Page 29

Rise of the Beaten

January ended with a bone-chilling cold that blurred Rollant’s view of the streets of Paris.

Duty pushed him onward to carry out the crumbling throne’s request, yet desire pulled him along.

Fear of what became of the woman who had captured his thoughts slowed his steps.

The King’s Decree had come two weeks earlier, and Louis was worried how the Third Estate would react before the Estates-General.

Rollant volunteered to go again to Paris, to which Louis agreed.

Rollant rolled the coat’s collar up around his neck and narrowed his eyes to slits.

His breath became foggy in front of his face.

The liveliness on Rue de Charonne paled in comparison to the prior year.

Its inhabitants were bundled in rags with pitiful sneers.

Hate lingered in their eyes at the stranger in a thick, unstained coat walking along.

The whispered disgust was tangible. Rollant ignored them and walked faster.

He would have to do a better job of blending in if he wanted a good report to the King that would ultimately fall on deaf ears and inactive hands.

Louis desperately wanted the people to love him, but because he was so detached, he couldn’t see that they did not and would not, at least not anymore.

Fragments of conversation blew past with the wind. élise’s name emerged. His heart settled. She was still alive. He drifted toward the conversation: two men huddled around a fire outside a closed-up woodshop.

“Pardon me,” Rollant interjected.

They looked up and examined his untattered clothes and nicely kept leather boots. “What do you want?” one man growled.

“I heard you mention the name élise. Would that happen to be the élise at Au Pain Roux ?”

They shared a glance. “And who are you to be asking?”

“Rollant Montvieux.”

One of the men smiled a toothy grin. “Ah, we’ve heard of you too. The rich man.”

He shook his head. “Not rich. I am usually on a ship in a uniform, being fed with ship gruel. I only wear these clothes and spend a few coins of my wages a few days a year.”

The other rubbed his fingers through a scraggly beard. “I’ll only tell you this because the rumor is you are a nice man, but I wouldn’t be telling people the king employs you. It probably isn’t safe if you like your life. Come up with a different story.”

Rollant gave a short nod, remembering Malo’s same advice. “Appreciate it,” he said, scanning the people staring at him with narrowed eyes. “Could you please tell me what you were saying about élise?”

“What is your interest in Gabin’s woman?” Toothy Grin said.

“She has become a friend, and Gabin beats her. I only want to make sure she is well,” Rollant said.

Scraggly Beard shushed him. “Everyone knows it, but Gabin is dangerous, and we need him to keep things running. We’ve no choice. So don’t say anything.”

“So you let her suffer?”

“Some of us don’t get to run off to the King’s ships,” Toothy Grin sneered.

“Is she well?” Rollant asked again.

“I suppose,” Toothy Grin answered. “She has more bruises these days, but she’s made a little name for herself across these districts.

Lots of women have been following her because they like what she says, and she’s been more defiant, too.

Told Gabin ‘no’ the other day in front of us all,” he sniggered.

“I have never seen that man turn so red. I thought for sure he’d kill her there on the spot. ”

Rollant clamped his teeth. The news sharpened both Rollant’s fear and admiration. élise had become a hero in the community, but it put her in greater danger from Gabin and any remaining French Guard Regiment royalists.

He nodded, murmured, “Thank you,” and continued to Au Pain Roux .

The cold nipped at his fingertips as he stuffed his hands into his pockets. Ignoring everyone else on the streets, he envisioned élise’s face with black eyes, cut cheeks, and irises lit with a flame for freedom. She was in sharp contrast to Louis’ weakness and indecision.

He hadn’t seen the sorceress since she’d cursed him on the battlefield at Damascus, but he wondered if eternity always meant he must serve the French monarchs blind to the truth.

What if they didn’t deserve the crown? He’d run the dagger over his hand that morning before he left his Charonne home.

It healed as it always did; thus, it didn’t matter.

He was still immortal and cursed. Why had he let himself get attached to élise?

She was just a woman, but not any woman.

After six hundred years, he was ready to love again.

He wanted to love again. He desired to be with élise and live a mortal life with her, maybe even in his Charonne home, free from his oath.

He swallowed the hard lump as the worn wooden Au Pain Roux sign appeared at the corner of Rue de Charonne and Rue de Faubourg Saint-Antoine.

But he was cursed, so he decided if she came with him this time, he would leave her in Charonne.

It was a perfect, peaceful home with a nice single man her age who lived down the street.

He would never return there so she could live her life, and if the king sent him back, he would stay in royalist inns.

He hoped she would leave the unrest behind in the city and heal in the sanctuary he provided for her.

Otherwise, he wasn’t sure he could return to Au Pain Roux again.

Every appearance put élise further into harm’s way.

Gabin would surely kill her if she stayed a third time.

A child dashed out of the bakery, squeezing a big loaf of bread. He took off down Rue de Faubourg Saint-Antoine. Gabin’s shadow and heavy footsteps pounded behind him.

“Thief!” Gabin’s yell defeated the wind as the husky-built man charged into the winter cold, holding his long bread knife. He pointed in the direction of the child. “I’ll kill you if I see you again, boy! Stay out of my bakery!”

Gabin swung at the wind, slashing it in rage before re-entering his business.

“élise!” he roared.

Rollant peered in through the frost-streaked window and saw élise back away, using the counter as a barrier. Her chin lifted in confidence, but the quiver in her hands betrayed her facade.

Gabin advanced and jutted the knife in her direction. “You saw that boy, and you didn’t stop him. That’s the third one this month!” The fury in his words blasted past clenched teeth.

“I did no such thing, Gabin!” she yelled back, dropping her hands as fists to her sides. The defiant stance masked her fingers’ tremble.

“Don’t lie to me!” he growled, slamming the blade’s handle across her jaw. She crumpled to the floor, clutching her face.

“Get up and work, you lazy, lying whore!” Gabin screamed as he leaned over the counter.

Rollant had seen enough and would not tolerate the injustice. He knocked on the wooden post and stood within its open frame.

“I heard something I should not have heard,” he said, his voice low and steady. His silhouette drew a long shadow in the interior room. The bakery’s firelight illuminated the red rage in Gabin’s bloodshot eyes as he turned to face Rollant.

“You!” Gabin pointed the blade at him. “I warned you to stay away, and now I’ll gut you like a pig!”

Rollant stepped inside, kicking away the door stand and allowing the doors to swing shut behind him. “I came to see if you had killed élise or not. Looks like she was one bad decision away from death.” The warmth from the bakery did little to thaw his tone.

“She is my woman!” Gabin bellowed, stabbing the air between them as he stepped toward Rollant. “I can do with her what I please.”

Rollant glanced at élise, crawling toward the door with blood spots marking her path from behind the counter. “A man who treats his woman this way is no man at all.”

Gabin snorted like a bull and charged Rollant with his baker’s knife in the air—a madman bent on killing.

Rollant stood like a sentinel and waited until the blade was ramming down.

Rollant caught Gabin’s fist mid-swing, his reflexes honed by centuries of battles against men far deadlier.

The familiar surge of power in his grip reminded him of the curse he carried, making mortal brawls too predictable.

Gabin yelled and put another hand atop his own, trying to force the blade down, but Rollant’s grip didn’t falter.

“I will kill you!” Gabin screamed. “You disgusting sea rat!” His face grew red with effort.

Rollant chuckled. “You will try.” He yanked the knife out of Gabin’s hand with a twist of his wrist and sent it clattering across the floor before shoving the brutish man away. Gabin shuffled backward into a table and chair, with his chest heaving.

Gabin yelled with teeth bared and spittle forming in the corners of his mouth.

“You want me gone?” Rollant asked. “Fine. But élise’s life is her own. If she chooses to leave with me, you’ll let her go without retaliation. She doesn’t belong to you.”

“élise is free to go whenever she wants.” Gabin spat. “I am not holding her captive, and yet she stays of her own free will. She wants me. Needs me. I am everything to her.”

“Is that so?” Rollant asked.

élise slowly rose, her fingers slipping from her bruised jaw. Her tongue caressed the gash on her lip. Gabin’s wild eyes focused on élise, whose gaze darted between Rollant and Gabin.

“Tell him,” Gabin ordered. “Tell him!”

élise’s voice, though quiet, carried the weight of her past. “Six years, Gabin?—”

“élise,” Gabin gritted in a hoarse voice, interrupting her. “You go with him . . . you don’t come crawling back to me.”

“Six years, Gabin,” she continued as she grabbed her coat off the hook on the wall. “Six years of bruises, beatings, bedding others, broken promises, and brash lectures. Six years I stayed, and not once did you think I deserved better. Tonight, I choose better. I won’t be crawling back this time.”

“You ungrateful wretch!” he yelled, lunging for her.

Rollant stepped in between Gabin and élise, blocking the path.

He deflected Gabin’s blow, then punched Gabin in the stomach and delivered a powerful uppercut to his jaw.

Gabin’s head snapped back. He stumbled into the table, upending chairs and sending bread loaves tumbling to the floor.

With a guttural groan, his legs buckled, and he collapsed in a heap, his chest heaving faintly as unconsciousness claimed him.

“Sleep well,” Rollant muttered and turned to élise. He dipped his chin. “May we depart, Mademoiselle?”

“Before we go, I want you to know I’m leaving for myself. Not for you. I didn’t need anyone to save me,” élise said with a voice full of conviction as she folded her arms across her chest one at a time.

He nodded. “I understand that, élise. You chose this. Not Gabin, not me. You don’t have to come with me if you have somewhere else to go, but my offer still stands: a place to bathe, fresh food, and a warm bed that will be all yours. It’s a place you can call home.”

His gaze lingered on her resolute expression, and for a fleeting moment, admiration for her courage to leave Gabin warred with the weight of his curse. He reached for the door.

“I do not owe you anything,” she said, her arms still crossed.

Rollant peered back. “I never said you did.”

Her arms lowered. Uncertainty still weighed on her shoulders. Caution remained in her eyes, yet the allure of freedom prompted a reluctant nod of acceptance.

“Then, let’s go. You deserve more than this place. It’s time to leave it behind,” Rollant said, letting her step into the biting cold with her chin high. Rollant followed, closing the door firmly behind them.