"'...Chocolate poured over unresisting Cherries, and flakes of Piecrust...'"


He gazes in surprise at the doorway to the room; surprised that they come evidently to see him; surprised that Horatio is among them; surprised to see Horatio, for he had thought never to see Horatio again. How very odd. And that place on his collarbone is starting to hurt again. He smoothes down his black velvet tunic carefully, and makes a small bow in welcome as Horatio calls out greeting. Something pricks his stomach, and he notes that a small piece of rosemary is caught in his sash.

(What goes on?)

"I am glad to see you well," he says, and then pauses, feigning further surprise. "Horatio! Or I do forget myself." He laughs, and embraces Horatio. It is so very good to see Horatio again, after all this time. But as he does so, the place on his collarbone twinges hard and he gasps softly, missing almost all of what Horatio says, only catching the end.

"Sir, your good friend; I'll change that name with you; and what make you from Wittenberg, Horatio? Marcellus," he acknowledges one of the other men shortly, as that man tugs his sleeve. "I am very glad to see you," he adds to Horatio. The other bloody man coughs politely, and he turns around and acknowledges him as well. "Good even, sir." He turns back to Horatio. "But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg?"

Christophe-Marie sits back in his chair, tilting his head inquiringly at Rodolphe. "Yes?"

Rodolphe makes a sweeping, flourished bow, and announces, "I humbly thank you for granting me an audience, my lord. It was kind of you, considering the obscene schedule you keep: school, writing, acting, sleeping, school - you've barely the time to eat, much less waste these three minutes with me--"

"You've surpassed three minutes. Shall I demand you leave? Just speak."

"I shall be brief: Your noble love is dead."

"Beg pardon?" Christophe raises an eyebrow.

"Ophelia. She's not yours. She's gone. Dead, if you will."

"Nothing's happened to her?" Christophe is standing in a flash, shaking just a little from trying to hide his worry.

"Nothing, but she's not going to be Ophelia. She's gone. She wanted to be in another play."

"But why?"

"Because within this play, we've already an incestuous king, and she tired of more of the same. Laertes and Ophelia have gone, my lord, to another realm."

"Not Pontmercy? What in hell would she see in Pontmercy?" Christophe inquires calmly.

"Pretty eyes, says she."

"A truant disposition, good my lord," Horatio tells him solemnly, his lovely eyes sparkling.

"I would not hear your enemy say so, nor shall you do my ear that violence, to make it truster of your own report against yourself: I know that you are no truant; but what is your affair in Elsinore? We'll teach you for to drink ere you depart."

Horatio's eyes flicker towards the ground. "My lord, I came to see your father's funeral."

He smiles bitterly, and rests a hand on Horatio's sleeve. "I prithee, do not mock me, fellow-student; I think it was to see my mother's wedding."

Horatio looks even more ashamed, and mumbles his next words: "Indeed, my lord, it followed hard upon."

Fully aware everyone is now uncomfortable, he jauntily proclaims, "Thrift, thrift, Horatio! The funeral bak'd-meats did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables." Then he shifts his gaze to one of the windows, and continues, "Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven or ever I had seen that day, Horatio! My father! --methinks I see my father..."

"Where, my lord?" Horatio asks, and suddenly his voice seems terse, as though there were something far too interesting about that statement.

"In my mind's eye, Horatio," he says, but Horatio does not relax himself. How odd. But everything is odd these days.

"Good God. But she was my Ophelia--"

"Not so. She was Pontmercy's Miranda. It was only just that none of us ever noticed."

Christophe-Marie gives him a venomous look, and falls back in his chair with a pronounced weariness.

"What shall you do now, my lord?" Rodolphe sits on his table, kicking his feet a little. "Shall you get drunk again and rehearse your death with me? Shall you stab young Pontmercy to death with that sword of yours? Shall you kill yourself?"

"I shan't do a thing. I shall finish my work and go home. Why would I do differently?"

"Because you're an Enjolras. You have proud eyes and perfect hands and a countenance fit for expressions of disgust. If this occurrence occurred ever before in your family history, I shall wager the Enjolras severely trounced the other man, but refused any drinking to his health. I shall also wager he gave the man a perfect look of utter revulsion, then turned, went home, ate his supper, wrote letters, washed his hands, went to bed, and in the morning, not only refused to give any details of the fight, but also refused to acknowledge that the fight ever took place."

"Grantaire..."

"On the other hand, if it ever happened to a Grantaire, the Grantaire beat the other man to death with an empty bottle, and then returned to the tavern to get a new one and complained about the inconvenience."

"Grantaire..."

"If it happened to a Courfeyrac, the Courfeyrac seduced the woman in question anyway, carried her off somewhere, and concluded by preventing the man from hurting him by seducing the man as well."

"Why in God's name are you wasting yourself the way you are, Grantaire? When you want to, you can clearly talk. You're good at it. Why are you doing all this" --Christophe gestures at the bottle of wine on the table beside Rodolphe-- "to yourself?"

"It was amusing at first... Now the thrill is gone, but it's too difficult to stop." Rodolphe smiles amiably. "Rather like that fact that it might once have been amusing to play Hamlet, but now that Courfeyrac's lined up roles and Ophelia's drowned herself and all that rot, it's simply depressing. But you can't stop, because it's only the beginning of the third act, or something in the vein."

"I saw him once; 'a was a goodly king..." Horatio whispers sadly.

"'A was a man, take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again." He touches Horatio's shoulder lightly.

"My lord, I think I saw him yesternight."

"Saw? Who?" The place on his collarbone blazes with pain again.

"My lord, the King your father."

"The King my father!" It hurts like nothing else, and he presses his fingers to the spot, all the while staring at Horatio as though he were mad.

"Season your admiration for a while with an attent ear, till I may deliver, upon the witness of these gentlemen, this marvel to you." Horatio indicates the other two men, and at last he understands their purpose. To bear witness; or rather, to agree.

"For God's love, let me hear!" he demands.

Christophe flicks his fingers tiredly at Rodolphe. "Yes, you're right. I still don't understand, however. You ought to stop. I could get out of the play if my future depended on it."

"It is not a matter of simplicity. But that's all one." He hops down off the table, coming to stand before Christophe. "What shall you do now, with only Horatio?"

"Something. I haven't decided yet. Foremost, I intend to finish my work. I should have been done before now, if I had been given the solace to do so."

"Ah! And you send me off. Lord, my good lord, dear lord, sweet prince Hamlet. Is that in the script?"

"I am not following the script."

"That's all too plain." Rodolphe kisses him, softly, then drops to his knees.

"Why on earth do you continue to do that?"

"No reason at all," Rodolphe says carelessly.

"It's not right," Christophe reprimands.

"Why not? Is it not right in itself; is the act not right? Or is it that anything I do is not right; so instead the performer is at fault? If Combeferre did the same, would you protest?"

"Combeferre?"

Rodolphe throws up his hands. "Never mind."

"Why Combeferre?"

"Let it be."

"But why you, then?"

"Look at him. Look at the man. He has my name; my soul; the very creeping innards of my corrupt body; my blood is his; and what more does he ask for? Why, my secrets too. Yet what are secrets? Words one refrains from speaking because of personal worry. What do my secrets hold for me? I have no good name to defile, no family to disgrace, no career to lose hold of. I have only green faeries and absinthe and a rather old greatcoat. Why, then, my secrets are meaningless." Rodolphe tilts his head back to look at Christophe.

"Yes?"

"Yes, what?"

"If you mean to tell me, just tell me."

"How to tell you? I tell you, Hamlet, if a man is too blind to see what's been clear for ages, he is likely also too deaf to hear it said."

Horatio positively glows.

He shakes his head. Horatio was always rather like this. A disgusting mix of eagerness and prudence. Philosophic and deep, kind and understanding; and easily excited and fond of explaining things. And explain Horatio does, far more dramatically than the situation warrants, he thinks, ending with: "I knew your father; these hands are not more like."

"But where was this?" he is able to ask at last.

Here the man Marcellus breaks in to answer.

"Did you not speak to it?" He frowns.

Horatio goes on in his dramatic, silly way again, and amongst the needless phrases, he is led to understand that Horatio spoke to it, it made to speak back, but vanished when the cock crew.

Cock crew, he mumbles in his head. What an idiotic expression. There must be a better way of saying it short of 'the cock crew'. If he were ever King, he would change that officially.

"'T is very strange," he says.

"As I do live, my honour'd lord, 't is true, and we did think it writ down in our duty to let you know of it."

"Indeed, indeed, sirs. But this troubles me. Hold you the watch to-night?"

Marcellus and the other man agree to it in unison, making perfect fools of themselves to his mind.

"Arm'd, say you?"

"Arm'd, my lord!" And this time the bloody three of them say it at once. Horatio looks about at the others, blushing.

"From top to toe?" he asks, with slight amusement.

"My lord, from head to foot!" Again, the three say it. This time, it is Marcellus who blushes.

"Then you saw not his face?" Though he hardly shows it, it is the most important question he's asked yet.

"Just say," Christophe cries in exasperation.

Rodolphe smiles, and looks more homely than ever as he finally speaks an answer. "Je t'aime. I love you."

"What?"

"Granted, it's a bit of a mad idea--"

"It's more than a mad idea. Why in heaven's name?"

"How the hell should I know? I wish I didn't. Some days, I should like nothing more in the world than to hate you, with all the glorious, decadent hate I can manage. But it's not so. What's to do then, as arrows are deadly things? If you wish it, I'll throw myself in the Seine now, and trouble you no longer."

"O, yes, my lord; he wore his beaver up."

Thank God for Horatio. The other two men are clearly senseless.

"What, look'd he frowningly?"

"A countenance more in sorrow than in anger."

"Pale, or red?"

"Nay, very pale."

"And fix'd his eyes upon you?"

"Most constantly." Horatio cannot repress a little shiver.

"I would I had been there," he says wistfully, longing to have seen his father again - if it was his father.

"It would have much amazed you," Horatio laughs in what seems to be surprise.

"Very like, very like. Stay'd it long?"

"While one with moderate haste might tell a hundred."

Both of the other men insist "longer" at the same moment. Idiots.

"Not when I saw 't," Horatio protests.

He coughs, drawing their attention back to what is important. "His beard was grizzled, no?"

"It was, as I have seen it in his life, a noble silver'd."

"I will watch to-night. Perchance 't will walk again."

"I warrant it will!" says Horatio.

"If it assume my noble father's person, I'll speak to it, though hell itself should gape and bid me hold my peace; I pray you all, if you have hitherto conceal'd this sight, let it be tenable in your silence still; and whatsoever else shall hap to-night, give it an understanding, but no tongue; I will require your loves. So, fare you well. Upon the platform 'twixt eleven and twelve, I'll visit you." He smoothes down his black tunic again, and finds the bit of rosemary in his hands. The others all speak, but he misses it. "Your loves, as mine to you; farewell," he murmurs as they begin to leave.

Quickly, he catches Horatio by the hand, and presses the rosemary between his fingers, kissing his cheek just barely. Horatio smiles at him from his lovely eyes, and then slips out with the rest.

He watches him go, and at last he speaks. "My father's spirit--in arms? All is not well; I doubt some foul play; would the night were come! Till then sit still, my soul: foul deeds will rise, though all the earth o'rewhelm them, to men's eyes." With that, he too leaves the hall, smelling rosemary on the wood of the door.

Christophe stands, looking down at Rodolphe. "And trouble me no longer?"

"Yes, that. I'll go right now, if you like."

"No. Not yet. Hamlet should be entirely alone in Elsinore, but for his Horatio."


Chapter Eleven.
Back to Chapter Nine.