Grantaire handed him a drink of laudanum with such grace that Enjolras, if he had not sunken back into sleep on the fluffy lacy pillows, overcome by the narcotic drug after eagerly quaffing it, was ready to kiss the dark lover on the forehead. For every draught of water, or of laudanum, or of arnica tincture, he would have gladly expressed thanks.
Lying in bed only allowed as much, he’d knew each corner of the room by heart. While at first the sight was wondrous, it quickly lost its luster. It was a pretty and rich chamber, but it served as a time capsule, preserving the sleeper in its comfortable bed, keeping him tucked and sweating in the thick covers.
As the weeks went by, he didn’t dream since the fevers and pain let him fall asleep in a deep dark unconsciousness, from which he resurfaced just to be tended by others. Grantaire washed his tired body with wet towels, Sara, the pretty dark-haired maid with violet eyes, brought him food and sometimes they both came together to hang around and chat with him, when he wasn’t sleepy.
Of course Cosette and Marius had been heartily glad to finally be able to repay at least part of their gratitude when, on a lovely springtime day, brought to their estate a seriously wounded stripling, surnamed Enjolras. In the quester's absence, the heiress had just married the boy with the boots that squeaked on the marble floor.
Thus, turned an authentic prisoner of kindness, unable to move the slightest because of his bandages, the fair leader was bedridden for weeks, months, seasons, all autumn and winter long. The young guest had at first given them a lot of concerns, since the surgeon had given all hope for lost, for the bone-shards lodged in his lungs could not be taken out. But luckily, there was also at least one more tender and bolder person, who utterly refused to convince herself that one, at the age of nineteen (for he guessed him far younger than he was), could die from such a trifle as a few broken ribs, which had barely pierced a lobe of the left lung and left shards remaining right beside the spinal cord. It was Grantaire who now began to care for the wounded stripling, and who now, since the surgeon had courteously taken his leave, with a decent compensation for his concern and his lack of words, took upon himself and himself alone the responsibility and the care for the young man's recovery.
Though there was much sorrowing for Enjolras, none sorrowed more than the one who had suffered the most from him; Grantaire, now that the leader's life was in peril, felt all that love for him return, and, forgetting the wrong he had done, thought of him only as the high-minded boy who had won his broken heart. And the lush besought the others that he might tend to him in the hour of danger; so that, with a gentle hand, he might strive to hold back the life that struggled to be gone.
Soon, the other young people realised, to their pleasure, that the patient could not have wound up in better hands. The savateur was not an initiate in this set of skills, though he nursed the fair leader to the best of his limited ability and interest. No practising surgeon, military or civilian, could be more skilful than he in setting up a bandage or soothing a septic fever; and utterly no disciple in the healing art could be second to him when it came to indefatigable attention and catering to the wounded one's slightest wishes. So he waked for the first week, sitting by day and by night beside the bed of the leader, thinking that, in the delirium of his fever, he knew not the hand that dressed his wounds and bathed his burning brow, and held a cooling draught to his lips. If even then Enjolras could not rest, there was, ever in the depth of that odd-even hour of the night, a kindly hand near to bathe his burning brow, or moisten those parched lips with cooling drink. Then, as those skilled in medicine came, the savateur would listen breathlessly to each word they spoke, and beg of them, ere they went, to tell him or the hosts that all hope was not yet fled, and that by care his life might yet be saved.
And, when they turned away and answered not, Grantaire would return to Enjolras' couch, to tend him with redoubled and even retripled tenderness, so that his love might compass what their art would fail in.
But still the savateur tended him in vain; for, despite his care, the wounds grew worse, and the fair leader, with the torment of it, knew no rest. Each day the doctors would answer that the youth would surely perish.
As Grantaire heard the sick Enjolras moan and writhe with his pangs day after day, and night after night knowing neither rest nor sleep, he thought of the one he loved, thinking to himself about how blessed sleep was sent from within to give new life and ease one of one's pains... could that same urge not teach the way to give slumber to the suffering, and rob Nature of its bitterest agony?
It was not until after the ninth day, when the worst threats were overcome and the injury was quickly on its way to healing, that he allowed himself a few hours of rest, slumped down upon the covers by the fair leader's side. Enjolras himself was on the way to recovery. Then his eyelids drooped, while his groans died away, and the one whose torments had let him know no rest for weeks lay wrapped in the happy ears of slumber. And, as he slept, the shattered side was stroked by a callous left palm that had been both an artist's and a dockworker's.
There were soft cushions, perhaps a full dozen, here in the corner. The vividness of their colour, their designs and texture, stood out to Grantaire, in a mind far less hazy than it had been in weeks, months even. This corner, this spot, these cushions suddenly felt familiar; and here sprang to his mind a few smatterings of memories, memories of fleeting but lovely moments shared with this dear beautiful person.
Still in that state of half-consciousness, Enjolras had, without the slightest idea of who his caregiver was, received the foxglove or arnica syrups and laudanum from a rough, trembling hand and, with a feeling of gratitude, he had been a witness to the stranger's constant cares. He felt an unexplainable thankfulness towards this unknown male presence, who, at his wordless questions, did not have any reply himself but a silent, well-intentioned nod of courtesy. But one day, when he sat by his bedside, believing the patient asleep, Grantaire had, exhausted by his efforts and sleepless nights, leaned his weary head againt the covers; his eyelids had, against his will, fallen together, and he had fallen asleep, without knowing it himself. Enjolras himself woke from out his trance and did not sleep; he had for a while considered the dark stranger, in silent awe. Thereafter, he slowly tucked away the black fringe of hair from the sleeper's forehead, to see for once who this stranger full of secrets was, the one that he had to thank for his life -- and, the longer he contemplated those pale, homely yet charming features, and those shut eyelids with their black silky lashes, the higher there rose like a warm wave around his heart; his tears began, like a spring filled to the brim, to surge out of their concealed depths; and he flung both his slender arms around the corded neck of the once unknown, now recognised sleeper. Then, he had awakened; then, those two hazel eyes, which Enjolras had once so frequently shunned, but which now, having learned who and how had tended him in his anguish, in his own humble opinion, knew no equal in the whole wide world -- those two shining suns had, at once, come out of the pall of clouds and beheld him with unexplainable love -- and there they lay, both of them, after long ages of pain and estrangement, once more in one another's arms. Such instants are unforgettable: they become eternal and can nevermore be erased from our memories, neither in this life nor in future ones.
But then Grantaire, with gentle violence, had once more pushed his beloved away, and covered his brow with tickling stubble-kisses, whisker-kisses, and obliged him to seek rest and tranquillity; and Enjolras had once more fallen asleep, with the most positive feeling he had ever experienced. What did it mean now, his short, transient bodily pain! Now, everything was once more all right, now he had Grantaire again, now the fair leader was no longer alone, and neither was the savateur alone on his own, now they would nevermore be parted, now they could devote their whole lives to one another, to make each other happy. And Enjolras thought of that final kick, of those ribs which had plunged in so close to his heart, but only to prepare it for such a great elation; oui, he even felt thankful towards Grantaire's change of heart and towards the Lady in the Green Kirtle, without whose loveless way of acting he would have never enjoyed the exhilaration of such a reunion.
The next day, both of them had regained enough serenity to open up their hearts to one another and tell each other of everything that had transpired during their separation. Enjolras' tale was straightforward, open, heart-upon-sleeve; while Grantaire could not be equally honest. In his story, he had to come to grips with his own weakness and heartlessness -- and so he did, with such fine diplomacy that, at the end of the day, the blame for his sorrows finally fell on the decade's powerful prejudices and social differences, which the individuals still tried in vain to defy and overthrow:
"For we all are, after all, but helpless little things," he sighed. "Why should we seek fulfillment at the end of the day?"
"There will come a time, mon chéri Grand'R, when no one is born better or worse than the others, when there will be no other nobility than a person's own human value and worth. But this realisation carries within itself a completely new, brave new era... Why should we complain that the mighty pine rises in all its splendour, when we see the cone take root into the ground before our very feet? There are not many tears left to be shed, not many sighs left to be breathed, ere all these prejudices melt like snowdrifts in the springtime sun! You are a young man, and I am a young man; let us do our best, faithfully give our all for the rights of humanity; then, even though we may never live to see it, future will belong to you and me and everyone!"
"Oui... why not, Ennj? I have already thought of that. When I came to Paris, I made the acquaintance of some young students, whose surnames I recall by heart. If you know how often I had mocked them when we all spoke of the same subject, of how all human beings would one day be free and equal...! But you have not told me anything of your feelings during the quest."
"Let us shift the conversation to something happier," Enjolras replied with a shrug of his shoulders, thinking of an evasive maneuver.
In response, Grantaire turned his back upon him. It was something that he could not put into words yet. He merely gave this curt reply:
"Don't talk so much, mon Ennj; it forces you to make an effort, right? When you have regained your health, we shall have another talk about our future and everyone's..."
Of course the fair leader had been bandaged and calmed, an ice packet on his chest and a hot water bottle at his feet—though he woke from nightmares every time he tried to sleep.
“Grantaire,” Enjolras breathed, because even though he had a revolution to plan and to lead, he knew that this was vital too.
Grantaire’s lips parted in recognition, but he did not reach for Enjolras’ hair again. They were content to twine their hands together for now, and to wait.
Thereupon, Grantaire gently pushed Enjolras to one side, and quickly set about making the bed; and, running into the garden, he gathered a clothful of roses and citrus blossoms and lavender, and strewed them over it, so that the staff and the household of the château said that this gauche, unkempt young man was worth his weight in gold, and that the fair convalescent had good reason to be fond of him. He no longer refused Grantaire's assistance, but, softened by the sickness, gladly took from the hand of his lover any cooling draught he offered. Their constant presence lessened one another's tediousness of the slow creeping hours. How could Enjolras have remained insensible to so much love, to the self-denial exercised for his sake by a person whom he had hitherto overlooked!Grantaire’s lips parted in recognition, but he did not reach for Enjolras’ hair again. They were content to twine their hands together for now, and to wait.
"Bonsoir," said the nurse as the dark student went into Enjolras' room, which was always well-airy, neither too hot nor too cold either.
"Has there been any improvement?" Grantaire asked hopefully, as he did every single time he came to visit Enjolras.
"I'm afraid not," the nurse said.
"We've changed the flower arrangement beside his bed, though, so he has something fresh to look at."
"Thank you," she replied, glancing at the glass vase on the nightstand table, where a new pattern of orange blossoms, purple lavender, and pink roses had been laid out. Enjolras' blank eyes stared at it.
Is he seeing them? Grantaire wondered. Can he hear me? Does he even know I'm here?
The moon was casting bluish stripes on the floor, the wind’s howling could be heard as it escaped through the cracks in the window frame. With the winter gone, it was still a bit chilly. Their larger bodies had usually trouble to fit onto the one-person bed, but seeking warmth made from the other made it all the easier.
Grantaire sat down on the edge of Enjolras' bed and smoothed a lock of golden hair off his forehead. "We're ready, Ennj," he said, sharing his day with him, as he did every evening. He smoothed the fair leader's negligée and fastened an open button. He was sitting quite calmly, with half his nightshirt on. One could see his clean lines, all sharp curves and angles; the fair lashes, the fine high bones of his cheeks, the cove where the wings of his collarbone met, the marks of his ribs, faint shadows like the strings of a harp. He gently lifted Enjolras' head and fluffed the pillow underneath it, tucking the blond right into bed and pushing the pillow behind his back to keep him from falling and from getting cold. Then, he took that ice-cold, lilywhite hand in his callous own:
"They're so brave, all of them, so tough, so smart. But this —this National Guard—... How are we supposed to destroy what the first Revolution has made? We were given this task; they believe we can carry it out... but how? Will you be leading like one thousand students into battle, or straight to their destruction?" Here he smiled sadly. "I wish you could tell me."
There they sat for quite some time, saying nothing, Grantaire just holding Enjolras' hand and gazing at his face. "I have to go," he finally said. "Before I go, I have to tell you something. I — I don't know if you'll be here for the moment of truth. All I know is that I love you, Ennj, with all my heart. You were ready to give your life for mine. Maybe you already have. But you are my life. Remember when you set me free? Well, Jehan Prouvaire said something I remember, right before my change of heart." He leaned over and kissed the fair leader's lips. "I disbelieved him then. But now I do believe. Love is the strongest magic."
And the sick man seemed to smile at his healer, and then for a short, wonderful moment the latter pressed his lips to his burning ones. He touched Enjolras' forehead to his own, then quickly left.
Without even looking back. It was easier that way.
If he had looked back, he would have seen it.
A single silver-crystal tear rolling down Enjolras' cheek.
That night as they slept wrapped in each other’s arms again, the savateur caressed golden hair urgently and tried to ignore the anxious feeling dwelling inside his chest. While the fair leader slept deeply and didn’t notice his struggles at all.
Sometimes, secrets have a power over us that we can only dispel by saying them out loud, even if no one's listening.
Marius and Cosette were greatly alarmed and concerned for Enjolras' sake, indeed. For many days his critical condition did not appear to improve, for many days he remained in the same state. But now he found himself better, a favourable change was noticed; the fever left him, sleep returned, and with it, although slowly, strength as well. Little by little, he recovered strength. The wounded leader showed absolutely no disposition or desire for conversation, and therefore all refrained from addressing him. With visual signs mostly, seldom with words, did he make known his wishes, which were at once gratified; expressing his will with a wink of an eye, a flick of the wrist, or as much as a few short words. Thus, they avoided at first to speak to him during this stage of his recovery.
"He's still unconscious. He woke up a couple hours ago, but he’s been out since then. He is sleeping now; he is still weak from his wounds. He was very agitated, though, and I had to give him double the portion of laudanum, and soothe his brow with a cool, wet cloth upon his forehead," Grantaire told their most generous hosts. "He's stopped bleeding. And I don't think the wound is infected, so it's good news. It was very peaceful, holding him in my arms as he settled down to sleep, his golden head resting on my shoulder. It's my duty and my honour to take care of him."
Then, as he asked for water, he saw by the dim light of his chamber a tall and robust figure standing, cup in hand, beside him, in instant answer to his wants. On the face of the one whose worst enemy he had been, there shone so sweet a smile, and, in the cup and canteen he bore, Enjolras read so loving a reproach...
The dark savateur peeled off the cocoon of covers and blankets that his fair beloved had wrapped over his own body, then gently lifted his head and carefully dribbled the water from their canteen through his parted lips.
“Enj... it’s R. As in Grand'R. I’m here. Wake up. Talk to me.” Finally, he mustered all his courage to speak once more in the standard French he had learned upon living in Paris for a while.
The fair leader's head bobbed to the side. “Grand...R?" He sighed and rested his head on the dark man's chest.
"Yesss... I'm here." When he sighed again, the savateur carded his long hair, gently brushing away the strands behind his ear and tracing his eyebrow with an index finger.
“What’s troubling you? I’m here to listen.”
“You know,” he murmured, “I was so frustrated with you at first.”
In response, Grantaire tilted his head.
“You were the worst revolutionary I had ever seen, R. Do you remember? Always last in entering the lecture hall. You couldn’t concentrate, you couldn’t dream of a better tomorrow, but you could light up the mood, you could run, you could fight. I was so certain that you were completely unsuitable for our war—I sent you away.” The fair leader let out a dry chuckle, and for a moment, his eyes opened. “And yet, you surprised me.”
"Surprised you... how?"
“You gave your all,” he continued. He sounded far away, almost delirious. “You got better, and you got smart.” Enjolras closed his eyes. “No, you were always smart. I didn’t see that at first. But I did see that when you got better, everyone else wanted to improve, too. You inspired them to give their all, R.” His voice drifted. “You had faith in them. But I . . . I didn’t have faith in you. “A face that looks as if it’s been punched in, a pug nose, skin always marked by paint and ink, a smile that’s only halfway of a smile….really not a pretty picture but so much a man.”
His eyes opened again, surprisingly clear this time. The Marseillais could see his own face refected in his pupils, framed by pools of deep, deep icy blue.
“I’m sorry.”
“Enj, there’s nothing to be sorry about.”
The fair leader reached for the canteen. He held it himself, hands shaky, and took a long sip. Then he exhaled. “Grand... R, I know I’m dying.”
“You’re not.”
“I can feel it.” Enjolras set down the canteen, and his hand fell to his side on the covers. “You should leave me here.”
“I’m not leaving you,” the savateur said firmly.
The leader coughed, and the corners of his lips lifted into a wry but tired smile. “Still can’t follow orders, can you, soldier?” He coughed again, and Grantaire reached for the pillow, and he carefully arranged it under his head. Sweat beaded his temples, and the dark young man patted his skin dry before it froze. When he blinked again, this time his eyes were bloodshot.
"Enj... Enj, are you all right?"
He let his head sink into the pillow.
“I thought I saw my father earlier.”
“I know,” the other one replied quietly. “You called out for him. And for Combeferre, and Courfeyrac... You must have been dreaming.”
The fair leader turned his head, his azure gaze meeting a hazel one. "In my dream... they were all there." His voice was tight, and Grantaire could tell that he hadn't yet left the thought of losing his life instantly to enemy fire, instead of wasting away bedridden. "He managed a weak laugh. “But here I am, perchance about to die after my first battle in command.”
“You aren’t going to d—”
“I wanted to become a catalyst of revolution," the blond interrupted. “I wanted to win battles and bring freedom and a new bright tomorrow to everyone. Is it selfsh—to wish I could keep living? Is it dishonourable of me, Grand'R? I want to continue protecting our country, our liberty..."
"No," the savateur replied. “It isn’t selfish or dishonourable at all.”
A weary Enjolras lay back, letting his head settle into the pillows.
"The Green Faery won't be the last of our problems. Marianne will always face new threats, new oppressors, new invaders. She needs to have strong, brave men at her side. Men like you, R.”
"Enj," he said, trying again, “stop talking like this.”
“Now that it’s all over, now that my time on this earth may be done, do you know what comforts me the most?”
He waited, so his dark saviour gave in. “What?” he asked quietly.
Enjolras lowered his voice. “That I’ve made a friend like you, R. Someone I can trust completely.”
Tears pricked the edges of those hazel eyes. This time, he didn’t try to hold them back. For he knew he couldn’t. He swallowed, choking on the words. “Stop talking like this. It’s my fault you’re wounded.”
“I went after you to get you back, but you—you saved us. It was an honour to seek you, and to protect you,” the fair leader confessed.
How strange, then, that the savateur's tongue grew heavy. Heavier than with any hangover he had awakened to. There was so much he wanted to tell him. That it was Grantaire's own fault he was hurt; that if only he’d been more alert, he would have anticipated his own imprisonment and that life-or-death confrontation. And he wanted to tell him he was the best leader their troops could have hoped for; a lesser man would have left him to die at the mercy of that sickly green poison, but Enjolras was not only courageous—he believed in his lieutenants and followers, and treated them as part of his team. Grantaire remembered how proud he’d been during their first encounters, when he’d defeated those thugs in one-on-one combat. The satisfied smile that’d lit up his face as he wiped his jaw after his last kick—he would never forget it. Grantaire wanted to tell him that he admired him and had always wanted his friendship.
Oh, how he wanted to tell him the truth! But not now. Not like this.
The silence dragged on. And the savateur knew he should say something, but what? Enj’s words had been so honest, so sincere. He thought of the Marseillais as a true friend, someone he trusted.
Yet not a word could crawl out of his mouth. Only a choke, and a guttural sound which he barely recognized as his own, except that it burned in his throat. So he turned away and fumbled with the canteen so his leader wouldn’t see the tears sliding down stubbled cheeks.
You think he’s a great leader, he reminded himself. That was never a lie, and now... now you think of him as more than a friend, and he thinks of you as one, too.
“I’m glad to be your... 'friend,'” he said quietly.
Enjolras smiled again. A smaller smile than last time— one could tell he was struggling not to show his pain.
"Enj..." His name clung to the martial artist's throat. It hurt to speak. “You can’t give up. You have to fight on. You have to live.”
The bleakness in Enjolras' face, the uncertainty in his words that he was going to die. It couldn’t be!
He took the leader's hand—his cold, limp hand—and entwined his own knotty fingers in his. Then he squeezed gently.
“Yes,” he whispered. “I promise. But you—”
"You... too... R..." Enjolras interrupted. “Don’t blame yourself.” That small smile again. It pained to see it more than it comforted.
The savateur clenched his fists till his nails bit into those rough palms. A silent sob escaped his throat; his lungs burned. “You have to keep fighting. We’ll be in Paris in a few days. Just hang on, Enj. Please.”
“At least now I know...” He stopped to gather his breath, then closed his eyes again. “Now... I know... that our cause... will be in good hands."
So Grantaire lay down by Enjolras' side, propping himself on an elbow, and gently swept a long wisp of fair hair off his face. His jaw was still tight, but his forehead was smooth, and his breathing was quiet. He looked more peaceful than earlier.
Then the savateur rested his head on his own rough palms, and wondered if his beloved leader was dreaming—of his home, his family, their friends back at the Musain. Grantaire hoped so, and hoped he was fighting to live.
He realised how little he knew about Enjolras. He knew nothing about his family other than that his parents had no other child, and that they were wealthy southerners. He didn’t know anything about his life growing up, either; what he liked to eat or read, even where he was from.
As their leader, Enjolras had avoided socializing with the troops. He’d never joined in drinking games or jokes. After meals, he had always retreated to his tent to study battle plans and maps.
Then again, no one had ever sought him out. Now Grantaire, his polar opposite, wished he’d gotten to know him better. He hadn’t realized until now how dedicated Enj had been to ensuring the Amis de l'ABC became a team. Most other revolutionary leaders probably wouldn't even have known his name. But Enj... Enjolras would run alongside him and the other recruits to make sure no man was left behind, he sculpted each follower’s individual weaknesses into strengths, and he had even risked his life—for Grantaire's sake.
Stop thinking like that, he thought miserably. You sound like he’s going to die.
And he watched his chest rise and fall, the movement so imperceptible that he wondered if he imagined it. The savateur couldn’t even hear him breathe. Reaching for his wrist, he kept his own rough hand over his, feeling for his pulse.
Still there. Still faint. Spreading over from the carotid to the arteries of the wrists, and steady though a sickly flutter.
"Enj is not going to die," he whispered aloud. Then choked back a sob. "He's not. There has to be a way to save him..."
He sat up, and cast a glance at the leader, who lay senseless as before, but he was still breathing. "One day he will hear the people sing the anthem of the cause, La Marseillaise, like a confession of supreme love; his followers will expect an example, that their leader will give; in a delirium of exalted courage, he will surrender his body to bullets and his soul to liberty... that brave... Such a noble spirit, such a leader of the quality that I picture myself, will not return from the war... unless a glorious death bestows favours upon him; as he comes across the absolute, duty, conviction; that liberal who, for the blood of his wounds, will deserve knowing me and being loved; who, for his blood, will lose the attainment of his love... because he will die like a hero... but then, I will be there. For his sake. If we can't be together in life, let us be together in death... for evermore. Side by side and shoulder to shoulder with the one I love, I will leave everything else in exchange for a death that is glorious!" There was an excitement in his voice, similar to the one felt upon watching, for the first time in one's life, a sunset or a rainbow.
Then suddenly it seemed that as if a vision passed before his eyes; he saw Enjolras as he had been that first day of their meeting by the macaronnerie, in his golden, gleaming waistcoat, young and healthy; and then he saw him fever-stricken on his bed of suffering, and he knew that he would face enemy fire shoulder to shoulder with the one he loved.
Sometimes, secrets have a power over us that we can only dispel by saying them out loud, even if no one's listening.
When Enjolras finally came to full consciousness in that lavender-scented canopy bed, he opened icy blue eyes that were flicking left and right, and instantly recognised those uneven features perched above his own, still pale, he laughed and sobbed for joy, and kissed that drawn, stubbled face, and his long, clever fingers, so pale and cold. He kissed his dark saviour's eyelids, which were red and haggard-looking from staring so long, unsleeping, under the influence of that green draught, and he buried his face in that curly, matted dark hair and felt as perfectly content as he ever had back home at the Musain, before Grantaire's change of heart, before the sceptic had gone away and his own long, lonely journey had begun.
The more time he spent by the savateur's side, the less monstrous did he look in Enjolras' imagination. He would listen to Grantaire speak in that Marseillais accent and hear him laugh heartily.
Sniff at some flowers that he had brought from a corner of the hedge maze in the gardens, and which the dark one was describing in lavish utmost detail (while not even thinking of Combeferre or the scientific name).
Reach out lilywhite hands, already growing stronger, and embrace a thick corded neck, equally corded strong shoulders, a broad back with a maybe slightly twisted spine.
Feel those open palms rest against something softer and warmer than rock, sinking at least slightly into the skin of the savateur.
And thus, little by little, he began to fall for the least person he ever expected to fall in love with.
The savateur's breath caught. He dared to look down. And saw Enj, his Enj, looking back at him in confusion. His fair face was bruised and scratched; there was a long weal from a savate kick down one bare shoulder. How tall and thin he had become, but he had the same eyes and the same angelic mouth. He looked up at the savateur, but didn't say a word. He looked older, weathered, his pale skin burned by the sun, which had scarcely touched it in years. Grantaire reached down impulsively, touched the gold of his hair. The fierce knot of his heart unclenched, and he felt like laughing and crying at the same time. He did both, not caring that he looked a fool. "Yes, it's me."
The same brightness shimmered in Enjolras's eyes. A little spilled over, and Grantaire traced the shape of the leader's face with his hands and his gaze, as if seeing him for the first time. A small frown gathered between his dark brows. "But where have you been all this time, and where have I been?"
"Lost," Enjolras said hoarsely before lapsing into a coughing fit. "You've been lost... oh, such a long time, my friend."
"But not any more."
"No," he managed at last. "Not any more."
And Grantaire's arms went around him and held him tight while Enjolras kissed his stubbly cheeks, his eyes, his mouth until they all bloomed warm under his caresses, and he knew that no fey queen ever held no power to keep them any longer.
He spent another minute looking the blond over, open mouthed, which his pampered ego appreciated. Finally, when he was done, the leader looked up and said, "Why didn't you come to see me last night?"
Grantaire propped calloused hands on his waist — "I did," he said coolly. "You were asleep."
His forehead crinkled. "What? No, how? I just sat down and... and ... " Lines appeared around his eyes and mouth and he ran one hand over his scar. "No. I don't remember anything."
"If the crushed side is still affecting you," the savateur said, "you could have just told me." Those rock-hard knees now felt like cotton. "I'm sorry," he muttered.
He shook his head, angry now as well as confused. "It's not the side. It's ... I don't know."
His hand came up to rest on top of the other boy's. "We'll find a different way."
"Like what?"
His eyes opened, sleepy and hooded with arousal. "I don't know, but I'm not letting you die."
"What if I don't?"
"Optimistic, aren't you." He turned his head and kissed the inside of the savateur's calloused wrist. The gesture was intimate enough that it would have embarrassed Enjolras even in private, as they were right now.
"Enj..." the other young man tried, and had to clear his throat, and then watch a pair of icy blue eyes flick down to the bob of his laryngeal prominence and up again. He had extraordinary eyes, Grantaire's Lord of Light.
"Is this... no, this cannot be a dream... " He gave a deep sigh as his saviour turned again, and eased back into the pillows. "I heard your voice in my dream.... I didn't want to wake and end the dream. But you kissed me awake. You are real, aren't you?" he asked anxiously as he pulled the savateur out of darkness, into light.He spent another minute looking the blond over, open mouthed, which his pampered ego appreciated. Finally, when he was done, the leader looked up and said, "Why didn't you come to see me last night?"
Grantaire propped calloused hands on his waist — "I did," he said coolly. "You were asleep."
His forehead crinkled. "What? No, how? I just sat down and... and ... " Lines appeared around his eyes and mouth and he ran one hand over his scar. "No. I don't remember anything."
"If the crushed side is still affecting you," the savateur said, "you could have just told me." Those rock-hard knees now felt like cotton. "I'm sorry," he muttered.
He shook his head, angry now as well as confused. "It's not the side. It's ... I don't know."
His hand came up to rest on top of the other boy's. "We'll find a different way."
"Like what?"
His eyes opened, sleepy and hooded with arousal. "I don't know, but I'm not letting you die."
"What if I don't?"
"Optimistic, aren't you." He turned his head and kissed the inside of the savateur's calloused wrist. The gesture was intimate enough that it would have embarrassed Enjolras even in private, as they were right now.
"Enj..." the other young man tried, and had to clear his throat, and then watch a pair of icy blue eyes flick down to the bob of his laryngeal prominence and up again. He had extraordinary eyes, Grantaire's Lord of Light.
Those eyes were widening, watching him. And the savateur couldn't look away. Neither could the leader himself.
Only a deep sigh came as a riposte.
"I've changed," the fair leader said, seeing the colour return to Grantaire's face, seeing the fieriness return...
"Yes," the dark fighter replied. "You have been enchanted, too."
"And so have you, once again."
He shook his head. "You have set me free, mon Enj."
"And I will set you free again," Enjolras said softly, "to marry whom you choose."
He moved again, too abruptly, and winced. His hold tightened on Grantaire's hand.
"Have I lost all enchantment?" the savateur asked sadly. "Did you love the spellbound man more than you can love the ordinary mortal? Is that why you left me?"
The fair leader stared at him. "I never left you--"
"You disappeared," he said wearily. "I thought you could not bear to stay with me through yet another enchantment. I didn't blame you. But it grieved me badly..."
"I was glad when you attacked me, because I thought it might kill me. Then I woke up in my own body, in a strange bed, with a martial artist beside me explaining that we were destined to be one."
The savateur sighed. "I thought it was just another way of being enchanted. Intoxication, a broken heart, marriage to a beautiful lady I don't love--what difference did anything make? You were gone. I didn't care any longer what happened to me." He swallowed, but could not speak.
"Are you about to leave me again?" Enjolras asked painfully. "Is that why you'll come no closer?"
"No," Grantaire whispered. "I thought--I didn't think you still remembered me." He closed his eyes. "For ages I left you my heart's blood to follow..."
"And for all those ages I was too blinded to follow. And then on the last day of the last winter you disappeared. I couldn't find you anywhere. I asked the sun, the moon, the Seine, nobles, brigands. I followed the North Star to find you. It told me how to break the spell over you. So I did-"
His eyes opened again. "You. Enj... You rescued both of us. And then-"
"She took you away from me before I could tell her -I tried-"
His face was growing peaceful in the candlelight. "She doesn't listen very well. But why did you think I had forgotten you?"
"I thought--she was so beautiful, I thought--and I have grown so worn, so strange-"
For the first time in ages, he saw Grantaire smile. That familiar, earnest, heart-upon-sleeve smile, yet laced with a hint of irony. "You have walked the world, or at least the north of France, and spoken to the sun and stream... I have only been enchanted. You have become the one for whom I will die." He pulled Enjolras closer, kissed his hand, and then his wrist, making the pulse throb in the artery underneath. He added, as the blond began to smile:
"You raise the blade, you make the change, you rearrange me till I'm sane... What a poor opinion you must have of my human shape to think that after all these years I would prefer Lilith to Apollo!" He pulled the leader even closer, kissed the crook of his elbow, and then the cove where the wings of his collarbone met. The dark young man sighed and rested his head on the blond's chest. Nuzzled into Enjolras' shirt and rested his chin on the leader's collarbone. And then the blond caught the fighter's lips and kissed him, one hand in his hair, the other in his hand. He spoke lightly, but he always did, even about the heaviest subjects. He tried to appear happy as usual, but Grantaire knew how to read him since long ago.
"She's been drugging me," he said, running a hand through golden hair. "Sleeping herbs in my tea, or whatever draught she poured out, every night before you got there. I'd sit down, have a cup, and pass out before you got past her." He glanced over his shoulder. "I'm sorry she's been bargaining with us like that. I didn't know."
The same brightness shimmered in Enjolras' eyes. When the blond, still pale from his wound, and softened by the sickness, saw all those pretty offices which had been done during his convalescence, they only added fuel to the fire; andhe said finally in that blithe voice of command, that clear and loud voice which his injury had hushed for months. So the savateur waited patiently until the leader broke the silence in a whisper:
"If I do not give this lad a kiss, the breath will leave my body. Kiss me, kiss me, my beautiful beast! Let me not see my poor soul die of longing!"
And thus Grantaire, finally with that cheerfully ironic smile that looked a little like a smirk, cupped Enjolras by the cheeks, and kissed him again and again.
The fair leader himself was taken by surprise.
He felt odd, burning with a strange kind of fever, not one he suffered from the pneumonia. The hazy mind didn’t feel any shame or busy itself with social propriety, somehow here with these young people around, he was sucked in the sensual world and asked himself the simplest of questions.
“Love, what’s it like?”
Again the fever let him speak without a filter and the two young men detached from each other with no shame and after contemplating a while in each other’s embrace, they joined on the bed, just like the newlyweds. Yet they did things very differently than them and yet the same as them at the same time. The kisses could be observed up close and exchanged among the two Amis in silent agreement, permissions were given to wordless questions and nothing felt off.
It was then that Enjolras truly saw him now. Properly and for what he was. Warts and all.
His vision swam and pretty soon it all was blurred in front of him. He could hardly see for his own tears. He heard the trembling voice and worried instantly. And Grantaire himself worried in exchange:
"Enj... you're here! You came for me. I..., I did such bad things to you and… what about all the others, I just… I’m so sorry! How can you ever forgive me?”
"Who else could-would hurt me in order to heal me? I was glad when you attacked me, because I thought it might kill me. Then I woke up in my own body, in a strange bed, with a dark-haired fighter beside me explaining that we were destined to be one..." They cupped one another's face and felt one another shaking from the sobbing.
A surprised Grantaire came to his senses and leaned back, holding that recovering face in his hands. Those glazed white eyes were blue again, and his cheeks were slightly warm and pink. “Enj!” Grantaire could think of no other word, but only pressed his palms to a familiar heart-shaped face face. “Enj, what-”
“Grand... R, I’m sorry!” the wounded leader said, and he sat up and clutched those corded shoulders. “I’m sorry! I love you! Please don’t go! Or take me with you! Don’t leave me, please don’t! I can’t bear it! I love you always! I can’t bear to be without you!” He kissed his lover again and held him tight, and his own tears burned them a little and made them so warm that they took off each other’s coats and jackets and shirts and trousers and shoes and pressed kisses to each other’s bodies.
“I love you too,” came a warm reply. “I love you always.”
And meanwhile, the loving pair’s hearts burned so firey with love, that the snow and frost that lingered in early springtime thawed around them. Now Grantaire pressed into Enjolras again and again, and kissed his warm heart over and over, and even snow that fell melted into mist, and the ground under them had thawed to mud, and the icicles on the trees drip-dropped warm water that turned to steam when it fell to the ground. Even the air around them became warm Even the air around them became warm, so that the good spring faeries alighted on pine branches and were so delighted by the sight of the two men who loved each other that they made grass grow beneath them, and made the leaves grow on the trees around them. The faeries made hedges grow between the trees so no one would bother them, and made the frogs and the crickets who kept to their woodland nooks in winter poke their whole selves out, then sing and chirp so no one would hear them, and made the flowers grow everywhere, even flowers that had never grown in those woods before, so that clumps of deep red pansies pushed out of the ground, and cherry blossoms drifted on a sweet breeze around them, and nasturtium vines climbed the hedges as Enjolras and Grantaire loved each other naked under lilywhite sheets, and even years later after the two young students had left for the Musain since a long time, everyone still wondered how one patch of the Fauchelevent estate had suddenly turned to a beautiful spring day on that time of year.So the fair leader awoke that one day and realized that for the first time, he knew what it was to be happy, and what it was to belong, and for long days afterward he held this new awareness close and thought about the day when he would at last find the courage to tell the secrets that he kept in his heart, the dark memories that he scarcely admitted even to himself, and the fragile, inescapable certainty he felt every time Grantaire looked at him. And on good days, he thought maybe he could see an answering certainty in those hazel eyes, just waiting for him to speak. As for Grantaire... He still loved him but discovering so much about himself on the travels and now seeing him all grown up - he had to admit the leader was incredibly handsome. Just like a prince in a storybook they read as kids. Somehow unreal and unbelievable.
“What do you believe in, then?” Enjolras asked him, burning.
“Honestly?” Grantaire asked, the cat playing in his eyes as he paused the bottle of laudanum at his lips—
“If you are so capable of belief,” Enjolras interjected snidely—
“Nothing,” Grantaire continued; “Nothing but you—“
And they remained in one another's arms, and the ungainly, awkward Marseillais remained in the arms of the most beautiful creature in the world; and pressing the fair leader the tightest he could to his heart, he said:
"I have caught you, my little rogue! You shall not escape from me again without a good reason."
At these words, Enjolras, adding the colour of modesty to the picture of his own natural beauty, said to him:
"I am indeed in your hands—only guard me safely, and stand by my side before every volley of enemy fire, until the bitter end!" And with a cry of joy, he had thrown his arms round his saviour, and a dark head was upon his chest, and his warm, living kisses covered dark hair, a stubbly face, rough lips...
The fair leader had awakened as if from a dream, and light danced in his azure eyes, though he was still pale from his injury. Enjolras drank the moment in, like a drowning man drawing water into his lungs. And, in response, Grantaire laughed in his innocent old way:
"Let him follow me through fire and ice and over a lake of glass, and wear out three swords in my defense. But at my truest, lying awake trying to count the stars, I doubted my prince would not follow..."
There was something so pure, something so innocent in his expression that Enjolras couldn't help the sob that ripped up his throat. He was back, he was really back.
Then Marius and Cosette entered the sickroom (for, indeed, they had married), to check out Enjolras' progress, and, praising Grantaire as a good and virtuous fellow, told the now fully-conscious leader that they were content that the dark realist should be his saviour; all elated because of his healing, they let their happiness burst forth freely. With a sigh of relief, the lilywhite leader explained how Grantaire, who desired nothing else in life, had forthwith pledged him his faith; whereupon the latter, his right hand upon his heart, gave spoken proof of that solemn oath.
But Enjolras ruffled Grantaire's dark, curly hair and then, to change the matter of conversation, asked Cosette for news and the latest information about them, asking her in particular if she knew what had happened to her guardian who had been so kind, and of whom neither of the students had even seen as much as a glimpse, neither hide nor hair, during this sojourn at the Fauchelevents'.
"Oh, he is gone to foreign countries, gone travelling in foreign lands, though I do not know for what reason," said the heiress, lowering her gaze. "On a great voyage of exploration, across Northern Europe, to seek out new business partners, I guess... he left for abroad shortly after our wedding; and he did not want to take me, the one he loves the most, with him, having perchance seen that he was no longer the first of my closest friends; nor Marius either, for the same reasons. Not many days after we sent you away up north, he took the carriage to Calais, and from thence the London ferry; it was about a month ago. Ever since, he has not returned, and no one knows, not even we, when he shall return, for he has not sent any news from abroad yet; maybe he is thinking of me right now in Gothenburg, or Stockholm, or Saint Petersburg, or Königsberg, or Stralsund, or Lübeck..." And, as she spoke in a voice laden with concern, her newlywedded husband laid a warm palm of a hand upon her shoulder to reassure her.
"And Courfeyrac?" asked the students.
"Oh, Courfeyrac," Marius replied; "he was the best man at our wedding... but shortly thereafterwards, his ladylove or sweetheart at our staff has left him for another man, and he is now a revolutionary once more, and wears the same black suit very fiercely; he even has taken such great pride on himself that he has whetted his canne-épée to razor sharpness once more. Do you seriously think that Courf' is the kind to mourn very bitterly and pitifully, to complain most sadly, to take great pity on himself, to be dreadfully sorry for himself, to lament horriblement? No sirrah, it's all talk. Entre nous, he is still his carefree old self; he says it's all pretence, that it's all much ado about nothing, and always takes these inconveniences in stride. Ce ne sont que des manières! He's returning to Paris, to University, and he has also recommended me to a publishing company in the capital, for which I am currenty translating the Lake District poets and Sturm und Drang, while I enjoy the company of my beloved Cosette; so he's just sent my Rose des Bruyères to the publisher with the recommendation: 'Here, Monsieur, I deliver to you a fine work of literary art, such as nothing superior has left its pen; it is the original invention and execution of one of our most promising young men, possessed with great genius, whom I recommend to Monsieur's special patronage and grace.' They will propose me in their next annual meeting of this Society for the Promotion of Fine Arts, when a name shall be given this hitherto invisible translator. Maintenant, now it is your turn to tell us what has happened to you two, how things have gone for both of you during your adventures, and how you managed to get hold of one another once more; how Enjolras once more found his fugitive, and got his chest crushed in exchange. But now tell me and Cosette how you managed to get your savateur back. Now tell me what has happened to you and how you caught up with one another. Tell us how things went with you two and how you got hold of each other."
Then Enjolras and Grantaire, giving each one his own account, told the newlyweds all about it. The fair leader supplied most of the tale, but, every now and then, the savateur interrupted to explain his own version of the events.
“Well, then, I suppose it's all right at last,” said Marius, and Cosette calmly added "All's well that ends well," while Grantaire agreed with his usual smirk. And then she told them all about how excited she had been in preparation for the great day. How her maids busied themselves hanging diamonds on Cosette, making her look like an unplundered Christmas tree, and swathing her in yards of lace. The orange-blossom veil crown, surmounted with a white lily, might as well have been the star on the top of her. Of course M. Fauchelevent wanted a more austere ceremony, and Colonel Pontmercy, had he been alive, would have shared his point of view -- but M. Gillenormand, Marius's maternal grandfather, who had recognised him once more as his ward and heir, was a royalist from the crown of his powdered wig to the diamond buckles on his high-heeled court shoes! Twelve odd-looking men in rococo dress preceded this eccentric personage. Each one of these gentlemen carried a present for the bride upon a velvet cushion of various colours. They had received orders to kneel in a semicircle, and at a given signal lifted the presents above their heads.
With measured pace and, as he fancied, majesty, strode this gentleman into her private room. Exactly half way between the door and Cosette, he stopped and bowed slightly; after which he stepped forwards, seized the maiden's right hand, kissed it, and pressed it to his heart with a groan, rolling his bloodshot eyes. After this performance he beckoned to one of the men to bring the coronet; an elaborate wave-shaped tiara with two outlines of dolphins, a seahorse's neck, and a bold relief of the head of a mermaid with a curl on her forehead. It was really the finest work that ever left goldsmith's hammer. This the valet placed upon the bride's head. Calling the second, he took from him a magnificent necklace, with a locket in which was his favourite daughter's portrait; he threw this upon Cosette's head in such a manner that the locket came right over her heart. He was delighted with the idea of his girl being near Cosette's heart, if only in a miniature. The third man brought that ring which had caused him to call upon the whole Île-de-France and Loire regions for more effectual exertions; this costly sapphire ring as tiny as it was glistening he placed upon her pinky finger. Dresses, shawls, shoes, and in short everything to complete the toilette of the most fastidious belle, was laid at her feet. This done, he motioned to the valets, and they left the room in a jumble. In a tender accent, he addressed the bride in the following words:
"Goddess of my heart, sovereign ruler of my soul, upon my bent knees I implore you to accept these gifts from the hand of your servant, and yield to his wishes."
Though there were offered gifts of such beauty as human eyes never looked upon, in spite of the costly things, the silk for the cream gown, and all the hand-made lace in the bridal veil, had been woven by local manufacturers picked by Cosette herself and her guardian, making this a win-win for both families of the bride and the groom, as well as the common folk.
The wedding was a sumptuous, decadent affair. The bride was dressed in cloth-of-gold, and she carried a huge languorous bouquet of calla lilies. So many lilies and white irises and white roses crowded the sides of the church that, in their windows and on their pedestals, the faces of the saints were hidden. Even the sun itself had trouble finding its way into the church. But the guests, holding fat candles of rose-scented beeswax, lit the church with stars instead. The bridegroom wore a suit of midnight blue; he wore buttons and cufflinks and studs and buckles inlaid with diamonds, and a crimson rose for a boutonnière. Marius looked very much tall and handsome, tweaking his whiskers straight, and dutifully assuming a serious expression as he listened to the blessing of the priest, while his eyes said: at last, at last, I have waited so long, the day is here, the night is coming... But his face was at once so vain and tender and foolish that Yours Truly warmed to him. He did not seem to realise that he had been so much more than just a three-letter solution in Mademoiselle Fauchelevent's crossword puzzle. The pair said their vows, and the nave erupted into overwhelming applause. At the end of the ceremony, when the bridegroom had searched through cascades of heavy lace to kiss his bride's face, the guests blew out their candles.
In the sudden darkness a single hair-fine thread of light shone between two rose petals.
And then the proud master of ceremonies, the grandfather of the bridegroom, gave a lengthy speech, thrice as long as the priest's sermon, about the history of his surname, and youth, and joy, and carpe diem, and best wishes for the newlyweds, and so forth (which, in Cosette's account, she merely glossed over, having dozed one-third through M. Gillenormand's tirade!). She turned a calla petal in her palm, and questions rose in her head: Can I truly stand more mysteries, the possibilities of more hardships, between us? Would it be better just to...? Then we would all fall down, in this moment when
our love is finally intact. He seems to live from spell to spell. Is it better to die now, before something worse can happen to him? How much can love stand?
Then Marius caught her eyes and smiled at her.
The wedding is beautiful, everyone agrees. Cosette is blinding in her dress, her smile all the sunlight Marius needs in the strangely darkened past that haunts them both.
Marius wishes that he could give her forever; Cosette deserves everything from him, deserves so much more than he thinks he could ever give her. What does one give to the sun, save everything?
These are questions that Marius would have asked Enjolras, once, or maybe Grantaire, depending on the amount of honesty he was ready to receive. Instead, there is no friend at his shoulder to hold the ring, but Marius will live.
He must; there is no other option now that he is tied so to Cosette by word as well as deed. Marius may not have a spare forever to give to her, but he owes her all the time he has in him, for as ever long as that may be.
Grantaire would have teased him for his commitment and Enjolras would have complained at what he would have called the ‘unwarranted’ splendour of the proceedings, but Marius does not care. They need the commitment, the splendour.
Grantaire told them all once, about life and beautiful things; Marius will keep what he has of their words.
That day, the sound of the cheering crowd on the pews drowned out everyone's worries.
Night after night the Gillenormands arranged fresh entertainments for the guests---balls, concerts, theatricals, and mock-fights were on the varied programme. Everyone had to appear merry and delighted with the entertainment, although impatience and doubts tortured them in many ways. Sometimes the old gentleman would take his bâton or wand, and, flourishing it around, assume the airs of his rank, and give his commands to everyone at the table, and so forth.
The only ray of hope turned to despair left to the newlyweds was the look of discomfort on the face of the guardian of the bride; he looked anything but like a successful lover, and entered into all the enjoyments with as much zest as they themselves did. During the day he would often disappear, and on his return look more dejected than when he left, in spite of his efforts to appear merry. It was therefore safe to conclude that Lady Fortune yet withstood his wooing.
The following evening was to be the climax of the host's unbroken efforts to amuse his guests. That evening ---that is, the one previous to the final performance--- Cosette's guardian withdrew early, pleading indisposition on his own part as an excuse; face entirely bleached of colour and both palms clutching at the left side of his chest, staggering slightly. The young baron whispered to his wife to follow him to their apartments later in the evening.
That night, in their mansion, the heiress called to her guardian that the servants had supper ready. But there was no reply. Supper was over, the desserts cleared away, and the brandy was doing its duty of making everybody merry. She made her way towards the office, but found that it was locked from the inside. She knocked on the door, trying to get him to open up... It was when the butler returned with the skeleton key that Cosette got the feeling that something was horribly wrong. When at last the door creaked open, they found the older gentleman unconscious in his office. Upon loosening his shirt to give his ribcage freedom to breathe, upon racing for, then putting that drink of foxglove syrup holding the cup steady to his lips and coaxing him to swallow, holding his oversized form steady, the girl found a long number firebranded between his pectorals, among silvery chest-hair. Like a suicide note consisting of five digits: 24601, which to Cosette seemed to mean "I'm sorry."
That was the last time she had ever seen him up close, before they parted ways. Next morning, when at breakfast the day's amusements were broached, her guardian had disappeared, and left a letter telling of his intentions on the office desk. But of course, even though she trusted their butler Étienne and even her newlywed husband Marius to keep the dark secret, she never told Enjolras or Grantaire or anyone else.
Then, after she had given her account of the ceremony, including the Gillenormands' thorough scrutiny and overblown praise of their latest in-law. Enjolras looked at Cosette and reassuringly addressed her, with an unusually warm look in her eyes:That day, the sound of the cheering crowd on the pews drowned out everyone's worries.
Night after night the Gillenormands arranged fresh entertainments for the guests---balls, concerts, theatricals, and mock-fights were on the varied programme. Everyone had to appear merry and delighted with the entertainment, although impatience and doubts tortured them in many ways. Sometimes the old gentleman would take his bâton or wand, and, flourishing it around, assume the airs of his rank, and give his commands to everyone at the table, and so forth.
The only ray of hope turned to despair left to the newlyweds was the look of discomfort on the face of the guardian of the bride; he looked anything but like a successful lover, and entered into all the enjoyments with as much zest as they themselves did. During the day he would often disappear, and on his return look more dejected than when he left, in spite of his efforts to appear merry. It was therefore safe to conclude that Lady Fortune yet withstood his wooing.
The following evening was to be the climax of the host's unbroken efforts to amuse his guests. That evening ---that is, the one previous to the final performance--- Cosette's guardian withdrew early, pleading indisposition on his own part as an excuse; face entirely bleached of colour and both palms clutching at the left side of his chest, staggering slightly. The young baron whispered to his wife to follow him to their apartments later in the evening.
That night, in their mansion, the heiress called to her guardian that the servants had supper ready. But there was no reply. Supper was over, the desserts cleared away, and the brandy was doing its duty of making everybody merry. She made her way towards the office, but found that it was locked from the inside. She knocked on the door, trying to get him to open up... It was when the butler returned with the skeleton key that Cosette got the feeling that something was horribly wrong. When at last the door creaked open, they found the older gentleman unconscious in his office. Upon loosening his shirt to give his ribcage freedom to breathe, upon racing for, then putting that drink of foxglove syrup holding the cup steady to his lips and coaxing him to swallow, holding his oversized form steady, the girl found a long number firebranded between his pectorals, among silvery chest-hair. Like a suicide note consisting of five digits: 24601, which to Cosette seemed to mean "I'm sorry."
That was the last time she had ever seen him up close, before they parted ways. Next morning, when at breakfast the day's amusements were broached, her guardian had disappeared, and left a letter telling of his intentions on the office desk. But of course, even though she trusted their butler Étienne and even her newlywed husband Marius to keep the dark secret, she never told Enjolras or Grantaire or anyone else.
"I will tell Éponine of why she surely was unable to reach you in the Thénardiers' hour of need. That will surely reassure her, and bridge the gap between the two of you."
And (speak of the wolf!) the Thénardier girl, who had been eavesdropping, popped up from behind a curtain and excused herself with a curtsy. She would gladly have bowed, but Cosette, who looked better in blue, had given her one of her own pink gowns for the day, while her own male attire was being washed, and she had no other choice. Her black eye, now nearly fully healed, had dwindled to an adorable little blue beauty mark on the corner of her left eye, which, together with her petticoats, gave Éponine an air of awkward, ungainly femininity, that, as it was clear from her flustered expression, did not completely suit her. The dress came to her knees, and she had not noticed for a while that her hairy legs showed below the skirt. "I'm a red cabbage," she muttered as she gave her best curtsy.
Their common past was too much. But she didn't want that. She wanted the child she'd known, back again, unchanged by experience.
"Why not put the kettle on, and discuss the matter of our past en tête-à-tête, 'Ponine and I, over some Earl Grey and buttered scones in the parlour?" the fair heiress asked all the others.
That seemed to settle the matter indeed, and soon the young husband and wife both left the spare bedchamber turned now far less of a sickroom, while Éponine stayed for a while with the two revolutionaries.
"What a jolly rambler you are, eh, Grantaire?" she asked as she regarded him, a wicked smile on her face. "I would like to ask you a little more whether you deserve that anyone should go to the ends of the Earth for, and even have their chest crushed, to find you! I wonder if you are worth going to the ends of the Earth for?"
But he only ruffled her matted dark hair in response, with a wistful look in his eyes the colour of hazelnuts, and she understood, and then Enjolras did the same with at last some warmth in those icy blue orbs, and she understood even more, before she deemed the savateur as deserving of having Enj travelling to the ends of the Earth to save him; and then she told them about her emancipation, her flight at the crack of dawn from the brigands' lair, and her decision to lead an honest life, no longer on the lam. "Maybe I should change my surname, whether as a nom de plume to publish my works or altogether as a physical person. 'Thénardier' has such a nasty ring to it, even in Paris where no one would know me, and see just another young hopeful from the provinces. I am thinking of... how about 'Jondrette'? Sounds good at least to me, 'Éponine Jondrette'. Like a plucky storybook girl of those that save the prince in distress..."
No words she received in reply, but reassuring smiles and eyes beaming with honesty, approving of all of her decisions, both months-old and recent, to become a free spirit. And that was enough for her to satisfy her esteem needs and spread her wings to their full extent!
Her sharp face was more suited to the shorter hair, Enjolras thought as he voiced his approval. Having it braided up, or at least in that loose ponytail of yore, made such a face, all angles and planes, look even more angular than it already was. "This business of being a lady gives me a pain," she announced. "It was fun to play at it, but it gives the men ideas. I don't want 'em thinking of me as something they can pounce on!"
That was when the robber maiden left them, to return to the parlour where Cosette was waiting for her with Earl Grey tea and scones at hand, and to seek her forgiveness. Both of the students thought it best not to go with Éponine and Cosette, for it seemed that their reunion ought to be a private thing, though Enjolras, still bedridden, and with the Thénardier girl (who would soon change her surname) for a go-between, asked the heiress to remember him to her guardian, and to give M. Fauchelevent his thanks for the trousseau, for the attelage and provisions that had sustained him for so long on his journey, and also to carry message from Éponine to him, saying that her time with the Thénardiers was now a thing of the past; that she had changed her surname and turned over a new leaf.
Then, after a few hours en tête-à-tête with her former foster sister, Éponine, now dressed once more in a man's costume, a brand new ensemble of dark coat and waistcoat and riding breeches, which her hosts had made expressly for her, yet coiffed with her brilliant scarlet bonnet and carrying her Bowie and two pistols strapped to her belt upon her waist at her sides, returned to the sickroom where the two young men were waiting, told them that she had made friends and amends with Cosette at last (though the robber girl still looked a little dreamy and wistful, even sighing; maybe because she had fallen head over heels for a certain young translator who was already married?), took both their hands, and promised that if ever she should pass through the arrondissement where they lived, she would certainly come up and pay them a visit, and surely join their ranks and fight and bleed for Liberty.
"Bon!" quoth she with her usual impatience, as restless as usual, "Allons! All's well that ends well," she shook hands with both students, "tout est pour le mieux; retournez au café Musain, et si j'y passe jamais, j'irai vous faire au moins une petite visite. Et bien sûr j'irai combattre sous votre drapeau, et être morte pour la Liberté!" she shouted that promise, as a leave-taking, that if she ever came through the arrondissement where they lived she would come and visit them. She would be always welcome.
And then, she mounted her chestnut horse, riding astride as usual; and, after being given the address of the Musain by the fair leader himself, she embraced both of the revolutionaries without even setting a foot on the ground, and then, laughing, she tossed her head and rode off away, on into the wide world, her Bowie in her left hand and the reins in her right, spurring her horse into gallop and disappearing into the horizon. She bid them goodbye and promised to meet them again sometime before she rode away.
She resumed thus her grand voyage, back on her horse and onwards into the wide world, on adventures of her own. Finally, she had become the generous, solitary adventurer whom everyone expected. And then off she rode away into the wide world. As they watched her go from the threshold of the Château Fauchelevent, as the robber-maiden spiralled down from the sky and landed on her own saddle, Enjolras recognised his old friend, whom he had met on the road and shared his reads, meals, and questing with, and he rejoiced that the robber-girl would not have to travel the world alone, as he had. "Those are never alone who are accompanied by good thoughts," or hadn't she said that during their quest up north?
From that day on, the fair leader's recovery went on twice as quickly; thanks to his stubborn will to live and staying power, he was saved. The shards of bone remained in place, but the internal injuries were nearly completely healed, and he received permission to behold, through the window and bed-curtains, contemplate the trees and lawns that thrived, fresh and green, in the springtime sun.
After a couple of months had elapsed, Enjolras felt himself sufficiently strong and tranquil to leave his bed, though not his chamber, on his own. This he did with the assistance of an overjoyed Grantaire for a crutch. They saw the blond, with a steady hand, hold and use the spoon, and able to take the strengthening soup for himself. Colour had returned to his once lilywite face, and hale and hearty he stood up from his sickbed, the strength of yore having already surged all the way down to his ankles.
During their absence, Cosette had had new ensembles made for both of them, as similar to those Marius had described his classmates as wearing, with a red gold-braided waistcoat and a green paisley one, to wear for the long journey south again. Both certainly needed their new sets of clothes, for their attire had barely not suffered less when it came to wear and tear than than Éponine's own, and now it was getting warm, and how dare they make their rentrée in those worn rags?
"Are you ready?"
Enjolras nodded, and then Grantaire smiled back at the fair leader, so handsome in his scarlet waistcoat braided with golden soutaches and with his golden locks tied back with a red ribbon into a queue down his back, and took his arm.
The dark student led the fair one through the Grand Hall. "Nervous?" Enjolras asked.
"About 'Ponine, no. Not about M. Fauchelevent either. About your breathing, yes."
Grantaire had heard a hitch in his chest. He was sure of it.
"I'm fine," Enjolras replied. "The doctors said I could do this. Don't worry so much, Grand'R..."
"How can I not?"
"Because I'm not in a coma anymore!" he replied, cheerfully exasperated, as the dark lover bit his lip. Enjolras tended to get frustrated. He was eager to be up and about. To resume his duties. He was getting stronger every day, but still —Grantaire was worried. He couldn't help it. They'd come so close to losing one another that everything scared either one of them now. He was worried if Enjolras was pale, or flushed. If he looked tired. If he didn't eat enough. If he cleared his throat or coughed.
Grantaire had come home from the village market to find him sitting up and conscious. It was the happiest day of both their lives. He'd hugged him and kissed him -- touched his brow, his eyes, his lips, his heart, his hands, and hardly had he done so -- and cried tears of joy.
Until then, no one had been able to look Grantaire in the eye without feeling themselves recoil; for their fear, the twilight, and his addiction enhanced the savateur's air of ugliness. But, upon walking into the light of the sun at last, the man was stripped of his beastly skin. His affection for the leader had returned with a twelvefold strength and truth; for his boyish passion now over, his manly true love began.
Maybe that was, after all, a little broken spell, reserved only for those who learned to look without seeing, with the eyes of the heart.
He bent down over the still form, and kissed Enjolras urgently on the mouth. To both their surprise, he ducked his head and captured the leader's surprised lips with his own. His longing to hold the one he loved finally quenched after four years -- the desire to kiss him had been too much. He had no thought to expect anything; all that he wanted was to mar its perfect bow, to leave a mark. He did not expect, certainly, for Enjolras to return the kiss, savage, gasping, straining till the savateur released his own wrists. For the fair leader understood. His freedom, his friendship, his life had returned to him. It was a lot to swallow.
The savateur's mouth was firm and warm and at first clumsy and then assured, and he had one hand on that soft white chin, and his eyes were still wide open, Enjolras realised, as his own closed. And Grantaire seemed to have a hand in that cascade of golden hair, gently pulling the leader closer. As for Enjolras... His knees were no longer weak but buckling. The temperature had, inexplicably, risen by at least ten degrees. "Oh," Enjolras said, when he had a chance, and then Grantaire tilted his head and they were kissing again, and why had Enjolras not thought of this before? It was the best of ideas, it was amazing, it was like breathing champagne instead of air. He made an wordless noise to try and indicate his approval of the whole situation.
And, as Grantaire wrapped his strong arms around Enjolras' waist, both pulling the leader closer to him and dipping his back slightly for better angle, both of them thought it can't get any better than this.
“Show me your paintings,” Enjolras says into the flesh of his lover’s shoulder, revelling in the taste of skin on skin. Grantaire smells like oils and like wine or liquor, like something transient and souring. He tipped his head to the side playfully and offered.
“Would you like to try?”
The fair leader laid beside him and let the Marseillais kiss his chest and trail an invisible path towards Enjolras' loin and soon he could see scarlet roses blooming on the young man’s face, chest. He sighed the most delicate gasps and his features were twisting in an agony and smoothed in bliss, all happening so fast, it felt like a weather which can’t make up his mind. He had had no idea his neck was that sensitive. There were stars behind his eyes.
All he could do was watch with quiet amazement...
The warmth of the room and a bit of light seeped through the tasselled curtains of the baldachin, where it was open and his slight nod set off a mesmerizing spell over the two of them.
Grantaire flinched when the pair of hands traced his chest and the leader's fingers found his nipples.
But when those lily-hands freed him swiftly and a wet kiss pressed against the most sensitive part of his self, he startled and held onto the other young man's shoulder watching below as Enjolras hesitantly licked him, waiting for last signs of doubt.
Grantaire’s skin tastes of sweat and of salt and Enjolras licks the rounded ball of the Marseillais' shoulder clean, pressing kisses to anything he can reach. His arms are wrapped around Grantaire’s body, beginning to fall asleep beneath the combined weight of both of them.
They are naked, they are alive, they are so very close to spent.
The savateur kissed his earlobe and whispered against his temples. “Tomorrow, Apollo, tomorrow,” Grantaire promises, voice bright and laughing as he leaves his kisses in the blond waves of Enjolras’s hair, matted from sex and from sleep.
Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, Enj sings to himself. And all our yesterdays have lighted fools... His own heart fluttered in his ribcage and he felt hotter than ever before. He never felt this strange kind of need and even though he grew up into young adulthood, he wasn’t in tune when it came to his body and mind. Perhaps these two were meant to be one and that would help easy the slip into adulthood, which he didn’t have the chance to do so yet with anyone else. And thus he succumbed to the other's caring hands and let them do whatever they desired, trying to live through it with experiencing the feelings as best he could.
He closed his eyes and let his mind wander. Imagining lips kissing, hands caressing the line on his chest where the muscles met in the middle and a tongue swirling around him with fervour. Heat filled his limbs and let his blood rush faster, he could barely hear the cued whispers of encouragement over his own erratic heartbeat. It felt amazing and scary at the same time.
The enjoyment was immense but the sudden sadness washed over him and he curled to his side, hiding in strong, tanned taken-aback hands.
"You know..." the blond finally said in a voice like a reveille call, "this is doubtless what is best for me, yet sans doute, doubtless, I would never grow accustomed to live as a bedridden shut-in; moi qui avait l'habitude de rester libre au grand air..."He closed his eyes and let his mind wander. Imagining lips kissing, hands caressing the line on his chest where the muscles met in the middle and a tongue swirling around him with fervour. Heat filled his limbs and let his blood rush faster, he could barely hear the cued whispers of encouragement over his own erratic heartbeat. It felt amazing and scary at the same time.
The enjoyment was immense but the sudden sadness washed over him and he curled to his side, hiding in strong, tanned taken-aback hands.
And the martial artist's response to this quip, "On ne coupe pas les ailes d'un ange", followed by his usual innocent laugh, felt like, after a powerful serve, having the tennis ball struck back by an equal, worthy opponent, and being caught off-kilter. Then both of them smiled, and even laughed... The savateur had never heard the leader utter this sound, and it turned out to be a wistful, lilting laugh that was sudden and wild; how hard it was to fathom how pleased both of them were! He was again collected, princely and charming. The cold allure wrapped him once more in his cape.
The fair leader encouraged him quietly, brushing away his fringe.
“Comfort me!”
Enjolras' whiny voice broke the serious mood between them. Grantaire's hand stopped in the middle of the caress. He spoke taken aback.
“I am comforting you.”
The blond raised his head, the most childish pout on his face, adding to his lover's confusion.
“Not enough. Comfort me more!”
Grantaire poked him in the middle of the forehead and mocked him quietly.
“I didn’t know you still could be such a child. Such a big forehead would suggest your brain grown and you’re mature...”
“I am mature. C'mon, pet me more!”
He took Enjolras' hand and pressed his face into that silky palm, just like a affectionate pet would seek out peting from its master.
“You’re not a kitty! But needy still...”
“Oh, I am needy! But you like it!”
Grantaire just bit playfully into Enjolras' wrist just on the tender skin and they broke into laughter again. Soon they drifted off to sleep, the savateur playing the bigger spoon with Enjolras safely tucked into his arms.
Once they had had enough, still clinging to each other, they looked around properly. Light bathing everything in sight. The sun was shining warm and bright. Grass and flowers spread as far as their eyes could see. It looked like spring came after a long exhausting winter.
“Vive la république!”
The words were out of Grantaire’s mouth before he could stop himself. He stood, feeling more awake than he had in a long time.
“Vive la république,” he repeated, louder, with more emphasis. Could there be another way, a better way than that which was now presented to him? For a brief, blinding moment, the future showed itself to Grantaire, when it had always been clouded and obscure to him before. The future he saw, with shockingly stunning clarity, was without Enjolras, without his light, his ideals, his convictions, his beauty.
“Vive la république. I belong to it.” His voice was firm, his resolve unwavering, his eyes clear, his posture steady. There was no questioning this decision. There was no changing his mind -- not that he wanted to. This was the only right way. He had not felt this clear-headed in many years.
Softly, almost gently, Grantaire turned to face Enjolras. “If you’ll allow it?”
Enjolras said nothing, only smiled, that dazzling smile that had haunted Grantaire’s conscious and subconscious mind for so long, and clasped Grantaire’s hand in his own in a gesture of brotherly solidarity. That sincere smile, that showed childish ivory teeth, was pensive yet full of dazzling light.
In this moment, this brief moment, Grantaire slowly smiled too -- a real, genuine smile, without doubt, scepticism, cynicism, or disbelief, but a real smile, for here was finally something to believe in. Everything else, all of the past, all of the future, gone, obscured by the brilliant light of this single shining moment, a moment in which Grantaire almost felt time come to a stop around him. It was an intoxication that was far sweeter than any he had achieved with the Green Faery or the wine, an intoxication that he did not want to come to an end, an intoxication from which he never wanted to awaken. His whole world right now was enveloped in this moment: the press of Enjolras’ hand to his own, the beauty and warmth of that smile... And through it all like a beacon of light through the fog, was Enjolras. From that day on, the fair leader's recovery went on twice as quickly. The shards of bone remained in place, but the internal injuries were nearly completely healed, and he received permission to behold, through the window and bed-curtains, contemplate the trees and lawns that thrived, fresh and green, in the springtime sun. It felt like partaking of a healing draught, and a change seemed to pass over his whole frame. He no longer felt the excitement of fever, nor the painful weakness which succeeds it.
But Enjolras wasn't out of the woods yet. He still had a long way ahead of him. His recovery had been slow and full of setbacks, but now, nine months later, he was up and about most of the day, though his doctors insisted that he rest after lunch. He would return to the Right Bank to study and lead his people soon, when he was stronger. How tall and thin he had become, but he had the same eyes and the same angelic mouth. He looked up at the savateur, but didn't say a word.
"He is now out of danger. The fever has abated, and there only remains a debility quite natural after so severe an illness. Great care, however, is still necessary, with strict attention to all I have prescribed; for his central nervous system is much shaken, and any relapse might be serious."
One day, months later, the surgeon finally set the convalescent free; when a marvellous change came over the prostrate figure, the face took its usual colour, the rigid limbs relaxed, and suddenly he sat up, and then sprang to his feet, standing tall and slender and vigourous once more in his crimson peacoat and scarlet waistcoat. When Enjolras was perfectly restored to health, finally able to stand upright, though still pale with blood loss, he and Grantaire went forth hand-in-hand towards home, and as they advanced, as they went along, springtime appeared more lovely and blossomed about them with its green leaves and its beautiful flowers. The blood rushed back to Enjolras' cheeks, and his strength seemed to return, and he was ready to ride forth to victory. He was again collected, princely and charming. The cold allure wrapped him once more in his cape. He turned as if he were going to leave, and "That is enough," he said, and left the room. Before Grantaire's surprised eyes, the young blond reached a hand out and packed him by the wrist, pulling him out of the room and out into the estate gardens.
That morning, they had only taken enough time to break their fast and don their new ensembles, with the red soutached waistcoat and the green paisley one, as well as Enjolras tying his hair back into the usual queue and Grantaire shaving himself so that only the muttonchop whiskers were left; and they went forth thanking Cosette and Marius for their goodness with all of their hearts.
Until then, no one had been able to look Grantaire in the eye without feeling themselves recoil; for their fear, the twilight, and his addiction enhanced the savateur's air of ugliness. But, upon walking into the light of the sun at last, the man was stripped of his beastly skin.
Maybe that was, after all, a little broken spell, reserved only for those who learned to look without seeing, with the eyes of the heart.
He laughed with a mouth like a mask of tragicomedy; the fair one he loved waltzed with him all along the chestnut promenade, before the mansion that no longer kept any secret.
The sun was the only one who saw them leave, together, holding one another's hands, defying all the happy ever afters that had been written until that moment.
Together, Enjolras and Grantaire resumed their route, made their way back home, taking one another hand in hand. The countryside was a riot of colour, already green with the barley of March, already lilac-blue with the periwinkles of April, already pink and red with the roses of May, and everywhere along the route, the belltowers in every village were pealing their refrain, calling the congregation to Easter mass; and the sunshine and the birdsong and the frog-croak lifted their hearts. In the ditches the little wildflowers bloomed. As they neared their home, the sound of the church bells mingled in with the blue-tits and finches and frogs, and soon the breeze carried other sounds and smells of town life to them. Very soon, after crossing landscapes covered in greenery and flowers, which made them forget those dreary wintry northlands, they finally recognised on the horizon the town where they lived and studied, the pointed zinc and slatestone rooftops of an ocean of townhouses and the tall verdigrised steeples of the churches, rising like masts above, in which the bells were ringing loud, joyous peals. Now they recognized the towers; they were approaching the home they had left behind. It was springtime in truth, and this was the first time the church bells had been sounded in forty days; therefore they were making the best of the occasion, for even church bells grown sad and lonely when they have no occasion to speak.
They ran past the Tuileries, down snaking streets paved with silver, past houses edged with fuchsia trim. They ducked behind green hedges shaped like diamonds, flattened themselves against lime-green walls at the sound of pounding feet. They ran, and ran, through the Left Bank arrondissements until the streets became a little wider and the townhouses larger. Until Grantaire cut abruptly across the Seine at the Charenton Bridge; they were approaching the home they had left behind.
Once more, they still recognised the route through which they had left Paris, the rues through which they had once passed, and they were on the Right Bank where they had lived and studied, walking through the twisting cobbled streets through which they had passed when they left, winding their way through Pigalle and up towards Montmartre, the white dome of Sacré Coeur rising at the top of it; that was where they used to live. Hand in hand, they ran through the streets that both of them so well knew and loved. They wove through cobblestone streets on slanted hills, past little shops selling chocolate truffles and thick loaves of bread, cafés filled with people as they watched the rest of the world stroll by the scene encompassing the flower boxes, bicycles, hum of conversations at cafés with striped awnings… They ducked into a little bookshop with sagging shelves that smelled of paper and leather and dust (one of those places that Combeferre always frequented), and soon, in the end, they found themselves upon the threshold of a familiar café, which stood on a street corner in Montmartre.
They entered the place, passed by the tables and behind the counter, greeting the two young barmaids (who waved sighing wistfully at Enjolras and sneered coldly at Grantaire, as usual), and down the long dark corridor into the backroom of the Musain, where everything was just the same as before. Everything was exactly in the same place, just as it had been when they had left. The same map and tricolore flag remained nailed upon the walls, the same quinquet lamp filled the sunset interior with warmth, the same daylight was streaming in through those two rickety windows... The clock behind the counter still ticked and told the time with hands that turned round, the pendulum always swinging gently to and fro, while Madame Hucheloup was sitting down in her rocking chair against the clear sun and napping, the old landlady's cat was sunning herself on her owner's lap, and around the tables still remained, where they had once stood, their old regular chairs of every evening. Up across the rue in their garret, as seen through the window of the Musain, their edible flowers, which Combeferre had been lovingly tending to in their absence, were still in full bloom in the planter boxes, and were flowering into the garret through the open window; nasturtium flames and catlike pansies brightening the windowsill. They bloomed spectacularly this year, and had formed an archway of beauty across the street; in each and every calyx, the honeybees were collecting golden pollen. Long story short, everything and everyone remained exactly in the same familiar place, with everything still waiting for them, like ever before.
And furthermore, soon there would be familiar-sounding peals from a nearby tower, and their friends would stream into their secret hideout...
But for now they were en tête-à-tête, so what better than to enjoy it? Upon entering the backroom, both of them realised that they had always harboured those feelings for one another. Enjolras and Grantaire sat down in their respective chairs. They had both forgotten the past as one who forgets an unquiet, heavy dream upon awakening, and it seemed to both of them that it was as if they had never left the Café Musain in the first place.
As they sat in the clear, golden sunshine of twilight, the dreary grandeur... the wonders of the cold austere splendours and magnificence of the Green Faery's fortress and the deep, deep cold of her terrible kiss seemed a lifetime away; her cold, empty majesty was forgotten like a dark dream. To the pair it was as if her icy thrall had never been exerted, and one thing became clear to the two of them.
Holding one another's hands, lilywhite soft fingers clasping palms rough as sackcloth, earnest sapphire orbs looking at last warmly into ironic hazel eyes, and vice versa, they saw that each other had changed, and finally understood the meaning of that anthem they had so frequently sung:
"Liberté, Liberté chérie,
combats avec tes défenseurs..."
And, furthermore and what was the most relevant, they finally understood, at the same time, those words, said by some British Lordship with a pointed brown moustache and goatee in a low, musical voice and with a characteristic graceful wave of the hand, at a soirée in the Manoir Enjolras, right before the young heir left for the capital to pursue those university studies, as wise words of advice to the aloof stripling about to reach maturity, to let his spirit soar free:
"Yes, that is one of the great secrets of life - to cure the soul by means of the senses, and the senses by means of the soul."
As well as what Madame Grantaire had told the little lad she had taken in when the time came at last for him to spread his wings and attain that higher education that he was worthy of:
"There is nothing upon this Earth that a good, kind heart cannot overcome!"
They remained like this for hours, locking eyes and entwining hands, having finally understood, both of them at the same time, that life was the second-finest gift they had ever been given, but that its worth would always grow pale if compared to freedom and liberty. Enjolras and Grantaire were in their twenties now and they were no longer children or adolescents. They had gone out out into the world as adolescents, and they had come back as adults. They knew that they were no longer little children; they noticed that they had become adults to the core. After their quest through the seasons and across the North, they were no longer the Enjolras and Grantaire of yore, both having suffered a profound transformation and gained the inner strength they needed in order to confront any peril, any challenge, the wiser for travel to regions that belong not to dream but to reality. But they knew that they must always keep a corner of their hearts open for the purity of heart and the warm, wonderful dreams of youth - and that it was their destiny, as heroes, to fall in the prime of life, generously pouring out all their blood to write the crowning lines in the epic of a higher cause.
Right then, those foretold bell-peals rang in the air and the regular crowd shuffled in. Combeferre came in first, holding his notebook in hand, followed by Courfeyrac, who was humming the latest Liszt tune in vogue; and then came all the others... At first, Enjolras' lieutenants did not recognise the two strangers who sat in the hitherto empty chairs, and asked at least for their surnames.
Upon hearing them sing those verses from La Marseillaise, however, a general scream of elation ran through the backroom, startling the landlady and the barmaids, and of course the cat that leapt off the landlady's lap, as those earnest freedom-fighting young men had recognised their fair leader and the odd one out of their secret society.
And each evening, at the backroom of the Café Musain, they all dined together, and watched the sunset together, and there they talked of many things, both of the pain and the hardships they had endured, and of the future they hoped to have now that they had survived them, and of the glorious death that would crown them ere they reached midlife, giving it all before the end of youth, shedding their hearts' blood for Freedom and Country.
And after they had talked and most of them had left, the leader and the cynic simply sat there en tête-à-tête, in one another's company, and each thought that he had never before been so happy as this, and that the crowner for such elation would definitely be to fall together by enemy fire, holding one another's hands, one rough as sackcloth and the other soft as silk, yet both tightened together in a final clasp for evermore.
Soon they were walking up the worn steps of the staircase to their old apartment, into the room, where everything was just the same as before. Nothing inside it had changed. The clock said "tick-tock" as its hands went round, and the cogwheels moved. Of course the timepiece had wound down, but it took only a few minutes to set all those cogs all to rights again, until they were once more surrounded by the "tick-tock" of the clock pendulums and the faint whirring of gears. The paint on the Marianne sign had faded and peeled, but Grantaire painted a new one, brighter than ever, with an unabashed Enjolras wrapped in the bedsheets posing for hours before him; and by the end of the week, both men had as good a business as they had ever had.
Thus, they opened the windows to let the breeze in, cleaned their shared bedroom as thoroughly as they could, and recovered little by little, though full of energy, the course of what little life they had left to live.
As the short time they had left to live passed, the two of them spent many warm and glorious sunny days together, sharing their tale of the Green Faery with all who would listen.
And each evening, after Grantaire had laid down his paintbrushes and Enjolras had put aside his flag of freedom, they dined together on the roof with their flower box, where there was a little balcony, and watched the sunset together, and there they talked of many things, both of the pain and the hardships they had endured, and of the future they hoped to have now that they had survived them. And after they had talked, they simply sat there, in one another's company, and each thought that he had never before been so happy as this, and all around them was warm, beautiful midsummer, the warm and well-doing midsummer of youth, no matter how often the seasons changed. Each had found in the other perfect sympathy and perfect love: what could the outside world matter to them now? Each was to the other the perfect fulfilment of a scarcely preconceived ideal. The fair lad sat on his knees with his arms closely pressed round his neck and his golden curls laid against his newest lieutenant's close-cut raven hair; completely absorbed in each other, intoxicated with the sweetly poisonous draught that is the gift of love, they sat in silence. There they sat, the two of them together, hand in hand under their beloved trellis, perhaps wiser, grown up; and yet in their hearts adolescents, and it was always spring within their spirits: a warm glorious springtime day for evermore, even as the next winter came and they were put once more to the test.
It was the truth – the middle-aged couple who owned the building were willing to rent to a student, or even to an artist or other figure of similar bohemian habits and debatable respectability, but would absolutely not tolerate a prostitute of either sex under their roof – and Grantaire had been mistaken when he’d thought, in the ruelle, that he couldn’t possibly hate himself.
Grantaire swore through clenched teeth, his eyes watering. “Leave him out of this.” It was worse than blasphemy to drag Enjolras’s name into an act like this. Every aspect of this scene would have filled him with disgust.
Enjolras disdained the act of physical love, even with women. At times, he seemed even to disdain physical pleasure itself as mere indulgence; not just the sexual kind, but all forms of it, from the exhilaration of a good fight to the savor of a good meal. His ideals were enough for him.
To see Grantaire not just submitting to this, but actually gaining pleasure from his own debasement, would be the last straw that forever did away with Enjolras’s already strained tolerance of him.
His shirt was sticking to the skin of his back. It felt disgusting. He was disgusting.
Grantaire squeezed his eyes shut and didn’t listen.
Grantaire squeezed his eyes shut and didn’t listen.
After a few minutes, the prospect of Gavroche walking back into find him sprawled on the bed, half-naked and stinking of sex, was enough to impel him to his feet and over to the wash basin. He threw the shirt into a corner, sponged and scrubbed at his legs and torso with the cold water, and was in his shirtsleeves with his hair still wet and dripping when Gavroche came strolling casually back in.
He recognized the child almost immediately as one of the gamins who often hung around the edges of the crowd when Enjolras spoke outside. He sometimes ran messages for students, and Bahorel had hired him several times to delivers billets doux to mistresses, and once to take a message to someone at the law school so that he himself wouldn’t have to step inside it.
Grantaire hailed him, reaching into his pocket for the change left over from his purchases. Then, seeing the way the boy’s raw, red fingers were clutched around a croissant roll – studded with currants and most likely stolen from a baker’s cart – he reconsidered. Cold was likely a worse threat than hunger right now. He did not know where Gavroche slept at night, but he was relatively certain that it was on the streets somewhere, and in weather like this, a child sleeping outside could easily freeze to death.
“Ha, wine-cask! Want me to deliver a letter?” The child stared up at him, too-wide mouth stretched into an impudent grin. “There’s an extra fee for postal delivery in the snow.”
“Not that your sobriquet isn’t apt,” Grantaire said, “but hasn’t anyone told you that you ought to address your elders by ‘monsieur?’”
“Monsieur Wine-cask,” Gavroche parroted back with mock obedience, “would you like me to deliver a letter? Or should it be citoyen for you, since you’re one of those republicans?”
Grantaire found himself smiling, recognizing beneath the bluster and swagger the familiar aspect of a boy who knows he will never be a pretty child, and so makes his best effort to be clever and amusing instead. “It’s all the same to me,” Grantaire told him. “But I have a commission to fulfill as a good republican. We can’t have our most reliable messenger taking ill from the cold, so I’m to offer you the hospitality of my apartments for a night or two, until the weather breaks.”
He knew it for a foolish idea even as he offered – if the child did accept, he would very likely rob Grantaire blind – but looking at the way he shivered in a thin, inadequate coat, hands raw with cold from a lack of gloves, he extended the invitation instinctively. He owned little that was valuable enough to steal anyway, and the loss of it would be small compared to having a child’s death on his conscience.
The smile faded from Gavroche’s face, replaced by a look of distinct suspicion. “And what would I have to do in return for this hospitality, monsieur?”
Grantaire felt a fool as be belatedly realized that a child in his circumstances would of course be suspicious that his offer of a bed for the night was not truly free. He felt sick for a moment at the thought of what the Gavroche was likely afraid the price would be, and shook his head. “It is freely offered. You need do nothing except refrain from doing away with me in my sleep and stealing all my worldly possessions.”
Gavroche looked unimpressed, and Grantaire rushed on, before the boy could proudly refuse to accept charity.
“My landlady is sentimental about children,” he said, reaching for the first excuse that came to mind, however thin, “and if she believes I’ve taken in a young cousin for a few nights, she might be more inclined to overlook my overdue rent.”
Gavroche’s shoulders relaxed out of their pugnacious stance. “Out of money, huh?” he asked. He made a show of thinking things over for a moment, and then nodded sharply. “I suppose I could do you a favor,” he said, with a cocky little grin, “since you’re one of Bahorel’s friends. But you’ll owe me for it.”
“Twice over,” Grantaire agreed, accepting Gavroche’s hand to shake, man-to-man. “For I’ll earn our leader’s favor as well. I told you I’d been given a commission.”
Gavroche nodded, and took a bite out of his stolen bun. “Just so you know,” he said, speaking through a mouthful of crumbs, “you’re a terrible liar.”
Grantaire led the way to the wine shop and then back to his rooms without dignifying that with an answer. In the back of his mind the thought occurred to him, but he shoved that notion out of his head. Surely even he was not despicable enough to hide behind a child.
It was already too cold for any civilized man to venture out, and the snow showed every sign of getting worse.
If he did, Grantaire told himself, he’d send the boy away.
As it turned out, he had no need to send Gavroche away. Two days later, Gavroche was out.
Grantaire had no idea what the boy did during the day, and had not asked him; he was relatively certain that if he did, Gavroche would cease staying with him, and the past two nights had been bitterly cold, the weather showing no signs of breaking.
He'd given Gavroche the heaviest of his blankets to make a pallet on the floor, and pressed himself close against the wall behind his bed, where the building's chimney ran through the wall, so he could soak up the warmth that radiated through the brick and plaster.
Grantaire was still huddled there, unable to sleep any longer but lacking any impetus to get out of bed.
For a brief, disturbing moment, Grantaire was reminded of Enjolras, whose reaction upon seeing both his room and his person in such a slovenly state would have been open and deserved contempt.
Apparently, Grantaire wasn’t worth the kind of anger that the profligate expense of Louis-Philippe’s civil list or the blindness of the self-satisfied petite-bourgeoisie merited. “And our leader is very short on patience where you’re concerned.”
It was nothing but the truth – and not even something Grantaire could blame Enjolras for, since he wouldn’t be moved to patience with himself in Enjolras’s place, either, supposing that some version of himself could ever have the strength of principle or will to occupy Enjolras’s place – and yet hearing it put so plainly still made his stomach twist and something inside his chest burn.
“You really think they’ll listen to you? You’re a parasite, a useless hanger-on; they don’t want or need you.”
Grantaire’s face and eyes both grew hot, and what little pride he had finally rebelled. This was his apartment; he didn’t have to sit here and listen to this.
“This is your only purpose, your only useful contribution to the cause, to serve better men. You know it – why else do you look at Enjolras like that?”
Grantaire swore through clenched teeth, his eyes watering. “Leave him out of this.” It was worse than blasphemy to drag Enjolras’s name into an act like this. Every aspect of this scene would have filled him with disgust.
Enjolras disdained the act of physical love, even with women. At times, he seemed even to disdain physical pleasure itself as mere indulgence; not just the sexual kind, but all forms of it, from the exhilaration of a good fight to the savor of a good meal. His ideals were enough for him.
To see Grantaire not just submitting to this, but actually gaining pleasure from his own debasement, would be the last straw that forever did away with Enjolras’s already strained tolerance of him.
“He’d never appreciate what you have to offer, what you were nearly gagging for..."
After a few minutes, the prospect of Gavroche walking back into find him sprawled on the bed, half-naked and stinking of sex, was enough to impel him to his feet and over to the wash basin. He threw the shirt into a corner, sponged and scrubbed at his legs and torso with the cold water, and was in his shirtsleeves with his hair still wet and dripping when Gavroche came strolling casually back in.
After a few minutes, the prospect of Gavroche walking back into find him sprawled on the bed, half-naked and stinking of sex, was enough to impel him to his feet and over to the wash basin. He threw the shirt into a corner, sponged and scrubbed at his legs and torso with the cold water, and was in his shirtsleeves with his hair still wet and dripping when Gavroche came strolling casually back in.
The gamin glanced from Grantaire to the rumpled bed and wrinkled his nose. “You were serious about not having money, weren’t you? I thought you students didn’t have to do things like that, stealing and stargazing.”
Grantaire stared at him for a moment, before the child’s meaning sank in. Then he started laughing, unable to help himself. After all those threats and blackmail, it seemed it didn’t actually require a word to anybody to make Grantaire appear a male whore. Even children could tell what he was, despite the fact that he’d taken no money for it. “Don’t tell my landlady,” he gasped, once he’d regained the power of speech.
Gavroche screwed his face up into a grotesque wink, and held a finger to his lips. Then he dropped down to sit cross-legged on his neatly folded pallet of blankets, and stared up at Grantaire expectantly. “So, now that you’ve got ready cash again, what are we having for dinner?”
Grantaire merely shook his head, unable to bring himself to tell this entirely un-innocent child that he had neither asked for nor been paid any money.
He was startled out of a doze by the sound of someone knocking on his door.
Grantaire lifted his head, squinting across the room at the source of the sound, and decided that it wasn’t worth the bother to get up to answer it. Let whoever it is go to the effort of opening the door himself. He certainly had last time.
The knocking went on. The thought occurred to him that it might be Gavroche, but then he dismissed it. Gavroche would not have bothered to knock.
The boy had left yesterday, and Grantaire suspected from the absence of the blanket he’d been using as well as several of the smaller items from Grantaire’s shaving kit, presumably pocketed in order to be sold, that he wasn’t coming back. He’d left behind the basket of food he’d purchased with Grantaire’s money -- at least, the money was missing and the food was there, so Grantaire assumed it had been purchased -- sitting pointedly atop the washstand. His version of a thank you, Grantaire presumed.
Alone once more, Grantaire had settled himself against the wall last night with a bottle of wine and a secondhand copy of Nodier’s Infernaliana that he’d borrowed at some point from Jehan, but ghosts and demons had failed to hold his attention, and he’d ended up finishing the bottle and falling asleep.
“Grantaire!” someone called from the other side of the door. “Open up so I can go and tell Joly you’re alive.” The tone was good-natured, despite the words, and the voice.
“L’aigle?” Grantaire called back. The word came out as a hoarse croak. He swallowed, rubbed at his bleary eyes, and staggered to his feet to go and greet his caller.
He shouldn’t be surprised that one of his friends had come to enquire about his well-being, and yet he was anyway. He had nearly grown used to the idea that he was a member of their circle on sufferance, accepted only as long as none of them knew about what he had done, and he wasn’t feel enough to think that he could hide that forever.
It hadn’t occurred to him that while they still remained ignorant, his friends would naturally be concerned about his sudden absence.
He opened the door to find Bossuet standing in the hallway, his trousers and the skirts of his coat wet and dripping with slush. “There you are,” he said cheerfully. “I brought rolls for luncheon. Or, well, I meant to.” He held up a basket partially filled with soggy, soot-smeared objects that might once have been loaves of bread. “They were rolls, before I encountered a patch of ice and they and I both took a tumble.”
He’d intended to send him away, with the first excuse he could think of to explain why he’d been absent from their meetings, but looking at Bossuet’s dripping coat, slush-covered boots, the beads of water dripping slowly down his unprotected pate, and the poor, destroyed rolls he was still holding out, Grantaire somehow found himself stepping to the side and waving him in. “Most generous of you,” he said gravely.
“I’ll just leave them out here,” Bossuet said, setting the basket down just outside the door. “I can take them with me when I leave, and find some rubbish heap to throw them in.”
He glanced around, taking in the state of the room, and Grantaire braced himself for a disapproving comment, aware of the crumpled and unwashed bed linens, the empty bottles scattered about the floor, and the soiled shirt still lying abandoned in the corner where he’d thrown it. “Not quite the deathbed scene I expected,” he said, and Grantaire blinked.
“We haven’t seen you in nearly a week,” he went on in explanation. “Joly was half convinced that you’d caught the influenza and died of it.”
“I’m afraid not,” he said, only half joking. “Alcohol keeps away contagion, remember?”
“I mentioned that to him, but you know how he worries.”
Grantaire shrugged, looking away. “I had a houseguest to keep me company. Short, fair-haired, and sharp-tongued.”
“We all know how you feel about fair hair and sharp tongues, but I thought your tastes leaned more towards tall.”
It was only light-hearted raillery, he knew – all of his friends knew about his admiration for Enjolras, but only Jehan knew the exact nature of his feelings – but Grantaire still felt his face heating with shame. If he ever had been worthy of Enjolras’s company, he certainly was not now. “Don’t look so excited,” he said. “It was only Gavroche.”
“I know.” Bossuet grinned at him, nudging him with an elbow as if to apologize for the joke. “He told Bahorel he was staying with you.”
He should have long since ceased to be impressed by how quickly news could travel through the student quarter, but sometimes it still caught him by surprise. If Combeferre’s universal education had existed for Gavroche and his fellows – imagining for the sake of argument that they weren’t too busy trying to keep from starving to be able to afford even free schooling – they would likely have ended up running the country. “And yet Joly still spun theories of my imminent demise?”
“I told you.” Bossuet shrugged. “He worries.”
“He shouldn’t,” Grantaire told him, with perhaps a touch more bitterness than he ought to have. “I could give him a dozen reasons to despair of my survival before the week was out, each more self-indulgent and disreputable than the last.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s why he worries.” Bossuet glanced around the room again, his gaze coming to rest on the basket Gavroche had left. “Have you eaten yet? I’m sorry about the rolls.”
“I-“ Grantaire began, and then faltered, as he realized that he couldn’t actually remember the last time he’d eaten anything. He could remember what that last meal had been, but not when precisely he’d consumed it. Had he eaten at all yesterday, or only had wine?
At the moment, with his head still aching from the previous night, the idea of food made him feel faintly sick. But Bossuet looked so crestfallen over his failed attempt to bring breakfast that he swallowed hard and tried to set that aside. “I was just about to. Would you care to join me?”
The two of them ended up perched on the edge of Grantaire’s bed, there being no other seating available. Grantaire forced himself to take a few bites of bread, for the purposes of being sociable, and then abandoned the effort in favor of simply watching Bossuet eat. He’d attempt food again later, he decided, after his stomach had a chance to settle.
“You’ve been secreting yourself away in here all week,” Bossuet said, after a few minutes. “You should come out with us. There’s to be an epic battle in the snow, medical students against law students.”
When Grantaire pointed out that he had studied neither, Bossuet shrugged, nearly dropping his lunch, and told him that since Bahorel was taking the medical side, he and Courfeyrac were to be left to uphold the honor of the law all alone, against the arrayed forces of Combeferre, Joly, and Bahorel. “Unless you come to assist us, or Courfeyrac can convince Enjolras to participate, we are sure to lose.”
“Convince our dear leader to waste an entire afternoon in pointless frivolity?”
“You’ll help us, then?”
The idea of going out, for a snowball fight or for anything else, held little appeal. He would have to smile, and talk to everyone, and somehow contrive to act as if nothing had happened to him.
Grantaire shook his head. “It’s too early for such exertions, and I’ve a headache.”
Bossuet frowned little. “Grantaire, it’s the middle of the afternoon.”
“Precisely. Entirely too early.” He attempted a smile. “Besides, aren’t we all a little old for a snowball fight?”
“One is never,” Bossuet said with false gravitas, “too old for a snowball fight. When you’re an old man of twenty-seven like me, you’ll be wise enough to know that.”
“Well, perhaps I’m too great a fool for snow battles.” Before Bossuet could attempt to persuade him further, he added, “I’ve a headache already; I don’t think getting face-fulls of snow will improve it, nor will having Bahorel put snow down the back of my coat.”
Bossuet seemed to study Grantaire’s face for a moment, frowning. “But we will see you tomorrow at the Musain?” he pressed.
It was easier to agree than to argue.
Once he was alone again, free of any need to put up a pretense, he curled back up on the floor, on Gavroche’s abandoned pallet of blankets, and wished futilely that he hadn’t sent Bossuet away.
Ordinarily, skies that poured down sleet and streets full of melting slush would have been enough to keep even the most dedicated servants of the republic at home – and indeed, several of Enjolras’s friends were conspicuous in their absence this morning – but the content of this morning’s newpapers had been impossible to ignore.
“They say Madame the Duchess de Berry sponsored the plan,” Combeferre was saying, “but so far she has not been arrested, whether out of respect for rank or sex, or because the police have insufficient proof.”
Combeferre, Enjolras felt, was taking this entire affaire far too calmly. There were times, it was true, when he appreciated and relied upon his friend’s ability to serve as the voice of reason, but there were also times when a little hot-blooded indignation was called for, and the discovery and very public arrest of a Legitimist conspiracy to restore Charles X’s line to the throne through bloody assassination and undo what minimal gains the July Revolution had procured was one of them.
Courfeyrac shook his head. “Bursting into a royal ball armed with firecrackers and planning to assassinate the king!” he said, sounding almost admiring. “It sounds like bad opera.”
Feuilly snorted, full of contempt for both Legitimists and Courfeyrac’s choice of entertainment. “They were betrayed by good manners, apparently. They contacted the owner of the tavern at no. 12 Rue des Prouvaires in advance and told him to expect a large party.”
“Let that be a lesson to us never to make reservations.”
Enjolras resisted the temptation to glare at Grantaire. Any form of attention even negative, would only encourage him. “They were betrayed by police spies,” he said, attempting to sound stern and suspecting he only succeeded in sounding prim and humourless.
“Let that be a lesson to us never to trust our fellow man.” Grantaire raised his glass is if in a toast, casually dismissing the very real fear of every republican and legitimist in Paris.
Grantaire had been absent from the Musain for the past week or so, not that Enjolras had missed him. Were it not for the fact that it was noticeably quieter without the other man there to make a joke of everything, Enjolras told himself, he would not even have registered his absence from his usual corner.
Enjolras turned away, and snapped at Combeferre that of course the duchess hadn’t been arrested yet, aristocratic rank had its unearned privileges, and he could stand to show a little more passion over this attempt to circumvent the people’s will by restoring a rejected monarch’s heir to the throne.
Courfeyrac grinned at him. “You’re just angry that you have to be glad that the King wasn’t assassinated.”
Enjolras spluttered for a moment, but he made too much of a habit of honesty to deny it. “I… well… yes! It grates upon my very soul.”
“Charles X’s grandson on the throne would only have made our position worse,” Combeferre pointed out. He nudged Courfeyrac with an elbow, whether to convey that a little less levity was called for, or to signal appreciation of his jest at Enjolras’s expense, Enjolras wasn’t sure.
“If he ended up on the throne at all. The disorder that would have followed if their plan had proven a success might have worked in our favor.”
That was something Enjolras hadn’t considered, and much though it galled him to think that anything good might have come from the actions of royalists, it was a valid point, as well as something to take into consideration for the future. Their own efforts, as well as those of other republican groups, could just as easily provide opportunities for rival factions, or be the excuse the government needed to enact new repressions.
Feuilly gave a grudging nod. “It’s true. We need to stand ready to respond to actions by other groups who oppose the government, including our enemies. Even if their plans fail, there might still be opportunities in them for us.”
“Or danger.” Combeferre voiced Enjolras’s own worries. “The more unstable the government becomes, the harder they’ll put down dissent. There will be twice as many police spies wandering the streets of Paris after this.”
Enjolras voiced his agreement, only to be interrupted by a snicker from the corner.
“We have a common enemy in the King; maybe we should all make common cause together. Paris is off to a good start. What do we have planned for the first week of March?”
He was referring to the fact that last month, at the beginning of January, a republican conspiracy at the Tours de Notre-Dame had been exposed and put down by the police; now February had begun with the failure of a royalist conspiracy, and if you were inclined to make light of the political struggles of the nation, it did indeed make a good set-up for a joke.
“When the true cause of the country’s ills is that we have a king at all,” Enjolras said. Hearing the people of Paris, who had been the backbone of the Revolution, referred to as a ‘rabble,’ was more than a little insulting, so he added, “But I do not think the country will cheer Charles or Henri or any other Bourbon anymore. Not after Lyon. We have learned better.”
Grantaire snorted. He up-ended his glass – his fourth or fifth - and poured himself another; Enjolras wondered with unworthy spite why he hadn’t simply foregone glasses altogether in favor of drinking directly from the bottle. “The people won’t actually rise, you know,” he said, with an air of one explaining the obvious to a child. “They only care about food in their bellies and their own comforts.”
Grantaire sneered at him. “And I suppose you do?” he asked, with almost palpable contempt.
Enjolras felt his face heat. He wasn’t sure which he was more offended by, whether his own elitism or Grantaire’s cynicism.
It was habit to respond to the more familiar provocation first. “Not everyone is like you,” he snapped at Grantaire, “looking no further than their next bottle.”
It wasn’t even noon, and Grantaire was already visibly drunk, his face flushed and his movements overly broad. He was in his shirtsleeves, his coat draped over the back of his chair, and the ends of his shirt cuffs were stained with wine. His cravat was a crumpled, half-tied mess, and he clearly hadn’t shaved in several days.
That alone made Enjolras want to shout at him. It was bad enough that he refused to take even the weightiest of political matters seriously; worse, and even more infuriating, was the fact that he so clearly valued nothing, not even himself.
It was disgraceful. Grantaire was a disgrace, not just as a republican, but as a man. It made something inside Enjolras’s stomach twist angrily, seeing him this way, even though it was far from unfamiliar. It clearly never occurred to the man that his friends might worry about him, or wish him not to make a public spectacle of himself.
“No,” Grantaire returned, sullenly defiant. “Some are hypocrites who think their efforts ‘for the good of the people’ give them the right to treat those around them however they please.”
Enjolras felt a flash of hurt at the unexpected insult, which then immediately flared into anger. How dare Grantaire question his dedication to his ideals? If the other man didn’t like being scolded for his behavior, perhaps he shouldn’t act like a drunken wastrel. “Who are you to accuse anyone of hypocrisy? You who believe in nothing and don’t even bother to pretend to take what the rest of us would fight and die for seriously?”
Grantaire smiled at him, an odd, almost mocking little curve of his lips, and lifted his wine bottle toward Enjolras in a salute. “I believe in you,” he said.
Enjolras’s face went hot, his chest tight with the struggle to suppress his rage. He searched his mind for a proper response to this false sincerity obviously put on in order to mock him, but before he could arrive at one, Grantaire upended the dregs of the bottle into his glass, drained them, and laid his head down on the table, eyes closed, as if finally succumbing to the effects of drink.
“Leave him be,” advised, nodding toward Grantaire’s dark head, now buried in his folded arms. “What else can you expect from him?”
“Better than this,” Enjolras muttered. “And were we to speak of hypocrisy,” he said, more loudly, “we might discuss the futility of a revolution that dismisses the desires of the people because they ‘don’t know what’s good for them.’”
Combeferre said something placating about that being the reason why education for the masses was needed, so that they could properly understand what was at stake and choose for themselves.
Enjolras ignored him, not in the mood to be placated. Thoroughly irritated with all concerned, he indulged himself by bidding Courfeyrac and Feuilly – the only two present who hadn’t said anything to annoy him – a cold farewell, and taking his leave, for once departing well before the meeting was finished.
Grantaire awoke reluctantly, his head throbbing, and experienced a moment of panic when he found his face pressed into his own pillow instead of the hard wood of one of the Musain’s tables. Then he realized that he was still wearing his shirt and trousers, and that said trousers were still buttoned, and relaxed.
It said something about his life these days, he reflected, that waking up to discover himself still clothed save for his shoes and cravat was a pleasant relief.
Now that he was fully awake, he could vaguely recall Feuilly shaking him out of his doze against the table and dragging him home. He’d asked what was wrong, scolding Grantaire for getting himself into such a state and telling him that he was lucky Enjolras had let him off as lightly as he had. Grantaire wasn’t sure how he had replied, or if he had, but he couldn’t have spoken the truth, or Feuilly would have likely left him in the street.
Feuilly had been correct about one thing, though. As cutting as Enjolras had been, he could have been far colder. He far preferred Enjolras’s ire to his indifference.
Grantaire groaned and rubbed at his face, then forced himself out of bed to use the chamber pot. Standing up made the world sway around him, and he had to put a hand to the wall in order to steady himself.
He crawled back in bed gratefully. Even though he’d just woken up, his body ached with exhaustion, and he pressed his back to the warm bit of the wall where the chimney ran on the other side of the plaster and drifted off into a doze again, blanket pulled over his face.
He was jerked back to full awareness by a loud bang, and for a confused half-instant, thought that Bossuet had come to see him again, and had knocked something over.
No such good fortune was his, however.
Grantaire winced involuntarily, the sound of the door falling shut seeming very loud and final. He’d known he was going to pay for that jab when he made it, but the thrill of arguing with Enjolras and having other men’s full attention had made him reckless.
Would it be so terrible if the other found out? Surely Enjolras couldn’t despise him any less than he already did, and while the others might reject him, they would never sink so low as to treat him that way.
Grantaire staggered backwards, head ringing and face throbbing, and found himself abruptly sitting down again as the edge of the bed caught him in the back of the knees.
The headache he had been hoping to sleep off surged back with a vengeance, and he found himself fighting down nausea.
Grantaire closed his eyes and drew a deep breath in through his nose, willing himself not to be ill. Grantaire remembered Enjolras’s open contempt as he accused Grantaire of looking no further than his next bottle and smiled bitterly. He’d accepted long ago that he’d never see any expression in those level blue eyes but disappointment and disgust – not for his face and form, because Enjolras cared not for those things, but for the man who lay beneath them.
Grantaire pressed on, unable to stop himself. There was something almost exhilarating in saying the words, despite the lingering dizziness in his head. Perhaps he was still drunk from the previous night after all.
It was a mistake. Light sparked behind his eyes at the impact, his head surged with sickening pain... hard enough to set Grantaire’s head ringing again.
His eyes were hot with tears of anger, and the harder he struggled, the weaker and more exhausted he felt. His head hurt, his limbs were heavy and clumsy, and everything he knew about fighting scientifically seemed to have gone out of his head entirely.
Until Grantaire ceased kicking and struggling. Spots were swarming in front of his eyes again, and his lungs cried out for air.
He couldn’t hear it over the ringing in his ears. Then there was tearing, stretching pain...
Grantaire lay there limply, eyes focused on a fold of blankets inches away from his face. His throat burned, his face throbbed, and his arse hurt nearly as much as the both of them put together. His shoulder stung from the mark, and his head ached as if it were being gripped in a vice.
Jehan arrived at Grantaire’s lodgings quite determined that he was not going to leave again until he had managed to persuade his friend to come out with him to do something, anything. Aside from a single visit to the Musain that had apparently ended with Feuilly having to half-carry a maudlin drunk Grantaire home and pour him into bed despite the hour being barely past noon, the other man hadn’t shown his face in public for over two weeks.
Grantaire had always tended toward melancholia, but it had never been quite this severe before. He might mope about and drink more than was good for him, but it had rarely kept him from being good company or knowing how to enjoy himself. When Jehan had asked Bossuet and Joly, who had known him the longest, if this behavior was typical of him, Bossuet had shaken his head and said that he hadn’t seen its like in some time, since the days when they had first known Grantaire, immediately after he had left Gros’s salon, and that he had hoped not to see it again.
The door to Grantaire’s room was locked, and Jehan had to knock loudly upon it for some time before it was finally opened.
Grantaire opened the door a cautious crack, only a narrow sliver of his face visible through the gap. When he saw that it was Jehan on the other side of it, he seemed to relax slightly, and pulled the door open the rest of the way.
The apartment beyond was a squalid wreck, wine empty wine bottles scattered over the floor, crumpled clothing kicked into a head in the corner, and a mostly untouched basket of bread and withered winter apples growing stale and moldy atop the washstand. Jehan began to say something chiding about this state of affairs, and then Grantaire shut the door and turned to face him, and he saw the other man fully.
“Your face!” Jehan burst out, interrupting himself. “What happened?”
Grantaire’s lower lip was split, the cut ugly and scabbed-over, and a large bruise was swelling on his right cheekbone. He grinned, bruising giving the expression the look of a pained grimace, and then winced as the tear in his lip broke open again, reaching up to dab at it with the back of his hand.
“Last evening must have been fine indeed, for I’m afraid I can’t recall.”
Jehan found himself smiling, oddly reassured by this evidence of reckless carousing. Grantaire getting into a drunken tavern brawl necessarily involved Grantaire leaving his apartment and interacting with people.
Whatever was afflicting his friend had not gone away, however. Grantaire was holding himself stiffly, like a man expecting a blow, and his eyes kept straying to the open door at Jehan’s back. “Was there anything you wanted,” Grantaire asked, after a moment. “I think I have your Infernaliana somewhere about.”
“Simply the pleasure of your company. We’ve seen far too little of that lately.”
“The weather has been wretched.” Grantaire shrugged. “When the streets are full of ice, a wise man stays at home with a hot drink.”
“Mmm,” Jehan agreed. Or a wine bottle, judging by the number scattered around. Grantaire wasn’t usually this poor a housekeeper; Jehan winced a little at the thought of his borrowed book lying somewhere at the bottom of the debris, the pages soaking up the dregs of a spilled bottle or growing soggy beneath a damp, discarded boot. There was a reason he didn’t lend his personal library out indiscriminately. Grantaire, unlike some of his friends, could usually be trusted to hand books back in a reasonable condition, but whatever was troubling him recently seemed to so preoccupy him that he had no attention left to spare for his own condition, let alone that of his possessions.
Perhaps he’d forgone shaving today simply because of the injury to his face, but Jehan doubted it.
He needed to stop brooding upon whatever was worrying him, to relax and enjoy himself, preferably in a way that didn’t earn him any more bruises.
“I was going to invite you out to supper at that tavern near the Barrière du Combat, but if it’s possible you visited there last night and caused a disturbance, perhaps I’d better not.”
Grantaire began to agree, protesting that he was tired and his head was aching, but Jehan pressed on. “I know of a sure remedy for any leftover aches and pains,” he said, trying for a suggestive smile. He suspected that it fell flat, but Grantaire didn’t seem to notice. He was watching the open door again, arms wrapped around his torso as if he were cold.
Grantaire looked away, frowning. “I’m not good company at the moment, Jehan. Even I wouldn’t seek my own society, had I a choice.”
“Five sous worth of opium isn’t meant to be enjoyed alone.”
Something in Grantaire’s eyes sparked at that, and he straightened his shoulders a little. “Well, it will be a change from wine, I grant you that.”
The walk back to Jehan’s rooms was long and cold, but he counted it a success despite the icy chill in his ears and fingertips. Grantaire, silent at the outset, began responding to his attempts at conversation by the midway point, and by the time they reached Jehan’s door, had treated him to a several minutes long ramble about one of Carrel’s articles in Le National, the iniquities of slavery in the west indies and the revolution’s hypocrisy in in regards to it, and the trite over-sentimentality of a particular narrative poem by Lamartine.
His voice was overly loud, as it often was, but there was an almost frantic note to it now, and each attempt by Jehan to interject a question about his circumstances was met by a brittle laugh and a quick change of topic. Still, he was here, in company rather than alone, and perhaps Jehan could turn the topic back to whatever ailed him later in the evening, once the opium had eased the sting of his bruises and gotten him to relax.
His own rooms were nearly as untidy as Grantaire’s, though here the debris was composed of papers and books instead of wine bottles. Jehan shifted a stack of second-hand volumes from his armchair to the floor and waved at Grantaire to take a seat.
Grantaire squinted at the top most volume, then raised his eyebrows. “La langage des Fleurs?” he asked. “Really?”
“It might be useful someday,” Jehan protested, feeling a blush rising to his cheeks. He had in fact purchased the book in the event that he ever needed to send flowers to a mistress, but Grantaire would only sneer at that, so he defended, “We might need to send one another coded messages one day, and no police spy would ever suspect floriography.”
“Is there a particular blossom that means ‘the stockpile of arms is ready, today we riot in the streets?’”
It was meant as a jest, but Jehan answered anyway. “Well, monkshood means ‘a deadly foe is near,’ and nasturtiums signify conquest.”
“A different form of conquest than the one we mean, I’ll wager.” A leer accompanied that, rendered grotesque by Grantaire’s split and swollen lip.
“No, they mean victory in battle, too. Oh, and angrec means royalty.”
“What the fuck is an angrec?”
“It’s a kind of orchid, I think.”
“I suppose that’s fitting enough. Aren’t orchids parasites?”
Jehan tried to remember what the dictionary of flowers had said, but it had primarily described the symbolic meaning of each plant, not its natural history. “I don’t think so.”
Grantaire shrugged, then winced. “You promised me oblivion in a sweeter and swifter form than wine. Be a gentleman and keep your word.”
“The fruits of the poppy are meant to be experienced leisurely, not rushed,” Jehan chided, but he dug his pipe out of the drawer of his nightstand all the same, and searched through his tobacco pouch for the piece of sweet brown resin wrapped in wax paper that he’d tucked in amongst the tobacco leaves.
“That they may delight the soul, intoxicate the senses, and open one’s mind to poetry and the vibrations of the spheres.” Grantaire made a mocking flourish with one hand, then continued, “The harshest drink from the cheapest wineshop may do the same, and all your poetry will be so much incoherent babbling when read in the sober light of morning.”
Jehan looked up from his pipe, lucifer burning fitfully in one hand, and raised his eyebrows in pretended surprise. “So you’ve changed your mind, then?”
“Hand it over.” Grantaire stretched out a hand for the pipe, plucking it from Jehan’s fingers the moment it was lit. “After all this time, you ought to have learned never to mark what I say.”
They spent some time in companionable silence – Jehan couldn’t have said how long, for opium made judging the passing of time difficult – enjoying the dreamlike, floating feeling the opium brought. Eventually, it occurred to Jehan that he had had a purpose in bringing Grantaire here other than simple relaxation and enjoyment, and he dragged his scattered wits together and sat up a little straighter, surveying his friend.
Grantaire was sprawled bonelessly in the armchair, eyes closed. Even in the grip of intoxication, he looked tired and sad, his features solemn instead of content. It could have simply been the effect of the bruising, but Jehan did not think so.
“You have not been yourself lately,” he ventured, thinking to ease into the topic.
Grantaire’s answering smile had something bitter about it. “On the contrary, I’ve been more myself than ever.”
Jehan shook his head, and tried again. “You avoid your friends,” he said, ticking the points off on his fingers, “you drink more than ever…” There had been more, but he couldn’t recall it at the moment, so he went straight to the point. “What is it that’s troubling you?”
Grantaire stared intently at the pipe in his hands, turning it round and round and spilling a scattering of ash onto the arm of the chair. “You…” he began, then faltered. “Jean, you know what I am, how I…” he waved the pipe a little wildly, smoke swirling around his hand. “You know my feelings toward Enjolras.”
He stopped there, falling silent abruptly, and Jehan made a helpful, encouraging little noise. The smoke trailing from his waving hand was curiously hypnotic.
Grantaire ducked his head, avoiding Jehan’s gaze. “What if that were not the whole of it?” he mumbled, voice so low it was barely intelligible.
Ah, Jehan thought. It would have been impossible for Jehan not to know how his friend felt about their leader – dumb adoration shone from his eyes every time he looked at him – and had he any illusions as to the nature of that love, the things Grantaire had murmured the first time Jehan had been intimate with him would have banished them.
It had only ever been a pleasant interlude for him, nothing to take seriously, and nothing that might prevent him from desiring to do the same and more with a mistress. Grantaire, as far as he or anyone else knew, had never had a mistress.
Perhaps he had grown weary of pining chastely after Enjolras and sought other company, men willing to go farther than Jehan had been.
The revolution had stripped away the old laws prohibiting sodomy, but such men were still widely despised. Only half-a-dozen years ago, the Marquis de Custine had been beaten half to death in Saint-Denis for attempting to solicit the attentions of a soldier. His aristocratic privilege had not protected him from the attack, nor preserved his reputation in the aftermath.
Jehan shook his head, smiling, and reached out to rest a hand on Grantaire’s arm. “It’s all right.” How could Grantaire assume he’d be disgusted? Hadn’t the two of them done enough together by now to assure him otherwise? The very same Greeks who had first invented democracy had praised such love as one of the purest forms of brotherhood.
He leaned forward, thinking to demonstrate this in a way that would leave no room for doubt.
His lips came within a hairs-breadth from the other man’s, and then Grantaire was flinching back violently, the pipe clattering to the floor.
Jehan jerked back, startled. “It’s all right,” he repeated, holding his hands up in an attempt to soothe him.
Grantaire’s eyes were wide, all blue iris, and he shuddered visibly for a moment before reaching up to rub at his face and pull at his loosened cravat. “Apologies,” he stammered. “I- I don’t know what came over me.”
The cravat came undone to hang limply around his neck, and Jehan could see dark smudges on his throat, still half-hidden by his shirt collar. He squinted, and they seemed to move slightly in the lamplight.
“What is that?” he asked, reaching out automatically to brush aside Grantaire’s collar and see.
Grantaire flinched again, trying to bat his hand away, and Jehan automatically started to pull back, his face flushing at forgetting himself, when the smudges resolved themselves into a set of reddish-purple bruises, fresh and ugly against the skin of Grantaire’s throat.
“Good lord, who did you fight with last night? It looks as if he tried to strangle you.”
“I told you,” Grantaire protested, tugging his collar back up. “I can’t remember.”
Jehan evaded his hands and pulled it back down, holding the fabric away from his neck. “Let me look at you. These look bad; we should take you to Combeferre or Joly, or perhaps a real—my gods, is that a bite mark?” The second set of marks were further down the side of his throat, nearly at his shoulder, and though it was hard to make them out clearly without actually removing his shirt, they were very obviously the crescent-shaped result of human teeth.
Grantaire tried to duck away, his face reddening. “No, no it’s—it’s fine, don’t—stop it, don’t touch me.” He put both hands up as if to ward Jehan off, and repeated, voice cracking, “You shouldn’t touch me.”
Jehan moved back obediently, shaking his head in bemusement. “I can’t believe he bit you. What sort of man does that in a fist fight?”
“It wasn’t a fight. It—look, I’ll go now.” Grantaire stood abruptly, swaying for a moment, and grabbed for the back of the chair. “You don’t want me here tainting your home.”
“What-“ Jehan sputtered. None of this made any sense, and he didn’t think it was because of the opium. “Tainting my- Grantaire, calm down, you’re imagining things.” He had heard of people reacting to the drug this way, with delirium and hallucinatory ramblings, but had never actually seen it happen before.”
Grantaire seemed to visibly sag, one hand rubbing at his damaged face in a motion that spoke of defeat. “I only wish I had imagined it, but even my imagination is not that filthy or lurid.”
“What kind of a fight was this?” Jehan demanded, seriously alarmed now. “Did they rob you? Are you injured anywhere else?”
Grantaire shook his head, and pushing away from the chair, began to pace, his movements jerky. “Shall I sing like Philomela, proclaiming his actions through the wide world?” He flung his hands out, as if to encompass said world, and nearly hit Jehan in the face. “I ought to be grateful, I suppose, that he did not cut out my tongue.”
Jehan recognized the allusion, of course – any good poet would – and a moment of utter confusion was followed by horrified nausea as the implication of the biting words registered.
Philomela, or Philomena, who had been raped by Tereus of Thrace and turned into a songbird by the gods that she might fly free of her attacker. Deprived of her human tongue by her defiler so that she could not tell of his crimes, she spent eternity accusing him through her sorrowful song.
As fond of farfetched and elaborate metaphors as he was, Grantaire would not use such terms to describe a simple fight or robbery. Filthy and lurid, he had said. Tainted. After he had fled from Jehan’s kiss as if from the threat of a blow.
“Oh my friend,” he whispered. “What has been done to you?”
Grantaire turned away, burying his face in his hands, and let out an ugly sob. “Do not make me say it,” he begged, and Jehan’s stomach lurched once again at the shame and misery in his voice.
“But who?” he finally choked out. “How?”
But Grantaire merely shook his head, unshed tears glimmering in his eyes, and would not say.
***
He had tried suggesting Joly as a marginally less humiliating alternative, as Joly had known him longer (and, given that it was possible that he and Bossuet shared more in bed than just Musichetta, was perhaps less likely to reject him out of hand upon learning the full circumstances of his injuries), but Jehan had objected that Joly was too prone to anxiety and might simply fall into a panic, and that anyway, Combeferre’s rooms were closer.
“This truly isn’t necessary,” Grantaire protested, a distant sort of dread beginning to replace the dazed numbness that had filled him since he’d revealed himself to Jehan. “He’ll never be able to face me again after this, and who could blame him for it?”
“Any man could, and would,” Jehan said firmly. “He won’t blame you, Grantaire, or be disgusted, or refuse to help,” all possibilities Grantaire had attempted to raise, “or anything of the sort. You were set upon and attacked! What kind of friend would turn you away?”
Grantaire didn’t bother to correct his friend’s misapprehension. He would discover the truth soon enough. Once he learned that Grantaire was nowhere near as innocent in this situation as he’d had assumed, he would likely change his mind, but Grantaire selfishly wished to put that moment off for just a little while longer.
Belatedly, it occurred to Grantaire that maybe Combeferre would not be in. But no sooner had that hope occurred to him than Combeferre opened the door.
He took in the two men standing on his threshold, and frowned. “It’s the middle of the day,” he protested. “What on earth have you two been doing?”
Grantaire’s voice stuck in his throat. Jehan, on the other hand, appeared to have no such difficulties.
“He has been attacked.” He gestured at Grantaire’s face. “May we come in? Please? It is worse than it looks, and-“
“It isn’t, truly,” Grantaire protested. He wasn’t actually injured, save for a few bruises.
“It is,” Jehan insisted. He looked at Grantaire with sorrowful eyes, then turned to Combeferre again. “Please, someone should make sure that he’s all right.”
Combeferre’s eyes had widened behind his spectacles at Jehan’s initial announcement, and he stepped back and waved them in hurriedly. “What happened?” he demanded. “Were you robbed?”
Grantaire felt his face heat. “Not precisely,” he said. Not at all, in fact, but the truth was too humiliating to say aloud, even when half of his audience already knew.
“He was set upon,” Jehan said. “Beaten and, and worse.” He faltered, giving Grantaire an agonized look, either reluctant to expose Grantaire’s shame or too appalled by the entire subject to speak of it.
“Beaten?” Combeferre stepped closer to Grantaire, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Your face is not the worst of it, then?”
Grantaire pulled away, reaching up to touch his cheek, which began to throb again almost as soon as Combeferre mentioned it. “My face is always the worst of it,” he responded, old habit making him voice the jest before he thought better of it. “It likely looks worse than it is. I’m hardly injured, really, just a few bruises.”
Combeferre was studying his eyes, however, and ignored this. “From the size of your pupils, you could have a half-dozen cracked ribs and bruising in the kidneys and not know it.”
“It was only a little laudanum,” Jehan said. He had seated himself on the very edge of one of Combeferre’s chairs, and now perched there staring them, as if ready to leap up at any moment.
Guilty as his concern made Grantaire feel, it was also reassuring. If Enjolras was the best, most principled man he knew, Jehan was one of the kindest. He knew, at least some of it, and instead of being disgusted as many men would have been, was upset on Grantaire’s behalf.
Perhaps he could salvage at least one friendship from this entire debacle. As soon as he discovered that Grantaire had accused him.
Even the bare truth painted Grantaire in a less-than-flattering light, as an easily cowed craven who passively submitted and even went so far as to find pleasure and release in his own subjugation. He might not have carried through on his threat to literally fuck Grantaire bloody –that that degree of roughness in the physical act combined with a lack of lubrication would likely have hurt almost as much as it would have hurt Grantaire himself – but Grantaire had no doubt that he would fulfill his threats to ruin Grantaire’s reputation and credit with everyone from his friends to his landlord to the letter.
“An actual doctor would be of more use to you,” Combeferre was saying. “You know I haven’t completed my studies yet.” He steered Grantaire to the remaining chair and bid him take a seat and remove his shirt, then bent to fetch a surgeon’s kit from the lower drawer of his battered secrétaire.
It looked very professional and orderly, full of little knives and tiny mirrors on sticks and several alarmingly large-looking curved needles. It was very like Combeferre to have pre-emptively bought the tools of his future trade, Grantaire thought, just as Combeferre said,
“You have my solemn promise that I cleaned everything with Labarraque’s solution after my last visit to the dissection lab. The smell lingers otherwise.”
He probably ought to be disgusted by that, or at least disturbed. Maybe under normal circumstances he would have been, but it was difficult to feel anything other than dread and acute embarrassment as he attempted to unbutton his waistcoat with fingers so numb and clumsy they might belonged to somebody else.
The peaceful, floating sensation brought by the laudanum had long since worn off, but other effects still lingered.
“Who did this? It’s barbaric.” Combeferre touched two fingers to the sore spot at the junction of Grantaire’s neck and shoulder that he’d been left with.
Grantaire flinched away from the probing touch, then took a deep breath and made himself hold still. The greater a production he made out of this, the more pathetic he would appear and the longer the whole process would take. He might as well get the worst of it over with quickly.
Jehan gasped audibly, and Grantaire instinctively hunched his shoulders, sinking lower in the chair. Jehan had been surprisingly quick to believe him when he’d thought Grantaire’s attacker a random stranger. Naturally he would be reluctant to believe him capable of this. Grantaire wouldn’t have believed it himself, until it had begun happening.
“What in the name of... were you fighting about?” Combeferre asked, eyebrows winging upwards.
He had determined to say it, but he found that he couldn’t utter the words while looking into Combeferre’s face, so he directed his gaze to the open dissection kit instead. “We had a slight disagreement over my virtue. Or lack thereof, I suppose.”
“You- what?” Combeferre simply sounded baffled, rather than shocked or disgusted, and Grantaire, risking a glance at him from the corner of his eye, saw only confusion on his face.
Jehan, on the other hand, looked as if someone had stuck him. There was nothing in his appalled expression to indicate whether he believed Grantaire or not.
“He is no friend of mine,” Grantaire spat, a surge of bitterness breaking through the numbness. “His respect is reserved for men he thinks worthy of it; drunken parasites and useless hangers-on are fit only to service their betters. With their mouths, and their bodies.”
“With-“ Combeferre began, then broke off, shaking his head, a quick jerk of denial. “Grantaire, you’re drugged,” he went on, placatingly. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
Jehan was shaking his head as well, both hands pressed to his mouth, his eyes huge. He appeared as if he were about to cry.
Grantaire felt his own eyes heat with a ridiculous urge to cry himself, as much from exhaustion as from anything else. He was so very weary. The laudanum was supposed to have helped, to ease his mind and let him sleep, but all it had done was loosen his tongue, and now he was here. Now he was here, with no choice but to spill everything. He had to make them believe him, because if they did, it would stop, and that would make the destruction of Grantaire’s reputation, friendships, and self-image almost worth it. Even if they cast Grantaire out of their society as well, at least that would have no further hold over him. He couldn’t threaten to expose Grantaire once Grantaire had nothing left to lose.
“He came to my rooms,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady and not quite succeeding. “He told me that if I didn’t allow it, he would tell my landlady that I sold myself for money. She and her husband would have had me thrown out; they wouldn’t tolerate a prostitute under their roof.” Some remnant of pride compelled him to add the second part, trying to justify his compliance, though the threats sounded weak and pathetic when he said them out loud, and himself even weaker for fearing them.
Combeferre began to say something soothing, clearly still not believing him, and then the room’s door, pulled not-quite-to, swung inward abruptly, causing all three of them to jump.
Courfeyrac strolled in, walking stick in one hand and hat in the other, looking quite thoroughly at ease. “The door was unlatched, so I came right—what’s going on; is Grantaire all right?” His relaxed, insouciant posture fell away immediately as he took in the scene, and at some other time, Grantaire might have appreciated the concern.
“Yes,” Grantaire choked out, despite the fact that he could feel betraying tears start to well from his eyes. He tried to blink them back, then reach up to rub at them with one hand when that failed. He was beyond shame now, surely? Tired. He was just so tired.
“No,” Jehan said, immediately on the heels of his statement.
Combeferre had stepped back from Grantaire when Courfeyrac entered, and now turned toward the doorway, angling his body slightly as if to put himself between Grantaire and their newly arrived friend’s curious eyes. “I don’t think we need a larger audience for this. Courfeyrac, if you and Jehan wouldn’t mind-“
This was becoming a farce, as if it hadn’t been enough of one already. “Oh, no, I might as well tell him, too, as long as I’m apparently telling everyone.” The words seemed to come from someone else, another version of himself still capable of good humour. “Why stop here; let’s inform all of Paris!” The laugh that escaped him then almost hurt, catching in his chest like a sob.
“What’s happened?” Courfeyrac sounded seriously alarmed now. “Is it the police? Do they know about-“
“No, nothing like that.” Combeferre held up his hands in a calming gesture. “Grantaire has been fighting, and he and Jehan have been indulging in opium. Their account of events is a little confused.”
Vindication, Grantaire reflected, was bitter indeed. “I told you he wouldn’t believe me,” he reminded Jehan.
Courfeyrac arched an eyebrow. “... forgot himself enough to start brawling with Grantaire?” He turned to Grantaire, the beginnings of a grin on his lips. “What on earth did you say to him?”
Grantaire dashed at his eyes again, wanting for a dark moment to shout at them all, to beat that innocent grin off Courfeyrac’s face. Why had he allowed Jehan to drag him here? Combeferre thought him drunk and raving, Courfeyrac was clearly not going to believe him either, and Jehan was now attempting to make irritating little shushing noises at him, petting at the air as if he wanted to touch Grantaire but didn’t dare.
He might as well say what he would. Better to speak and be called a liar than keep silent and know himself a coward. “I said no,” he said, as distinctly as he could with his mouth swollen and his tongue still thick from the remnants of opium. “I told her I wouldn’t be her whore any longer.” He spat the word out, giving it the same contemptuous inflection. He took objection to it, as you can see.” He touched his face, where what had to be a spectacular bruise was still throbbing with a dull heat, then winced.
Courfeyrac’s eyes flew wide. “What-“
Grantaire rounded on Jehan, who had his hand out as if he’d been about to pat him again. “Don’t look at me like that! I’m not some poor victim. I got myself into this. You think this was the first time?” he demanded. “This was just the only time I was man enough to refuse him. He’s had me in every way he could want me, drunk and sober.”
Now Combeferre looked appalled as well; apparently enough detail had been given to satisfy him that this wasn’t some opium-induced fantasy. “Grantaire-“ He broke off, voice strangled, then continued, “How- how long has this been going on?”
The anger drained away as quickly as it had come, leaving a dull emptiness behind it. “Weeks. Nearly a month.”
Courfeyrac gaped at him. “He’s been ill-using you for-- Why didn’t you say something?”
“Because I enjoyed it!” Grantaire spat. “There. Now you know what you’ve been harbouring in your midst.” He slumped forward, face in hands, and wished desperately for oblivion, hating himself, all of it.
The other man’s indignation on his behalf ought to have been reassuring, but all Grantaire could think at his words was that if he had had sufficient faith in his friend’s kindness, he could have told him sooner. This could all have ended days ago, if only he’d been less of a fool.
While he sat there silently, unable to look up and face them, Combeferre, Courfeyrac, and Jehan had begun to debate the matter hotly. Combeferre clearly wanted to believe that there was some less damning explanation.
“I’ve done ‘such things’ as you speak of,” Jehan said hotly. “They needn’t be shameful.”
“They are when a man has to beat his lover into it!” Courfeyrac half shouted.
Jehan was saying something melodramatic about harbouring a viper in their bosom when Combeferre finally, blessedly interrupted,
“Gentlemen, I don’t think this is helping our patient.”
There is a moment of silence, and then Combeferre went on, in a low voice, “If this is true, we can’t in good conscience tolerate this any longer.”
More silence, as the others presumably stared at one another over Grantaire’s head and wished forlornly that they didn’t have to deal with this dilemma.
And then Courfeyrac said the only thing that could conceivably have made Grantaire’s utter destruction as a man complete. “I think we need to tell Enjolras.”
Grantaire started to laugh hysterically again, and then he was sobbing, making a complete spectacle of himself without even the excuse of drink. A few confused minutes later, Combeferre pressed a draught of laudanum into his hands and ordered him to drink it down and go to bed – in Combeferre’s bed, despite everything Grantaire had just told them – saying firmly that there had been enough excitement for today and they would tell Enjolras tomorrow.
Grantaire did as he was bid, too drained to protest. The other three were still talking in Combeferre’s sitting room, voices too low to distinguish the words. It would all be over tomorrow, he told himself. He wouldn’t think about the fact that Enjolras was going to learn of his shame.
He let the laudanum drag him under and wished desperately that he might be permitted never to awaken.
***
***
Enjolras was halfway through the second of his morning newspapers when he was pulled away from an account of the ongoing trial of Louis Blanqui by the sound of a knock on his door.
Upon opening it, he was not surprised to find Courfeyrac and Combeferre standing together upon his threshold. The presence of Jehan Prouvaire and Grantaire, standing together some few paces behind them, was rather less expected.
“Good morning,” he greeted them. “You are too late to share my breakfast, but are welcome to come in anyway.” Then, to Grantaire, “This is rather early for you, is it not?” He meant it to sound like a friendly jest, but Grantaire seemed to shrink into himself in response, as if trying to hide himself from view behind Jehan.
Combeferre did not smile at him in response, and beside him, Courfeyrac was biting his lip with unusual anxiety.
“This isn’t a social call,” Combeferre said. “There’s a serious matter we must discuss with you.”
Enjolras’s stomach lurched, as half-a-dozen different scenarios occurred to him. Bahorel and Feuilly had been arrested by the police, who would even now be seeking the rest of Les Amis de l’ABC to round them up on charges of fomenting insurrection. Bossuet had been in some sort of terrible accident. Joly’s worst predictions had come to pass and one of their number was lying insensate with fever, dying of the influenza. Another Legitimist coup had been attempted.
“Come in,” he said hurriedly, gesturing them all inside.
They filed in silently, all four of them subdued, and Enjolras found himself in the awkward situation of having four guests and only three chairs to offer them. He didn’t bother to apologize; this clearly wasn’t the time for social niceties.
“What has happened?” he asked.
There was a long silence, during which no one met his eyes. Then Courfeyrac and Combeferre exchanged a glance, and Courfeyrac blurted out...
“He’s been seducing women?” Enjolras couldn’t imagine it. He never spoke of women the way Courfeyrac or Grantaire did, though given that almost everything Grantaire had to say on the subject was likely false, that wasn’t much of a basis for comparison. He was a serious, dedicated man of the people, with little time for other pursuits.
“Not seducing,” Combeferre said gravely. “And not women.”
“Not women?” Enjolras echoed, feeling his face heat as the implications of that statement sank in. It had never occurred to Enjolras that he might be inclined that way, and the revelation was… not the unpleasant surprise it should have been.
“Grantaire has told us some very disturbing things,” Combeferre went on.
Grantaire visibly flinched, his shoulders coming up defensively.
“More than disturbing,” Jehan burst out. He spat the words out as if just saying the name disgusted him.
“Surely his romantic affaires are his own, well, affair?” Enjolras ventured, surprised and a little dismayed at the man’s vehemence. “His choice of partners may not be conventional, but-“
Courfeyrac interrupted. He gestured a little wildly in Grantaire’s direction, and looking, Enjolras saw for the first time that Grantaire was sporting a large, colourful bruise on one cheek. “He could barely speak of it. Grantaire, who is never at a loss for words about anything!”
Grantaire, thus indicated, stared at his hands and did not look up.
Enjolras felt faintly ill as the implications of Courfeyrac’s words sank in. Only the vilest of brutes treated women in such a fashion, and the fact that Grantaire was not a woman made little difference, save that the amount of violence necessary to force sexual acts upon him would be even greater.
“Grantaire, is this true?” he asked, trying to keep his tone as neutral as possible. Perhaps there was some mistake, some misunderstanding that Grantaire was now too embarrassed or afraid to correct. Grantaire was not entirely unappealing, could be infuriatingly charming at times despite his slovenly habits and irregular features, and he himself was both charismatic and handsome. Perhaps it had not been as one-sided as Courfeyrac believed, and his friend had drawn the wrong conclusion after witnessing a lover’s quarrel, or--
Grantaire nodded mutely, still not meeting his eyes.
“How-“ Enjolras’s voice caught in his throat, and he swallowed. No, he thought. No, surely not. “Grantaire, this isn’t like you!” The words burst out, impelled by a sick sense of betrayal; by Grantaire, by his own psyche, which found the entire idea of his colleagues engaged in the act of manly love much too intriguing. No, not love. If it were true, it had been some sick parody of the act of love. “Why would you make up such offensive lies? I know you’ve argued, I know you don’t believe in what we’re doing, but this? How can you say such things?” He knew, even as he said it, that Grantaire would not make such claims baselessly – what man would? – but still found himself hoping futilely that Grantaire would confess it all a drunken exaggeration or terrible misunderstanding.
Grantaire finally lifted his head, staring up at him with hollow, red-rimmed eyes. “With great difficulty,” he answered, “for I find it’s much harder to speak of them then it was to do them. Is that not strange?” He gave a low laugh that was close to a sob. “You do not believe I would stoop that low? Do you know, I believe that’s the kindest thing you’ve ever said about me?”
Enjolras’s stomach twisted and he felt his face flush hot. Self-disgust was not an emotion he was familiar with, but at this moment, confronted with the defeated slump of Grantaire’s shoulders and the raw emotion on the other man’s battered face, he could quite cheerfully have shot himself. “Grantaire-“
Jehan took a step forward, as if on the verge of shouldering his way between them. “How can you say that?” he spat, cutting Enjolras off. “You?” He stabbed an accusatory finger in Enjolras’s direction. “He practically worships you, you know that! I’ll swear an oath by anything that you care to name that it’s the truth, and if you won’t do something about it, I will.” He looked fully capable of doing exactly that at the moment, for all his slight build and delicate features. Voice rising, he went on, “I’ll not let a man capable of such acts claim brotherhood with me!”
Combeferre laid a hand on Jehan’s arm, silencing him without a word, and said quietly, “Do you think I would lie to you? Do you think Courfeyrac would lie? About so serious a matter?”
Enjolras shook his head. “I-“ he began, a half-formed justification on his tongue, then faltered. “No, my friend, you would not.”
He turned back to Grantaire, raising a hand to touch him and then letting it fall, unsure if such a gesture would convey sympathy or provoke entirely justified anger. “I apologize; you have indeed been wronged if she truly forced you to-“ He couldn’t bring himself to say it, his throat closing on the words, and instead burst out, “But how? Why?”
Grantaire sagged even further, his hands coming up to cover his face and his shoulders shaking. After a moment, Enjolras realized with horror that he was crying, muffled, choked-off sobs that were little more than uneven breaths.
For a moment, everyone in the room stood still, all of them uncertain of what to do. Then Jehan moved in to put an arm around Grantaire’s shoulders, and at nearly the same moment, Courfeyrac said,
“It’s all right. You needn’t tell us the details again. If I had known—“ he broke off, shaking his head, and added, “What you must have suffered all these weeks. If only you had said something sooner.”
“All these weeks?” Sickening as the thought of one violent attack on Grantaire was, the implications of that statement were far worse. Enjolras found himself ransacking his memory for any times recently that Grantaire had appeared at the Musain looking dishevelled or fresh from a fight, trying to recall if there had been any scraped knuckles or healing bruises he had attributed to boxing or savate matches or stick fighting. He couldn’t have said; save for when Grantaire was being actively disruptive or overly loud, Enjolras paid little enough attention to him in the course of things. Too little, apparently. “How long has this been going on under my nose?” he demanded, more of himself than anyone else.
Grantaire pulled himself free of Jehan’s touch with a violent jerk. “Nearly a month,” he said, voice low and thick with bitterness. He sniffed, rubbing at his eyes with one hand, and swallowed hard. “You imagine me a victim. I complied willingly enough until the end.”
“You-“ That did not sound willing to Enjolras. It sounded, in fact, a great deal like blackmail. By the bitterness and shame in Grantaire’s voice it was very clearly no lie.
“I see I’ve disgusted you,” Grantaire said. “I can’t imagine why,” he added, with heavy sarcasm. “Should I fall upon my dagger like Lucretia, so you may dip your hands in the blood and cry death to tyrants?” He laughed again, the sound edged with hysteria. “I’ll take my leave of you now; do what you will. I don’t care.”
Jehan winced, reaching for him again. “Grantaire-“
Grantaire slapped his hand away. “Stop touching me!” he snarled. “I’ve had enough of all of you.”
The four of them stared dumbly as he rushed from the room, leaving the door open behind him. Moments later, there came the sound of the front door slamming shut.
A few moments went by in silence, and then Combeferre sighed, rubbing at the spot at the bridge of his nose where his spectacles pinched him. “That was ill done.”
Enjolras stared at the open door, feeling sick. A fine advocate of the people he was, that even his friends feared to come to him for help. Grantaire had let this occur to him for weeks – weeks! – rather than do so, and he suspected he had only come to him now because one of the others had forced him to. And instead of offering sympathy or understanding, Enjolras had driven him away.
Combeferre was right; it was ill done of him.
Shame was not an emotion Enjolras was well acquainted with, nor was self-doubt, but he felt them both now.
“Let that be a lesson for us,” Grantaire had observed cynically, after hearing of how the Rue des Prouvaires conspiracy had been brought down by informers, “never to trust our fellow man.”
Grantaire’s cynicism had angered him at the time, but now Enjolras could only wonder.
“That’s a five, not a six.”
Grantaire shrugged, squinting at the little black pips, which were starting to blur into one another. “So it is. I was never much of a mathematician. I bow to your expertise in the subject.”
He flipped the tile around in the other direction, so that the correct half – the side with six pips –was touching the end of the line of play. Then he eyed the edge of the table, only a few inches away, and carefully rotated the tile sideways. “There. Your round,” he told the man at his left. “You’ll need a tile with a five, as you so cleverly observed.”
The lighting in the tavern was dim, though not enough so to successfully conceal the sticky stains on the table, left by spilled wine, beer, and some substance Grantaire couldn’t identify. He wasn’t sure if this was the third tavern he’d been to today or the fourth, or even what this particular establishment’s name was, and did not particularly care.
He had little memory of the day after leaving Enjolras’s apartment, and he hoped to have even less memory of it by the time the night was over.
He’d like to forget the events of this morning as well, but he suspected that conversation was branded into his memory forever, along with the look of horrified disgust on Enjolras’s face.
No, he reminded himself. He wasn’t thinking about that.
The individual to his right nudged him none too gently with his elbow, and Grantaire realized belatedly that it was his round again. Three. Surely he had a tile with a three. If not, he was out… however much he’d bet.
Had he won money since sitting down in here, or lost? It was difficult to keep track; he’d always been terrible with numbers.
He placed his tile, then carefully flexed the fingers of his right hand, where the knuckles were starting to swell. He’d bruised them on a particularly large individual’s face in the last tavern – the one he’d been thrown out of – in a fight over… what had it been over? Possibly nothing at all; tavern brawls often were.
The game went on, the bottles at the table emptied and were replaced by new ones, and then, when everyone was down to two tiles, they hit that point nearly all games of dominoes arrived at, where no one at the table had a playable tile. For some reason, no one had foreseen this eventuality before the game began, and no agreement had been made beforehand about whether the man whose tiles added up to the largest number or the smallest would win.
“Perhaps,” Grantaire suggested sarcastically after a few minutes of debate, “the pot should got to the player whose number is exactly in the middle.”
The player with the highest number, a balding man in a labourer’s smock, informed Grantaire that his idea was as stupid as he was ugly.
“I am in good company, then,” he returned automatically.
“Oh, shut it,” another player said. “You can’t even tell a five from a six.”
The balding man was still glowering at him, his displeasure intensifying as the group’s opinion swung in favor of the lowest number, on the grounds that the object of the game was, after all, to play all of one’s tiles and be left with none, which clearly meant that fewer or less valuable tiles were more favorable.
“But is a pair of single pips the least valuable tile, or the most?” Grantaire asked, more out of a deliberate desire to be difficult than actual curiosity. “An ace is, after all, the highest-ranking card in a deck, surpassing even a king. An admirably realistic rule, since any individual peasant is more useful to society at large than any crowned head.”
“Watch your tongue,” the balding man snapped. “I fought for Napoleon at Waterloo. He was a great man.”
Before he knew what he was doing, Grantaire went over the table at him. There was a peculiar ringing in his ears, and he felt no pain at all in his bruised knuckles as his fist made contact with the older man’s chin.
He could definitely beat this stranger’s face in.
His second swing missed as a rush of vertigo hit him, the alcohol he had consumed abruptly catching up with him. The balding man shoved him backwards, shouting something in defense of Napoleon, and Grantaire tried to catch himself on the edge of the table, failed, and went sprawling on the floor.
He came up spitting curses and sneers about the Corsican butcher, filled with a wild recklessness that made bruises and lack of equilibrium and the sheer number of opponents immaterial. Even if he lost, what was the worst that could happen? A few bruises? He had no dignity, reputation, or much of anything else to lose.
In the end event, he did lose, however, and badly.
Some indeterminate amount of time later, he picked himself up from the snow bank he’d staggered into when forcibly ejected from the tavern and clumsily brushed damp snow from his clothes.
Considering the odds, he hadn’t lost too terribly. Or no more terribly than he had deserved. What did it matter, anyway? Out here was as good as in there, better, even, for the lack of company, and he still had his wine bottle, having kept hold of it when being thrown out.
It wasn’t even that cold. Not really.
He tipped back his head and took a long swallow from the wine bottle, then pushed himself away from the wall, squinting at the blurrily dancing streetlights. Time to go home. Which way were his rooms again?
“Perhaps he did truly believe much of what he said,” Combeferre said. “The authorities have induced men to turn upon their comrades before.”
Bossuet frowned, glancing around the room with evident concern. “Do you think it wise to keep meeting here?” He nodded at the map of the republic, in its place of pride on the far wall. “Shouldn’t we at least take that down, in case the building is investigated?”
“I do not believe Monsieur will be telling the police anything.” Enjolras sounded entirely confident, as well he might.
He had spent the entire day searching for Grantaire, first checking at his flat, and then seeking him in every one of a dozen taverns, bakeries, and coffee shops and all over the Latin Quarter and the left bank. No one he had spoken to had remembered seeing him.
Given the state Grantaire had been in, this was mildly alarming. Jehan had expected that he would seek the comfort of familiar surroundings, but having exhausted the list of all Grantaire’s usual haunts, he was forced to conclude that either he had been wrong, or that Grantaire had sought out some wineshop or gambling den he had not yet introduced his friends to. It was possible; he seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of knowledge of such places.
“I knew something about him wasn’t right,” Feuilly was saying. “I must confess, I never shared your liking for him.”
“Would that we had listened to you,” Enjolras said. “I shall be guided by your instincts in the future.”
“As long as you aren’t guided by mine,” Bossuet joked. “If ever I bring a new man in here, he’s likely to be a police inspector in disguise.”
Of all their group, Joly and Bossuet had known Grantaire the longest, Jehan thought. Perhaps they might have some insight into his whereabouts that he lacked.
“Grantaire?” Bossuet shrugged when Jehan put the question to him, indicating his lack of knowledge. “I haven’t seen him since… yesterday? Perhaps the day before.” He looked to Joly, who shook his head, equally without inspiration, and then went on, “But that may be a good thing. If our friend is out there somewhere drinking and carousing, it at least represents an improvement upon hiding in his apartment and succumbing to melancholia.”
Jehan felt unfortunately certain that it wasn’t, but could not think how to explain this without revealing at least some part of what Grantaire had suffered over the past few weeks. He was equally certain – and felt no small amount of guilt over this fact – that informing the leaders of their circle, particularly Enjolras, had made the situation significantly worse from Grantaire’s perspective.
He had been so concerned for Grantaire’s physical health, that he had overlooked the fact that his friend’s misery over the entire affaire would only be deepened by the knowledge that the man he idolized knew of it.
Jehan was staring down at the dregs of his empty coffee cup, still trying to think of a way the entire mess might have been avoided – they need not have brought Grantaire with them to inform Enjolras, but no, given his principles and his friendshipn, he might not have believed the accusations without Grantaire’s word to confirm them — when Gavroche scurried in, still shaking snow off his boots.
The snow was coming down harder now, Jehan assumed. The child must have left a trail of melting slush all through the main room of the coffeehouse and up the stairs.
“You’ve delivered Enjolras’s messages already?” Bahorel asked. “That was quick work!” He hooked a chair out from under the table with one foot and nodded to it. “Here, sit down and have some coffee. You look half-frozen.”
“Don’t mind if I do.” Gavroche dropped into the chair and seized the nearest coffee cup, wrapping his hands around it without drinking. “I’m still working on the commission,” he admitted. “I’m here because I need a- that is, I’m here to do you a favor.”
“And what are we to be indebted to you for?”
Gavroche took a sip of coffee, wrinkled his nose at the bitter taste, and then put the cup back on the table. “I found your friend. Somebody should probably haul him up out of the gutter and drag him inside before he freezes.”
“Where is he?” Jehan was on his feet and halfway to the door before Gavroche even had a chance to reply.
Gavroche caught up with him and took the lead, with Bahorel bringing up the rear, and they were already down the stairs and heading outside before it occurred to Jehan that he should have told the others where they were going and why. Enjolras had been occupied in arguing with Joly about the need to take precautions; had they even noticed Gavroche’s arrival?
He should have brought Joly. Who knew how badly Grantaire might be injured, or what state he might be in?
“You know… what’s happened?” Bahorel asked Jehan in an undertone as Gavroche led them down the street.
Jehan nodded, not wishing to elaborate. It wasn’t a matter appropriate for a child’s hearing.
Bahorel, apparently possessed of less delicacy, went on, “He admitted it, for all the world as if there were no crime in it.” He made a disgusted sound, shaking his head. “Why would any man wish to do such a thing? Why would Grantaire allow him to?”
“He didn’t say so, but I suspect he was incapacitated by drink the first time and incapable of protest..”
They trudged through the snow in silence for a few moments while Bahorel digested that. “Enjolras let him off too easily,” he finally said. “We ought to beat him within an inch of his life for that. Grantaire would do it for one of us.”
Jehan was less certain of this, Grantaire not being of a vengeful character, but Bahorel’s inclinations toward violence matched his own, so he did not say so. He did not make a study of pugilism or savate, unlike some of his friends, but knocking a man down could not be so very difficult, he thought, especially not when one possessed such excellent motivation.
“This way,” Gavroche said, turning into an alley only a few streets away from the Musain. “He must have been making his way back home. I’d have just carried him the rest of the way myself, but he’s too heavy.”
Grantaire lay crumpled against one of the alley walls, as if he’d been leaning against it for support and had simply slid down it. There was snow caught in the folds of his clothing and in his hair, as if he’d been lying there for some minutes.
Jehan fell to his knees next to him, all thoughts of vengeance forgotten. Ignoring the sound of Bahorel’s curses, he tore off his glove, fumbling for the pulse in Grantaire’s throat. He couldn’t find one, and his heart lurched in his chest for one terrible moment before he noticed the faint cloud of steam that was Grantaire’s breath and realized that the fault lay in his own fingers.
Why hadn’t he brought Joly? Or Combeferre? Why hadn’t he kept searching for Grantaire longer?
What he wished to do was clutch Grantaire’s still form to his chest and weep from fear, relief, and guilt. What he actually did was look up at Bahorel and say, “Let us carry him to the Musain. We need to get him inside.”
He had been sitting indoors with a hot cup of coffee while Grantaire lay here in the snow, he thought. He should have kept searching. If Grantaire was seriously injured, he was no more going to forgive himself.
Convincing Bossuet and Joly that they weren’t about to be arrested as Republican conspirators took some little time, enough that Enjolras found a small, unworthy part of himself wishing it were possible to simply tell them the truth. Lies, even for a good cause, trailed numerous complications in their wake.
“Where has Bahorel gone off to?” Combeferre observed, just as the discussion seemed to be drawing to a close.
Enjolras glanced around, realizing belatedly that neither Bahorel nor Jehan was present. It occurred to him, with no small amount of consternation, that they might perhaps have left with the intention of physically beating a degree of remorse into him. He wasn’t sure which part of the idea was more irksome – that they had decided his version of justice was not sufficient, or that they had not invited him to participate.
No sooner had he come to this conclusion than there came the sound of shuffling and stomping from the stairs, followed by Gavroche’s voice. “Do you think he’s going to die?” And then, in less frightened and more considering tones, “If he dies, can I have his-“
“He’s not going to die,” Jehan snapped.
He and Bahorel staggered into the room, the limp form of Grantaire suspended between them, one arm slung over each man’s shoulders.
For one horrified moment, Enjolras was certain that the thugs had tracked Grantaire down to attack him again, in retribution for Enjolras’s punishment, and then sanity caught up to him and he realized that it was much more likely that Grantaire had simply gotten into a bar fight. In the mood he had been in when he’d fled their company, he might very well have gone looking for one.
Automatically, Enjolras moved forward to help settle Grantaire’s limp form into a chair. His face was decorated with several new bruises he hadn’t had that morning, and the knuckles of his right hand were swollen and raw – and also cold as ice. He was wearing neither gloves nor hat, and his hair was damp with melting snow.
He practically reeked of wine and eau-de-vie, but given the chill of his skin and the bluish colour of his lips, Enjolras wasn’t sure drink was responsible for his state of unconsciousness.
After everything that had happened, for Grantaire to freeze to death in the street was unacceptable.
“Combeferre-“ he began.
Combeferre was already crouching down by the chair to inspect Grantaire, with Joly at his heels. “I don’t believe the bruises are as bad as they appear,” he said, and Enjolras fought the desire to inform him that obviously Grantaire’s battered face and hands were the minor problem here.
Combeferre knew what he was doing. While Enjolras’s record as a law student was somewhat spotty, his friend rarely missed a medical lecture.
“I can’t wake him up,” Jehan interjected. “We tried, but nothing would rouse him.” He was holding one of Grantaire’s cold hands in his, trying to rub warmth back into the still fingers.
Combeferre nodded soberly. “He’s very likely drunk, but there’s also a possibility of general asphyxia from cold.”
“What’s-“ Gavroche began.
“It’s what Napoleon’s army all expired from in Russia,” Joly said, with slight but forgivable inaccuracy. “Why did you bring him here?” he demanded of Jehan and Bahorel. “He needs warm, dry clothes, and a fire, and to be put to bed with a hot water bottle, and-“ he broke off with a frustrated gesture. “You should have taken him to his rooms. They’re only a street or so away.”
“We’ll have make do with what’s available here,” Enjolras said. Thousands of men had perished from the cold during the army’s long retreat from Russia, victim of the emperor’s hubris. Hundreds more died in the streets of Paris every winter, particularly this one, which had brought with it the bitterest cold the Ville Lumière had endured in years. Grantaire, however, was not going to be one of them. He would not permit it. “Help me remove this wet coat,” he said. “We ought to get him into dry clothing.” Enjolras looked automatically to Combeferre, who confirmed this with a nod, and then he went on, “Feuilly, you’re close to his height; let’s have your coat.”
Feuilly was already stripping off his jacket, its serviceable brown wool neatly patched at the elbows.
Jehan and Bahorel divested Grantaire of coat and waistcoat, struggling to work his limp arms free of the sleeves. His shirt, thus revealed, appeared to have been spared the worst of the damp.
“Someone fetch me some coffee,” Joly said, holding out a hand. “We must bring his temperature back up to restore the flow of blood. The cold makes the vessels constrict, allowing bad blood to accumulate in the brain and lead to loss of consciousness.”
Combeferre nodded. “If we can rouse him enough to drink it.”
“So, is he going to die or not?” Gavroche asked. Enjolras could not tell whether the child was ghoulishly fascinated, or truly concerned and attempting to mask it with bravado. Both were possibilities.
“He’ll be fine,” Bahorel told him. “You did a good job coming to fetch us for him.”
“I di-“ the child began, and then cut himself off, “Of course I did. I’m a professional.”
“Once we get some coffee into him,” Enjolras said, choosing to ignore the byplay, “we can take him home and put him to bed with that hot water bottle, all right, Joly?”
Gavroche wrinkled his nose. “I don’t think he owns one.”
“We own three.” Bossuet proffered a cup of coffee to Joly, hissing through his teeth as some of the hot liquid splashed over the rim onto his hand. “I can go and get one.”
Grantaire’s head lolled against the back of the chair, and he sagged, held in place only by Bahorel’s grip on his shoulders. The warmth of the room had begun to melt the snow that had been caught in his hair, and now wet curls stuck to his forehead and neck.
He wore no cravat, and without his coat collar in the way, faint smudges of bruising were visible around his throat, the colour not raw or red enough for it to hail from the past few hours.
The sight made Enjolras feel ill. How could a man claim to hate injustice and tyranny and then treat his own comrades so?
Combeferre, Joly, and Jehan were now attempting to rouse Grantaire. Enjolras retreated slightly to allow them to work, and felt a peculiar lurching in his stomach when their efforts were at last rewarded by a groan and a clumsy attempt to swat Joly’s hand away.
“Drink this.” Joly thrust the coffee under Grantaire’s nose, holding the rim of the cup to his lips, and muttered something about vital humours and vascular constriction that nobody, least of all Grantaire, was disposed to listen to.
Grantaire mumbled something incoherent and attempted to turn his head away, but his attendants were persistent, and between them, they managed to induce him to drink most of the cup.
He was shivering convulsively now, some colour seeping back into his face, and Enjolras didn’t need Combeferre’s murmured, “Good, this is good. The asphyxia is not so advanced as I feared,” to know that the worst danger was passing. He appreciated it all the same.
Grantaire abruptly pushed the coffee away, spilling the remainder of it over Joly’s fingers, and groaned, pressing a hand to his mouth. Then he doubled over and was quite violently sick, the contents of his stomach narrowly missing Enjolras’s boots.
Enjolras jumped back, biting off an oath, while Jehan and Bahorel caught Grantaire by the shoulders to prevent his falling out of the chair.
Gavroche made a disgusted sound and went to join Bossuet and Feuilly, well out of the way of any further mess.
Bahorel eased Grantaire back against the back of the chair and swore an oath of his own as the collar of Grantaire’s shirt gaped open further, revealing a crescent of dark bruising at the junction of his neck and shoulder. Even from several feet away, Enjolras could see quite clearly that it was a bite mark.
“Ah, for Zeus's sake,” Grantaire moaned, pressing a shaking hand to his closed eyes. “Just let me die.”
Mingled relief and anger took control of Enjolras’s tongue, and he snapped, “If that’s your desire, you’ve chosen a remarkably effective way to go about it.”
Jehan winced, looking as wounded as if he’d been the one insulted, and Enjolras immediately felt guilty.
“We can take him to my rooms,” he offered. “They’re only a little further away than his ‘dreadfully cold and insalubrious garret,’” he quoted Joly, “and I do possess a hot water bottle.” It was little enough to do for a comrade, and no more than he would have offered Feuilly or Courfeyrac, had either of those worthies been taken ill. From Grantaire’s bemused expression, he suspected guiltily that it was the most extravagant gesture of friendship he had ever made to him.
Gavroche protested that Grantaire’s apartment was perfectly nice, for all as if his own lodgings had been insulted. Enjolras wondered absently why Bahorel’s pet gamin had an opinion about the state of Grantaire’s apartment, then dismissed the thought. The child had an opinion about everything, including things he had only just heard of; in the rougher quarters of Paris, obvious ignorance could be a dangerous thing.
“You don’t truly want me soiling your rooms,” Grantaire groaned, closing his eyes again. “Leave be. I’ll go home and trouble you all no more for the evening.”
“You’re either more drunk than usual or the cold has affected your brain,” Enjolras told him. “Stop speaking nonsense.” He turned to Combeferre, who had skillfully avoided being vomited on and was now crouching by the chair again, attempting to take Grantaire’s pulse. “Let’s get him into Feuilly’s coat and get him to bed before he gets worse again.”
Grantaire made another feeble attempt at protest, then subsided and meekly let himself be bundled into the borrowed coat, still shivering. He smelled of wine and wet wool and the sour scent of vomit and Enjolras wanted to be angry at him for getting himself into such a state. Grantaire’s drinking had always angered him, both for the waste of a fine mind it represented and the lack of self-respect it betokened. Now, however, the familiar anger was overwhelmed by an entirely unfamiliar and uncomfortable concern.
He could have died out there in the snow with none of them the wiser.
Enjolras saw again that ugly bite mark upon Grantaire’s neck, and remembered the way his shoulders had shuddered with silent, angry sobs when he’d spoken of his treatment – and the way he’d thrust aside any attempts at help and run out into the cold.
Abruptly, he was doubly glad to insist that they ignore Grantaire’s protests and take him to Enjolras’s own apartment.
Every time he thought he couldn’t possibly humiliate himself further, he somehow managed to do just that. It was his one real talent, Grantaire reflected. He was a dilettante at everything else, but when it came to self-degradation, he was a true master.
As if being carried fainting into the backroom of the Musain were not enough, he distinctly recalled being sick on Enjolras’s boots. Or near enough to them, anyway.
Despite his protests that all he wished for was to go home to his own rooms, he had been dragged Enjolras’s apartment – as if he hadn’t already disgraced himself in front of him enough – and Jehan and Combeferre were now attempting to strip him of his clothing and put him to bed.
He was so very tired of people trying to take his clothes off.
“Why do you persist in trying to send me to bed like a child?” he complained, shoving Combeferre’s hands away from the fastenings of his trousers with a violence born of desperation. He didn’t wish to be undressed, to be touched, why wouldn’t they listen?
“Stop that,” Combeferre ordered. “You’re soaked to the skin and dangerously chilled. We have to get you out of these wet things and warm you up.”
“Then I’ll do it myself,” Grantaire snapped, slapping futilely at Combeferre’s hands again. It was hard to make contact – his hands kept missing their target. Still, he must have managed to make his intentions known, for Combeferre finally, blessedly stepped away from him, holding his hands up placatingly.
“All right,” he said, in a reasonable, soothing tone that made Grantaire wish to hit him. “My apologies.”
The buttons of his trousers were inordinately difficult to undo. His fingers, thick and numb, did not want to work properly, and his hands were shaking. In fact, his entire body was shaking, he realized belatedly, and abruptly he truly felt the cold for the first time.
Perhaps he was dangerously chilled at that. He felt foolish for being so recalcitrant; his friends were once again trying to help him, and he rewarded them with petulance and ingratitude.
Why wouldn’t these buttons come undone? His head was aching hard enough to make focusing his eyes difficult, and he had to swallow down nausea for a moment, along with an irrational urge to cry.
He didn’t want to be here, the recipient of all this undeserved concern. He wanted his own rooms and his own bed, devoid of company, where he could hide himself away and avoid the world. Which was ironic, because he generally preferred to be around others in order to avoid himself. Most of all, he simply desired to cease existing for a while, but his attempt to do so earlier with Jehan and the opium had backfired in the most resounding way.
Unfortunately, he was fairly certain leaving was beyond him at the moment. Whether it was due to the lingering effects of intoxication and the beginnings of a hangover, or to exposure to the cold and wet, he was not sure, but Grantaire was beginning to feel more than a little unwell. The floor kept lurching under his feet, his vision blurred when he moved his gaze too quickly, and he was colder than he’d ever been.
Once he’d finally succeeded in stripping himself down to his shirt, he all but fell onto the bed. Keeping his eyes open took effort, so he closed them instead, and concentrated on trying to keep his teeth from chattering.
“I’ll go see if Enjolras has the hot water ready,” Combeferre said, moving toward the door.
Once he had gone, Jehan sat down on the bed at Grantaire’s feet and began to pull off his wet stockings. “Generally,” he said, “one lies under the blankets, not on top of them.”
“Mmmph,” Grantaire said, turning his face into the pillow. His cheek and nose were beginning to throb and sting, either from the cold or from his bruises, and the numbness was leaving his fingers, to be replaced by a painful burning sensation.
“I know apologies are insufficient in this instance, but let me say nevertheless that I am so very sorry.”
Grantaire opened his eyes at this – what the fuck did Jehan have to be sorry for? – to see his friend staring down at his hands, twisting his fingers together anxiously.
“I should have kept looking for you. You could have died. If Gavroche hadn’t found you-“ he broke off, biting his lip, and seemed to shudder a little.
Yet another thing way in which he’d proved a burden on his friends this evening. He hadn’t thought that they would worry about him so, had simply wanted to escape – from the eyes of others if not himself – but he should have given thought to their reactions.
He hadn’t meant to lose himself in the snow, if that was what had happened; his memories were fuzzy following the game of dominos and the fight that had come after it. Surely he had meant to return home. He might crave oblivion, but he only wanted it temporarily, not for all eternity.
He could indeed have died if they hadn’t found him. Beggars and gamins and drunkards froze to death in the streets more nights than they didn’t, this winter.
That first night he’d gone drinking should have taught him to exercise more temperance. Then he’d awoken with the marks of lovemaking on his body and no memory of how he’d obtained them. This time, he might not have awoken at all.
“If I’d frozen,” he said ruefully, “it would have been the just deserts of my own intemperance.”
Jehan did not smile at that, as he’d been meant to. Instead, he left off wringing his hands and reached to take one of Grantaire’s in his, the touch of his fingers shockingly hot. “Next time you go out drinking, do it with one of us. Please?”
If that was all Jehan wanted in recompense for Grantaire’s appalling display of stupidity, it was easy enough to promise. He’d drunk himself insensible in Jehan, Joly, or Bahorel’s company dozen times before, and they had never taken advantage of the situation. He could trust them to see him home without attempting to turn an act of friendship into something more. “You are too good to me. All of you. It goes against human nature. Homo sapiens is a selfish creature, who does not act where there is no advantage, and I offer you nothing in return. Only my poor company, which ought by rights to disgust you. God knows, I disgust myself.”
Jehan shook his head, looking distressed. “None of us think less of you, Grantaire. You know that, right?”
He thought less of himself, but he did not say so, instead rolling on to his side and drawing his legs up, curling into a ball. He couldn’t seem to get warm, despite the blankets Jehan was wrestling out from under him and drawing up over his legs.
His hands hurt. So did his head, and his face, and his ribs and gut – had someone hit him there? He couldn’t recall.
What had they been speaking of? Ah, right.
“No, Enjolras could hardly think less of me than he already did.”
“He doesn’t,” Jehan protested. “He likes you; we all do. But I am sorry we dragged you to see him. It was ill-done of us.”
It was true that the majority of their group seemed to like him, inexplicable as that was, but he had no illusions about Enjolras’s lack of regard. He struck their leader as useless, which was a fair assessment by Enjolras’s standards. The cause was all to him, and Grantaire’s only use to the cause was to serve better men. France – Enjolras – needed men of vision, not drunken parasites.
“It wasn’t for naught, though, I promise you.” His hand was stroking Grantaire’s hair gently, not fisting it and pulling him about. It felt good, thought Grantaire would have sworn moments before that he wanted never to be touched by another again. “Did I offer you my apologies?”
Yes, Grantaire thought, please don’t anymore. His eyes were suddenly hot with unshed tears – the only part of him that was warm.
He’d thought earlier that any amount of humiliation could be justified by that, and apparently it was so, for the relief he felt was so strong that when Enjolras appeared in the doorway to the bedroom few moments later with the hot water bottle in hand, he felt only gratitude, not shame.
A few moments later, the metal flask was wrapped in a towel and tucked under the blankets with him, and Grantaire only barely resisted the urge to embrace it to his chest and curl around it like a child with a cloth doll.
Jehan bent down to kiss him on the forehead, the kind of kiss one would give to a child or an ageing relative. There were tears his eyes again, and he would have ashamed to be so unmanned before Enjolras except that he was finally warm.
Before he could think of a proper way to express his gratitude, he was asleep.
***
Grantaire could very well have died in that alley, quietly freezing to death without any of them being the wiser. Enjolras was faintly surprised at how much that thought upset him; the death of any of his associates would have been a distressing turn of events, but he would not previously have counted Grantaire among those he was closest to. And yet the memory of his still form being carried in from the cold still filled Enjolras with anxiety, despite the solid reality of his sleeping presence.
If asked to describe his feelings for the other man, he would have listed all of the ways Grantaire exasperated him, but he had to admit that he had missed Grantaire’s presence in the Musain recently. He had gotten used to having him around.
A lock of Grantaire’s dark hair had fallen across his forehead, partially obscuring his face. Unthinkingly, Enjolras reached out to brush it back.
Grantaire’s brows drew together and his face twitched. “Jehan?” he mumbled, eyes coming open. The left one was only a slit, swollen nearly shut. He blinked sleepily, his good eye focusing, and then his face seemed to light up. “Enjolras?”
Grantaire was not a beautiful man – his visage was dominated by a hooked nose and heavy eyebrows, and a scattering of old smallpox scars pitted his cheeks – but the moment’s open surprise and pleasure seemed to transform his face, despite the battering he had received, and for an instant he looked almost handsome.
Then the instant’s light in his eyes was extinguished, and he attempted to sit up, wincing as the movement no doubt pulled at the bruises decorating his ribs. “Of course; you had them bring me to your house. I’m sorry. This must be your bed, and here I am keeping you from it.”
Enjolras assured him that it was no trouble. “I may sleep in the parlor. The armchair there is quite comfortable. And even were it not, I would gladly make the sacrifice for a friend’s health.” He suspected this declaration made him sound pompous, but he could think of nothing else to say. He had little experience reassuring the sick or injured.
If only Combeferre were not asleep in the very armchair he’d just referred to. He or Courfeyrac would doubtless do a much better job of it. Or Jehan, who Grantaire had clearly expected and would likely have preferred.
There was a moment’s awkward silence as Enjolras attempted to think of something else to say. Finally, he settled for,
“He won’t be bothering you again.”
“Jehan told me,” Grantaire said. “Thank you. I know he was your friend-“
“He was no friend to any of us,” Enjolras interrupted firmly.
“Thank you,” Grantaire repeated.
There was a moment’s silence, while Enjolras turned his gaze from Grantaire’s battered face, which wore an expression of naked relief raw enough to make meeting his eyes uncomfortable.
“Is there anything I can bring you,” he asked, belatedly recalling his duties as host. “Anything you need? I can fetch Jehan if you desire; he’s asleep in the parlor.”
“No, let him sleep. He’s overcome with guilt as it is; there’s no need to disturb his rest.”
“Shall I leave you to yourself?” If Grantaire desired solitude, it was the least Enjolras could offer him, he thought, with a small, unmanly bit of relief at the idea of escaping the awkward conversation.
“No!” Grantaire said quickly, sitting up a little straighter. “No, just, just sit there and don’t apologize to me. Jehan keeps offering me his, despite how unnecessary it is. It’s all very awkward, having to assure him that my own foolishness is not his fault; my constitution is unused to taking on so much responsibility.”
Enjolras swallowed back the apology he had been formulating for not recognizing himself for what he was. He found himself casting about for something other topic of conversation, unsure what he ought to say to Grantaire under these circumstances. Grantaire held no interest in politics, save to sneer at them, and no interest in the contents of the newspaper beyond mocking the opinions presented in it and claiming that each fresh injustice recounted only demonstrated that people were hypocrites who cared for naught but themselves, and with the example so fresh at hand, Enjolras did not feel empowered to contradict him. To protest that not all men were so when Grantaire’s injuries were so fresh seemed insensitive. He would save that debate for another time.
With that thought in mind, searching his memories of their past conversations for some topic to introduce brought an unaccustomed sense of guilt; it occurred to him that almost the only words he generally said to Grantaire were insults, and that this was not entirely commensurate with the way a man ought to treat a friend.
Why did the other man’s lack of commitment affect him so? Many people did not support a return to a republic, either content with the status quo, afraid any change would be for the worse, or unaware of how their rights were being trampled on and ignorant of the fact that it could be different.
He ought to see Grantaire’s skepticism as a challenge, not an affront. If he could not convince Grantaire, who held affection for his lieutenants and seemed almost to admire Enjolras at times, how could he hope to convince men in power to listen to them, or the people to rise up?
Perhaps it was that he knew Grantaire was neither afraid, not ignorant. In theory, having to consider and rebut Grantaire’s naysaying might be useful, but in practice, Grantaire seemed almost to flaunt his lack of belief, as if making a mock of their efforts and goals was amusing to him and their cause all one big joke.
He was clearly intelligent and informed, and moreover, he kept attending meetings, so why act as if there no point and everything was doomed and waste himself and his potential to be a better man? Why let others use and abuse him for weeks and say nothing to everyone else when he deserved so much better?
It was frustrating in the extreme, but now, he recognized, was not the time to admonish Grantaire or to argue politics.
“You should know,” Enjolras finally ventured, awkwardly, after a long silence, “I’ve told the others that he attacked you and fought with you when you found him out. We’re telling the other Republican societies in Paris the same story.”
Grantaire let out a crack of laughter at that. “They’ll treat him like a leper. He ought to love that.” And then, still grinning, “You are a beautiful, brilliant man. I hope I never bring your vengeance down upon myself.”
As before, the smile transformed his face, some trick of expression making his features charming despite the bruises and swelling. There is an expression, jolie laide, which one uses for a women whose flaws render her beautiful. The masculine form, beau laid, was once applied to Camille Desmoulins, who despite his deep-set eyes and prominent nose, was held to be as beautiful as Danton was ugly. Enjolras had never felt drawn to any woman, regardless of how attractive she was held to be, but looking at Grantaire now, he suddenly understood the meaning of the term.
“Avoid attempting to die in the street,” Enjolras said dryly, pushing away thoughts about Grantaire’s dubious appeal as immaterial, “and you shall be spared my wrath.” He made a jest of it, but the words were not without truth. Now that his anxiety over the state of Grantaire’s health was passing, he wanted to shake the man for frightening them all so, and for nearly throwing his own life away through pure carelessness.
Grantaire frowned faintly, as if Enjolras’s words had struck him with remorse – indeed, they were intended too – and then recovered, “Oh, but even the wrath of the gods is better than their indifference. Men might say there’s little difference between being cursed to take the form of a spider like Arachne and being transfigured into a songbird, but had the gods ignored Philomel and Procne, they would have been unable to flee Tereus’s cruelties. And even the most famous example of Apollo’s wrath was able to make music with the gods before he died; Marsyas counted the chance to match his flute to Apollo’s lyre worth the cost of ending his days as a wineskin. Being a satyr, he no doubt had a different and more pleasant penalty in mind if he lost and had to let the god do as he willed with him, but the great Ovid himself advised filling oneself with wine as a remedy for love. I have tried to bear his advice in mind myself with only mixed success; someone I know too well has obviously never read the Remedia Amoris.”
“I’m hardly a god,” Enjolras objected. He might have known that Grantaire would turn the subject from his own lack of self-preservation to something altogether more frivolous. One had to be mildly impressed at his command of the classics, incoherent as the results often were. Presumably if he had read Ovid’s poems on love he would have understood what the end of the other man’s rambling little speech had to do with its beginning, but perhaps not.
“No,” Grantaire returned, “you’ve just the face of one.” He frowned slightly, then said, “I should not have compared you to Lucius Junius Brutus. No one could ever think you dull. You are more Aristogeiton, or Harmodius, just as much a would be tyrannicide, but made to inspire the most perfect bronze in the world.”
“It’s none of my doing.” Enjolras not infrequently heard people praise his appearance, and was used to dismissing it scornfully, since his face and form and the colour of his hair owed nothing to his own efforts and were entirely unimportant compared to his goals and actions, but something about these specific circumstance, seated on the edge of Grantaire’s bed in a dimly lit room, with his hip only inches from Grantaire’s thigh, made the praise mildly embarrassing. Or perhaps it was the utterly guileless way Grantaire had said it, as if he were merely stating a fact to the air rather than speaking to Enjolras.
Grantaire shook his head, then rubbed at his temple and groaned. “I don’t suppose there’s anything to drink?”
Enjolras gestured toward the water pitcher and glass that waited on the nightstand. Then, when Grantaire’s extended hand threatened to knock the fragile pottery over, he rose and filled the glass himself, pressing it into Grantaire’s unsteady hand.
Grantaire drained it thirstily, then handed the empty glass back to him. “That wasn’t quite the drink I had in mind.”
Likely not, but what he would have preferred was not appropriate drink for invalids. “Combeferre said you’re not to have anything but chicken broth or watered wine.”
“Cruel Harmodius. You do hate me.”
“I’ve never hated you,” Enjolras said, feeling faintly defensive.
Grantaire stared at him for a moment, then looked away. It was hard to be certain given the swollen and discoloured state of his face, but Enjolras thought his cheeks flushed.
“If I’ve given you that impression,” Enjolras went on, “I, ah, it was not my intention. You may frustrate and annoy me sometimes, but I still consider you a friend.”
“Truly, an inspiring statement of devotion. Young Marius could take lessons from you.”
Courfeyrac’s former roommate, Cosette's newlywed husband ought to take lessons from someone – his knowledge of politics was abysmal, and his opinions hopelessly naïve and wrongheaded – but that wasn’t Grantaire’s meaning. There had been a young lady he kept going on about the last time he’d followed Courfeyrac to a meeting, hadn’t there?
It hardly mattered at the moment. Enjolras settled himself on the side of the bed again, studying Grantaire’s face again. His undamaged eye was bloodshot and bore a dark smudge beneath it, and when he’d touched his forehead earlier, the skin that had previously been frighteningly cold had felt slightly overwarm. Between that, the headache he’d surely earned from an evening’s hard drinking, and the vivid bruising that had been sullenly darkening along his ribs when they’d stripped him for bed, he must be feeling miserable indeed. “Combeferre said you ought to stay in bed for the rest of the day, and Joly concurs with him. You’re welcome to stay here.”
“I’m not so ill as that; I can return to my own rooms and-“
Enjolras cut him off. “You could have died,” he told Grantaire flatly. “You ought not to be by yourself.”
“The rest of the day, then,” Grantaire conceded. “Truly, though, I am more bruised than anything else. And suffering the predictable effects of over-indulgence.”
Which only confirmed Enjolras’s thoughts of a moment ago. “How did you come by those bruises, if I might ask?”
“Would you believe an argument over Napoleon?”
“When Jehan and Bahorel brought you in, I feared…”
Grantaire curled his lip in distaste. “No, it was some fellows in a tavern. We had a disagreement about who was the winner of a game of dominos, followed by further disagreement about the late Emperor’s honor, or lack thereof.”
The practice of tyranny begot yet more tyranny. That bruise on his face might have been the first such injury anyone had given Grantaire, but had they not discovered what was occurring and intervened, it was unlikely to have been the last. Why, Enjolras wondered for the umpteenth time, had he not asked for help?
Very likely he had feared to confess his participation in acts of sodomy to them, despite the fact that said participation had been less than willing. The revolutionary tribunal had struck down the laws banning such things, but men who indulged in them were still despised.
Love between men had been welcomed in antiquity, and Enjolras privately did not see what made it so very different from the attraction between men and women, but then, women had never held much interest for him. The bonds of devotion between Achilles and Patroclus, or David and Jonathan, on the other hand, had attracted his imagination strongly as a schoolboy, before he had realized that the kind of strength of feeling he had been envisioning was not one other men generally returned, and that France, the once glorious and now fallen republic, was worthy of and in need of an even stronger devotion.
“You could say I won these bruises in your service,” Grantaire rambled on, “striking a blow against the supporters of tyrants. My opponent protested that the Corsican was a great man, who had made France great. That France still venerates a man who plunged all of Europe into war and re-imposed slavery upon her colonies proves how short-sighted and blood thirsty men are.”
“Not all men,” Enjolras protested, and then, making an effort at wit, “You, for example, are prepared to defend the rights of humanity in tavern brawls everywhere.”
Grantaire’s smile in response to this sally was more gratifying than such a slight thing ought to be. “Praise from the prophet of revolution, the very disciple of Robespierre. I have risen from the ashes of disgrace to great heights.”
“You have done nothing to disgrace yourself! Any fault was not yours!"
“Oh come, I have been a disgrace to our company since long before her arrival. She saw the member of our group who offered the least and whose loss would do the cause the least harm, and whose own appetites and habits rendered her task easier, and acted accordingly.” Grantaire lost his assumed lightness of tone partway through this little speech and sounded openly bitter at the end, after which he flushed and looked away, possibly having said more than he meant to.
And Enjolras... He found himself wondering even as he admitted this why he was sharing his secret with Grantaire of all people, but since Grantaire’s fear of being revealed as a lover of men and judged for his appetites had no doubt played a part, perhaps it was fitting that Enjolras tell him.
Grantaire shook his head slightly, and said wryly, “You would have thrown him out in the street the very first time he importuned you, and told him to tell the world and be damned.”
That was probably true. “I haven’t your gregarious nature. Combeferre tells me often that I am too quick to anger.”
Grantaire looked unconvinced. Enjolras leaned forward, placing a hand over one of Grantaire’s where it lay atop the blankets. All men had inherent worth; it was one of the basic principles that underpinned the concept of universal rights. Grantaire, for all that he often acted like a drunken reprobate, had never deliberately done any harm. “Never say that you are a disgrace,” he repeated.
Grantaire went still at Enjolras’s touch, staring up at him for a moment with an unreadable expression. Then he smiled over-brightly and pulled his hand away. “Let us not begin ascribing to me virtues I do not possess,” he said. “You yourself have called me the same repeatedly.”
“Your behavior is at times disgraceful, but-“ Enjolras floundered. “Ah, you frustrate me.”
“Because I care nothing for your republic?”
“No. Many men care nothing for politics and less than that for the rights of the people.” Which Grantaire, by his little rant just now about slavery and his friendship with them all, clearly did, for all that he claimed otherwise. Were he truly as cynical and disinterested as he maintained himself to be, he would never have offered hospitality to Gavroche. “Because you care nothing for yourself.” He realized the truth of this as he said it, the image of Grantaire’s limp, half-frozen form flashing before his mind’s eye. “You could have died yesterday,” he told the other man, unable to entirely keep the anger from his voice. “When they carried your body into the Musain, we feared that you had.”
Grantaire looked away, face coloring again, and his hands fidgeted for a moment with the blankets. “Believe me, I am quite sensible of my own foolishness. On more than one account. I didn’t mean to give my friends such a fright.”
He sounded truly contrite, and looked it, too, but Grantaire was frequently contrite after making a drunken disgrace of himself at the Musain or otherwise disrupting their affaires, and such contrition never seemed to prevent him from repeating the behavior. “It would grieve them to lose you,” Enjolras told him, words that should have been stern somehow coming out soft instead. Surely Grantaire knew this. Then again, given his fear that they would all turn their backs on him and cast him out from their circle if they learned what the Lady had forced him into, perhaps he did not. And doubting his word initially could not have aided that impression, if it were so.
“Of course it would,” Grantaire said, voice somber for a moment, and then spoiled the effect by adding very dryly, “I’m the best of drinking companions and I know where all the good restaurants are. I’m generous to children and to the poor, and I always return borrowed books.”
Enjolras considered repeating again that the disappearance of him was not Grantaire’s fault, and that they didn’t blame him for it, but repeating it too often might give the opposite impression, and Grantaire had said that he didn’t wish to hear more apologies. “I heard what you did for Gavroche. Most men would have handed the boy a coin and moved on.”
“Most men would have cursed him and told him to take himself off, then spent the coin themselves. But I’ve benefited from good examples, and I’ve been well repaid.”
You care more than you wish people to know, Enjolras thought, and wished for a moment that he had seduced Grantaire with honorable intentions – such a relationship might have been a moderating influence on Grantaire, as well as shaking him out of his pose of indifference.
Thoughts of his mistress could divide a man’s attention and distract him from devoting his full powers to more important matters, as well as make him reluctant to risk himself for his country, but Grantaire devoted himself to nothing at all that Enjolras could see, and every man needed something to give him a greater purpose in life.
Grantaire was visibly flagging now, and Enjolras could think of nothing else to say that would not sound accusing, such as telling him that he ought to try and serve as a good example himself once in a while, or that he hasn’t already said. He had already surpassed his limit for awkward conversations about emotions.
“Combeferre will scold me for keeping you awake,” he said finally. “You’re meant to be resting.”
Grantaire didn’t protest this time, merely nodded agreeably and closed his eyes, lying back against the pillows.
“The sooner you recover,” Enjolras added, “the sooner you can begin attending the society’s meetings again. Your absence has been noted, and if you are going to spend the day drinking in cafés and wineshops, you ought to at least choose one where you can hear edifying conversation. If your friends can inspire you to charity, perhaps we can eventually inspire you to republicanism as well.”
“You could inspire the most godless man to dream of heaven,” Grantaire mumbled, snuggling down into the blankets. “Like moths. The fire is brighter than any of the insects in Combeferre’s book, and they want to become…”
He paused, and Enjolras waited for a long moment to hear what the moths wanted before he realized that Grantaire had fallen asleep, the slightest hint of a smile on his battered face.
They returned home to a parade only suitable for victors, though they wished for nothing but to be alone. And as they finally, eventually, returned to their homes, they went to the first place they knew they needed to go.As the sun dipped below the eaves, setting the sky on fire before it plunged into darkness, they bridged the gap between their bedsteads. And kissed.
The savateur's mouth was firm and warm and at first clumsy and then assured, and he had one hand on that soft white chin, and his eyes were still wide open, Enjolras realised, as his own closed. And Grantaire seemed to have a hand in that cascade of golden hair, gently pulling the leader closer. As for Enjolras... His knees were no longer weak but buckling. The temperature had, inexplicably, risen by at least ten degrees. "Oh," Enjolras said, when he had a chance, and then Grantaire tilted his head and they were kissing again, and why had Enjolras not thought of this before? It was the best of ideas, it was amazing, it was like breathing champagne instead of air. He made an wordless noise to try and indicate his approval of the whole situation.
For both of them, it seemed like all the air in their lungs was escaping out.
Silence ensued; a silence during which they did not break eye contact the slightest; looking one another straight in the eyes, blue on mossy green, ocean on hazel. Not even when Enjolras smiled. Not even when he gradually began to step forwards. He had had no idea his neck was that sensitive. There were stars behind his eyes.
He only lost sight of the savateur's eyes when he shut his own as their lips touched. Quite slowly, quite slowly, without tearing himself from his grasp, his hand touched the dark one's, resting light as a feather, lily fingers entwining with knotty ones.
Seizing the leader's blond queue, Grantaire dragged Enjolras' head up and kissed him again, harder. After that first kiss, there came a second.
Then a third.
Then a fourth one.
They gave one another so many kisses that, if all of them were poured together into the same flagon, it would be impossible to know how many kisses they exchanged throughout that evening and night.
All this takes place without a single sunset, without a single bell ringing and without a single blossom falling from the sky. Yet it fills everything with its mysterious intoxicating presence. It's over to you.
And as to what happened next?
Many springs, summers, autumns, and winters passed, and Enjolras and Grantaire were never apart again.
And when Grantaire and Enjolras were twenty-five, they finally did the most adult of things they possibly could, and one day, far earlier than they could have expected, both young men, and all of their friends except one, would indeed gallantly shed their blood and give their lives for Freedom and Country, our two young lovers face to face with enemy fire and falling, dying, with one another's fingers entwining in clasped hands. But that, my dear readers, is another story, and perchance it will be told some other time.
All good stories, of course, must have a happy ending, and this one is no exception, but the important part, dear reader, is not that Enjolras and Grantaire (and the rest of their Friends from the Café Musain, and the robber maiden, and her parents, and the heiress, and her husband, and her guardian) lived happily ever after. The important part, reader, is that, together or separately, they lived.
Finis.
~End~
COMMENTARIES:
- I feel like every "Les Amis talk about things" scene in this fic could just as easily be replaced by the words "my research - let me show you it!" (though large sections of the Brick could probably be summarized similarly, so I guess it's in the spirit of canon?)
- The Rue des Prouvaires conspiracy (no connection to Jehan Prouvaire) was a Legitimist (the hard-core Royalists who wanted to boot Louis-Philippe off the throne and bring back Charles X) plot to assassinate King Louis-Philippe at a ball held at the French court on February 1, 1832, after which the Legimitists planned to seize power and put Charles X's grandson Henri V on the throne. (Discussed on tumblr with numerous google books citations here: pilferingapples.tumblr.com/post/44534222816/utterlydeceptivetwaddlespeak and here: pilferingapples.tumblr.com/post/80799728662 )
Hopefully we haven't gone overboard with the melodrama in this chapter. Also, I feel I ought to note that the authors can't even consume the mildest "ibuprofen with codeine" sort of narcotic without getting sick, so we haven't the faintest idea what taking opium is actually like.
(Also, see, that bit with Jehan & Grantaire making out early in the fic totally had a purpose and wasn't at all completely gratuitous)
The Amis are, uh, trying their best? (Sensitivity is, alas, not Enjolras's strong suit)
- I think we've included references to Tarquinnus and Lucretia already, but if not: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Rape_of_Lucrece (After Lucretia commits suicide following her rape at the hands of Roman prince Sextus Tarquinnus, her kinsmen swear a melodramatic oath on her blood to overthrow the corrupt kings of Rome)
- Dominoes can be played a number of different ways. Grantaire and his drinking companions are playing a blocking game, which involves laying the tiles out end-to-end with like numbers touching.
- “Asphyxia from cold” - the term “hypothermia” hadn’t been coined yet in the 1830s. They knew perfectly well that it possible for people to freeze to death - there are early and mid-19th century medical journals and writings with detailed lists of the symptoms and progression of hypothermia –but they were a little shaky on the actual physiological reasons for those symptoms. Doctors at the time called the condition “general asphyxia from cold.” (For period descriptions, see: “A treatise on the effects and properties of cold, with a sketch, historical and medical, of the Russian campaign, by Pierre Jean Moricheau-Beaupré” and This 1831 article from the Lancet, both courtesy of google books).
- According to classical mythology, Marsyas the satyr challenged Apollo to a contest to see who was the better musician. In some versions of the story, Marsyas wins, and in some, Apollo does, but either way, when the contest is ended Apollo flays him alive for his hubris and his skin is turned into a wineskin. The ancient Romans considered him a symbol of free speech and a statue of Marsyas in the Roman forum was used a site to post satires and other invective.
- Grantaire's line about wine being a cure for love is a reference to Ovid's Remedia Amoris (lines 805-810), where the poet recommends that you "drink so much your cares all vanish."
- Aristogeiton and Harmodius were a pair of lovers who assassinated the tyrannical ruler Hipparchus. They were venerated as liberators, and a famous statue of the pair was once pointedly held up to the infamous despot Dionysius the Elder of Syracuse as “the best bronze ever cast.” Hugo compares Enjolras to both these men in the first chapter of book four of volume three, "A Group which barely missed becoming Historic."
About one quote is referencing to the song by Eagles - Hotel California.
The paradis of the Otherworld holds beauty and sorrow, ... whereas the beauty of the fairy castle is static and its visual beauty does not restore the dead.
The Reflection Cave of Kalos, in the Pokémon series, is based upon the Northern French lore of miroirs aux fées (fairies mirrors). Fairy mirrors are usually caves with bright quartz veins or lakes where there are said to live fairies and like to see themselves in them like a mirror. Also, this links to the mirror motif in the original Snow Queen tale, right?
As for the Enj vs. R confrontation in hand-to-foot combat, and that rib fracture and blood-coughing as the catalyst for the warmed heart, I could simply not picture myself Enj sobbing over R (like I could not picture myself Brienne gushing over a frozenhearted Jaime either!). I watched and re-watched all of Sanji's kickfights in One Piece (kuroashi being Oda-sensei's take on savate), and perused Benedict's fight against a Prussian artisan in La terreur prussienne on this very blog, for inspiration on the moves that our savateur would use.
Cheval fondu is the French name for leapfrog. It sounds a lot like cavall fort, the Catalan name of the same game.
Also, Enj realising that he has feelings for R the more the quest unfurls... it feels cathartic. Like, why the heck would you embark on your own, on such a foolish quest? We see our kuudere of a fair leader defrost as he comes across Courf', Mariusette, 'Ponine... and learns about their stories. Unravelling this has been as exciting as in The Queen Beyond the Wall, right?
And here we get to some juicy Goblin Market references: the bloodstained awakening kiss. Rossetti's poem, the third that inspired me for this AU, is another of the great Victorian fairytales concerning drug addiction, starring a queer couple (Laura and Lizzie, said to be "sisters" and living under the same roof; but, just like the "sibling" bond of Gerda and Kai, or Enj and R, this may rather refer to moirallegiance).
The effect of the draught, including the withdrawal symptoms, is that of rauha. I just adore this take on the fairytale sleeping-draught and thought of absinthe with rauha...
I have also been influenced by the temperance tale genre of Biedermeier-Victorian fiction, which, discussing the importance of free will, tells the familiar narrative of a decent and hopeful young person (most frequently male) rendered utterly helpless by their first drink, leaping off the slippery slope into an abyss of despair and depravity, but (in the happiest endings) redeemed at the eleventh hour by a loved one, at the cost of a great sacrifice. In other words, Grantaire was not the only one, but one out of the many similar antiheroes (compare, for instance, Laura in "Goblin Market") in the various versions of one of the nineteenth century's most frequently told narratives, which (coincidentally?) came to prominence in the 1830s!
There is a Lord Henry Wotton quote and indirect cameo at the end, standing in for the Gospel of Matthew quote in the Andersenian Snow Queen, and it fits Enjoltaire like a glove, right? I was inspired by the song "Sense" by In The Nursery, a British band whose lyrics, like those of Genesis, are full of allusions to classical literature, especially from the Victorian UK.
(PS. You may be free to picture yourself the Thénardiers in Toulon or in Louisiana, as convicts or as cotton barons. Or still fighting the establishment as brigands in those northern woods. I left that loose end open because the innkeepers themselves are so elusive that they rightfully deserve an open ending!)
One of my favourite fairy tales combined with one of my favourite pairings. And with my usual Lemony style. I had so much fun writing this one. Just like when it came to its Westerosi counterpart.
"You are wounded," he cried. "You have hurt yourself for me. You should not have, for I do not deserve it. I have never had the right to injure, let alone to kill you... I went away and left you, and forgot all about you, and let the Green Faery's promises turn my heart to a cold crazy diamond, colder than ice... and then it were my feet that crushed your side, and I was so close to seeing you die by my own strength, but now no strength is left in my feeble frame, the poisons have done their work... I just hope... Enjolras... I shall nevermore... You will nevermore..."
More teardrops fell upon the dark bags under the fair leader's eyes, and upon his lilywhite lips, which curled upwards in a faint smile, and his eyelids flickered to reveal glazed sapphire orbs as he wearily shook his head and said, fiercely: "You can never leave me, for there is nowhere you can go that I will not follow. I have found you now, and I will never be parted from you again. Nevermore... Until... the bitter..." And as they knelt there, clinging to one another, he broke into a blood-coughing fit and collapsed once more on Grantaire's lap.
THIS.
Almost made me cry. I guess all I'm saying is, thank you for writing such a wonderful story! :D
Simply wonderful ending. This is truly one of my favorite adaptions of the Snow Queen.
Loved it! Especially the image of Grantaire, thyrsus in hand, kneeling on the large floor which he has almost covered with those runes. And Enj's blood waking R from the enchantment. And of course the wedding of Marius and Cosette, and Éponine getting back into a life of her own!
But mostly I'm going to remember this as the awesome retelling of my favorite fairy tale by a favorite author in which Grantaire crushes Enjolras' ribcage ;-)
I was JUST thinking about this today! I was afraid it'd been abandoned with only one chapter left. That was a very, very satisfying and warming ending, after all the cold and misery of the battle. I love, love, love the visual of them together on the roof, happily ever after~ I actually sighed happily at Right then, those foretold bell-peals rang in the air and the regular crowd shuffled in. Combeferre came in first, holding his notebook in hand, followed by Courfeyrac, who was humming the latest Liszt tune in vogue; and then came all the others... At first, Enjolras' lieutenants did not recognise the two strangers who sat in the hitherto empty chairs, and asked at least for their surnames.
Upon hearing them sing those verses from La Marseillaise, however, a general scream of elation ran through the backroom, startling the landlady and the barmaids, and of course the cat that leapt off the landlady's lap, as those earnest freedom-fighting young men had recognised their fair leader and the odd one out of their secret society. I'm gonna be thinking about this all day at work and it's gonna make it so much better x))
I was JUST thinking about this today! I was afraid it'd been abandoned with only one chapter left.
Yeah, sorry about that. I write veeerrry slowly without senpai to poke me into doing the other half. The whole section was written in, like, 100 word segments over the course of weeks.
That was a very, very satisfying and warming ending, after all the cold and misery of the battle. I love, love, love the visual of them together on the roof, happily ever after~
Thanks so much! The two of them on the roof, surrounded by springtime or midsummer, is another bit that's straight out of Hans Christian Andersen's original, but the Lord Henry part is all mine *grins*
ILU SO MUCH OMG.
Seriously, this is just as good as I thought it would be, or better. You rock. And it's an utterly appropriate fairy-tale ending, too. So perfect.
Thanks so much! The ending isn't 100% the Snow Queen ending - there's some Goblin Market and a couple of other fairytales mixed in there, too.
Oh, lovely. As all along, I love the fairy tale nature of this, the epithets and the profusion of recognizable characters put into fairy tale mode. The leader and the savateur are wonderful. I love that the journey brought others together as well. I have greatly enjoyed reading this for the past few months, and am as sad to see it over as I am happy to have read the end.
As all along, I love the fairy tale nature of this, the epithets and the profusion of recognizable characters put into fairy tale mode. The leader and the savateur are wonderful.
Thanks so much! This whole thing was really fun to write, and not just because it let me do Victorian/Fairytale Narrator Voice for thirty-something pages (I'd forgotten how much fun pastiche can be - I think my last Three Musketeers fic was, like, two years ago). It was really fun trying to find places to fit everyone on, and to work little references and allusions to comics canon in while still keeping it all fairytale-style.
I love that the journey brought others together as well.
It's funny - that part wasn't necessarily something I originally intended to do. This started out as just an Enjoltaire story, but it turned into a Mizzie fairytale somewhere along the way, as I had more and more fun sticking cameos in. Once I had Cosette tell Enj and R what had happened to everyone at the end, I didn't want Éponine to have to be all alone, so I had her and her good thoughts, per literary quote, go off together (Courf, alas, was doomed to a single life by the original story's ending).
You finally finished it! I love the ending and of course I love that the password was FRIHET. I also like the final line since no one lives completely happily ever after; that would be boring.
*grins* Honestly, I didn't even think of the "no one lives completely happily ever after" bit until you just pointed it out. The last line was pretty much pure "@#*% you, Hugo!" ("...and in my story, Enj and R and all the others don't die, at least because this all takes place before the barricades, take that!").
I just read this all in the one go, and am stunned by the beauty of it.
I really like how you seemed to keep all the characters true, but didn't try to follow everything to the letter, like it still being okay for the Thénardiers to be criminals, or the Amis to kill, because it's period.
I just read this all in the one go, and am stunned by the beauty of it.
Thanks so much!
Things that I especially loved: Cosette's idea of courtship. 'Ponine being creepy and awesome. Courf' bouncing in and out of people's lives. The icy floor of runes (and R finding out that the password was FRIHET!).
Cosette's method of courting Marius I can't take credit for - it's straight out of the original fairytale. It's why I decided to make the two of them the Prince and Princess; it just seemed to fit them. *grins*
The icy floor of runes seems to be everyone's favorite part. I was stuck on the ending for the longest time until I thought of that as a way for them to break the Snow Queen/Green Faery's spell.
Aww, I'm so glad to read the final chapter. This has been consistently, a wonderful and seamless merge between the two canons. I always look forward to your fic (though I tend to get caught up in reading and agreeing with other people's reviews, and forget about reviewing myself!).
I particularly loved the mental image of the floor covered in great sweeping curves and lists of runes. And Enj defeating the Green Faery with blood and FRIHET. Yay! And the whole part where Enj is convalescent at Cosette's and, as he recovers from his wounds, defrosts completely...
I'm so glad to read the final chapter. This has been consistently, a wonderful and seamless merge between the two canons.
Thanks so much! I suspect that the fact that I borrowed heavily from the original (including keeping a lot of the original dialogue and as many pieces of narration as I could) probably helped with that.
I'm really glad so many people seem to like the rune-covered floor, because that was one of the visual images that I "saw" in my head the most strongly while I was writing this finale.
Thanks! The whole thing taken together is, like, over 20,000 words long, though, I'll warn you. I think it's thrice the length of the original Snow Queen, because I kept adding character cameos and things.
That may be the greatest thing ever. I loved the image of the vast frozen floor carved with spiralling runes - that would make such a fantastic splash page. And I loved that what freed him was the mess and horror of spilled blood interrupting the perfection - it's kind of Enjoltaire in a nutshell, there.
Thanks so much! I was actually picturing a sort of splash page/two-page spread with the rune-covered floor and R kneeling in the middle when I wrote that scene.
And I loved that what freed him was the mess and horror of spilled blood interrupting the perfection - it's kind of Enjoltaire in a nutshell, there.
*nods* That's one of the things Enj needs R for (or Combeferre, or Courfeyrac, or Éponine, or someone but of course I like R best in the role) - to keep him from getting so caught up in his plans and calculations and discourses that he forgets about people, or about the collateral damage his plans and decisions can cause.
Gorgeous, satisfying fic, and I enjoyed every chapter of it. Thank you. :D
The boys are reunited! *hugs*"
No," the fair leader told himself, as he climbed to his feet, his chest aching from both the thorns and the cold, and his hands and feet so frozen that they had gone quite numb, and no longer even hurt anymore... "He is not anyone else's. He is mine by right, and I have come to claim him." And as he said it, he realized that it was true, and that the reverse was true also: that he belonged to Grantaire.
<3 <3 <3
And Grand'R, tortured with these runes. :-O I love that he defeated it with symbolism. :-D
But I was so sad that Valjean had to leave, or that Courfeyrac's maid sweetheart left him :-(
*hugs the boys*
*grins* Writing the slightly-over-the-top formal dialogue was one of the best parts of this. No one says things like "I have walked half the length of this country for him, down roads and across ice and stones, until until my strength has worn away and my limbs are faltering and my head is lulled to rest and my feet are sore and my chest is bleeding. Because I have followed him through fields and forests, through the palaces of privilege, and into and out of the dens of iniquity..." outside of fairytales or Tolkien or GoT or retraux fiction these days.
Courfeyrac and my maidservant OC were actually given the parts they got not only because how savvy Courf' is in society, but also *because* the crow sweetheart dies, which is why they were the only two who didn't get a happy ending (maybe a certain bespectacled scholar will come along and live happily every after with our Courf-senpai, so that he can be paired off in classic fairytale fashion, too).
*applauds* It's beautiful! The last two paragraphs are utterly, utterly charming.
Thanks so much! The Green Faery was kind of a conglomerate/symbolic villain, though I stole Kylie Minogue in Moulin Rouge! for her physical form, which is why i had her pouting like that at the end.
Ahh, how romantic. Thank you.
This is SO CUTE. And the style is spot-on. But the end: SO CUTE!
Thanks so much! ^_^ I can't take credit for the style, though -- I borrowed pretty heavily from the original, which is why it *sounds* so much like the original in some places.
So, "Ooh, an Enjoltaire fic I haven't read," thought. And "It'll only take me a little bit to read," I thought. And, "I can just read the first couple chapters and save the rest for tomorrow," I thought.
Well, it's two in the morning now, and I still haven't finished everything I need to do before sleeping, but I regret nothing. Non, je ne regrette rien... This story was fantastic. I loved that you kept the Andersen writing style, and I loved how you assembled your Les Mis characters as the supporting cast. I'll have to admit, I have a huge soft spot for Snow Queen-inspired fic, but even that aside this was just such an excellent read. Just the right amount of whimsy and adventure, and Grand'R being silly and smitten, and every other character at their absolute best. (Not gonna lie - the Courfeyrac and Éponine scenes were my favourite cameos, and quite possibly the best bits of the story. :D) And then the end! And happy endings for almost everyone!
All-in-all, an amazing read, and the most fun I've had in ages. :D
*grins* Thanks! The cameos were actually my favorite part of the story to write (the digression on most of the Friends especially got away from me -- it wasn't supposed to be that long). Well, that and the happy endings for (almost) everyone.
The logic of Gascon aristocrats.
The test of the ink-stained prince.
The robber maiden, as unwittingly cruel as she is innocent and candid.
The slow, step by endless step realization in Enjolras, of why he's doing this.
This is the first (and ONLY) time I've seen a fairytale fic that actually WORKS.
And it does.
Beautifully.
I'm left with the mental image of an ornamental music box, filled with figures and scenes as tiny and perfect as the details of a glittering Fabergé egg. The music is done, and the lid falls gently closed...
Until the next time the key on the back is wound again.
This is amazing - just to let you know that I recced it. :)
The logic of Gascon aristocrats.
The test of the ink-stained prince.
The robber maiden, as unwittingly cruel as she is innocent and candid.
The slow, step by endless step realization in Enjolras, of why he's doing this.
This is the first (and ONLY) time I've seen a fairytale fic that actually WORKS.
And it does.
Beautifully.
I'm left with the mental image of an ornamental music box, filled with figures and scenes as tiny and perfect as the details of a glittering Fabergé egg. The music is done, and the lid falls gently closed...
Until the next time the key on the back is wound again.
This is amazing - just to let you know that I recced it. :)
This fic was amazing. It read just like a real fairytale, but still managed to have realistic characterizations. Thank you so much for writing this!
This was really lovely. Loved how you incorporated various characters into the story and the dramatic language and actions that feel natural in a fairytale.
Very well done!
AAAAHHHHH THIS IS WONDERFUL. OH GODS MY POOR HEART.
Yay, you finished it! I was just thinking about this story over the weekend and hoping you'd finish it. Loved the final confrontation, and Enj defeating R with blood, and the reappearances of all the supporting characters, and everyone living (one way or another) ever after.
Yay, review! Honestly, I was stuck on the ending for this for a while, until the Goblin Market inspiration came to me.The little "here's what happened to everyone" tie up at the end happens in the original, too, so it just seemed like the proper way to end things *grins* And since this is my story, as opposed to Hugo's (this all takes place before the barricades), everyone was at least surviving at the end whether they got to live happily every after or not (except for the Green Faery, because the original story left her character arc open).
Oh, at last! I love this story so, so much. I ached for poor Enj, so it was perfectly right that it was the blood on his face that woke up Grand'R's heart.
Thanks so much! In the original version it's tears, of course, but this adaptation felt a little darker to me, plus, it's kind of hard to picture Enj crying all over someone, so I made it blood.
The important part, reader, is that, together or separately, they lived.
Hmmmm....
Hmmmm....
I must re-read this in its entirety. Well done.
Yay, thanks! I can't take all the credit, though. I borrowed a lot of dialogue and narration from Hans Christian Andersen and Victor Hugo, which is probably why it feels like a fairytale - because a lot of it is paraphrased or even quoted from one.
Oh, this is fantastic.
It feels like a fairytale!
I can´t describe it; there´s a special feeling when you read a fairytale, whenever you read a good, epic book, you´re just blown away...and that is what happened here.
You´re amazing.
It feels like a fairytale!
I can´t describe it; there´s a special feeling when you read a fairytale, whenever you read a good, epic book, you´re just blown away...and that is what happened here.
You´re amazing.
Yay, you finished it! I was just thinking about this story over the weekend and hoping you'd finish it. Loved the final confrontation, and the reappearances of all the supporting characters, and everyone living (one way or another) ever after.
Yay, review! Honestly, I was stuck on the ending for this for a while, until the inspiration came to me.
The little "here's what happened to everyone" tie up at the end happens in the original, too, so it just seemed like the proper way to end things *grins* And since this is my story, everyone was at least surviving at the end whether they got to live happily every after or no (until they are killed in action at the barricades, a few years later).
The little "here's what happened to everyone" tie up at the end happens in the original, too, so it just seemed like the proper way to end things *grins* And since this is my story, everyone was at least surviving at the end whether they got to live happily every after or no (until they are killed in action at the barricades, a few years later).
the Snow Queen has always been one of my favorite fairytales, along with all the other things based off it (besides Frozen. Frozen can die) and I knew I would love this too. the way you incorporated all the characters fits really well (we love our girl 'Pony) and your words really flowed like how a fairytale would - I just want to say that I adore it!
Ahhh, thank you so much for this comment! The Snow Queen is my favourite fairytale ever (frozen? never heard of 'er ;) ) and I knew I just HAD to do it so I whipped out the books (I have a whole corpus of Snow Queen retellings, gleaning a bit from this fic and a tad from this translation) and got to work on rewriting it to fit the cast of Les Mis! I'm glad you enjoyed it as much as you did! :)
Loveeeddd this. you did such a great job of working all the cast into it!!!
Thank you, thank you! *big grin* This is, hands down, the most awesome Christmas present I've received this season (actually, scratch that; it's the best I've received *ever*, because it was made). I love your choice of subjects - Grantaire's past, particularly as an artist, has always particularly appealed to me - and your depiction of Grantaire's gradual fall (and ultimate redemption) from aspiring, if less than serious, artist who didn't want to go home to social drinker to degenerate substance abuser; the crowd he hung out with, and how it changed with his habits - or rather, how his habits changed with the different groups of people (love Courfeyrac's cameo!); how his rambling thoughts (laced with a dash of the classics) became, through the inhibition-lifting influence of alcohol, rambling speech; and how his relationship with Enjolras evolved over the years - specifically, I love how you've explained why book!Enjolras still gave him chances - because he'd known R from back when he was still more or less sober and had his head on straight. The story is not only believable, it is almost poetically tragic in its rendering of R's journey. The OF/PD epilogue (after the finale), in this context, not only pulls everything together but also makes it all the more poignantly beautiful (I had a knot in my throat by the end). It makes me want to pick up my pencil and illustrate it to kingdom come.
Once again, thank you so much. :D
Oh yay, I am so glad and relieved that you actually liked it! There were plenty of times I was worried and thinking, "oh god this is so weird and bizarre and I hope the readers like it at all--"
Subconsciously, I have always wanted to explore what was going through Grantaire's mind during Orestes Fasting... because you knew there had to be some mental shift. But this scene appeared to me while I was on lunch at work, so I scribbled it down as best I could, and took it home and transcribed it into the fic, which was still maybe halfway done in the middle at that point! I guess you could say I wrote the end before I finished the beginning! :) I never did write in a straight line though. Anyway I hoped it didn't come across as desperately off-key or overdone or caricatured, so I am very very very pleased that the epilogue worked so well for you! :D
and YES PLZ if you want to illustrate it to kingdom come I will cheer you on every step of the way (even if, uh, it has to be slapped with all the mature tags and hidden behind protected links! ;) )
Absolutely gorgeous! So much here that I love...from little touches like Enj's favourite stories or R's street address (Hyacinth! Grin!) to the final moments from his POV (in his epilogue). Your Grantaire is certainly living the life that Hugo hints at, a life of which the Amis are only a part, but which come to dominate the whole. I like your Courfeyrac (always bouncing and out of people's lives, connecting them) and your Enjolras with his stillness and reserve, pulling R up with just a word when he rants.
And poor Grantaire. There's a wonderful line in one of the Brontë bios about Branwell, and how people had tried to tug his reputation in all directions. This biographs treats him sympathetically, within the context of his squandered talent, his addictions, his depression. I wish I had the book in front of me, but the line ran something about him being a man lost in a mist.
Grantaire here is a man lost in a mist, some of it his own making, some of it probably from inherent psychological makeup, and some of it from circumstances beyond his control. He's neither the useless wastrel or the unfortunate victim on Enjolras' indifference that we see so often in fanon, but rather a complex figure who ultimately rises above just pathos. This isn't suicide by National Guard either - he dies with dignity, and an affirmation that some things are worth believing in, even if what he dies for is perhaps not entirely what Enjolras dies for.
:D I'm glad you enjoy it too! I've come to like the fic more and more as I read it and see how other people view it as well.
It's a story I fully intend to revisit as part of a larger story arc, so this is probably not the last we'll see of Grantaire, in this context. :)
I have a hard time believing that Grantaire was not ever at any point interesting or useful or a worthwhile friend to Enjolras, just from their interactions in "Enjolras and his Lieutenants". Enjolras would have scorned his suggestions and rejected his offer to help completely out of hand if that were the case. Because Enjolras takes him seriously, there's therefore got to be something between them other than the believer disdaining the sceptic, despite what Hugo says in "A Group Which Almost Became Historic". Enjolras and Grantaire have this interesting underlying story which was just dying to be teased out, so here (some of) it is.
I admit the chance to write about drunken, drug-filled orgies and Grantaire being the man about town was especially appealing as well. :)
The chance to illustrate such drunken, drug-filled orgies, even more so. I'm doing research now; I hope *nobody* ever finds my research folder!!
Oh FABULOUS! :) I absolutely cannot wait to see the, er, fruits of your research.
Found the quote - it was actually from Francis Grundy, who knew Branwell, and was used by the biographer I mentioned:
"Patrick Branwell Brontë was no domestic demon - he was just a man in a mist - who lost his way."
Like Branwell, Grantaire died standing up.
I blame Victor Hugo
People on my dash/flist who have been reading these comics all along, why didn’t you tell me there was an “If you will permit it”/”I’m glad you’re with me, Sam, here at the end of all things”/Bolivian Army Ending pairing I could have been shipping? (okay, with somebody who doesn’t show up in the movie, but still.)
"And then they died holding hands/fighting off enemies back-to-back" is my shipping kryptonite.
"And then they died holding hands/fighting off enemies back-to-back" is my shipping kryptonite.
Oooh, ooh, let me explain!
"If you will permit it?"/"Do you permit it?" ("Permets-tu?" in the original French) is from Les Miserables, and is the last thing Grantaire says to Enjolras before they die together.
The scene goes roughly like this:
Enjolras has led an attempt at a revolutionary uprising that's pretty much totally failed, and the National Guard have overrun the revolutionaries' barricades and cornered Enjolras in a tavern. Grantaire, a previously less-than-committed member of the revolutionaries (he's basically called that they're going to fail and are all going to die right from the get-go) who's explicitly only there because of his friendship with the other revolutionaries and all-encompassing crush on Enjolras (there are in-text comparisons made to Achilles and Patroclus and several other super-homoerotic Greek dyads), is passed-out drunk in said tavern, and wakes up just as the guardsmen are standing Enjolras up against the wall to shoot him. He jumps up and informs the guardsmen that "I am one of them," and that they'll have to shoot him as well, and then turns to Enjolras and literally asks for his permission to die next to him. ("Permets-tu?")
Enjolras smiles and reaches out his hand to Grantaire without speaking, Grantaire takes it, and they face the firing squad holding hands and die with smiles on their faces while the guardsmen feel all kinds of guilty for destroying such beautiful thing because it's a Victorian novel.
This is after several lengthy descriptions in previous scenes of how the two of them are "two sides of the same coin" and so forth. It's unsubtle enough that they're not-uncommonly played as a couple in the stage musical, and the actor who played Grantaire in the 2012 movie cheerfully told interviewers that he shipped it.
"If you will permit it?"/"Do you permit it?" ("Permets-tu?" in the original French) is from Les Miserables, and is the last thing Grantaire says to Enjolras before they die together.
The scene goes roughly like this:
Enjolras has led an attempt at a revolutionary uprising that's pretty much totally failed, and the National Guard have overrun the revolutionaries' barricades and cornered Enjolras in a tavern. Grantaire, a previously less-than-committed member of the revolutionaries (he's basically called that they're going to fail and are all going to die right from the get-go) who's explicitly only there because of his friendship with the other revolutionaries and all-encompassing crush on Enjolras (there are in-text comparisons made to Achilles and Patroclus and several other super-homoerotic Greek dyads), is passed-out drunk in said tavern, and wakes up just as the guardsmen are standing Enjolras up against the wall to shoot him. He jumps up and informs the guardsmen that "I am one of them," and that they'll have to shoot him as well, and then turns to Enjolras and literally asks for his permission to die next to him. ("Permets-tu?")
Enjolras smiles and reaches out his hand to Grantaire without speaking, Grantaire takes it, and they face the firing squad holding hands and die with smiles on their faces while the guardsmen feel all kinds of guilty for destroying such beautiful thing because it's a Victorian novel.
This is after several lengthy descriptions in previous scenes of how the two of them are "two sides of the same coin" and so forth. It's unsubtle enough that they're not-uncommonly played as a couple in the stage musical, and the actor who played Grantaire in the 2012 movie cheerfully told interviewers that he shipped it.
About ace!Enjolras…
I get why so many fans are invested in the idea of Enjolras being asexual/aromantic. While I somewhat doubt that Hugo intended that “his mistress is ‘patria’” line to be an indicator of asexuality/aromanticism in the way that some of the Classical allusions Hugo makes in reference to Grantaire are most likely meant indicate homosexuality, simply because the Victorians didn’t have a concept of aromantic aces in the same way that they did “Greek Love,” I also somewhat doubt that Tolkien actually intended Legolas and Gimli to get gay-married at the end of LotR, but will nevertheless argue until my dying breath that they totally, totally do and that said marriage is 100% supported-by-text canon whether Tolkien did it on purpose or not, so, you know, each to his own.
The thing I do wonder, however, is this: Why is Enjolras the only character fannish consensus has chosen to make asexual/aromantic? Yes, he’s an easier sell for aromanticism than Cosette-obsessed!Marius or Marius-obsessed!Eponine or HappilyShackedUpInAThreesome!Joly&Bossuet, since Hugo makes a point about the fact that his dedication to his political cause comes before everything else and he has no girlfriend, but Enjolras is still in his early 20s when he dies, at an age when some people still haven’t completely figured out their sexuality. (I can’t be the only one here who didn't develop a sex drive or have any kind of romantic relationship until I was halfway through college, right? Right?)
Meanwhile, Jean Valjean lives into his late 60s without ever appearing to have a significant sexual or romantic relationship of any kind. (I mean, yes, I totally ship him with Fantine, but the fact remains that this is not actually consummated in any way in the book). Yes, he spends a 19-year chunk of that time in prison, where women are not present and most m/m relationships were presumably non-consensual (Hugo doesn't go into rape in the French prison system, but there are other French authors of the period who do - it definitely happened), but during his time in Montreuil-sur-Mer and his time in Paris as M. Fauchelevent he pursues no romantic relationships with women, and while you could put that down to the fact that he’s in hiding, we also never see him pining after a woman whom he’s decided he can’t risk having a relationship with, or regretting that his secrets and fugitive status prevent him from wooing and marrying a wife. This could of course simply mean that he’s gay, just as Enjolras’s lack of interest in women might, but we also don’t see him either having any close relationships with other men (not even platonic ones) or angsting extensively about his own sinful desires, which someone as devoutly religious as post-candlesticks Valjean would presumably do (he certainly angsts and has internal conflicts over plenty of other things).
Personally, I’m all aboard the good ship Valjean/Fantine (as well as the good ship Javert/gay crush on M. Madelaine & Javert/obsessive homoerotic fixation on Valjean), but an asexual and/or aromantic Valjean seems like a very plausible interpretation to me. As does, for that matter, asexual and/or aromantic Javert (another man who lives well into middle age without appearing to seek out any sexual or romantic partners).
How come it’s always Enjolras, guys? Why don’t the middle-aged French virgins get some of the (lack of) love?
As for those Syd Barrett references... there are some Crazy Diamond and Wish You Were Here lines, and I have always seen that Grand'R is to the Friends as Syd is to Pink Floyd. The addicted, wayward outsider whom the leader still gives a second chance. I will never forget the day I heard Crazy Diamond on the radio in the Swedish woods, played as a dirge because Syd had died...
BTW, this is a spiritual successor to The Queen Beyond the Wall. Only that now the gay OTP are cast as Gerda and Kai, while the straight OTP are cast as the prince and princess. And the robber maiden is far less of a helper at first sight and far more of an outright tsundere, like in the original tale. And it takes place in a more industrialised real world, instead of Westeros. And, much like The Queen Beyond the Wall owes much to Heart by Coraleeveritas, I had seen the other already existing Enjoltaire Snow Queen fusion, the sadly unfinished Albedo by Lil-Old-Cricket-Bug. It still remains unfinished after but one Story -opening in medias res, with the others mourning R-, Enj is Gerda and R is Kai just like in my rendition, but what convinces me the least is the fact that all the Friends have been Rule 63:d in Albedo. Mademoiselle Enjolras questing for Mademoiselle Grantaire. The sole thought made me wince, and (just like two years ago, when I read Coraleeveritas' take on a Westerosi Snow Queen, where Jaime was Kai and Brienne was Gerda, that also miscast Renly in the part of the garden witch, while I saw him as the "princess" to Loras's prince, aside from pulling out of Coralee's sleeve an estranged Targaryen to play the villainess instead of casting the Night's Queen!) I said to myself, gritting my teeth, "I can do better!" For I had also found who would play the prince and princess, and the robber maiden, in a Les Mis Snow Queen retelling (it was comparing the latter to Éponine in a FutureLearn course on Andersen that revived the plot bunny and set the ball rolling!)... Then I pruned away all the big-lipped alligator moments in the Andersenian tale, et voilà! A Shakespearean five-act structure to use with a Lemony narration style!
I hope you have got all the literary, historical, and lyrics references sprinkled throughout here. I hope as well that you are rooting as much for Enj as you rooted for Brienne in "The Queen Beyond the Wall" (which you may see as the straight counterpart to this one).
To give you a few clues, there is inspiration from Shakespeare, from symphonic rock tunes and lyrics (Genesis: mainly Lilywhite Lilith, The Musical Box, and The Fountain of Salmacis - Pink Floyd: Crazy Diamond, Lunatic, Wish You Were Here, any song dedicated by Roger Waters to Syd Barrett [might as well be an Enjoltaire song, sent from the leader to the drugged prodigal without whom, at the end of the day, makes the group what it is]- Yes: that Roundabout that became the ending tune to JoJo's Bizarre Adventure sagas 1 and 2), from Celtic lore, from Mylène Farmer videoclips (where the French popstar has always got something of Éponine in her), from One Piece (kuroashi fighting style, which was inspired by savate), from the anime adaptations of CLAMP manga series, and many other sources; aside from my own Mediterranean upbringing and first brushes with the Scandinavian climate...
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