Spanish Olives and Silvers of Asian Pear


He takes good care of his un-blunted blade. The blunt blade is a strong one, a fine one, and he will fight Laertes with it, he knows. But the real one, the one in the corner, the one that could really cut and kill - he will have that in his revolution. It will be useless, for the soldiers who fight him there will have guns, and he will have to leave it and use a carbine instead. That doesn't need saying. And yet... He will take it along.

Today, he sits on his bed with his knees drawn up, and the real foil lies on the bed before him. It looks just like the blunt one; leather in the guard, shining, oiled down, even the same sort of grip. But there is no metal ball at the tip, and the blood channel isn't full of blue cloth. A beautiful blade. He's a little afraid of it.

It's out because he must think. The wild thing that happened yesterday was madness. Courfeyrac compared it to Hamlet over and over, and the trouble was, it fit. They fell into their roles as easily as falling on ice. The lines fit. Life shouldn't conform to a play written ages ago. He should only be Hamlet when he's onstage, wearing the right sort of clothing, surrounded by actors who were meant to play their parts. And--

When someone raps on the door, it's full welcome. He jumps to his feet, and his hand closes like routine around the grip of his foil, fingers sliding into the grooves. He throws open the door with his free hand, breathlessly, hoping for Courfeyrac, or - better luck - Combeferre. He's not the same as he was a month ago, so in control of himself and his life. He's tripped. He's lost a friend, and his realities are creeping into each other, and then there's Ophelia - Cosette - and he needs someone to talk to. Anyone will do.

He freezes when he sees who it is. He has no idea what he looks like: his golden hair in disarray, clutching an un-blunted foil, his waistcoat and shirt undone down the front. He looks quite as mad as the boy he plays.

Rodolphe freezes in turn, falling back a step.

"--Lord. Beg pardon. Clearly this isn't the time. I'll go."

"Get in here." Christophe-Marie shakes his head wearily, and gestures with the blade. Thankfully, Rodolphe obeys without question, slipping past him and standing awkwardly in the middle of the room. Christophe follows after, and sets the foil on the bed. A few moments neither of them speak, and at last he sinks down on the floor.

Rodolphe speaks suddenly, sharply.

"Well, Hamlet, it appears the poison's getting to you. I should expect no civility on a good day, and I'm certain sure I don't know why you've let me in here. Want a Horatio, do you? And bloody Courfeyrac's well and convinced he's Gertrude. Gertrude Courfeyrac. A very fitting name. Claudius Combeferre. The alliteration isn't flattering. Laertes Pontmercy. Foolish. Laughable. Then there's me. Horatio Grantaire? Good God. No, I'm Rodolphe. Have a piece of soul. It goes well with tea and sweets, pride of England." His dark eyes stare angrily at his feet.

Christophe frowns. "What have I done today? I haven't said anything to you, barely."

"No, no, you've said nothing. Don't mind me, and you'll feel a hell saner when I've gone. You let me in for something; now talk. I expect that's what you want. Tell me anything in the world, and mad Grantaire shall assure you it's locked away forever. I'll forget as soon as I'm back to my absinthe. What's the trouble, Lord Hamlet?"

"You know, don't you?" Christophe flops down on his back, looking up at the ceiling. "I thought you would."

"I don't know, however. Unless you mean that girl of yours, dearest Ophelia, who has an overprotective brother." Rodolphe shuffles over to stand above Christophe, peering down at him.

"I mean her, I suppose. I don't know what to do. You heard Pontmercy. Apparently I've convinced you all I'm chaste as marble."

"Some of us were convinced, yes."

"I can't see why. I'm a man just like all of you. The matter is, I respect things more than you do. I respect myself too much to be like you. I respect women too much to treat them the way Courfeyrac does. I don't go off with every girl I see for because I respect them. And you've no respect, and that's why you seem so surprised. You mistake respect for hauteur."

"Yes, and the folk you don't respect are your followers. Look at them once in a while and see if there's more than just your impression. If we were all in some great book, we'd be a load of clichés. There's your skirt-chaser, your luckless one, your poet, your drunk, your idealistic leader. That's pathetic if you want to write a proper story. There's more there than that, and you've got to look at all the little hints the author put in for you so you could see we've got depth. If all you can get is the clichés, you're too blind to read the book. That's the end of it, Enjolras. You know that you aren't transparency because you know yourself, and you know all your own filling bits. You simply haven't bothered to see anyone else's. Bad way of it, really." Rodolphe sits beside him, glancing over.

"When you say 'us' you mean 'me'."

"Perhaps I do. What makes you think I want to be your cliché any more than the rest of them?"

"But--"

"Damn it, doesn't Claudius pray God for forgiveness? If the wicked old incestuous king, as you're so quick to pin him, has enough humanity to feel guilt, why can't a plain, ordinary sot have the humanity too?"

"What are you guilty about?" Christophe asks crossly.

"Nothing in particular. I was only saying."

"You know, you invited me to tell you what was upsetting me. As far as we've gone, you've only gone on about your troubles with me."

"You're a beautiful man, and a selfish brat."

"I'm afraid. The world is going mad about me. I want a revolution like anything, but I keep forgetting why. My plays are turning into my life. Perhaps the world isn't mad. Perhaps I'm going mad as Hamlet."

"Perhaps you should give it up. I told you before if you hated working with your bastard director, you should quit it."

"And I told you that the lead of the play can't quit."

"And if the lead of the play can't quit, the master of the revolution can't quit either. You're having us on greatly, aren't you? You don't even want it, do you?"

"Yes, I do. I do, Grantaire. And I know why I want it." Christophe takes a deep breath. "I want equality for the world. I want injustice gone. I want everyone to have a say in his life."

"Damn good actor."

"It's not acting." Christophe is quiet now, not indignant, and he reaches up a hand that searches for Rodolphe's face. He catches the other man by the chin, and his slender hand forces Rodolphe to look straight at him. "I mean it. It doesn't sound much because I'm drawing it back from inside. I was forgetting. Liberty, equality, fraternity. What I believe in, Grantaire. I won't give it up for the chance of acting in a few more plays."

"Thank God. I thought for a moment you'd abandoned us."

"Not yet. Now get out of my home."

"If I don't go, will you prod me out with that?" Rodolphe gestures at the foil.

"No. But you will go."

Rodolphe sighs once, lightly, bitterly, and braces his hands on either side of Christophe, leaning over him. "Suppose I don't?" Quickly, he kisses him, just brushing his lips. Rodolphe seems almost like a child, taking a risk for something he knows he oughtn't have.

When he draws back, Christophe meets his eyes evenly. "But you will. Now."

"'Course." He stands.

"Horatio?"

Rodolphe turns back, half-trembling, as though he expects something and doesn't want to expect it, and doesn't know if it'll be offered anyway. "Lord?"

"Look after Ophelia. My mother should have ordered you do so, and that's what the script says, but I don't trust my mother as much as I would the Cardinal Richelieu. Laertes is wild, Polonius a fool, and Claudius barely has an interest. Look after Ophelia."

"As my lord pleases."

Christophe watches intently until he's gone, then stands and moves to the bed, and rests his hand on the forte of the foil. The metal is cold, and he shifts his index finger. As he does so, he feels a soft prickle, and quite suddenly his finger is wet with blood.

It's a beautiful blade. A beautiful, dangerous blade.

It'll come to the barricades. Now that he's remembered what he's fighting for, the blade will match to him. It will be easier to hold it, and kill with it, and use the clear blood channel.

A beautiful blade.

~~~

Rodolphe slinks through the streets, muttering to himself in his soft, rough voice, "Look after Ophelia. Bloody Ophelia doesn't need looking after. Anyone can see if she's got Enjolras for her own she doesn't need any bloody looking after."

When he reaches the iron gates, he glowers, his homely face fleetingly showing anger, or hurt. He curls his fingers through the bars, giving the late afternoon sun a resentful look.

"'Phelia! 'Phelia!" Somehow, he doesn't feel a bloody idiot for saying it. And the girl comes. Her face is solemn, and her dark curls would match Enjolras' if he wore his hair as long.

"I imagine that's me. That's what you all call me."

"More than Enjolras and I?"

"Yes, another boy. With brown hair and green eyes..."

"Courfeyrac. Poor girl, if you met Courfeyrac. He's a bloody nuisance. Utterly mad."

"A little."

"Well... I'm Horatio, then." Of a sudden, he seems shy.

"So you're to look after me, as the Queen orders?"

"The Queen didn't order it this time. The Queen's Courfeyrac, you might as well know. This order came from Hamlet. He's worried, says he. I'd be worried, too. I'd be worried the Queen would try and take you to bed." He speaks gruffly, and as though he'd rather be anywhere but explaining this to the girl.

She colours slightly. "I wouldn't let him."

"Good girl."

There's a terribly long pause.

"Well... Suppose I've looked up on you, then."

"Yes."

"God, this is like a prison, isn't it? Iron bars everywhere. Overprotective father, I fancy? Appropriate."

"Papa is a wonderful man, and he loves me, and takes care of me. If he's overprotective, it's only because he cares for me so."

"'Course, 'course."

"If you're going, tell Hamlet..." She reaches up and breaks a branch off the flowering pear tree. "Just give him this. He'll understand."

"I'm sure he will." Rodolphe looks at the branch dismally, and stuffs it in one of his greatcoat pockets.

"Isn't it odd that grapes are for abandonment?" she says quietly, and he shivers.

"No odder than anything else."

"Here, take this." She thrusts a handful of lavender flowers at him, and he takes them, without the faintest idea of the meaning, and stuffs them in with the pear.

"Merci. Quite. Good day."

"I'm sorry..."

"Good day." He turns away, muttering again to himself. "Not doing a very good job of looking after Ophelia, are we? Not at all. What have we to show for our bad job? Why, a pocketful of flowers."

Cosette watches him go, and abruptly breaks another branch off the pear tree. She sits on her marble bench twisting it around her fingers, and as they become sticky with the juice of the flowers, she wishes she weren't part of this play. She remembers the boy in the Luxembourg walking past her and blushing, and his lovely sweet face, and she'd rather play Miranda to that boy's Ferdinand than Ophelia to this beautiful, dangerous Hamlet and all his ensemble.


Chapter Nine.
Back to Chapter Seven.