Chapter Text
Notes: I am freely mixing brick with musical and movie timelines. No production seems to bother to keep it consistent, so why should I?
Direct quotes from official sources will be marked bold and cursive, I do not own them. Or anything else beyond the idea of this story and I don’t make any money with it.
Chapter 1: Ara
“A score of times he had been tempted to fling himself upon Jean Valjean, to seize him and devour him, that is to say, to arrest him.”
Javert, about Valjean; “Les Misérables”, Victor Hugo, Book Four, Chapter One
Montreuil-sur-Mer, 7th October 1822
Javert couldn’t help but stare. Stare at the tilting cart, the old man trapped underneath, and the mayor who had, against all advice and common sense, removed his fine coat and top hat - handed them to a gaping urchin, trusting them to not run off - and then crawled under the hulking mess to try and prevent it from crushing its hapless owner. Not caring about the mud soaking his trousers and boots, about the undignified way he had to crawl on all fours and the spectacle he provided for the gaping bystanders - his focus was on helping Fauchelevent.
By acting as a human jack; all the while keeping eye contact with Javert after getting into position.
Madeleine was insane! This was a pointless sacrifice. There was no way for him to accomplish anything but join the unfortunate Fauchelevent in death. The road was too narrow, the badly cobbled pavement too muddy and steep to allow him to gain good traction and allow more than one person to try and steady the cart. Not that anyone else was insane enough to try!
Typically Javert would refrain from going against the wishes of a superior, an elected official no less, but he would snatch the insane man by the arm and pull him out from under the vehicle by force! One death less on this unfortunate day would be a success and to lose Madeleine - any second now Javert would shake off this strange lethargy and-
There were numerous traits and quirks to complain about, Javert was not being unreasonable, no matter what the mayor said. Madeleine was the bane of his existence. Whenever Javert had to be in his presence he felt discomfited. Be it the weekly report about police matters, or other encounters where he was forced to stay at the man's side; only because Madeleine had the survival instincts the Eternal gave a gnat and it was Javert’s duty to protect him! The inspector had more than once encountered his mayor strolling through the least reputable parts of the town, alone, after dusk no less! What was that man thinking? But, considering the scene in front of his eyes that was just par for the course, wasn’t it?
Strain and desperation flushed Madeleine’s face, a peculiar smile playing on his lips, and Javert saw his pupils contract, beads of sweat pouring out of his pores and beginning to plaster Madeleine’s hair to his skull.
“Monsieur le Maire!” Javert pleaded, but it only earned him a resigned head shake.
Madeleine closed his eyes and Javert watched, incredulity and something he didn’t want to name making his own heart stutter, as those broad, muscular shoulders bunched and strained and then-
The cart trembled and shuddered like a rebellious horse.
And rose incrementally, then a little bit more. Not a lot, but enough to free the trapped merchant. Shouts rang loudly and eager hands pulled old Fauchelevent out. Madeleine wretched himself away under his own steam, his chest heaving from exertion. The cart crashed down with force.
“Blessed be! Oh, it is a miracle!” someone exclaimed.
As soon as the danger to life and limb had passed the bystanders lost all reason and swarmed the damaged cart and its owner. To congratulate him and his rescuer, no doubt. Brainless, hapless fools, all of them. Javert huffed and forced himself to look away from Madeleine.
Some people were more foolish than others. “Renard! Fingers out of that crate!” Javert ordered sharply.
“Just wanna help.”
A bald-faced lie, and not only the ever-suspicious Inspector Javert was disbelieving. “And I am the Dauphin, bow to me!” old Huisier chortled, and grinned a toothless smile.
Renard held out his empty hands and after a sour glance in Javert’s direction shuffled away into the shadows. Not far enough for the inspector’s taste though, only out of his direct line of sight like the rat he was.
“Sergeant Liné, keep an eye on him,” Javert murmured under his breath, and saw the immediate nod of acknowledgement from his fellow Sentinel officer on the other side of the crowd.
An ominous creak made everyone stop their fussing and hesitantly look up at the remnants of the cart. It was nothing more than a pile of planks, flattened under its heavy load with the drawbar sticking out like a cenotaph of irresponsible transportation.
And irresponsible it had been! The crates, baskets and other lumpy cargo were wrapped in heavy canvas, and had been piled on top of each other, haphazardly secured by rope. The result was nearly twice as high as was sensible - or allowed by regulation. Such foolishness had nearly cost them two lives today. Now that the damaged cart was tilting more and more, the rope was fighting a losing battle against gravity.
“Oh no!” Fauchelevent bleated and tried to stumble to his feet, despite his injured leg. “My merchandise! It will break! Spoil! I am ruined!”
“Darnasse, Thierry, Dupont! Cut those ropes, begin at the top and unload carefully. Stack everything against Madame Fabier’s house, there is enough space over there to not clog the street. Take care, one injured man is enough. Everyone else, stay back!” It was satisfying to see gendarmes and bystanders jump to his orders. The unhappy glare Javert sported no doubt helped to suppress any opposition.
Avoiding work in favor of crowding Fauchelevent and the mayor was more attractive than carefully untangling this special Gordian knot, and not many joined the gendarmes in their efforts.
With a careful sniff and a tilt of his head, the inspector was reassured that certain elements weren't helping themselves to unsupervised cargo. He was by no means able to discern every inhabitant of this not-so-fair city by scent alone but he had learned fast to keep track of certain individuals.
Next, he should deal with the crowd. The Caveé Saint Firmin was, despite being only wide enough to let two horse carts pass each other with a lot of caution, the main road that connected the Lower City with the Upper City and was the shortest route directly to the city gate facing the harbor. Having it clogged with debris and looky-loos would only create more work for the police.
Javert turned and strode over to where the crowd was most dense and nearly obscuring the tragic hero of the hour. His tall frame allowed him to tower over nearly everyone. Only Broujon the butcher could boast that he rivaled the chef de police when it came to height and he was, quite sensibly and unlike this rabble, seeing to his business and selling his wares. Elsewhere!
“Disperse, there is nothing more to see here! Monsieur Fauchelevent! Where is your horse?” he demanded to know and the crowd parted like the sea before Moses.
“Sadie? Ran off, the old nag. Old girl spooked and caused the crash,” Fauchelevent moaned pitifully and blinked up at Javert with rheumy eyes. The two younger men holding him up, by their clothes dock workers, dared to glare up at the inspector for bothering the injured merchant.
“Or, which is more likely, you were driving too fast, like always.”
Fauchelevent whimpered and closed his eyes, smart enough not to try and convince a Sentinel of something nobody here would believe even without being able to tell lies by listening to heartbeat and respiration. Instead, he was playing to the crowd’s sympathy and succeeding. A thin smile curled Javert’s lips. Smart, but not smart enough.
“Have a heart, Inspector, don’t you see how bad a state he is in?” a woman inevitably dared to plead.
“It is his own fault and we can be lucky that he only injured himself and not a bystander or damaged another vehicle beyond repair! Madame, your Jules likes to play in the backyard of your house.” Javert nodded to the building, it was the next over on the right side of the road. “And he never thinks to look out when he runs out of the door.” The inspector had scolded him more than once, despairing about the survival instincts of the young. There was no need to elaborate. The glares turned from the police inspector to the whimpering man.
“Be happy that I will consider your injury punishment or I would fine you for overloading your cart. Again.”
“I am ruined, ruined!”
That was most likely true, everyone knew that Fauchelevent was scraping by and a cart was expensive to buy or repair. But it was not Javert’s problem, unless Fauchelevent turned to crime to fatten his purse. Which brought him to the other leading character of this little drama.
“Make yourself useful and carry M. Fauchelevent to the hospital!” Javert ordered firmly. “Sergeant Liné, where is Monsieur Madeleine?” Because the mayor seemed to have extricated himself from the adoring crowd and slunk away without Javert noticing, which was a mean feat in itself.
“Gone home, he said,” chuckled Liné, and pushed a curious urchin back to safety and out of the way. “Exhausted and wet, he was. Can’t blame the man for wanting to get clean. Fussy bloke, our Monsieur le Maire, you know him. Doesn’t like crowds. And Madame Blanchet was trying to kiss his cheek, oh dear!”
Madame Blanchet, a matron of advanced years, giggled like a little girl. “He is such a handsome courteous bear, our Monsieur le Maire.”
Javert sent her a deeply disapproving stare. That was no way to talk about a high-ranking official! He might not approve of most of Madeleine’s shenanigans, but to talk disrespectfully in front of others, no, that simply wasn’t done.
Two workers came running down the street, slipping in the mud with nearly every step in their haste, between them they carried a heavy-duty jackscrew. A real jack, hah! Not a living person filling the role-
Javert stiffened. His senses and memories must be playing tricks on him again. It couldn’t be! Yes, he had always felt as if he knew Madeleine from somewhere but- he had to see if his suspicions were correct, right now!
A convict successfully masquerading as a respected official? Fooling everyone, and especially Javert? And that specific convict to boot? Javert had to fling out his free hand, the other clutching his cudgel, to steady himself against the brick wall because his world was tilting on its axis. Oh yes, even among the lawless beasts a certain one had stood out, with his glowering stares, his utter and disgusting disrespect for authority and order.
In Javert’s youth, he had been able to cling to the notion that people were either naturally good and law-abiding or liars and criminals. But his awakened senses had denied him that simple black and white view. Nearly everyone lied. Pauper, worker, merchant, lord: it did not matter. Everyone had their breaking point and the only moral quality Javert could discern was how easy or hard it was for someone to act against the best interests of society and break the law. Still, it made his occupation even more important, because he had to watch everyone and assess them in the present. And as well, keep a constant watch on his own beast and the bonds that bound it securely to the yoke.
Instead of falling into a rage, like he would've done as a guard, and proclaiming to everyone who was in hearing range about this revelation, Javert would do something he rarely had to strive for: to keep politics in mind and investigate before jumping to action.
“Nobody accompanied him home?”
Hesitantly shaking heads answered him.
Sergeant Liné dared to pat his superior officer on the shoulder and the way he smiled made Javert suspicious. What was there to smile about? “You’ll make sure that he arrives safely, won’t you, Sir? He'll listen to you more than anyone else. I will make sure this mess here is tidied up.”
“Indeed. I expect a report when I return to the station house.” Javert shot him another inquiring glance, because to imply that the mayor would follow the inspector’s advice was preposterous. When had that ever happened? Madeleine did whatever came to his mind. But their discussion would be lengthy, so Javert then hurried away, his thoughts and senses already seeking out his target.
Madeleine’s ‘residence’ wasn’t worth that appellation when taken in the context of what was proper for a mayor’s residence. ‘House’ nearly didn’t fit either, and ‘hut’ was only not applicable because despite leaning to one side and being situated in the poorer part of the town, instead of in the more affluent residential district around the Place de Roy, it had two stories and was built out of sturdy brick instead of wood and clay like the buildings surrounding it. Most of those were in the process of being rebuilt or upgraded; the area and the people living here were thriving due to Madeleine’s profitable glassware business.
Instead of being greeted by a housekeeper or manservant, Javert encountered only an empty tiled hallway behind an unlocked front door. Had the fox, sensing the hunter on his tail, already fled the coop? After running through the streets it was hard to concentrate on anything specific but the heartbeat he sensed on the upper floor was a familiar one and while it wasn’t at rest it was not beating frantically. Javert had time to compose himself.
And time to look around, because while he had made sure to know the layout of every prominent house in the city, Javert hadn’t entered this one before. His daily evening reports were delivered either at the Mairie or more often than not to the office in the manufactory where Madeleine preferred to spend his time.
The town gossips had always wagged their tongues about the peculiar M. Madeleine, his mysterious past, and his refusal to use his wealth for ostentatious purposes. Wild tales of hidden grottoes and a sleeping chamber filled with exotic luxuries had only been dispersed when Madeleine had offered two of the most prominent and influential widows a visit to his house, to avoid any enterprising youth (or a few older persons of more shady inclination) trying to sneak in and explore. The matrons, by all reports, would have preferred the mayor to have given them a more detailed - and personal one-on-one - exploration instead of being set loose together inside, with Madeleine hurrying off to his manufactory.
The man hadn’t been too concerned about his belongings going missing, probably secure in the knowledge that the two widows, as long-term bosom friends and being quite wealthy on their own, would keep each other from too much mischief, and the fact that there weren’t any small valuables that could be removed easily.
The half-open doors in the hallway allowed Javert to peek into the rooms behind. A modest sitting room, a kitchen, and an unused office were revealed to Javert’s curious gaze. The furniture, while well cared for and clean, was old-fashioned and sturdy, maybe something a self-respecting official would buy for their servants but never for their personal use.
Javert huffed. His instincts had always marked Madeleine as someone to keep an eye on. Quite frankly, he was too good to be true, too bland, too even-tempered, too nice. It would have been less suspicious if the man, after practically being forced to accept the role of mayor, would have matched his lifestyle to his new station. But no.
The wooden staircase was polished to a shine and didn’t creek one bit when he carefully climbed it. Of course, it helped that Javert kept himself pressed to the wall, was light on his feet, and took care to only put pressure against the areas where the planks had been nailed to the frame. If his hasty arrival hadn’t alerted his prey, he wouldn’t spook him with noise now.
One of the two doors upstairs was half open and his ears told him that his quarry was behind, even if he wasn’t moving a lot. Javert opened the door fully, ready to spring aside in case he was going to be ambushed. But nothing happened.
Madeleine was standing in the middle of the room in his shirtsleeves and trousers and no shoes; his bedroom by the way it was furnished, and plain like the rest of the house. A pair of boots was discarded in a sad little pile of scrap leather, mud and sleet. Those wouldn’t be able to be cleaned and restored to their old splendor, Javert could tell from experience.
“Has there been another incident, Monsieur l’Inspecteur? Otherwise, I do not appreciate the intrusion.” The rebuke was mild but firm and it made Javert smile.
It wasn’t a nice smile.
The mayor turned half away from his chef de police and casually tugged down the cuffs of his linen shirt, rebuttoning them. His fingers appeared too clumsy for a motion they must have performed a thousand times. Afterward he closed the fastenings of his shirt, which was liberally splattered with mud and was clinging to his body with sweat and rain. Its clean replacement lay abandoned over a wooden chair.
The growl of a wolf on the hunt swelled up in Javert’s throat. Propriety dictated that displaying any naked skin just wasn’t done in the company of someone that wasn’t a tailor, a doctor or a spouse - outside exceptional circumstances. Risking life and limb by nearly being crushed by a cart should count as exceptional, shouldn’t it? They were acquaintances, not strangers. Javert was a lowly police agent, not someone who would faint if the man changed into a dry shirt in front of his eyes.
“Did you injure your shoulder? It was pressed against some splintered and uneven wood. If you don’t want to call for the doctor-”
“He should be quite busy with Fauchelevent, there is no need.” Madeleine waved his concern away but could not disguise the way he stiffened with the motion.
“Then let me take a look. I assure you, I am quite familiar with assessing injuries caused by strain.”
“Indeed? Are you also accomplished in treating such injuries? Otherwise, I will wait for the doctor to be available or visit the hospital if it doesn’t improve on its own. In any case, it isn’t an urgent matter.” Madeleine wasn’t indulging in his habitual slouch and rough clothes, and the ruined shirt did nothing to disguise his frame. The wet fabric clung to his muscles quite nicely.
Javert took quiet pride in his physique in the way he took pride in the neatness of his uniform and the cleanliness of his person. They were tools of his trade. But this man, half a head shorter than himself, had him beat when it came to obvious strength. He couldn’t help but let his eyes wander consideringly over the other man’s body.
Pure assessment, of course, there was no need for the slight blush on the shorter man’s cheeks.
“No, I am not trained as a medic, as you are undoubtedly aware, nothing beyond first aid. A prison guard has to know when a convict is faking an injury in hopes of slacking off or when he is too injured to keep working. I never made a secret of my former profession.” Unlike you, Javert didn’t add.
“Why would you? It is a dangerous profession but an honest one. The Préfet de Police has sent me some of the glowing recommendations your service has earned you.” Another frustrated tug tried to force the cuffs a little lower down Madeleine’s wrists but the face showed nothing but polite attention.
“Oh yes, it is an honest profession and one that demands a good memory for people. What was it you said, my face is not one you would forget when I asked you if we had met? Well-”
“And it isn’t,” Madeleine interrupted him.
Javert bristled. “I am aware that my appearance is unusual but-”
“It’s more your height, your habitual glaring, and your rather formidable whiskers that make you stand out.” Another disruption. “I did not want to imply anything else.”
A deep, calming breath was needed here. How this man alone always managed to rile him up, he couldn’t understand. “No, you wanted to distract me, just like you are trying now. It will not work, you gave yourself away today, as you feared it would. Otherwise, why stare back at me like that? I know of only one man who can accomplish what you did today, one man I’ve seen manage similar feats of strength. Only one. Do you deny that you are prisoner 24601?”
“That is neither my name nor my identity,” was stated with firm conviction and it rang true.
“But neither is Madeleine.” Javert reached for his manacles.
That wasn’t something Madeleine could deny. “So you came to arrest me.” The upright posture slumped a little bit. “And here I hoped that we were working on our professional relationship and you would stop disagreeing with me on principle soon, give me the benefit of the doubt and a chance to explain if it came to this.” The false mayor licked his lips nervously and the smell of sweat increased in the room, going from honest exhaustion mixed with sandalwood soap and starch, to bone-deep desperation.
It was not a pleasant odor and it tugged at the Sentinel’s instincts in a way an arrest normally would not. And that was the second elephant in the room that was driving Javert crazy. Because the other man was correct, they had been circling each other for a very specific reason. This man might be a convict but he was also a Guide. How this could be, Javert could only speculate.
“Is that why you tried to gain my approval? To reach an accord because we both feel the need to soothe our untethered gifts, to tie me with a bond, with sentiment?” he demanded to know. “Foolish! We might be compatible as Sentinel and Guide, probably my regrettable background providing the common ground,” Javert sneered and enjoyed how the Guide winced and shook his head in denial, “but sentiment has never prevented me from doing my duty, 24601.”
“I know that better than anyone else in this town, don’t I?” More than a hint of bitterness crept into the con’s voice. The lines around his mouth deepened. “If you have to address me, at least use my name. If you remember it?” he dared the policeman.
“Jean Valjean. You practically threw those two words in my face often enough and neither my hearing nor my memory is faulty. And do you deny that that is your name? Ridiculous as it is but more fitting than Madeleine, even if that name proclaims you a repenting sinner. Or was that the name of a whore who tried to pander her wares in exchange for freedom?”
Javert casually moved in front of the window and grinned meanly. It wasn’t a big window, hardly wide enough to accommodate a slender woman, never mind a brawny convict, but that had never kept a desperate man from trying, if he thought the only other exit was better guarded. Well, Valjean couldn’t know that Javert had been stupid enough to come without backup and hadn’t positioned a group of ready gendarmes in the foyer.
With every second the bland facade of Madeleine was slipping a little bit more. His gaze was more direct, his chin raised and stubborn. “Curious, I haven’t heard that name spoken in decades and did not think I would ever hear you say it.”
As if that was some kind of victory Valjean had wrestled from the inspector! And he was prattling on.
“Back to the matter at hand. If you are trying to rile me or catch me in a lie you have to try harder. Your gifts call to mine, true, but you are honest to a fault, and getting closer to you would have revealed me sooner than later. And the last thing I want is to be sent back to hell.”
“Then you shouldn’t have broken parole!”
“Nobody trusts a convict, you know that!” Valjean shouted back and dug his fingers in his wild curls in frustration. His shirtcuffs slipped back and revealed scarred skin.
“For good reason! Trust you, hah, Monsieur Madeleine .”
Valjean was growing more frantic by the second. “I did not break my parole on purpose! If you would let me explain-”
“More lies, surely!” Maybe he should have taken half a dozen gendarmes with him. Valjean had never injured a guard on purpose but it had been foolish to come alone. And what was he doing, squabbling with a convict? Maybe it was the man’s Guide nature that was making Javert so reckless? An unbonded Guide was unable to project emotions, though, so that could not be the reason. Another thought fought to the surface.
“A Guide would never be sent to Toulon, it would be torture to an awakened Guide.” Why hadn’t he remembered this before? It was one of the reasons why he hadn’t made the connection before today, why his distrust and speculations had shied away from making the connection. Damn this man for making Javert forget procedure and common sense. “They would not sentence a pré Guide to hard labor either.”
“What do you mean, they would not? They did, I wear the marks as evidence.” Valjean exclaimed, absentmindedly trying and failing to smooth down his unruly hair.
“It is policy to have a Guide check every convict for the signs. Evidently, someone did not do their job properly.”
“Evidently.” Valjean echoed numbly, shaking where he stood. Something like hope surfaced. “And that changes this situation, how?”
Javert grimaced. Leave it to Jean Valjean to transform something that should be simple, like arresting a parole breaker, into an immensely complicated conundrum. Javert hated messes like nothing else. Arresting a dangerous criminal, even if he - Javert eyed the trembling man unhappily - didn’t look the part at the moment, was what the rule book demanded. But putting a Guide into public jail with the scum of the earth - no. It could only lead to damage, to Valjean and everyone else. Guides and prison did not mix, and didn’t that explain a lot of things he had always found frustrating about 24601? This quagmire was clearly above the paygrade of a simple country inspector.
“You are, in your sworn duty as the mayor of Montreuil-sur-Mer, constantly using a false name and committing fraud by signing it to official documents-”
“I mostly let my deputy do the signing if that helps? I cannot avoid it totally, it would raise too many questions but- He was duly sworn in under the former mayor, thus it is all legally sound. I only use the name for projects I fund with my own money, like the new hospital wing.” Valjean piped up, a hesitant smile trying to battle the worry on his face.
“You frustrate me! No, that does not help!” grumbled Javert, and glared harder. “Did you just admit to using your private resources for official projects circumventing due process? Granted, the other way around is more common when it comes to corruption but that hardly makes it more legal!”
“Oh.”
“Yes, oh! You are really bad at following the rules.”
“That isn’t something new,” Valjean sighed self-consciously.
“A trend you should try to break!” And how deep had Javert sunk? Was he really bantering about legal matters with a convict?
What to do? Maybe his instincts had steered him correctly, despite Javert’s earlier self-recriminations. Inviting the mundane gendarmes to this mess would have only made it worse. The only one who might be of assistance was Liné, who barely registered as a Sentinel and was much less gifted than Javert, despite being bonded. He was by choice not involved in the business of the Societé des Gardiens and would not be able to advise Javert beyond offering his ear and secrecy.
But his sponsor, M. Chabouillet, the Secretaire of the Préfet de Police, had the status and the education to make sense of this mess without it developing into a huge scandal. The position he held at the prefecture was a minor one, by choice, he had told Javert when asked. More mundane responsibility would interfere with his position as the Alpha Prime of Paris and Northern France. Yes, Chabouillet was the one who would be able to sort this out, Javert thought with relief.
“You are clueless about Guide and Sentinel matters, as evidenced by your ignorance about the law concerning our kind. Which means you are not registered.”
Valjean nodded. “It would have been impossible to lie about my identity, and they do not hand out information without an assessment. Not that I knew that there had been anything irregular about my sentence, I’ve never heard anything about that! I would have been more interested in information about managing my equilibrium.”
The general public would not react favorably to what they would see as ‘special treatment’ of Guides within the legal system, so of course it was kept under wraps. But there was a system in place nonetheless, every courthouse was supposed to have a Guide on duty to keep watch. “You do not need to try to gain my sympathy, I am only doing my duty to untangle this mess of your design!”
“Which I appreciate. Let me add to the imbroglio. From my perspective, if you arrest me publicly without giving me time to order my affairs, everything I have built here will collapse. The hyenas will try to tear my assets apart to gain the juiciest bits for themselves and my workers will either be let go directly or suffer in limbo until the jaws of the law have finished chewing me up, and spitting the rest out. And if I understand you correctly, me being a Guide will complicate the process because of a possible miscarriage of justice?”
Javert huffed, despite himself amused at the other man’s audacity. “And now the mangy dog shows that he still has teeth. I wouldn’t call it a miscarriage of justice, more a misplacement of justice.” He pondered for a moment and wrinkled his forehead in deep thought. “The Societè des Gardiens is not removed from the common law, it is a side arm, and if you think it would have treated you more kindly - that is not necessarily true. They are highly influential and incredibly invested in retaining our reputation. You are aware that the Reign of Terror has decimated our numbers, and damaged our kind’s standing in society?”
“That is common knowledge. Sentinels and Guides are the guardians of our society. But in a civil war, Frenchmen turning against Frenchmen, there are no clear lines. It demonstrated to the public that there is no inherent knowledge in us about who is right or wrong and who is to be defended as innocent. Prides turned against prides. People remember that we can turn against them, and aren’t an unshakeable bastion of security.” The last part was a direct quote, underscored by a fluid hand gesture.
Valjean had displayed more knowledge than Javert would have thought him capable of without the proper instructions and histories at his disposal. Javert decided to elaborate, as it was important for the con to understand the importance of discretion. “Each side had a few prominent Gardien defenders but many Alphas demanded that their prides be allowed to stay neutral. Démarque and D'Agneau, for example. Sentinels are one-man armies, though, and nobody wanted unknown agents to be left to interfere at key moments in the conflict. The fear was prevalent that those would be triggered by an event and that they would subsequently join the revolutionaries or the royalists, and turn the tides in one or the other faction’s favor.
“There was a Parisien Sentinel who stayed neutral - until the revolutionaries threatened the children of the Queen when the royal family tried to flee Paris in coaches, then he and his Guide nearly tore apart the mob preventing the royal children’s escape. Robespierre the Butcher made a sport of hunting down as many neutral Guides and Sentinels as he could in secret and he waged a misinformation campaign, maligning especially Guides as sinful abominations. ‘Sodomites who spurn the laws of the common man’ was one of the phrases he coined.”
Valjean appeared to be appalled if fascinated by the tale. “Even the Church has no problems with Guides and purely Theban* pairings.”
Javert shrugged his shoulders. “Sentinels were seen as too dangerous to confront directly and they went the indirect route by taking out the other half of a pairing. Nevertheless, Robespierre has damaged our social standing, murdered us where he could, and others followed his example because they saw the danger we present, and our numbers have never recovered. The Societé is concerned about maintaining the status quo and eradicating even hints that Gardiens can be threats to the average innocent citizen.”
“So, they will most likely make me disappear?” Valjean, distressingly, seemed to have switched from agitation to being nearly resigned, as if the small bit of hope he had had was about to be squashed before it could be kindled into flame.
“That is unlikely. Guides especially are still a rare commodity.” And it wasn’t as if Valjean’s current alter ego identity would not serve as exactly the sort of image the Societé would be happy to promote. There was a reason a man with an obvious working-class background had been pressured into taking the role of mayor of this town without the bourgeoisie revolting, and even the king had shown favor to Madeleine the industrialist: He was rich, civic-minded and ridiculously and, at least to Javert, foolishly always giving alms and trying to better this city. Without the hidden convict part, of course, he was a paragon of Guide ideals.
“I don’t think that being seen as a commodity would be to my taste either,” Valjean contemplated and shifted in place. They were still facing each other in the middle of this modest bedroom and it was getting ridiculous. None of them seemed to be able to act the way they wanted and they were caught in an impotent limbo.
Javert wanted to break and tear at this status quo and could not. “I will inform my superiors with a detailed report; it is beyond my jurisdiction. This is what I know as fact: you are a convicted criminal living under a false name, and a Guide. I cannot put you in jail but I can issue house arrest until a directive for further action arrives. Do not try one of your old tricks and escape, I will find you even faster than in the past. I am fully awakened and not pré anymore like before.”
“If you say so.” Valjean shivered, whether due to exhaustion or the cold Javert could not discern.
“I know so! And change into something warm and dry as soon as I turn my back, for God’s sake.”
Valjean laughed, by the look on his face the sound was as much of a surprise for him as it was for the annoyed inspector. “You sound as if you care!”
“You are causing me a lot of work and you keeling over from illness will not make it easier. I will keep an eye and an ear on you all the time, so don’t do something even more stupid.” Javert turned around to leave the room. “I have your permission to use your office and some paper and a pen to write my missive?” It was only polite to ask.
“Of course, the blotter and stationery are in the lower right drawer.”
“Why did you break parole? This is such a waste.” He was talking to himself more than the convict, the day taking its toll but the answer still hit him like a punch in the gut.
“Does it matter now? As a convict you do not want me and as the mayor, I could not have you for fear of revealing the former.”
What a mess.
*alluding to the Sacred Band of Thebes, an elite band of ancient soldiers, 150 pairs who were lovers.
TBC