Chapter Text
The February afternoon is cold and overcast. Inspector Javert's boot-heels ring over old-fashioned cobblestones as he strides down the Rue du Change at his customary pace.
He has been stationed in Montreuil for many weeks, enough time to become accustomed to its winding pathways and its rhythms. After almost two months of patrols, he can walk blindfolded through the upper and lower parts of the town and — from the feel of road surfaces under his boot soles, the noises of traffic and citizenry, and the smells of the unadulterated air — determine exactly where he is.
In his peripheral vision, he can see the deputy accompanying him struggling to keep pace. Duchamp was born and raised in Montreuil, and is unknowing of larger towns and their more complicated populace and even more complex crimes.
That is, of course, not to say that Montreuil has been free of crime.
Javert rounds the municipal building on the corner. Unexpectedly, there is a crowd gathering in the town square at Place Saint-Saulve. He pauses, taking in the men in their Sunday best, women in evening dresses that coats and wraps do not entirely conceal; many of them young, though no children are in attendance. Most of them are hurrying, as if not to miss a long-anticipated event.
"What is happening there?" he asks Duchamp.
The young deputy falls into step beside him as they approach the square. "Ah yes, I'd forgotten what day it is."
Javert raises his eyebrows, and Duchamp tries a nervous smile. "It's the fourteenth of February, Inspector. La Saint-Valentin?"
"And it is for this reason nearly one quarter of the town's populace has gathered in the square?"
"Not exactly. We have a tradition on La Saint-Valentin that encourages the exchange of compliments between unmarried persons? It has become popular amongst the singles and widowed, and even the married folk come out to watch."
Javert cannot remember if Duchamp himself is married. "You are not participating?" he enquires.
"I felt it was not seemly for a policeman. The tradition used to be less orderly than it is now in 1821; there were some breaches of public order." Duchamp blushes under his hat. "And in any case, I am now pledged to Angelique, and she would not stand for it, obviously."
Javert stops himself from rolling his eyes: Duchamp is after all still a young man and cannot help his preoccupation with matters of the heart. "How disorderly was it?" he asks; he wonders if he ought to call for reinforcements from the station-house nearby.
The young officer shrugs. "The unmarried men of the town gathered on one side of the square, and called out the names of the single women. As you can imagine, it would get rowdy when two men picked the same lady, or whenever a lady did not appreciate the attentions of a particular man… When the mayor came, he changed things. At any rate, it's called the loterie d’amour."
Duchamp pauses when he realises that Javert has come to a halt in the middle of the street. Timidly, he says, "I know it sounds frivolous, Inspector. Did you not celebrate such a thing in the Midi, or your post after that?"
Javert cannot answer for a moment. Memories of other Saint-Valentin celebrations, other lotteries, are buried far underneath the cobblestones of his inner pathways, as insidious as the sewers that lurk beyond the streets of the city. Still, he can feel them beneath the surfaces of his conscious mind, knows exactly where he was when he experienced his first lottery.
* * *
The February skies over Toulon were always overcast. Its salt air simmered sullenly in the town and in the bowels of the bagne, its unrelenting dampness like a chokehold on guards and prisoners alike.
Certainly Toulon had been infamous for all manner of chokeholds: those written in l'Ancien Droit and the peine infamante, and those that were not found in any statute book.
The law before the 1810 Napoleonic code sanctioned iron collars which circled the prisoners' necks, to facilitate transport to and from the worksites. And the unwritten rules of the bagne mandated stiffened collars worn as a sign of ownership by the few who belonged to Toulon’s senior adjutant-guards.
After all, violent criminals were less than men and could not be trusted with their own morality. In Toulon, they were taught to submit their viler passions to the mastery of the guards — this was good for society, and also for the prisoners themselves. A prisoner fortunate enough to be selected by a guard of sufficient seniority could hope to regain some of his rights in submitting to his master’s exclusive possession for the duration of his punishment.
The younger adjutant-guards and sub-adjutants, those who had not risen to sufficient standing to collar, contented themselves by meting out permitted punishment. Insubordination, unsanctioned self-pleasure, or worse, physical contact between prisoners both solicited or unsolicited — any sign that a convict's body belonged to anyone other than the sovereign authority of Toulon — were all offences to be dealt with by the unique system of discipline that was written into every stone and brick of the bagne.
And then there were the privileges that were afforded to each guard, no matter how junior, every year in February, in the lottery of Saint-Valentin.
Entering Toulon, Javert was familiar with its prison discipline. This had also been practised in the small prison in Hyères, the place of his birth. He had been raised in the shadow of creaking restraints and the thudding of rope on flesh, with the small, relentless noises of sex, the stifled screams and then helpless groans of release. He had grown to adulthood determined to align himself with those who protected society from criminals who needed to have the brute instinct fucked out of them as well as beaten.
Yet when a prisoner was slow to obey his orders, or rolled an eye in his presence, Javert would reach for his standard-issue truncheon rather than for the clamps and the rack. When he felt the heat rise in his blood, he did not seek out the salles like so many of his colleagues, instead quelling his hunger with his own inadequate hand — even though criminals had lost the rights to their bodies by breaking the law, Javert could not force himself on them in such circumstances.
He knew his colleagues commented on his continued rectitude behind his back: did this youngster think so much of himself that he would not stoop to indulge with sinners and thieves? Did he see himself above the privileges afforded to their position, or was he so reticent as to withhold the punishment of the flesh that the prisoners themselves had come to expect?
With his first February in Toulon, Javert experienced his first Saint-Valentin lottery.
He had just come off-shift and was momentarily taken aback by the eager stream of uniform-clad bodies hurrying down the corridor of the main building.
M. Maugin, the tall Adjudant-Chef of their section, was amongst the press of guards; he happened to look across the corridor and spotted Javert, who stood a head above most of the younger officers.
"Come along, lad," he called to him, and Javert fell into step beside him.
"What's the emergency, sir?"
Maugin chuckled. "You'll see soon enough. It's an emergency of l’amour, at any rate."
Indeed, Javert had seen, when they entered the courtyard and joined the forty or so of their younger colleagues already present. The prisoners were lined up in their customary work-chains. What was not customary was that they had been stripped of their rags, exposing bare skin and muscles and bony ribs. Most of them were shivering in the February chill, but they did not dare risk pressing against each other for warmth.
"Welcome to this year's lottery," M. le Commissaire announced. His collared submissive, the prisoner known as Gueux, stood fully-clothed at his side, holding onto his master's coat.
Javert heard the cheer go up. It rang in his ears like nothing human.
"Let the drawing commence! In order of seniority," the Commissioner said, and Anton, a twenty-year veteran of the adjutant-guards, stepped forward. Javert had heard that the man's incompetence meant he had not yet earned his senior adjutant's status and the right to collar.
Anton licked his lips in anticipation. "Last year I had Brevet, did I not?" he said in an aside that was meant to carry. A dark-haired prisoner near the end of the line, who had been allowed to retain his knitted suspender but nothing else, snorted audibly. "This year I find myself desiring something different. Hey, Albin! It's your lucky day."
Another guard helped Anton unchain the young prisoner from the others in the line. "I'll be gentle," Anton said, winking. The other guards roared as he took hold of one skinny arm and led the boy in the direction of the underground cells.
As Albin's screams mingled with the shouts of approval, another senior guard stepped forward. "Don't grieve, Brevet! I'll keep you company this year. We can do it out here so everyone can enjoy the view!"
"You're a better catch than Anton, sir, that's for sure," Brevet said, enticingly; other guards began stepping forward, calling out the names of the prisoners they had selected.
Maugin was surveying the activities intently, one casual hand on the neck of his own submissive. Now he glanced at Javert, still rooted to the spot at his side. "What about you, lad? This only happens once a year, and you won't be senior enough to collar for a while yet. You should go claim the man you want."
Javert found the need to swallow before he could answer. His flesh was unaccountably roused; he did not know if Maugin could see the shameful press of his erection against the seams of his uniform trousers.
"I believe I'll sit this year out," he said. With effort, he kept his face calm and his hands steady. He could see, on the edges of his vision, Brevet bent over in his chains, and the other convicts falling one by one on their knees for other guards.
Maugin looked sharply at him, and then nodded. "Plenty of time for you to get used to our ways. If you don't want to choose for yourself today, go assist the others. It looks like Robert could do with some help."
Javert made his way amongst the press of coupling bodies to Robert's side. The portly guard had selected a convict of medium height and brawny mass; it was taking two guards to drag him forward, still manacled to the primary chain.
Javert took hold of an arm that was solid, massive muscle, and looked down into a blank, vaguely hostile face. The big convict was not weeping and struggling like Albin, nor was he coyly agreeable as Brevet had been. Though he held himself proudly, he seemed resigned to Robert's attentions, and the thick, ruddy member between his powerful thighs was at half-mast.
At the time, Javert had not known who he was.
The man's curious regard held his, eyes bright in his broad, dirty face. Javert felt a spark of connection flare through the man's bare skin into his own body.
The other guards had not managed to wrestle the convict into position against the wall, but the man moved for Javert. Javert used his truncheon to spread the convict's legs, not ungently; again, the man yielded, still staring at Javert.
Javert could see the exact moment Robert managed to seat himself between the man's thighs, and he turned away to hasten from the yard.
The blood loud in his veins, trembling in each limb, he sought out the privacy of his deserted dormitory. As he leaned against the door and stroked himself, he could still see the men tangled together in the throes of the lottery, could still hear their moans of pleasure and cries of pain. Could see, behind his eyelids, the image of the big convict surrendering to his touch and then to Robert's mastery; this time, it wasn’t Robert for whom the convict spread his legs.
Groaning, Javert spilled over his hand. When he was done, he fell to his knees and threw up for the first and last time in his life.
* * *
"I hope you are not unwell, Inspector," a familiar voice says. Javert feels the long-buried surge of nausea, which he fights down through sheer force of will.
It would be him: the convict whose name Javert discovered after that first Toulon lottery and never forgot. Jean Valjean, Jean-le-Cric, currently masquerading as Madeleine, mayor of the God-fearing town of Montreuil-sur-Mer. The man has never been far from Javert's thoughts, even after Javert left Toulon behind, and it seems as if he has never been physically far from Javert as well.
Of course Javert recognised him the moment they met again, in the mairie in Montreuil’s main square. It has been ten years since Toulon, but Jean Valjean's is not a face he would forget.
Now as then, Javert schools his face to calmness, as if the notion of a fugitive disposing of his yellow ticket, of assuming the identity of a respectable gentleman and businessman, does not shake the foundations of his very self. A convict from Toulon, daring to reclaim mastery of himself, let alone to assume the mastery of a respectable town — it was not to be countenanced.
Have patience, Javert has been telling himself, over the days and weeks that he has been compelled to submit to the false mayor's authority. He has requested the necessary case-files from Paris, which should arrive any day now. And in any case, doubtless the man will soon stumble and his mask of righteousness will slip, and the beast hiding beneath will be revealed.
Only thus is Javert able to endure showing deference to Madeleine, whom he has to call M. le Maire and to whom he is duty-bound to render daily reports on the state of public order and petty crime within the town. Thus does he manage to withhold from seizing and devouring and arresting the man who he knows to be a criminal incapable of self-mastery. He must have patience. The prisoner Le Cric cannot run forever; soon enough, he will fall.
If Javert has enough fortitude, it may even be today.
"I am perfectly well, M. le Maire." On the pretext of escorting the mayor through the crowd, Javert takes a tight hold of Madeleine’s arm. It is as strong and solid through the wool sleeve as Le Cric's had been in Toulon's rags. Javert smiles to himself when the muscles twitch uncontrollably at his touch.
The mayor is silent, and Javert presses on, "You will preside over today's proceedings?"
"None other," Madeleine says. His voice is even and gentle, but Javert fancies he can hear the tremor underneath its false steadiness.
Between his teeth, Javert says, casually, "I would not have thought you would put yourself forward in this way."
Madeleine ignores Javert's implied meaning, as he has continued to ignore all of Javert's increasingly pointed remarks over these last weeks. As if his conscience is truly clear, he raises his free hand to acknowledge the greetings of the people as they pass by.
Madeleine pauses in the centre of the square to address Javert. "Inspector, I do as needs must. The old way of performing the lottery was unruly, I feared the people might come to blows or hurt themselves. This new practice was my own idea, and it is my duty to see it through."
Javert can say nothing to this. Such is the audacity of the imposter that he can counterfeit humility, and feign an understanding of duty! Perhaps today Javert will have the opening to take the action this false mayor deserves.
Madeleine holds his gaze for a moment, and then turns away to mount the steps. His elegant coat stretches across those familiar shoulders, hiding the unmistakable scars from the bagne's lash that Javert knows lie underneath.
Javert does not doubt for an instant that the impostor knows him too. From the instant their eyes met at that first lottery, Jean-le-Cric seemed to see through Javert — as if he could see beyond the mask of self-discipline to the weaknesses and temptations that Javert had wrestled with all his life.
After the lottery, Jean-le-Cric made the second of his four attempts to escape. He was found and recaptured, and his back had been laid open to the scars he no doubt still wears today.
The guards, masters and sub-adjutants alike, punished him in other ways as well for daring to flee from the bagne's rightful ownership. They stripped him, placed him in the public stocks in the yard, took their turns fucking his mouth and his hole and left him in manacles until the maximum period of sexual discipline had expired.
Javert did not participate in either punishment, but he could not fail to notice it as he crossed the yard in pursuit of his duties. He took note, and watched, even, as Le Cric was subjected to the strictest of use, wearing manacles that did not allow him to touch himself; watched, as release was wrung from him anyway, time and again, over the hours and days that followed.
Toward the end of the period of discipline, Javert stopped to bring the convict a cup of water. The man hung in the stocks, the large, glistening muscles limp with weariness and pain and completion; he could barely lift his head.
They eyed each other as Javert helped him drink. In Le Cric's eyes was exhaustion, resentment, and something more complex. Heaven knew what the convict saw in Javert's own eyes — hopefully not the stealthily mounting desire, which Javert had been telling himself would pass.
"Thank you," Le Cric said. By Toulon's rules, he ought to have added an honorific, should have called Javert "sir".
Javert knew he could have chosen to discipline the convict over the failure; his arousal ached with it.
He chose to walk away, instead.
He could not explain his choice not to engage in the bagne's sexual discipline or in the lottery. It was not as if his body was not restless: indeed, he touched himself in every solitary moment he had, and it wasn't nearly enough. He told himself it was because he would not impose himself on prisoners who were unwilling, even though it was for their benefit, but he was afraid it was in truth because he feared enjoying it too much — that once he started, he would not be able to stop.
Perhaps when he had earned sufficient seniority to collar a convict, he would feel able to finally indulge his unquiet flesh as others did, and engage a prisoner justly, with self-discipline as well as discipline.
In the meantime, he endured his colleagues' teasing and ignored the speculation of the prisoners on the workyards and the lottery floor. What he could not ignore were the peculiar, penetrating eyes of Jean Valjean, even as he watched another guard claim that man in the next lottery, and the one after that.
Valjean tried to escape yet again, and this time Javert was amongst the soldiers that found him.
Le Cric was a wild beast, resisting capture so violently he managed to put two men in the infirmary, but when Javert took hold of him, all the fight sagged out of those big muscles and he surrendered himself to Javert's custody. The sensation of temporarily taming the beast was indescribable— it was as if justice itself had turned upside down, and nothing mattered except the convict’s submission.
This time the guards locked Valjean in the cachots used for solitary confinement, and clasped a device of iron between his thighs so he could not relieve himself as they disciplined him.
Javert usually kept away from the disease-ridden cachots, but the next day M. Maugin asked him to summon Anton urgently, and that was where the senior guard was to be found.
Anton had been with their prisoner for some time — his uniform trousers hanging around his ankles, one hand fisted in Le Cric's hair as he used the man's mouth — but he was not yet done when Javert discovered him, and did not appreciate being interrupted. Forgetting himself, he spat at Javert, and reached for his crop to lay it across Le Cric's face.
Javert watched himself wrest Anton's weapon away and slam the man into the nearest wall. His vision was furiously red-tinged, but his hands were rock steady.
"Bastard, you fucking crazy? Get off me!"
"It's forbidden to strike a prisoner in the face with a weapon," Javert informed him. "Also, impeding a guard in his duties is a breach of bagne regulations. M. le Commissaire will hear of this in my report."
Anton swore again, but raised his hands in surrender, and Javert let him go.
After Anton had dressed himself and staggered out of the cachot, Javert turned to Le Cric. The convict was slumped against the wall, wrists secured in front of him, cheekbone bruised and bleeding. Between his thighs, his cock and heavy balls were imprisoned within the iron cage.
Javert took hold of the prisoner awkwardly. The convict's bare skin felt feverish to the touch, more a beast's than any man's.
"Are you all right? I will summon the physician."
Le Cric's half-open eyes glittered in the darkness. "I'll live," he said, the abused mouth making his speech thick. "It'll take more than this to harm me."
Javert did not doubt it. The massive, hairy chest and muscled limbs, the powerful body so resilient to hard use, seemed to defy all manner of damage or discipline or ownership. Broad and brutal, as untameable as a wild bull, Jean-le-Cric belonged solely to himself.
Perhaps this was why no one had yet claimed him. For what master would dare collar this beast for their own?
Valjean shifted restlessly in Javert's arms, and Javert could not help noticing that the man was aroused despite the cage that imprisoned him, his swollen member straining redly within its confines.
"Are you... do you need assistance? There should be a key..."
Javert realised what he was saying, and fell silent. Was he just offering to free the man, or in truth offering to bring him to sexual release?
Le Cric shook his head. "Used to it," he muttered. Javert did not know if he was speaking of the cage, or the manacles, or the rules that kept him as much a prisoner as the iron on his body.
When Valjean recovered, he participated in the next lottery, and the next, and again Javert did not.