An Unlikely Savior

by Camille Oster

  “You must both rest,” Virginie continued. “I will continue on foot.”

  Gunther nodded. “I cannot continue. We will settle for the night, then return in the morning.”

  “Why don’t you come to England with me?” Virginie suggested.

  “No, I will stay here with Alfred,” Gunther said. “We will see to each other. England is too cold and too strange for me. I don’t speak the language and I suspect my arthritis would kill me in such a wet climate. Things will settle down here, you’ll see, I will keep the house until then.”

  “But when they come, they will hurt you,” Virginie said, concerned that the old man would try to face down a mob.

  “If they hurt me, be it on their conscience,” he smiled. “I am an old man; it will do me no good to change my environment now. They have no interest in an old fart like me.”

  Virginie felt awful about saying goodbye to the man that had become her closest and most important friend.

  “You must go,” Gunther said. “Seek him out at the Rossier Tavern; I understand he frequents it often.”

  “I will send a letter when I arrive,” Virginie said. “I am not sure how long it will take to travel here, but eventually it must come through.”

  “I will wait for its arrival,” he smiled. “Now go.”

  Virginie gave him a hug, an informality that would normally never be allowed, but these were not normal times. There was no point waiting, her fear would only grow if she didn’t start moving, so she did. She pulled the wrap over her head and walked toward the distant lights of the town.

  The atmosphere of animosity was evident as soon as she got into town. People stared at her as she walked past, not that they could witness her face as her wrap covered her head completely. There was drunkenness on the streets which stank from the squalor of the place. The streets were muddy from recent rain and it caked all around her coat, probably her gown too.

  Walking through dirty, stinking streets was not something she did often; mostly they passed through safely encased in their carriage. She knew were this pub was, she had seen it before although they had never stopped there. She hugged her satchel closer to her as a man was pushed out the door and fell on the street in front of her.

  “Stay out, you stinking dog,” a fat man with a bloody apron yelled from the doorway. “What are you looking at?” he shouted at her with wobbling jowls. Virginie rushed around the drunk man on the ground and hurried down the street.

  She stuck to the shadows as much as possible. She felt extremely unsafe. A pair of men were coming toward her and she clinched her wrap tightly around her head.

  “Care to lift your skirt for us?” one of them said and they both laughed. Virginie ran past them as quick as she could. “Come now, don’t be unfriendly, you should give freely.”

  Virginie wanted to throw up. Disgusting pigs. She wasn’t completely unaware how some men acted; she had heard the stable boys talking to the maids on several occasions. She’d also hear the maids use some very inappropriate language to tell the boys what they thought of them. It had made her giggle sometimes when no one was looking. She liked how some of the maids clearly took exception with being spoken to crudely.

  She got lost before she found the right tavern. She tried to settle the panic that had started in her as she surveyed the warm lights gently shining through the small windows of the two storey wooden structure. A big oak door covered the entrance, but people came and went regularly. She watched them as she built up her courage to enter. Part of her wanted desperately to run out of town back to Gunther and Alfred, but she knew that she couldn’t. She had to move ahead. She took a deep breath and moved to the door.

  It was loud and warm inside, almost steamy. The stench followed shortly after, it made her gag. It was the stench of unwashed bodies and days of sweat, urine and manure. It was a puzzle that had plagued her for a long time, why people did not bathe. She fully understood that not everyone had access to a bath tub with steaming hot water, but it only took a little water to wash if need be. A cold wash wasn’t pleasant, but it was preferable to the smell that was assaulting her.

  She stood against the wall and surveyed the interior of the tavern. There were both men and women, many of them drunk, some seemed not to have noticed the ties on their clothes coming undone somewhat. There was raucous laughed from a group of men sitting to her left, some with women on their laps, who they were touching more intimately than they should. She wasn’t naïve enough to not guess that these were not husbands and wives, but then again, what did she know.

  After looking over the room a couple of times, she finally spotted Tomas Sanbonne. He was sitting in the corner with a group of men, tankards in front of them and animatedly discussing something. Tomas smiled and pushed a shoulder length dark curl behind his ear, clearing it off his face and away from the dark eyes she remembered from the only time she had seen him. Generous lips were spread in a large smile and his eyes glittered in the candle light. Whatever was being said was amusing him. He wore a white linen shirt, soft from age and wear, with the tie undone leaving a sliver of skin down the front of his chest. He was dressed exactly as drably as most others here, white linen shirt, dark leather pants. Why would he insist on dressing so, she did not understand, and with informality that she would only expect in someone’s private bed chamber.

  There were even better dressed men in this room, men with nice jackets. Not the embroidered satin of the nobility, but neat black jackets and light doe skin pants. Tomas seemed to prefer the garb of the field workers. He could very well afford better, Etienne would provide him with a whole wardrobe, probably his own, if he’d just ask.

  Tomas drank from his tankard and set it down, he looked around the room and his eyes fell on her. She could feel his gaze like a slap. It always had the intensity to it that belied its owner’s unfriendliness. How different they were, Etienne who was so kind, and Tomas who was anything but.

  Tomas’ smile melted from his face when he saw her and was replaced with a scowl. He watched her for a moment, then abruptly got up from his chair. She was about to approach when he walked in sharp strides toward her. She felt a sense of panic. She didn’t like him and he was not happy to see her, that much was clear on his face.

  He grabbed her hard by the elbow and yanked her toward the door. She gasped in pain and shock, but he didn’t relent. He pulled her out of the door and she was struggling not to fall.

  “What are you doing here,” he yelled, “are you insane?” He didn’t stop the brutal pace as he pulled her along. He took her down a narrow alley and she tried to struggle. She felt uncomfortable being away from where people could observe.

  “I need your help,” she stammered as he moved her along.

  “Quiet!” he ordered.

  He kept pulling her along in silence until they got to a rough wooden staircase. He pulled her up. She was going to have bruises from his grip. She tried pushing his hand off her arm, but he didn’t seem to notice. He ducked down under a small door and pulled her into a dark room. It was completely black when he closed the door.

  He finally let go of her and she couldn’t see him in the blackness. She felt her panic growing, she had no idea what he was about to do, or why he had dragged her here. The sound of a match was followed by a point of light which moved downwards and lit a small candle.

  “What are you doing here?” he demanded.

  “I need your help.”

  “And you assumed I would help you?” he said disbelievingly.

  “Etienne did,” she stated. She had suspected it was a mistake coming here and that belief was only being reaffirmed. He stood on the other side of the room looking at her sulkily.

  “Your kind is not too popular around these parts at the moment,” he said. “Where is Etienne?”

  “He said he was taking the family to Milan,” she said and looked around the small room. It consisted of bare rough floorboards and whitewashed straw and mud walls. The room had a small cot, a rough
wooden table and three chairs. There wasn’t much else in the room.

  “Do you live here?” she said with incredulity before she could stop herself. He narrowed his eyes. Etienne would happily let him live at the chateau, and he obviously needed the help, yet he chose to live in this hovel.

  “Then Milan is where you should be too,” he said pointedly. “You should go now, thanks for dropping by.” He said and motioned her toward the door.

  “Etienne said I should go to England, and that you can help me get to the coast.”

  “What makes him think I can help you?” Tomas hissed. “I can’t take you to the coast. I don’t have a ship to sail you. Do you have any idea what danger you put me in coming here? I can’t help you; I can’t even be seen with you! You come here, looking like a Christmas ham ready for the carving,” he continued his diatribe. “Are you looking to get strung up? You are certainly advertising yourself for such a fate.”

  “I…” Virginie started looking down at herself. She had no idea what he was talking about.

  “And you expect me to just drop everything to escort you around like a lapdog.” Tomas wasn’t done with his tirade.

  “I’m not here because I want to be,” she spat, sick of hearing the accusation. “I’m stuck, I can’t go back, a mob is heading for the chateau and I need to get away. You will either help me or you won’t, I cannot control what you do. Etienne expected that you would help me, clearly he was wrong.”

  Tomas growled in frustration. “And I just have to jump to attention like a servant?”

  “It’s not like I’m asking you to carry around my croquet mallet. The situation is quite dire in case you hadn’t noticed. You’re expected to help because you’re family,” she challenged.

  “You’re not my family,” he said coldly.

  Virginie closed her eyes, it was clear he wasn’t going to help her. She had suspected this would be the outcome. She just had to think of some way to do this on her own.

  “And don’t tell me what the situation is,” he continued after a pause, “I know much more about it than you do. I’m surprised you’ve even noticed.”

  “Well, I will leave you to your situation then,” she said dismissively and walked to the door that was too small for a full grown man, or woman for that matter.

  “Wait,” he said as she was about to step outside. He swore a string of curses under his breath. “Do you have any idea what it would entail if I helped you?” he asked. “No, of course you don’t.”

  She wasn’t exactly sure what he was referring to, but she suspected that assisting her would cause him some difficulty judging by his reaction. “Well, I am sorry if it is an inconvenience, but I am all alone now and I need assistance.”

  “Fine,” he spat. “I will take you to the coast. We have to leave now, before anyone sees you here. They will behead both of us if they do, do you understand?”

  She nodded, she couldn’t do anything else, she needed his help and for all her pride she understood that she had much reduced chances of making it to the coast on her own.

  “Wait here,” he said and marched out the door, slamming it behind him.

  He paused for a minute leaning on the baluster of the external walkway of his boarding house. Trouble had walked into the tavern tonight and wrecked his life, unwittingly too, just to make it more aggravating. The stupid girl had just walked into town, straight to him. It was amazing no one had noticed her, or maybe they had, maybe they were gathering right now accumulating enough numbers and sharpening the guillotine for an evening’s entertainment.

  He would be taken just as readily if it was discovered that he was harboring her, and now she expected him to take her to the coast. The idiot girl had no idea what she was asking, getting to the coast was impossible. There were people actively looking for fleeing aristocrats, and those helping them got dealt an even worse fate.

  He cursed his brother and not for the first time. Etienne insisted on making his life as difficult as possible, now he was expected to help this ignorant and useless noble girl, who wasn’t even family. Etienne never cared what his actions did to the normalcy of his life. It was difficult to carry on like a normal person when a Marquis kept dropping in wanting to be friends.

  Tomas did love his brother, for the soft hearted man he was, but Etienne had little comprehension of the world outside his estate and his clubs. He certainly didn’t understand the increasing difficulty created by having connections with noble families. The tension had been brewing for years; it was only a matter of time before the revolution started in earnest.

  Tomas had tried to warn Etienne, but like most of their class, they never truly believed a peasant riot would do more than blacken some buildings. The natural order would always prevail.

  He more than most understood the anger brewing amongst the people, anger at the unfairness and the callowness of those who had too much. As always, he would end up paying for his association with the Aubesvines family, like the curse they were.

  As much as he hated it, he couldn’t let the girl walk out the door into the malicious fervor that had overtaken the people. They would string her up before the night was through, which probably was a fate he should let unfold, but like it or not, he was raised with duties to defenceless females ingrained in him. He cursed again. There was nothing for it, he had to take the girl and it could well be that neither of them survived.

  He walked down the walkway to Marie’s rooms. As usual, she was not there this time at night as this was when she plied her trade around the streets of the town. He took the key he knew she kept above the door sill and let himself inside.

  He returned to his room with a dress crumpled in his fist. “Take that off,” he ordered.

  “What?” the girl baulked.

  “I said, take it off.”

  “No,” she said defensively. The girl obviously thought he had designs on her, which was ridiculous, his tastes ran to entirely different kind of women, not the simpering girls of the upper crust. He did appreciate her attempt to stand up for herself, but there was no need, she left him quite cold.

  He walked over and grabbed her, ripping open the buttons on her coat.

  “No!” she yelled.

  He stopped and brought his finger up to his lips. “If you start yelling and anyone comes to inquire, I can assure you that you will be strung up by your neck tonight. Probably me as well, so if you wish to live past the next couple of hours, you will take that dress off. Surely you don’t believe that you can travel dressed like that and no one will notice? Then again, you travelled here didn’t you?” he said and continued to rip out the ties that held her dress tight.

  “But…” she said and swiped his hands away.

  “Please don’t make this harder by being stubborn,” he said with exasperation.

  “I can undress myself,” she stated, but he wasn’t listening, he had the dress off her shoulders and down her torso. There was little she could do; she was in her shift in front of what was effectively a strange man. “Stop.”

  “No, we have to leave now, and you can’t wear this. You will stick out like a shining beacon for all and sundry, and pretty much every single one of them means you ill based on how you dress.”

  “What am I supposed to wear?” she challenged, but she already suspected that he wanted to put her in the plain grey or brown wool dress in his hand. The light didn’t allow her to see it properly, but she saw enough to know that it was not a dress she would ever wear. He held it up. “Fine,” she said and ripped the dress out of his hand. “Turn around.”

  He gave her a look of complete incredulity. She circled her finger sharply to accentuate her point. “We have to leave, we can’t afford to waste time,” he said.

  “Then it will go a lot quicker if you turn around,” she said and hugged the front of her dress to her chest. She was not going to dress in front of him. She’d worn the same dress for days so she didn’t have to dress so Gunther could see her, she certainly wasn’t going to
do it in front of a much younger man who’s dark eyes seemed to see everything.

  He growled then turned around. Virginie quickly pushed down her dove grey silk gown. There was the moment of free breathing she got whenever she took off her tightly laced gown, less dramatic of late as she only had her own power to lace it up. It was still a lovely feeling to breath, but she only indulged a second or so before pulling the drab dress he’d returned with.

  “This stinks,” she said when she slipped the dress over her shoulders. She felt like gagging, the dress smelled like it’d gone through the insides of a cow and come out the other end. How could someone wear this, she wondered.

  “Good,” he stated.

  “How can that possibly be good?”

  “It’s better than you walking around smelling like a field of lavender.” He was referring to the soap she used, the one made on the estate each summer after the lavender bloomed. She had spent several summers perfecting her lavender plantation to produce the most fragrant English lavender, primarily for the reason that it had been her mother’s favorite. Perfecting the scent she loved made her feel like she had some connection with the woman she had absolutely no memory of.

  “You prefer women who stink?” she asked.

  “As it happens,” he said, “but at the moment, I have a supreme fondness for women who won’t get me killed.”

  She went to pull on her travelling coat.

  “You can’t take that,” he said.

  “It’s freezing outside.”

  “All the same, you can’t take the coat. You’ll have to make do with a shawl,” he said and dug around a small chest in the corner of the room. She reluctantly put her warm travelling coat away and put on the shawl, it smelled even worse, like old sweat and alcohol.

  “Where did you get these?” she asked.

  “I stole them,” he said. Virginie was shocked. She had never stolen anything; it was an activity that was so low, an affliction of the absolutely lowest in society, a deed that had always been seen as setting them apart from the rest of society. On top of the queasiness of the inescapable smell of the clothes was the knowledge that they had been stolen. She shot an accusing look at Tomas, but dismissed it quickly. These were not normal times and she had to be grateful he was taking her to the coast. He could have thrown her out of the door and she would be walking around in her dress attracting trouble with every step.