Free Web Hosting Provider - Web Hosting - E-commerce - High Speed Internet - Free Web Page
Search the Web

Part 1

Enjolras stepped away from the door, allowing barely enough room for someone else to enter behind him. He watched Grantaire silently for another full minute. Not once during that time did Grantaire look up from his opponent and the table. No one in the smoky room seemed to notice Enjolras' presence.

"Grantaire," he muttered softly to himself in disgust, not expecting the sound to carry across the crowd.

Yet Grantaire heard and looked up at him. Neither young man smiled. Almost casually, as if this were part of some plan, Grantaire laid his large hand over the dominoes scattered across the table and beckoned to Enjolras. He said something to his opponent in a voice so low that Enjolras could not catch his words.

Half-irritated, Enjolras shook his head and turned back to the door. As he left, he overheard Grantaire raise his voice to address the entire room, "This has been great fun, but I've come tonight with something a bit more serious to do than play dominoes with you, splendid fellows though you are."

"If I had not come," Enjolras allowed himself to think once back on his course to see the Cougourde, "Grantaire would have failed me."

By the time he was cautiously picking his way over the rocks in the entrance to the quarry, he'd reasoned that Grantaire had probably botched it anyway. He put the subject aside to have all his wits for the meeting ahead, but still found himself resentful that Grantaire had robbed him of his previous good spirits.

The meeting with the men from Aix was only marginally successful. The Cougourde were sufficiently like-minded to fully understand Enjolras' agenda, but with their own leadership in Aix, not a few of them resented the manner in which he attempted to direct them. Most of the Cougourde were working men, with whom he usually shared an excellent camaraderie, yet resentment against his wealthier background erupted. His usual declarations against his own family did not quell the disturbance, and he eventually felt it necessary to leave without full confirmation of their support.

However, as he left, he'd been invited to attend a full convocation of the Cougourde to plead his case before their leaders. He noted the date, only a few days from now, and promised himself that he would allow no distractions to prevent him from attending.

That evening he sat in his usual chair at the Café Musain and took reports from his men. He'd slept badly after leaving the Cougourde, and was more tired than usual. He took pains not to show his fatigue, yet occasionally a voice, most often Joly's sibilant tenor, would melt into nonsense, and he'd have to ask the speaker to repeat himself.

"Is there something wrong?" Combeferre asked.

"Are you feeling well?" Joly added.

Enjolras shook his head automatically, then waved Joly back as the young medical student raised a hand to feel his forehead. "I've been thinking," he said and stood. Joly and Combeferre stepped back from him to give him room.

An amused murmur splashed across the room. "Of course he has," Courfeyrac said from his table in the opposite corner. He looked up from his dinner across to Enjolras. "We'd be worried if you didn't."

From his standing vantage, Enjolras looked around the room. As he'd been listening to the reports, he'd lost track of who'd entered the back room. No unfamiliar faces. Good. But the others knew better than to allow a stranger into their meetings. Enforcing secrecy had never been his responsibility.

No Marius. He'd expected that. As he'd said last night, Marius had not attended a meeting for some time. But no Grantaire either. "Has anyone seen Grantaire?" he asked.

Again, a murmur spread around the room, this time of astonishment. Courfeyrac answered, "He's probably sleeping off a mid-afternoon drunk." This prompted open laughter from the others.

Enjolras thrust out his hand for silence. The laughter halted abruptly. "I was expecting his report on the artisans at the Barrière du Maine."

"Enjolras," said Combeferre, "Surely, you didn't expect him to do as he said."

"Of course, I did," he said coldly. "I don't send men off on fool's errands. I need that report." He did not tell his friends of the doubts that had led him to check on Grantaire the night before.

"No one has seen him," Combeferre said in that same reasonable tone.

"Does no one have a lecture with him?" Enjolras asked.

"I have," Prouvaire said and yawned, "but the masons kept me up half the night with their worries. I overslept and wasn't there myself."

Enjolras sighed. "Combeferre," he said in his lowest voice, "go to Grantaire's rooms and fetch him, if he is there." No one in the room could have missed the implied threat in Enjolras' voice, and Combeferre hurried to do as ordered.

By the time Combeferre returned, Enjolras had sat back down and was making a pretense of correcting a translated passage Jean Prouvaire had brought for him to read. Enjolras heard Combeferre re-enter the room, but did not betray his anxiety by looking up at that instant. He kept his eyes on the paper before him until Combeferre approached him and said his name.

"He's not been back since last night," Combeferre said.

"That's nothing to worry us," said Courfeyrac. His attempt at laughter sounded forced and thin.

"I'm not worried," said Enjolras, not smiling. Jean Prouvaire stood and looked from face to face. "We should try to find him. He's one of us."

"No, he isn't," Enjolras said through clenched teeth. He glared at Prouvaire until the man blushed, then he scanned the other faces to see the poet's worry reflected everywhere.

Except for Courfeyrac, who still attempted to make light of the danger, unconsciously supporting Enjolras' nonchalance. "He's probably hiding so he doesn't have to tell Enjolras he didn't go to Richefeu's."

"Or that he got lost," Bossuet added. He himself frequently got lost on errands for Enjolras. However, the event happened so often he always admitted his failure.

"We should try to find him," Prouvaire repeated, and since Enjolras did not raise any further objection, he and Combeferre quickly organized parties to seek Grantaire at his other haunts.

As the room began to empty, Enjolras rubbed his tired eyes. When he looked up, only Combeferre remained with him.

"Are you sure you're alright?" Combeferre asked.

"Only tired," Enjolras answered.

"Can you excuse me? I have an errand to run while the others are gone. I won't be long."

Combeferre didn't move. "May I come with you?"

No, Enjolras thought, but "If you wish," was what he said. He did not want anyone with him at Richefeu's, but he didn't want to appear secretive either.

Combeferre walked alongside him on the streets. Even though it was never silent in this district of the city, these late evenings were quiet enough to allow several men to walk astride. Combeferre had no trouble keeping up with the pace that Enjolras set. After a few minutes, Combeferre said, "There's something you're not telling us."

"And what would that be?" Enjolras snapped.

"I don't know. You haven't told me." Combeferre cut in front of Enjolras and stopped him with a hand against his chest. "Something is wrong, and I want to know what it is."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Enjolras said. He brushed past Combeferre.

"Where is he, Enjolras?" Combeferre threw after him. "You know something, and I will not let you keep silent."

"How should I know where the fool has got himself off to? We're hardly close." Enjolras had stopped walking to answer, which he suspected had been Combeferre's goal.

"Liar."

Enjolras flushed from the disgusted tone in his friend's voice. Then he quickly paled with the anger that followed. "I do not have to answer to you. Now I have somewhere to go, and if you'll excuse me, I'll be on my way."

"I will not excuse you," Combeferre said, but Enjolras ignored him.

Enjolras did not see Combeferre quietly begin to follow him. As quickly as he could walk, Enjolras returned to Richefeu's.

Since it was much earlier in the evening, Richefeu's was more crowded. Enjolras patiently pushed his way through the crowd in the main room to get to the smoking room. Once inside, he reviewed his memory of last night for a familiar face. His main hope was that Grantaire would somehow still be there, but he was not.

Enjolras recognized Grantaire's dominoes opponent sitting in much the same place as he'd been the night before.

He approached the man. "May I join you?" he asked.

The man looked up, eyes muddy and barely focused. "Oh," he said, "You must be the damn angel of the Republic."

"Did you see him leaving with anyone? Perhaps he spoke to someone privately." Enjolras had years of practice in showing or not showing emotion in his voice, as he chose. He needed all his experience to control any signs of his annoyance now.

"No, I didn't. I don't care about him, or you." The man returned his attention to his half-empty bottle, but continued muttering, "Interfering busybodies always into everyone's business..." Enjolras stood and anxiously searched the room for another familiar face.

He was on the verge of offering to stand the domino player a refill to get more information out of him, when he was approached by a lanky man with luxurious, shoulder-length black hair and hands large enough to strangle a bull. Those hands drew immediate attention, and Enjolras could not help noticing the clay lining the man's fingernails.

"Are you a friend of that fellow from last night?" the man, whom Enjolras judged to be a potter, asked.

Another deep breath for patience, while Enjolras forced himself to nod a confirmation. "He came on my behalf," he explained.

The potter stepped toward Enjolras and tugged him into the far right corner. "You'd have done better to come yourself."

"My time is finite. I cannot be everywhere." Enjolras carefully shrugged away the man's touch, and stood back with arms crossed.

The man half smiled, then backed away, hands outstretched disarmingly.

"There's no need to take my head off. I may not be your best friend, but I'm no cop either."

Enjolras relaxed his pose, letting his arms rest against his sides. "Fine. Do you know what happened to my friend?"

"I know where he went after leaving here."

"Where?" Enjolras demanded.

"Not so fast. He's obviously valuable to you. How much so?"

Not believing what he heard, Enjolras blinked but decided in the next heartbeat that he needed to know this at any cost. "Enough. What do you want of me?"

"It's not so much you, as your organization." The man looked meaningfully toward the door. Enjolras didn't follow his gaze, but wrinkling his high brow in a scowl, kept his eyes rigidly on the man before him.

"Tell me what you require."

The potter cut the air with his dangerously large hand. "Leave us alone. Your revolutionary game is getting too dangerous."

"It's not a game!" Enjolras clenched a fist behind his back to still his temper.

"Perhaps for you it isn't. But these men, some of them have families to support, they need their lives and their livelihoods."

He smiled without humor, shaking his head. "Not everyone can afford lofty ideals."

"But you'd benefit from what needs to be done."

A finger thrust toward Enjolras' chest. "Only if you do it! This endless talking has gotten people's hopes up, and I can feel it in the air - don't deny that you're going to try soon! The cholera, the fear... but if I can feel it, so can the King. And so can his soldiers."

"The time is not far off now." Enjolras let his fist, back, and shoulders relax, trying yet again to seem less rigid. His muscles were beginning to ache.

The potter leaned against the wall, still looking down his long, chiseled nose at Enjolras, and crossed his own arms. "And can you guarantee success? How many men do you have? Weapons? Have you anyone on your side in a government office, in the Guard?"

"There's General LaMarque," Enjolras said, meeting the man's eyes. "And some of the masons are rather high-ranking, I believe. I can't give you exact numbers. They grow every day, and I'm not the only person whose counting heads. It would be too dangerous for one man to possess all that knowledge."

"Dangerous," the potter hissed as he leaned forward. "Yes, that's it. And you want us in danger with you."

Enjolras backed away from the man's anger. "Do you speak for all the men here?" He began to see that it was nearly time to resign the field.

"Assume that I do." His eyes glinted as if he'd already sensed his victory.

"Then my men will leave you alone, for now. But don't think we'll forget you. And I don't speak for every Republican in Paris."

His adversary nodded, smiling knowingly.

"Now where is Grantaire?" Enjolras asked firmly. He'd paid enough for the information.

The potter shrugged and waved negligently toward the door. "Last night, he left with two young apprentices who were rather irate with him. I think he may have been too drunk to notice. I'm not sure what they did, but they didn't show up this evening, and I heard tell of a police raid and a fight at one of their other watering holes last night."

"Where is that?" Somehow, Enjolras feared that the answer to this second question would cost as much as the first. The potter identified a restaurant not five streets over from Richefeu's, a name which chilled Enjolras to the pit of his stomach. "You're sure?" has asked more quietly.

"I wasn't there." The potter seemed unnaturally cheerful at Enjolras' discomfort. "But the arrival of an inept loud-mouthed revolutionary and the police involvement are probably related." Before Enjolras could form another question in his mind, the potter said, "Goodnight, monsieur," and strode away.
 

His pride stung from his loss, Enjolras swung around to follow the potter, but saw Combeferre out of the corner of his eye. His frustration focused on the new target, and he swept over to his friend and dragged him back out onto the street. "What are you doing here?"

Enjolras glared at Combeferre, but his mild friend stood firm.

"I couldn't let you go off by yourself like that. Not when you're so obviously upset."

"I am not upset."

Still wearing a disbelieving face, Combeferre reached out to grasp Enjolras' left arm, the one farthest from him. His grip was frim enough that Enjolras could not shake it off casually. As Combeferre drew the arm forward, Enjolras tried to unclench his fist, but the tension was too great.

Combeferre frowned at the fist. "What's wrong, my friend?"

Hating that they were on a street corner and embarrassed that Combeferre had caught him in an obvious lie, Enjolras kept silent for a moment. Eventually he said in a low tone, "I came here last night, checking on Grantaire. He was here, but he'd forgotten his errand." His friend's concern lay between them, unwanted. "I was turning to leave when he saw me. He began. So I know that he tried."

"And then what happened?"

"I left." Enjolras shrugged. "I took your reports, but I did not give my own. The Courgarde were resentful. If I don't go to Aix by the--" He paused to count the days in his mind. "By three days from now, I'll lose them entirely."

"In Provence?"

Enjolras nodded. "I don't have time for this. Or that. Yet I sent a man to do a job -- a job for which he was ill-suited -- and now he's missing. That is my responsibility."

"But not yours alone," Combeferre said gently, releasing his grip on Enjolras' arm to gesture with both hands. "Grantaire went there willingly. And we'll find him somewhere. He'll turn up."

Enjolras shook his head doubtfully, and told Combeferre the rest of what he'd learned.

"Pere Bayon's? Surely not."

"I would not have gone. You would not have gone. But Grantaire? Who knows? I can't guess whether it was inebriation or bravado."

"Are you sure he's been arrested?"

Enjolras shrugged. "I'm not sure of anything. We'll have to see. If he was, I don't want to imagine the consequences."

"He would not betray... us."

"He may not realize that was what he was doing." He frowned and waved a hand dismissively. "The man's a drunkard. How could he be aware of anything?"

Combeferre simply stood and looked at him. After several minutes, his green eyes dropped to study the stones on the road. "I don't know, Enjolras. As you said, we'll have to see."

"It's late," Enjolras said. "We should get back to the others."

"Don't you want to check out Pere Bayon's?"

His frown deepening, Enjolras said, "Why? He wouldn't still be there. Either he was arrested or he escaped. If he's... free, one of the others has probably found him."

Combeferre nodded silently and followed Enjolras back to the Musain. The weight of those disapproving dark eyes against his back angered Enjolras, but he kept his peace. Despite his setting a smart pace, they were the last to return to the café.

He didn’t meet any of the expectant eyes. Behind him, he heard Combeferre murmur, "We did not find him either, but--"

"But," Enjolras interrupted and turned to face his friends at last. "We have a report. He may have been arrested at a disturbance at Pere Bayon’s. He was drunk." Then Enjolras sat down with his face in his hands and let the storm break over his head.

Through the sea of voices, only one person asked the significance of Pere Bayon’s. Bossuet. Enjolras let Combeferre explain. He imagined a physical flurry to accompany the words he heard, thus he was slightly surprised to look up to see still, tense faces all turned to him.

He stood wearily. Without looking at his watch, he guessed it must be near midnight. "Since no one has seen him elsewhere, we must assume he was arrested." His eyes dared anyone to interrupt him. "Someone needs to find out."

"Not tonight," Combeferre said implacably. He’d set his face into the same firm pattern that Enjolras had seen far too much of that evening.

"And not you," two others said at once -- Joly and Feuilly, he thought without looking.

"I’ll go," Courfeyrac said. "I can pretend to be looking for a client in the lockup." Enjolras met the same stubbornness in his gaze as Combeferre’s. "It should not be you, for many reasons."

"It must be me," he said softly. "I sent him into this."

"No, Enjolras," Bahorel said and stubbornly crossed his arms. Normally at the heart of any fracas, he’d been oddly silent until now. "You know too much about what we’re doing and planning."

"I’m no different than the rest of you." Enjolras found himself, without realizing how, nose to nose with Bahorel.

"Do you honestly think any duty-minded policeman is going to let you walk out of a jail you’d entered willingly?"

"Why not? They’ve done it before. It’s not like I have never been arrested before."

"But not this close to the culmination of our plans," Combeferre said quietly.

"You have the most contacts," Courfeyrac added.

"You have your previous record," Prouvaire offered.

Enjolras sat back down, his teeth clenched tight shut.

"You can’t go alone," Combeferre said to Courfeyrac.

Enjolras listened for several minutes before it became clear that Combeferre would be unbelievable as a lawyer. He let them plunge fully into a plan to enter the jail as two lawyers, which they quickly modified to a lawyer and his secretary. When Courfeyrac realized that Combeferre would be equally hopeless as the secretary, Enjolras interrupted. Most of the others had long since gone to their beds, thus his voice rang clear across the quiet, nearly empty room. "I’ll play the secretary."

Neither objected this time, but Combeferre still insisted that they not go alone.

"That’s not required," Enjolras said. To their stunned faces, he said, "Two lawyers would be more convincing, and--" He shook his head to silence their unborn protests. "And if I portray the perfect secretary and Courfeyrac, the perfect lawyer, the flaws in Combeferre’s performance won’t be noticed."

Courfeyrac looked sour, but nodded. They arranged to meet early the next morning at Combeferre’s to work out the details.

Thus three young men, two wet-behind-the-ears lawyers looking for clients and their even younger, harried secretary, planned to enter the jail the next day. The first order of business at Combeferre’s was to dress the medical student in proper legal fashion. The second, so Enjolras believed, was to discuss their script and tactics if anything should go wrong.

"Don’t you even own a black coat?" Enjolras asked with exasperation as he and Courfeyrac looked through the array of colorful coats stuffed into Combeferre’s armoire.

"No," Combeferre said with a grin. "One of my instructors advised me that patients find black morbid and unreassuring, so I chucked them all."

Enjolras groaned, but before he could say anything, Courfeyrac intervened. "That’s not impossible. Do you have a brown suit?"

"Of course," Combeferre sniffed, "with a fawn waistcoat even." He shouldered between his would-be dressers and reached for a hanger at the extreme left.

Enjolras added a freshly laundered shirt and Combeferre was transformed. He looked serious and sober, but still very sympathetic to the drunks they were supposedly going to visit.

Next, Enjolras found himself under even closer scrutiny. They circled him as he stood in place.

"That won’t do at all," Combeferre said. "He’s better dressed than I."

"It’s not my fault you don’t have a black suit."

"You’re right," Courfeyrac said, ignoring Enjolras altogether, "he looks too much like a lawyer."

"Or a funeral director."

"Wait a minute," Enjolras protested, but they ignored him.

They continued to circle him, commenting freely as if he had no ears to hear them. "You get that horrid funeral coat off of him, and I’ll heat the iron."

"My coat doesn’t need pressing."

"Don’t worry, old man," Courfeyrac said cheerfully as he skillfully deprived Enjolras of his coat. "Combeferre is quite adept with a curling iron. I’ve even let him curl my hair a time or two before."

Enjolras hadn’t even known Combeferre owned a curling iron.

Thus he submitted with ill grace to the eager ministrations of his dressers. His hair was released from its neat queue and curled into fat ringlets, then brushed loose until it looked like natural curls falling nearly to his shoulders. His black coat and trousers were confiscated and hung in Combeferre’s armoire. Loose fawn trousers, a paisley vest and a coat the blue of sunlit sapphire were substituted for the clothes he’d lost. He protested at the unfashionable length of the coat, but was ignored. He was allowed to keep his shirt, but his black tie was replaced with a white cravat, expertly knotted in an elaborate style more suited to evenings than secretarial work in Enjolras’s opinion. Where did Courfeyrac learn to knot a tie like that?

All the clothes were a bit loose on him, and the trousers an inch or so too short. The effect was quite unlike himself, and perhaps rather more like a vain, young secretary than he’d been. He accepted the use of Combeferre’s glasses, warily perching them on the end of his nose to keep from ruining his own perfect eyesight. He feared that if he refused them, they would put makeup on him next.

When Courfeyrac and Combeferre at last approved of Enjolras’s appearance they went to the jail. Along the way, they did discuss contingency plans. Enjolras was warned to keep his mouth shut no matter what happened. They would do nothing to call attention to themselves and would leave as quickly as they were able once they determined whether or not Grantaire was in the building.

All their preparations were in vain. Grantaire had not been arrested at Pere Bayon’s. They retreated to a nearby coffee shop to regroup. Enjolras loosened his cravat while they waited for their coffee. "What else could have happened to him?" he mused out loud.

A plan had half-formed itself when Courfeyrac, his coffee consumed, stood. "Well, I have a class," he said in a firm tone. "So do you, Enjolras."

Enjolras didn’t look up. "May I borrow your notes later?" he asked.

"Of course." Courfeyrac exchanged a look with Combeferre and left.

"What are you planning?" Combeferre loosened his own tie and reclaimed his glasses.

"What makes you think I have a plan?"

Combeferre pointed to Enjolras’s untouched nearly cold coffee.

Enjolras smiled thinly. "We need to start looking for him near Pere Bayon’s."

"But we know he’s not there. It’s been two days."

"And if we don’t find him today I can’t go to Aix on time."

"Go to Aix, then," Combeferre urged. "We’ll find him."

"No. He’s my responsibility. I sent him."

"So you keep saying." Combeferre sighed and finished his coffee. Then he paid for them both and stood, offering a hand to Enjolras. "What do you want to do?"

Waving aside the hand, Enjolras stood. "Start out at Pere Bayon’s and spiral outward. He must have hidden from the police, but he will not hide from us. I hope."

"He could be hurt," Combeferre mused, sensing now the direction of Enjolras’s urgency.

A waiter at Pere Bayon’s confirmed that someone looking like Grantaire had been there on the night of the brawl. He could not confirm if Grantaire had been arrested, but he sincerely hoped he had been. Enjolras contained his own temper as the waiter continued in that fashion, proceeding to sneering at the sobriety of Combeferre’s dress and Enjolras own ill-fitting borrowed outfit.

As soon as they could escape Pere Bayon’s, they began methodically searching doorways, stairwells and alleys. They split up as the circle widened to be sure of covering the area more quickly. Enjolras found a small park, a scrap of spring green amid the gray streets.

A large tree dominated the center of the square. As he approached the tree, he spied a hat similar to the one he’d last seen perched on Grantaire’s shaggy head as he departed the Musain the other night. He picked up the hat and peered around the small quadrangle. Ornamental shrubbery lined it on all four sides with a few larger clumps near the gates. Under one of these a single hand protruded, palm up and limp.

"Combeferre!" he yelled.

He was already on his hands and knees digging through the bushes when Combeferre ran into the park. "I think I found him," he said.

Without a word, Combeferre joined him. They followed the hand and then the arm to the shoulder. Grantaire’s familiar mismatched features came into view, their arrangement oddly peaceful on the unconcious man’s face.

With a relieved sigh, Enjolras sat back and let Combeferre examine Grantaire. He trusted that the medical student’s sensitive fingers would be able to separate the serious wounds from the minor cuts and bruises liberally covering Grantaire. Eventually, Combeferre announced that Grantaire had either a broken or sprained ankle and a serious bruised lump under the hair of his head.

"This getup," Combeferre said with some exasperation as he stood and brushed leaves, twigs and dirt from his trousers, "did not include my medical bag. I need to go get it."

Enjolras stood also. "I’ll get it."

Combeferre stopped him before he turned to leave. "No. I need to add a few things to it for Grantaire. You stay here with him. He shouldn’t be alone when he wakes."

"I stay with him?" He looked at the pale, prone figure still entangled in the bush. "I wouldn’t know what to do."

"You don’t have to do anything," Combeferre said. "Just stay here with him." Without a backward glance, he ran out of the park and down the street.

Go on

Enough for me