“These six things doth the Lord hate; yea, seven are an abomination unto him: A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, an heart that deviseth wicked imaginations…”
She realized that she had been so confused by the first part of the sentence that she hadn’t really paid attention to the list. Were there six things, or were there seven? Was there one of the abominations that God didn’t hate? It didn’t make any sense.
She shook her head and returned to the list. She had never shed blood of any kind, and she didn’t think she’d ever devised anything wicked. She wasn’t too happy to find pride and lies on the list; she’d have to work on those. She squirmed guiltily as she thought of how many lies she had told in the past few months.
After a moment of discomfort, she thrust the thoughts away. She hadn’t ever done anything really wrong (certainly, she’d fibbed on occasion, but she’d never killed anyone or anything serious), so she was doing better than most people. That was good enough. She grabbed another pastry and went on reading.
“…feet that be swift in running to mischief, a false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.”
Drat it, there was lies again! She’d really have to do something on that count. But at least she was doing well on the rest of the list—she’d never run into any mischief, and she hadn’t sown any discords. At least, she didn’t think so; she’d have to ask Erik what it meant.
Suddenly she remembered that she wasn’t going to see Erik anymore, and her moment of contentment was ruined. She hurriedly looked around, hoping for some new curiosity to distract her from those painful thoughts, but wherever she looked, she could only see the exquisite fineries that she had abandoned Erik to obtain.
She picked up another cream puff to console herself, but as sweet as it was, it didn’t seem quite as wonderful as it had a moment ago. Oh dear, she thought miserably, what should I do?
She was so distressed that she accidently dribbled the filling from the pastry onto the front of her gown, ending her moment of remorseful introspection.
“Drat it!” she exclaimed, throwing the book down angrily. She cleaned as much off the fabric as she could with her hand, cursing her stupidity. When she stuck her fingers in her mouth—it was too delicious to waste—she realized belatedly that she had neglected to remove her new gloves.
Suddenly a knock came at the door, and she jumped to her feet, scattering pillows everywhere, and raced for the stairs before anyone saw her in such a shameful situation.
Antoinette shivered as she reached the rooftop, though her coat was usually enough to deal with the piercing December cold. It was turning out to be a severe winter; she would have to purchase a thicker coat for Meg. She frowned and brushed a venturous snowflake out of her eyelashes, scanning the lofty terrace for the object of her search. The flakes, large and falling rather lazily with only a weak jet of wind to drive them, were sparse enough for her to see a dark figure a distance away. Though the sun had not yet set, the dark clouds obscured the daylight, and she had to squint to make it out.
She made her way across the slippery roof to where Erik was standing, staring out towards the Seine.
“I’ve been looking for you for the better part of an hour,” she informed him softly, not wanting to intrude on his solitude; he had never welcomed intrusions, and she was sure Christine’s departure was hurting him terribly.
Erik didn’t alter his gaze as he spoke. “Do you want something?”
His voice was mechanical; not cold, not warm, nor pained or bitter—utterly devoid of feeling. It chilled Antoinette to hear it, and she crossed to his left side so she could see Erik’s face. His expression was staunch and determined, though she could tell from his set jaw and soaked clothes that he had been standing outside for a very long time.
Antoinette spoke tentatively, giving an ostensible reason for their intrusion: “The managers have decided to sell your box again—and I think they’re serious this time.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
She nodded somberly. Of course he didn’t want to see Idomeneo now. It was heartbreaking to see him like this—as if his world, bright with music and knowledge despite his hardships, had suddenly gone a dark, lifeless grey.
She went to leave, but couldn’t bring herself to just abandon Erik in the snow—he was so uncaring right now that he might let himself freeze. “What are you doing out here?”
Erik didn’t answer, and she turned to see what he was staring at. Her eyes roved over the houses between the Pavillon Ledoyen and the Arc de Triomphe, until they fixed on the Chagny mansion.
“Oh,” she murmured, feeling a rush of discomfort for intruding on Erik’s pain. She patted his arm, though she was sure her sympathy was not wanted, and again turned to leave.
But as she began to walk away, concern overcame hesitance, and she couldn’t keep from speaking: “You dying in the snow won’t bring her back!” she said desperately, not caring if Erik was angered by her interference. His cold, dead expression was a hundred times worse than his anger could ever be.
He actually looked away from the mansion for a moment and studied her, puzzled. She saw the faintest flicker of a smile—albeit a bitter one—cross his lips as he replied, “I’m not up here brooding, Antoinette.”
“Then what are you doing?”
“Waiting.” He looked back towards the mansion. “I don’t believe the vicomte really loves her. If he tries anything, I’m going to be here to rescue her.”
“And if…nothing happens?” she asked softly.
He didn’t answer for a moment. “Then I’ll have to content myself knowing that she’s…truly happy…with…him.” His face was set and matter-of-fact, but she could hear the ache in his voice, despite the weighty resolution it carried.
“How long have you been up here?”
“Two days.”
“Two days—! Have you eaten anything since Tuesday?”
“No.”
“Erik, for God’s sake, you’re killing yourself!” she cried. Curse Christine Daaé for her selfishness, her stupidity, her complete uncaring for this man! This man who had only ever loved her—
“What if she needed my help, and I was occupied with food?” he demanded, showing the slightest beginnings of annoyance. “Antoinette, please, I’ll be fine!”
“No, you won’t!” She squared her shoulders and, for the first time since they had met, went against the Phantom’s wishes and laid down the law: “I’m going down to get you some food, and when I come back with Darrius we’ll take turns watching!”
“I don’t want—”
“I don’t care what you want! I’m not going to let you freeze to death!”
For a long moment he just stared at her, with that dead, mechanical look on his face, but she refused to back down. Finally she saw the palest ghost of a smile. “You’ve always cared a lot more about me than I deserved.”
“Then you won’t cause any problems?”
“No.”
“Good. I’ll be back with your supper.”
As she hurried down the steps, though she had been warmed by the sight of that fond smile, her body felt tense and cold with worry, determination, and anger at Christine’s heartlessness.
The churchyard—a toppling, overgrown ruin lingering long after the downfall of its age—was absolutely silent in the early morning hours; so cold, lonely and surreal that it was barely possible for one to remember that the outskirts of Paris were but a few miles away. The road leading to the ancient church was as forgotten as the edifice itself, and there was nothing to be seen but trees for miles and miles.
Raoul set down the polishing cloth and reached for his pocket watch. He stared at it for a moment, puzzled, before realizing that it was not set to the correct time—he had been so distracted lately that he kept forgetting to wind it. With a sigh he pocketed it and returned to polishing the hilt of his rapier. The sun was just threatening to appear over the distant, misty horizo
n; there were still a few minutes before the marquis was due.
He gave the blade a final stroke with the cloth and sheathed it before climbing out of his carriage to do a few warming stretches. The dawn, pallid and cold, gave the ruins the grey, ethereal look of a ghost-world. As he began to breathe a little harder from the exercise, he realized just how gelid the air was—it had a dry, cold texture that made his throat hurt.
He set his boot on a tombstone and continued his stretches, thinking rather amusedly to himself that of all the places in Paris to kill someone, this was perhaps the most appropriate; they wouldn’t even have to cart the body away to bury it. In fact, if there was an open grave somewhere, he might consider rolling D’Aubigne into it and washing his hands of the whole matter.
If only he had lived in some past century, he wouldn’t have had to steal out of Paris like a thief in the night to fight an honorable battle for his lady’s hand. Much as he loved France, he couldn’t imagine how she could content herself to be governed by men stupid enough to outlaw the duel. It was much more than a sport: it was a way of life—power incarnate—justice—religion—the only law necessary in any world past or present. But if a man died in a duel now, justly, fairly, it was condemned as murder. How could France have come to this?
Raoul straightened up as he heard a carriage approaching. D’Aubigne’s monstrous vehicle—a black and gold behemoth with the appearance of a gigantic beetle, sporting six wheels and twice as many seats—appeared from behind the trees, bouncing on every rut and rock and jarring its master well past discomfort to the point of hazard. The paint was scratched, and some of the squares of gold leaf had been ripped off by the unforgiving trees and bushes along the road. One of the wheels was wobbling dangerously, and Raoul guessed it would fly off at any moment.
“Damned absurd road,” snapped the marquis when his coach jerked to a stop, horses shaking with exertion. “Could you have possibly picked a more ridiculous, inconvenient place?”
Raoul had suffered to a similar extent on his trek up to the church, but he was enjoying the marquis’ discomfort far too much to sympathize with him. “Perhaps you should have invested in a less ridiculous, inconvenient means of transportation,” he suggested calmly.
“Hmpf,” the man retorted, stepping out onto the frozen ground and placing a hand on his jeweled rapier. “Well, we shouldn’t be wasting my valuable time jabbering anyway—I’m a very busy man. Kindly allow me to defend my honor and depart.”
Raoul suppressed a sneer of disgust at the man’s pomposity. What a fool, to think that they were here to duel over honor—so trite, so meaningless, compared to Christine’s love. When he had demanded a duel over the beautiful diva, however, the marquis had just laughed at him. “Few women are worth the exertion,” he had informed Raoul with a patronizing drawl. “And a stupid, skinny little urchin like Christine Daaé is certainly not among them.” Raoul hadn’t thought he could possibly hate the marquis any more, but that remark had sent him over the edge; the terrible accusations and curses he had hurled at the marquis—overheard by a significant number of Parisians—wouldn’t have been true of the foulest man alive, but watching the damned marquis’ face redden with embarrassment and fury was worth any damage his own image would sustain.
As the sun rose in the distant east—the sole spectator to the fight—Raoul drew his rapier and assumed an en garde stance.
Given that the marquis was a decent swordsman, the duel could have drawn on to great length; but Raoul had an attack on the Garnier and its damned Phantom to plan, and he didn’t have time to waste on a fair battle. He used every dirty trick he possessed to throw the marquis off-balance despite the latter’s outraged objections.
“Vicomte, damn you, I thought this was a competition between gentlemen!”
“Shut up,” Raoul hissed, striking furiously.
D’Aubigne stumbled back to avoid the blow. “There is no excuse for this breach of etiquette, of honor—how can you throw away the Chagny’s honor for some ugly girl—”
“‘Ugly!’” breathed Raoul, feeling every particle in his body burst into livid flame. He felt the raging beast in his heart take hold of his arm, and he heard himself roar with bestial fury as, despite the rage that rendered him mindless, the beast swung his rapier wide across D’Aubigne’s thighs.
The marquis cried out in agony as the steel severed the muscles in both his legs. As he fell to the ground, Raoul stared, his thinking suddenly calm despite the continued racing of his heart; a coup de Jarnac, he thought, recognizing the move. He had never seen it used to its full potential before now.
The marquis was reduced to a blubbering mass trying vainly to staunch the torrents of blood coursing across his expensive trousers towards the ground. Raoul circled him slowly, savoring the sweet, matchless feeling of savage triumph that raced through his veins.
“For God’s sake, man, do something!” the marquis cried, desperately trying to rip off his jacket to bind the wounds.
Raoul said nothing, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. He pressed the tip of his blade to the marquis’ temple, then his neck, then his chest, musing over the most poetic way to dispatch him.
D’Aubigne froze at the first touch of the bloody steel. “G-good God, man, you surely don’t intend to kill me!”
“And why not?” asked Raoul softly, touching the blade to the marquis’ shoulder, wondering if he should cut off each limb in turn.
“B-because it’s not a killing matter! Honor and women are one thing, but God, a man’s life! You couldn’t kill me over some—”
The rapier jerked across his arm, and the marquis cried out again as another muscle was severed.
“—some—beautiful woman,” he said hastily, his voice growing harsh and strained as tears gushed down his cheeks. “Please, please, don’t kill me!”
Raoul scowled and hefted the blade. Poetic or not, he couldn’t stand to listen to one more word from the marquis’ thin, detestable lips. With one swipe he opened the man’s windpipe.
As the marquis gasped for air and clutched at his throat now gushing blood, Raoul strode away, sheathing his rapier and checking his pocket watch with a business-like manner. He had wasted enough time here; the lesser of two enemies was down, but the real threat was yet to be dealt with.
By the time he had situated himself in the coach and was prepared to start back for Paris, the sun was almost fully-risen. Raoul glanced back at the churchyard, lit more clearly now; the snow around the crumpled marquis was stained a beautiful scarlet, melted by the blood’s heat but already refreezing in panes of red glass, like that of cathedral windows.
He delayed for a moment to enjoy the peace of the forest, then whipped his horses to a gallop.
A few hours later found Christine wandering down the hallway in a state of absolute ecstasy. She drank in every last detail, from the family portraits lining the walls to the breadth of the hallway itself, at least three times as wide as the hallway outside her dressing room back at the Garnier. The floors were a dark, rich hardwood, in glorious contrast to the royal burgundy of the walls. She had no idea where she was in the mansion—all the hallways looked the same to her—but it wasn’t important.
She stopped to admire a life-size statue in a semi-circular nook. At first she wasn’t terribly interested—she had seen dozens of statues today—but then she realized that the statue (thankfully clad in a loincloth, unlike most of the figures she had seen) was resting one foot on an abnormally large human head. Disgusted and intrigued, she studied it further; the man—a boy, really—was very thin and disappointingly unmuscular, seeming almost effeminate in appearance. He was holding a sword and wearing a ridiculous hat with what looked like flowers on it.
After a moment of intense thought she realized that this pathetic figure must be a rendition of Thor, god of thunder, the greatest giant-killer in all the nine worlds (the severed head did look like a giant’s head, after all). Thor didn’t exist, of course, but she was still pleased to see that Raoul was tryi
ng to honor her heritage. But this statue would have to be thrown out—this weak, beardless little whelp was blasphemy! Why, if Thor existed, the sculptor would be rotting in the deepest dungeons of Niflheim for creating something so offensive, so unlike the bold, brawny, and heroic Thor!
She whirled away from the statue in disgust and marched down the hallway, determined to find someone to throw out the sacrilegious effigy.
It took her several hallways and countless rooms before she found a maid winding the clocks. “You there!” she said loudly, hoping this maid wasn’t foreign like the other one.
The maid turned. “Yes, mademoiselle?” she asked, in a soft, sweet voice.
Christine froze as she caught sight of the girl’s face. She was absolutely adorable, like a little seraph, with bright brown eyes and a perfect button of a nose. And her dress—! It was black and fairly plain, save for some simple white lace, but the way it accentuated her figure! Why, it was absolutely unspeakable!
“I—I just—” Christine stopped, horrified that she couldn’t get the words out. She was the mistress of the house! She couldn’t have this scullery wench—too beautiful for her own good!—thinking that she had the upper hand here! “See that the statue of Thor in that hallway is removed!” she commanded.
“Statue of who, mademoiselle?”
“Thor! The mighty god of thunder, son of Odin, ruler of the gods!”
“I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean, mademoiselle,” said the maid shyly. As she shook her head, Christine caught sight of a pockmark, slightly visible on her cheek. It was comforting, but it wasn’t quite enough to displace Christine’s apprehension about that figure. “Where is it?” the maid asked.
“I—I’m not sure! Somewhere back there!”
“Bring it up with Master Philippe, mademoiselle. He’ll know where it is, and about Thor, I’m sure—he knows practically everything.”
“Well, you just keep your eyes on him, then, and off of my fiancé!” Christine turned sharply on her heel and headed back down the hall. After a few moments of triumph, she realized that she had forgot to ask the maid where Philippe was. But there was no choice but to keep walking—she couldn’t go back there now and let the maid win! She would just have to find another servant.
Costumes and Filigree: A Novel of the Phantom of the Opera Page 35
